Working Hard

This week has been a particularly hard week. We have been suffering from cabin fever big time! The weather is very cold....-25 most days, and -36 with the wind chill factor. It's not even fun getting packed up in the car! It's really starting to have a negative effect on our little homeschool. So we are taking it a bit easier this week. We did some playdough playing and some finger painting. Plus we are planning on visiting Opa's pet store so we can finally stock our fish tank. 

Here are some pictures I took of the kids last week. We worked so hard last week! All the kids did so well.  

 James working really hard on his Math. We have experienced some struggles with math. But I have researched and purchased a different math curriculum for James. It's also a singapore approach. Singapore Math is based on understanding Math, concretely, and abstractly, and it's also a mastery program. I am hoping it be the answer to James math issues. It is due to arrive today so I can't wait to try it out. We have made huge leaps and bounds in Language Arts! James is reading very well. He doesn't completely enjoy it yet.....but he is reading very well. He has made such a remarkable improvement over last year! I really think it has to do with all that phonics work we did last year and this year. I know phonics alone isn't the answer, but for James, it has really helped him sound out his words. I'm so proud of him.

 Rachel is working really hard on her sight word recognition. I love the little sight word program we are using, it's multisensory. She does one word a day. It takes her about 15 minutes to complete the lesson, and then she knows the sight word. Each week we review all the words she has learned so far. She is very good at remembering all of them.  We also just started a program for grammar. I really love it! It's called Voyages in English. The lessons are really short and easy to complete. She also does a little sentence starter every day. Her math is coming along beautifully. I absolutely marvel at how easily math comes to her. I always had to work at math so it's fun to see her have fun with it.

Now that Matthew knows all his letters, I started him on a phonics program. It's called explode the code, it's really simple and easy for him. He almost knows all of his letter sounds.  He is working on handwriting in the picture. He is getting really good at printing-we are almost finished his book. 

I also just started Matthew on a math curriculum called Singapore Math. He's doing really well with it. It's also very cute and fun to work on. There is a lot of cutting and pasting-which he loves. Most of the work we are doing is Kindergarden work, so I'm not sure what we are going to do next year...if he ever went back to school-he would be a whole year ahead! :o)