Meet Me on Decimal Street

Yes, decimal street. NOT Sesame Street. :-D Those of you that use Math-U-See know exactly what I am talking about. For the rest of you...here is a video explaining decimal street.

They already learned about decimal street in the Primer but it is reviewed in the first lesson of Alpha. I am taking extra time (I should have in the first place) to make sure they really understand the concept. They all love using the decimal street lapbook I made and the blocks.

Little E wanted to get in on the action too. Here is a video of his version of counting and then it ends with Big T giving his answer to the decimal street. (Never mind Big T reaching in front of Little E. He had to get his blocks to finish the problem.)

When Little E was done playing with the blocks he decided to do some detective work. Although I think I had more fun taking pictures of him with the magnifying glass than he did playing with it. LOL

Then Big T worked on his art while Sweet E was doing math. I think you can tell by the pictures that he started to get annoyed that I was taking so many. :-)

So maybe next time you can meet us at Decimal Street. :-D

Memorization Work

Struggles

Why is it some children choose to struggle? You know what I mean. They know how to do something but it's like the can't just do their work without making it a big ordeal. Sweet E has been doing this with math. She is very capable of doing her work. When she is focused she does a great job. But she usually starts in with the whining and frustration after doing only one problem. She has improved greatly with writing her numbers. But you can see here that her zeroes are smaller than the rest of her numbers and her fives tend to be huge in comparison. :-)

This is usually how it progresses. She is excited to do her math, she completes the first problem and then this face makes an appearance.

Then this one...

And this one appears anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour later.

She finally decides to get back to work so she can play with her brothers.

She did complete her Primer yesterday and both children are excited to start in Alpha. They wanted to start today but I need a day to go over it and make sure what I need to have for the lessons. We have had lab days, but I didn't take many pictures (don't know why). Here is the only decent picture from one of our last lab days. We were discussing how water has a skin to it. The children had fun seeing how many coins they could drop in the glass before the water would overflow.

Okay...I am off to finish up our school lessons for the day and sift through the newer pictures that I downloaded today. Pray that everyone is staying warm and having a great week!

AAAAHHHHHH!

Sorry...had to get that out of my system. Our main computer has been running slow and who knows why. We don't bog it down with unnessary items, but it's still 10 times slower than it should be. So anyway, I have pictures and other things I need to post but right now I am back on our 10 year old laptop as hubby is saving documents and resetting the main computer to factory default. We would rather start all over, but the d drive is not working at all. It won't even open! And our firewall/virus protection is junk because we have a virus we can't get rid of...which is why we are starting all over again! Oh well....could be worse I guess. I just wanted to give a quick update.

I can say that the children finished the Math-U-See Primer and we will be starting the Alpha book tomorrow. They are learning to tell time (and doing very well I might add) and their reading is going much better than it was 3 months ago. I still don't know how we all learned how to read English in the first place. It seems there is always an exception to the exception to the exception to the rule. LOL Anyway, I pray you are all having a great week and we hope to be back up with pictures very, very soon! Blessings. :-D

Different Levels

School started out well in August with the different age levels. Now that cabin fever is setting in it is getting harder. Big T does a pretty good job on getting his work done, but Sweet E is dragging her feet more and more everyday. Why children just don't get their work done so they can move on to something else is beyond me. Well, you know....now that I think about it I do now. As parents we do this all the time (at least I do...so I hope you do too so I don't feel so bad.). We procrastinate instead of just getting something done. I procrastinate on washing dishes because I don't feel like doing them. Or I procrastinate on cleaning off my treadmill so I can loose the 50 pounds that I need to loose. LOL It just seems like Sweet E is making things harder and harder on herself. I just wish I knew what to do that would make her want to get her work done. I want her to enjoy school. Not hate it...like I did when I got older. When you dread doing something everyday it just makes life miserable.

And then there is Little E. He has been a struggle the past couple of months with his behavior. Every time I tell the older two to get their stuff ready for school, Little E whines and complains because he wants them to play. I have things for him to do, but it doesn't seem to be holding his attention anymore. As for Special K...at least she doesn't whine at me about having to do anything. She is content laying on the floor or sitting in her exersaucer. :-)

Speaking of procrastination...I better get the table cleaned off so we can have our lab day. :-D

Books of the Old Testament

The children are learning the books of the bible. Here is a video of the books of the old testament. I think they are doing pretty good. It's definitely more than I knew. (I don't think I really knew any of the old testament until high school.)

Still Going Strong

School is still going strong, but with a beautiful 3 month old I haven't been posting like I should. I hope to get better about that very soon. Just like my last few posts I just wanted to share some of what has been going on. Little E learned what it was like to do dishes with Beloved. HaHa. He has a lot of fun helping with dishes because he can experiment with what dishes and utensils hold water better (and which ones can make a bigger mess when the water is dumped.)

And we transformed this box....

into this. :-D

The children practice their writing be mailing letters to others in the family. It's been a huge hit. The love to wake up in the morning and see that the flag is up on the mailbox. :-D And Special K has discovered a new friend. It is so much fun for her to discover her surroundings and to watch her look in the mirror. She always gives a big smile when she sees her friend. :-)

Since I fell behind on writing blog posts, I also fell behind on uploading the videos of the children's memory verses.