We went over a few of his math principles today. We worked through a few double digit problems with and without carrying, 3 number addition problems, and fractions. We also learned a new way to write fractions with the “th” and “ths” endings (i.e. one ninth, three tenths). He did great.

Right now he is watching a dvd I found called The American Dream that I found at the dollar store. It’s above his head mostly, but he did recognize a few things like New York, New Jersey, and Delaware.

As for Bible study, we went over his verses from Sunday school. We also read about Moses and the Amelekite army. He is still loving the unit study about Moses and wants to finish it out.

I mean, he is only 5. I have until he is at least 7 to get more culture and experience under his belt to call 2nd grade done. He is advancing at a staggering rate. If he keeps this up, he will be finished school when he is 14!

I decided to try and concentrate on only two subjects per day to make sure he is really getting what he is learning. We did 3 addends yesterday. Today we are doing english/reading/writing which all go hand in hand.

I also decided to start doing the happy face/sad face form of discipline. He hates getting negative feedback, so I am hoping that this will work well for us.

He makes it all the way to one hundred with barely a reminder from me about the next set of ten! This kid!!! I guess we are definitely ready to start back to school

We did math on the chalkboard. I showed him a few patterns for adding so he could manipulate the numbers better. He loves puzzles, so I am trying to make it a mental puzzle for him. We went over his phone number and apartment number. He already knows how to call 911.

The only book work we did was to read about hedgehogs, compare them to porcupines, and a guessing game with a little booklet we cut out of Your Big Backyard magazine.

I printed some things to cut out for the fruit of the Spirit. His Sunday school class was learning about it this weekend, so I thought I would expand on that lesson and imprint it on his heart. We discussed the nine fruit of the Spirit in terms he could understand. I got the sheets from A Kid’s Heart. She has a heap of Christian schooling booklets and sheets there. We used the PDF for the fruit of the Spirit and made the basket with fruit.

He really enjoyed lessons today, and I enjoyed teaching. It was a great day in homeschool/unschool.

Then I gave him some pages that were to relax his brain before the next daunting task. He got 10 pages done in 3 minutes, and 17 pages in a total of 10 minutes. It was in a Pre-K/early K book and he nailed every page. Then I gave him the vocabulary page with color words and he did that more quickly than if i had just given it to him right after Math. I think his rythym is like mine. Hard work, brain rest, more hard work.

The number line did help him in the Math once he settled down and decided to listen to his father. We got a good amount of work done AND he learned more about perseverance, his new favorite word.

Tags: math, vocabulary

He is STILL fighting math. Right now he is working on a page that should have taken him about 1/2 hour. It’s now nearly an hour and a half.

I am so tired of this. He KNOWS most of this crap. It’s the fact that he doesn’t want to RELATE what he already knows. He knows how to get the answer if he doesn’t know, but he doesn’t want to translate that into an action. Then he has the NERVE to get angry when I erase the wrong answers he scribbled across the page so he could just be done.

UGH.

edited to say that I am going to try the number line next. He seems to get the concept, but we shall see.

He picked out some really good ones to start with. The one we red today was called Read A Picture Colors and Numbers. He did very well, learned some transitional words and such like “a”, “to”, “you”. I also tested his recognition with words he is spelling and color words. I have a Fisher Price Phonics book that does this beautifully.

We got into our first fractions. I am going to devise a board of sorts with fractional pieces, unless I can find one already made for cheap somewhere. We reviewed some of the basics of telling time. He is doing great with that. I am going to end up getting his 1st grade curriculum pretty quickly, since we transition back and forth between the K and 1 levels of work.

Other than the fact that he enjoys whining about pretty much everything except learning a bible verse and coloring, he is doing well.

Tags: math, homeschool