All Summer long we worked on reading.
Lots of reading — I read tons about systematically teaching reading. The kids practiced phonics. We’ve been making such good progress. I believe when we started last school year Josie was stuck at the end of the red drawers, maybe beginning orange, and Mary was around green.
Pic from last year so you can see the Waseca Reading Program drawers on the left there.
We finished the school year, pretty sure, with Josie on yellow and Mary on the first blue. Now they’re both on purple and pink. I don’t think you have to go sequentially. But generally speaking red is super easy and gold is tricky, and there’s overlap in between. I have promised a billion times to write a review on Waseca Reading Program. It’s probably what I get most asked about. And I will someday do a review… no really. But in short, do we love it? Yes. Would I recommend it? Absolutely. Is it essential — no especially if your kid shows no sign of reading struggles. Is it a worthy splurge? Yes, especially if you have multiple kids or a child with dyslexia. I’ve never grown tired of seeing it as a focal point in our classroom the last couple years.
Pssst hey kid, here’s $30 off if you’re interested in Waseca Biomes.
So yes — the girls are progressing in reading. Michael, though the youngest, has passed them by ever so slightly.
Josie repeated the or and ar drawers a few times each last week.
Josie still uses the moveable alphabet to write out everything. Mary has been writing out her words by hand. Josie struggles a ton with handwriting. Mary’s cursive looks pretty good. Mike’s brain is still at the point where he has a hard time visually registering the lines. Josie just got past that stage, so guided writing is starting to really help her. She’s been working so hard at it lately.
Michael’s classwork. Had to laugh:
Michael started private school this year (explanation post coming). But even though he’s printing there, we’re continuing practicing cursive at home. He’s also getting continuing math lessons at home because it’s kind of crazy what counts as 1st grade math.
I love this new paper we’ve been using!
We love this book about Maria Montessori’s life and work. Montessori’s birthday was this past weekend, so we read it and talked about why we do what we do and why our homeschool is named after Montessori.
We did a lot of noun Grammar work.
This is from the Waseca Grammar cabinet which I also highly recommend. It took us a little while to need it, but after you know all your part of speech, there are a lot of fun exercises. I say fun because I looove manipulating words.
Wonderful story review from Nienhuis.
Some sight word work using Snap Words.
They requested sight word olympics, so I had to oblige.
We read Sophie’s Squash together and I made some story pieces so we could retell it.
I’m awful at painting, so I hope someday to work on that more. Ya know when I have free time.
Panda research, self-directed, very second plane thankyouverymuch.
Math coloring work covering basic operation / math fact review.
Reviewing with the stamp game, bead chains, and small bead frame.
We DIYed these materials but have yet to present them. On my list next week hopefully.
Mary continues to be very artsy.
Here’s Josie doing some Japan coloring work.
Even though we’ve done orchestra the last couple of years, we took this year off per the girls’ request. I am a bit burnt out as well. I tried so hard to make violin a priority last year, and with the new baby I just imploded. So we are focusing on our private lessons, and I feel really good about that. Josie has decided she’d like to learn cello. I think that’d make a fun Christmas present, so we will see how that goes.
Otherwise it’s been sewing, read alouds, Legos, watching Odd Squad and Tim Tracker, my baby sister’s baby shower, playing with lots of cousins lots, visiting with out of town family, making fairy gardens, some Summer ear infections and other stuff. We keep very busy. Do you see why I’m such a bad blogger now? 😉
Also adding music therapy to bring Jo’s weekly therapy count up to four sessions (that’s 3 hours and 45 mins total each week). We also started laser acupuncture for her to heal a skin condition because… why not.
How’s the baby doing? The baby is huge. The baby is 15 months. The baby is threatening to drop from two naps to one. No one asked if that was allowed though but muddling through.
