105 Days of School

We have completed 105 days of school. I can see the end of our school year and am starting to prepare for our summer session. Thought I would just record a summary of where we are right now.

We are moving right along in the old testament. We have gotten through the Israelites in captivity, the exodus, the wanderings in the dessert, the entry into the promised land, all of the judges, through the united Israel under Solomon, divided Israel and Judah and now we just finished with Israel being deported by the Assyrians. And this week Judah is about to get it from the Babylonians. So much interesting history. This week we are designing a version of the Ishtar gate and may try and do some star gazing with our telescope if weather permits. We shall see about that.

Faith is working on play writing for the next 6 weeks and will be writing a one act play. She is almost done with her Saxon Math 76 book and her new one is here waiting for her to begin. We just totaled their reading hours for the school year up to date and she has read 91 hours. Of coarse she doesn't write down every minute she reads but that is close.

Kylee and Seth are working on newspaper writing, so they will be writing articles and ads over the next 6 weeks and putting them together in a newspaper. They came up with the title of God's Piece. I thought it was clever. Kylee is working on her Saxon 65 math book and doing great. Also she has almost completed learning the list of all 50 states and their capitals, where they are on the map and how to correctly spell them! This was a HUGE challenge for her and I am so proud of her! And her reading total so far is 82 hours 15 minutes. Again this is a huge achievement for her. And you can bet that every last second is accounted for on her list!!

Seth is working on his Saxon 3 math book and his biggest challenge is his horrific hand writing. I mean it is really bad. I don't know how to improve it. Actually his cursive is so neat but his printing is really, really bad. He just goes to quickly. His reading totals are 53 hours. He and Kylee are both currently reading Harry Potter the Order of the Phoenix. They have their own copies from the library and are both half way through.

Joshi's focus is on reading. He knows about 140 words by sight and his phonics learning is coming along well. He is still pretty little and not too great at sitting for long periods and I don't force it. I know that it will come and I am not too worried about it. I can't wait till it warms up again so he can spend more time being physical and running around outside. That is really what he needs right now! He has read 47 hours and recently a majority of the hours he has read have been from books he has actually read, not books that have been read to him.

Well, that is a sum up of where we are right now. It has been a great year so far. I LOVE Tapestry and can't really say enough good things about it. Not only is it easy to teach, we have all learned so much this year, but I am constantly hearing things about and from the school kids around here about things they are doing in school and a lot of the things match the skills we are working on as well. That gives me comfort, I know that is silly but it does.

Kristen