Morning everyone! I'm thinking I'm going to make a trip to Costco today, we're out of everything, but it's 2 1/2 hour drive. So another day of school missed. I wanted to go ysterday but couldn't work it out. The kids will all be home with dh and I think I'll leave a list of "assignments" for them to get through: 1 nature book entry 15 minutes playing "go to the dump" by Right Start 20 minutes spent reading 1 page of math review each practice skip counting by 2, 3, 4, 5 and 10 listen through first three chapters of SOTW listen through unit 8 of ecoutez parlez review first 8 tracks of SSL then I'd feel less stressed about taking today off. We're going to miss all of next week due to a trip out of town. blah. Life just needs to slow down a little. Hopefully that will be the last trip and we can finally settle into our days. . . Happy learning all :)

Aurelia, what video is it? I also used to dance and would love to have something like that . . . Jean in Newcastle, 13 or not, the day sounded divine :) As for me, I was on here 3 hours ago to try and post but got interrupted. Since then I've cleaned the upstairs bathroom, pre-made a dozen ham, egg and cheese breakfast sandwiches, put a batch of pizza roll ups in the oven and baked a batch of cookies and zucchini bread. All that's left to do is make the mac n cheese muffins which I'm leaving for my s/o to mix up. This afternoon I need to get History organized for the week, look over writing and fill the kids' weekly binders and other odds and ends. Thank goodness for "days off" lol Oh! And my library book is in at the library so that's exciting :)

Blah. dd had another frustrating round in REWARDS. Mostly because she refused to try and understand the instructions on the review sheet. When she gets frustrated she gets quite belligerant and rude. Sorted that out and the rest went pretty good. I tried to record her reading "Ivy and Bean" to send to a friend so I could better demonstrate where her reading difficulties lie, but she did pretty darn good today lol. Tough problem to have!

That's why I say Friday is "Fun Day" We all have trouble hauling ourselves into a full day of school. At least most of it is. But man, I had a lot of blustering and fuming over math too. But really, I don't blame her. Figuring out elapsed time is tricky! *I* think it's tricky and I've been doing it for three decades. And I think we're going to skip Farenheit in measuring. She's just barely grasping negative Celcius numbers, I don't want to confuse that with a different scaled thermometer. No one (except for ( great) grandparents) uses Farenheit up here any more. Not worth it. Which also means I think we caught up from falling behind in September :) As you can see math was somewhat torturous today, especially for dd8. Lunch and outside play break now and just reading left! Going to grain the cow and chill with a cup of tea.

Morning :) Friday Fun Day here. I think. We'll see how fun it actually is lol. Draw Write Now, Home Art Studio and a documentary. I don't have any history or science doc. lined up so we might just watch a chunk of Human Planet. I'd still like to do a regular dose of math and reading with them all as well. So that really brings the fun factor down :P Pouring rain, chillly and foggy outside today. Glum. But I have a community meeting at a neighbor's house after supper and a ladies' game night at another neighbours after the kids are in bed. Really looking forward to that, should be a great time! Tomorrow is our day off and dd8 is going into town to sell girl guide cookies and ds8 is going to spend that time at a friend's house so they're both looking forward to it. Have a great day everyone!

Thanks so much everyone. Of course, giving her quiet one-on-one for dictation makes a lot of sense, not sure why I felt the need to ask. Just so unsure of myself right now! While I have you all here (I hope lol) can anyone share book or websites that they've found useful in raising/homeschooling a child with CAPD? I haven't found anything really stand outish.

Mrs Robinson, I'm glad to hear things went as well as can be expected! Soror, you adding "things I'm forgetting now" to your list made me giggle :P Critter, did you fall asleep or get up to work last night? AnotherLyn, good luck on the leap out of bed - I hate those days! I allow myself a sleep in on Saturday morning. I even let the the big kids manhandle the toddler. There's always cereal all over the kitchen and a saggy diaper to deal with but I think it's worth it. I need something to look forward to the rest of the week when my alarm goes off at 520 lol AFM, no school today! Actually, it's kind of school but all outside stuff for the kids. My partner has an appt at 10 so we need to be out of here by 9. Yikes. Then dd8 has an assessment hour with the local O-G tutor at 1030, then the big kids have piano at 1230, then the older three have swimming at 2. Busy busy! Luckily dd8 had girl guides last night so partner did the grocery shopping for the week already, so the only errands we have are to drop off recycling, visit the toy library and the book library and maybe go to Canadian Tire for light bulbs and laundry soap. We'll be home by 5 but I have no idea what to do for dinner. Crockpot would be awesome. . . Have a great day ladies :)

Okay, so dd8 slept in this morning so I went light on the Morning Time so she didn't miss her favourite books. Still, it was a good opportunity to review French with ds8 who didn't have 2 1/2 years of immersion to help him out like dd8 did. After that we got: Spelling for two olders Chores/coffee :) Math problem/calendar for littles Writing (reviewed fable and discussed, dictation which wasn't great but not awful) Practiced FLL poem "The Land of Nod" Latin, finished chapter 6 History Read aloud: Finished our Viking Sword novel. On to very early Canada. Play for littles, Math for olders. ds is nearly done LU 207 and dd completed 20 division problems on her own! Science, pulled out "The Elements" so we could "oooh" and "aaaaaah" while figuring out symbols of specific elements Now they're outside. I've had lunch, about to grain the cows and water my poor plants. I was worried about having school all day (compared to half days last year) but I actually look forward to having 30-45 minutes alone with each kid while the others are tucked away somewhere quiet. It's much more relaxed and I feel like all my kids are well-matched to their phonics programs right now. I think I even figured out what to do with my advanced 6 year old. We're reading through 5 or more lessons in OPGTR just to see if there's anything he doesn't know but as soon as we're done, I think we'll read history books and science books since he's usually playing with the toddler while I do those topics with his older siblings. I guess that's what you do once a child is reading fluently? Go from learning to read, to reading to learn? I dunno. I've never had a fluent reader before lol. Left to do today: Reading for olders reading and math for younger typing/cursive/printing piano practice for olders hopefully down hill from here! Good luck everyone!

Thank you AliR. subject/predicate split probably would make a lot of sense for her. We used WWE1 & 2, and they were getting really frustrating for her at the end. REALLY frustrating, even modified. Which is why I decided to use CAP Fable this year. Even with the much simpler AAS2 dictations, I have to get her to repeat it out loud, but with longer sentences this also doesn't reallly work. It's challenging before she even starts writing. I'll trying splitting the sentneces for her! Do you have other kids taking dictation at the same time? I've always had my two oldest do writing at the same time, but I suspect it gets to "noisy chaotic" for her. I'll help her through a rough spot, then help my son and as I speak to him I can practically see the words leaking out of her ears and she forgets what she was about to do . . . again.

Our dictation today: Crows are very smart. They can copy the sound of a human voice, but they can not sing very well. My daughter, nearly 9, has recently been recognized as possibly having auditory processing disorder. A lot of it fits her very well! I'm learning as I go here and I was wondering how people "do" dictations with a child with auditory processing disorder. I'm using CAP Fable and while I'm happy with the difficulty level as far as grammar and spelling goes (it's pretty compatible with her current spelling abilities), I've had to shorten the length to try and make it more manageable for her. She has a very hard time holding the sentences in her head. Still, she struggles, and with a very talkative 6 year old doing copy work with us and a toddler trying to join in with everything, it's not quiet and it's not easy for her to translate the sentences onto writing on the page. I would like her to practice this skill, I think it's important but I'm recognizing that it's tougher for her than it is for my next younger child. How do you do dictations with APD? Should I make her an exception and let her do it during our one-on-one time? Other recomendations?

For my less intuitive readers, I also found that OPGTR was not a great fit, especially for my son. He needed more practice. AAR fit the bill wonderfully for him (he's now on level 3) but I want to submit another vote for just the level 1 readers if that's all you can afford. Ds didn't do level 1, just the readers and then we moved on to AAR 2. The readers are wonderful, my son really enjoyed them as well! I feel like OPGTR is better for a more natural reader. My younger ds is flying through it (but then again, he would have flown through anything, I bet). My oldest didn't start homeschooling until half way through grade 2. While she's a struggling reader, I used OPGTR with her with a TON of review. Everything else I had just seemed too babyish, maybe. Basically going through sections over and over again with hardly any new material for days at a time. She's almost to grade level on her phonics knowledge, her fluency is still so low it affects her comprehension in a big way. We're a quarter of the way through REWARDS intermediate and I can already see improvement. Something to keep in mind if fluency is still an issue once your son is around a grade 3 reading level.

Man, I've been super wistful lately. I don't want more babies, I just loved the good parts of having a lot of littles. The hard times, however . . . Yikes. Every day though, I think of some little version of what seems to me to be my very big kids!

Mrs Robinson! My goodness, that's awful! I admit, her poetry recitation made me giggle though. All the best for today :) The usual here. Some serious things to go over with dh, I'm very concerned about his stress level, but I don't expect it to disrupt school. I guess things are always stressful on a ranch this time of year but stil . . . Anyhow. Dd8 starts girl guides this evening. Hope she likes it!

Well, here I am again. Kids are eating lunch and it's ten to 1. Yikes! Science took longer than I expected as it was a rather long lab using marshmallows to figure out the "build" of each of the first 10 atoms, then sorting the electrons (mini marshmallows) into their proper energy levels. I took Chem 12 and I don't even remember about energy levels lol. But I let them have a few marshmallows from each type of marshmallow, so they're currently gulping down their grilled cheese to get to their treats. I may let them play past 130 a bit since we finished so late. They need time to run around in the sunshine and wind to come back and tackle reading with a little oomph. Really that's all that's left, reading. And odds and ends. And ds6's math. I need to figure out what to do with him as far as math goes, the first few chapters of MM have not challenged him at all. But I think time and place value should. So really, it's not that I have to figure out what to do, I just need to do it. And then I'd like to get him onto CLE flashcard system for fact memorization, but ds8 is still using them as he finishes the last part of 200. At least for today, instead of more "this is how we subtract" type sheets, we'll play some right start games.

Morning :) I didn't get a chance to check in yesterday afternoon. We had a pretty darn good day! At least until ds crashed face first Calvin & Hobbes style (he reads them all the time) and ended up with a concussion, a bruised a scraped up face and a considerable cut inside he lower lip. It's an hour into the ER and he was *SO* strange on the way in, not remembering things, forgetting what I did tell him, arguing with me (which is really unlike him). By the time we got in, he seemed a lot better. Ended up staying in the ER for a few hours to observe him and got the okay later. He's pretty sore this morning, but much better. Considering I've been a parent now for 12+ years, that's only my 2nd trip to the ER. And his first! He's a pretty adventurous little soul, so that's probably pretty good :) Our power was out for nearly six hours after the kids went to bed. We ended up just going to bed early which was probably exactly what I needed. Also, dh got home late last night, which is wonderful. He'll get all the animals fed, then head out again for a few more days. Today's list: Morning time Chores/Spelling (ds8 and dd8) Calendar/Math problem Grammar Writing - read and discuss new fable Latin Read Aloud (finish?) Math (ds8 and dd8) Break: eat lunch, feed animals, finish vacuuming I started when dd8 crashed yesterday Reading/quiet time alternating kids + Math for ds6 Snack, DEAR Odds and ends: piano practice, typing/cursive/printing Tidy playroom I also need to get a few emails sent. Poor ds8 can't really move his face, so soft foods are on the menu. I was already planning corn chowder for supper, we can do yogurt and home-canned fruit for snacks. Lunch? He likes canned beans. . . Better go stir the cream of wheat he's requested for breakfast. Have a great day everyone!

Sahamama, we missed it too. Solid cloud, not even a start! Ds8 was so disappointed he went to bed in tears. Of course, this morning at 530, it was out in all its glory, but it was just another full moon at that point. We had a great morning. The older kids are writing blog posts. So far, they've only written them down in their blog notebooks lol. Still haven't figured out the app on their iPads and I really need to get on that!! I'm impressed with their stamina and even their writing considering we've done practically none before this. We also did a quick experiment with balloons and static electricity which of course, the kids had a lot of fun with. By some miracle, all the sheep seem content today. I'm not sure why today is better for grazing when they were so obviously disatisfied all day yesterday? In any case, I'm taking it! Otherwise I'll have to put them all in the corral for the afternoon and night. Dh will be home late today, yahoo! He can get them squared away tomorrow. Which reminds me, I need to get out and grain the cow, feed the rams and shut up the stud horse so he doens't play the pig with the remnants of his bale of hay. Better get a move one! Have a great day eveyrone!

Happy Sunday everyone :) Are we all ladies so far? I always want to say ladies but I don't want to leave out any homeschooling dads lol I'm trying not to "hyperventriliquate" over here. The sheep, the stud and the rams are nearly all out of feed and dh doesn't get home for two more days. Cross your fingers they make it cause it's a lot of time for me to get the tractor out and fetch them some hay (wheras it would take dh all of two minutes). One of the guinea fowl is sick (again) We've already lost one to the same thing and I'm not sure what it is. I *think* I know, but not being a vet, I guess I can't say for sure. I'll medicate them just in case I'm right, I suppose. One of the fences around the garden is barely packing a charge and since the sheep are feeling sorry for themselves, I need to fix that before they figure it out. And I don't want to take any more time off school since we already missed two days unexpectedly this week! But school went well. My kids each wrote an amplified version of The Hunter and the Doves in CAP Fable. For a first effort, it's not bad and we did over two days so neither of them figured they should die pencil-phobisis. It's posted in K-8 writing subboard. Math is taking a solid hour, if not more. I'm not sure it's time saving to do both kids at once lol! But I'm feeling better about CLE and using it more as a guide, not do every problem or die. Okay. Off to grain the cow and feed animals (but not too much lol) And medicate poultry and electrify a fence. Jeez. THink I can get that done in a half hour?

Pitter, thanks for posting that. I read it to my kids after they wrote their own versions and they really enjoyed it - especially the part about the hunter falling out of the tree giving the doves more time. They thought was genius :) I enjoyed the added adjective in "delicious seeds". We brainstormed all kinds of adjectives one could use with seeds but never thought about taste! l'll add in a few "Hunter and the Dove" stories as well. The endings are a little weak, but for one of their first writing efforts, they're not bad. Written by my 8yo ds: A small flock of doves was flying as quick as an arrow across the plains. They were starving. One of the doves spotted a blue cob of corn on a patch of moss. When they flew down to gobble up the seeds, a hunter hiding in the tall grass threw a rope net over them. "Help! Help! We're trapped!" said the doves in a panic. Keeping his head, the King Dove told the other doves to each lift a rope and flap her wings. They worked very hard and were able to lift the net together, as a team. They flew off together and dropped the net into a lake. Written by my 9yo dd: One hot day a flock of gray doves were flying. They spotted some purple corn seeds on the grassy ground. When they flew down to eat the seeds, a young hunger hiding in a tree dropped a string net upon them. "Help! Help! We're trapped!" said the doves in a panic. They flapped and chirped and scrambled. Keeping his head, the King Dove told the other doves to each lift up a string and flap her wings. They worked very hard and were able to lift the net off the ground as a team. They flew off together and dropped the net into a lake. Moral: When you work as a team, you can do amazing things.

Took the kids to the (two hours away) local salmon festival. Saw a decent amount of spawning salmon as well a dissection, baby fish and the usual arts and crafty kinds of things. Of course, for the kids, the biggest attraction was all the dead fish lol. Oh well, I'm pretty sure we all learned something new. For me it was don't trust that the bannock guy will be there!! Ended up paying $55 for lunch for the six of us at an overpriced food truck - the only other option! Back to the grind tomorrow. I think we're ready? Dh comes home in a few days. Sooooo looking forward to it!

Okay, thanks everyone. You're all speaking perfectly good sense and I think that's where I was leaning this whole time. I don't want him to settle into a mindset where everything is easy, nothing needs hard work. Nor do I want to overwork him and kill his curiosity! But, as many have pointed out, he's not going to "fall behind" while I figure out where that balance is. And yes, homeschooling utopia is where the kid catches on really quick, then runs off to play happily with the toddler while I work with the older kids. Thanks for the reminder :)

Well, there's our Friday done. It's kind of "Friday Funday" but after looking it over, not really . . . esepcially since my nearly nine-year old was frustrated to tears by the cursive copywork AND the drawing in Draw Write Now. Like ran from the room sobbing because her butterfly wasn't a perfect replica. . . ds8 and I just sort of looked at each other with eyes wide. Not sure if it's a combination of personality/age or if it's just a bad fit for her. Ds loves it. We also watched a documentry on Newfoundland and St.Laurence river wildlive to give us an idea of what the first explorers would have seen all those hundreds of years ago and finished up a Home Art Studio lesson. Then I made everyone do math and reading :P They're all outside playing right now and if any one dares show their face, I'll set them to piano practice, but for now I'll let it lie.

So I have a little boy for whom reading and math comes easily and quickly. He's passed his two older siblings in reading almost on his own. Adding and subtracting is more like intuition than fact memorizing. I knew that I'd have to make adjustments for him because I really wasn't sure what to expect, where he might land. He's happy to whiz through 5-6 lessons of OPGTR, read a chapter of Hank the Cow Dog, have me fill out a few pages of MM1 as he dictates and labour through a page of HWOT and call it done. Besides the printing pages, I really don't feel like he's being challenged. He's a silly heart, a typical, wiggly, chatty six year old boy who needs a lot of reminders to stay focused. He loves to play with his little sister and honestly, with a couple of older, struggling students I feel it's a big relief at this point. So. Am I doing him a disservice by not giving him more advanced work? Should I look into higher math levels of math, spelling? He's sat in on his older siblings grammar, so I consider him advanced there too since he has most of the definitions memorized and can list off all kinds of verbs, adjectives and prepositions. Can I let him play for another year - or even six months? I know it's my call in the end. Just wondering what everyone else would do or has done in similar situations

Mrs. Robinson, we've done a four day week - but it was to free up the fifth day for piano lessons, homeschool swim lessons/play and errands in town. I might have show a documentary or finish up a few things or something on the weekends but nothing to heavy. I can't make it work this year, maybe cause my kids are older? I don't know, but having our week run Sunday-Wednesday plus Friday (fun day) is more relaxing for me than trying to squeeze a week into four days. I'm back from my quick out of town trip, today was town day. My sheep keep escaping and one cow got into the hay stack this morning. All my animals are on my black list right now. Town day wears a body out without all these issues!! Anyhow. Gonna get the kids to bed early (my mom never seems to get them to bed on time ;) ) and enjoy an apple cider from my home town before collapsing into bed myself.

My kids get today and tomorrow off since I'm out of town Day after that, it's town day for piano and homeschool swim lessons. Lots of driving to do :( See you in a few days!

Morning ladies :) Morning of day two of our week went along nicely. It helped that Science was short and sweet since it just an experiment left over from our last week. My mom arrives today, not sure how much school we'll get done this week. My and my partner are gone tomorrow and the next day so I'm thinking maybe we'll do this week's work in two weeks since I'm not sure what day my mom will leave. Either the day after we get back, or she'll stay longer. This Saturday is a salmon festival in a nearby community so we'll probably go soak that up (not literally, I hope :P ) Reading for everyone as well as math for the first grader, silent reading for all, cursive and printing and typing (depending on the kid) and a few chores and piano practice left to do. I've discovered that it tends to be easier to let the first grader and the toddler go to the downstairs playroom for an hour or so in the morning. I've resisted because I didn't want him to miss all of what we do when it comes to writing or history or science. However, since he's hung out for the last few years of grammar, science and history, he actually knows a fair bit more than most of his peers, so maybe I should "sacrifice" him for sanity's sake. For now.