Phonic Mania, Beautiful Flowers, and Getting Ready for a Break

*In the bible we have reached Isaiah and are reading 2 chapters a day, in addition to our daily chapter of Proverbs. The boys also watch a bible video almost daily (about half an hour long). This gives me time to go have some fair bit of quiet time to go to my closet and pray w/o being concerned that the boys are getting into mischief.

*William finished the Reading section of the Complete Curriculum book. He'll now go continue on both the Spelling and Language Arts sections, and when he's finished with those, he'll move on to the Writing section. He's also worked through 2 or 3 Rocket Reader books since the last update. He now does an entire lesson of Explode the Code almost every day but the sabbath. I have him alternating days between Explode the Code 1 1/2 and Explode the Code 2. The former gives him more practice on his short vowels, and the latter works on consonant blends. He also has been working on the phonics cd we have on the computer. I've not copied any more workbook pages out of that book for him, though. But, the Explode the Code keeps him pretty busy with that right now. The lessons in Ex. the Code are 8-9 pages long.

*I saw a book that I bought to make things easier for me to give him more writing practice. He gets better all the time, but it still needs work, and the worst thing is not spacing his words when he writes sentences. Most of the words run together. It's atrocious. Anyway, the book will save me time. All he has to do is copy what they have written. It goes through the entire alphabet, so he'll have more practice on just the letters, and then they do phrases (I think) starting with the letters, and then sentences. I think it has days of the week, holidays, and such, too. Anyway, it will give him additional writing practice.

*We've worked with addition flash cards for math. I really need to do this more. He's getting a little better with this, but he can't get much better when I don't work enough with him on it. :-( I'll continue this and other things to help him add, and I'll also go ahead and continue him in the Math section of the Complete Curriculum soon. He'll be starting on subtraction in it.

*He's nearly finished with the history book. He'll be done next week. After he's finished, it will be no more history book for the year. He'll just get reviews every so often, and I'll go back to see how well he remembers his geography. He knew all his states and many countries. He hasn't talked about these things much in the past few months, so I'm not sure whether he's forgotten anything or not.

*In science we've done two lessons on roots and three lessons on stems. We've examined roots and stems on plants as well. William had a bean plant (pinto) and two corn plants that we potted and put outside from the germinated seeds we had in jars from our experiment. Trusten took the leaves off the bean plant, so it's a goner. The corn plants are still making it for now. We went this week to buy some flowers and more potting soil and pots. Will helped me pick out some of the flowers. We now have beautiful flowers on our front porch. :-)

*We'll be going to Silver Dollar City next week for Will's birthday. I think it'll be fun for him, and there will be learning experiences there.

*I'm not finished with the bird and butterfly book, as I just read a little bit here and there, but I'm making plans for next year. I also saw that we have some butterfly bushes on our property but not in our yard. I want to transplant one of them as part of my butterfly paradise plans. :-) I'm so excited. Oh, and our old (as in previous) neighbors gave me some red honeysuckle to plant. Nathan planted it on the hill in the backyard (well, our backyard is mostly hill--lol). I hope it makes it. I'm so excited. I love honeysuckle, and I love red! I also bet the hummingbirds would LOVE it!

*Nathan is apparently a "business prodigy." He has been steadily growing his business, and people love him. He's very respected for his quality, fairness, and superb business practices. He is actually quite expensive (but the quality is worth it to folks), but he's also done pro bono work for people who can't afford to pay anything or has done things inexpensively for some. He told me today that the owner of the restoration business he does a lot of work for, whom already loves Nathan and values his work, told some of his own employees that Nathan was a "business prodigy" and is saving him money, unlike all of the other contractors (in other fields). He also gets him a lot more business, b/c Nathan has a way of working with people, and it really helps in the case of dealing with people's insurance companies. The employee told Nathan what was said about him. This isn't the first time he's been told things like this. I'm very proud of him. :-)

*I am still working with Trusten on his alphabet, colors, etc. I got him to put the playsilks back in the basket today by color. He did well on some of them, and some of them he did not. He ended up giving up. Oh, well. He'll get it. He likes to call us all a "mink." I assume it was b/c Will went a few days a while back when he talked and asked a lot of questions about minks. So, now Trusten says, "I love you, Mink." He says this to any of us. Or someone will tell him something, and he says, "Okay, Mink." I'll say, "My name is not Mink." "Okay, Momma." :-) He's silly. Oh, and people have come to the house, like the UPS man or a fellow looking for a neighbor down the road, and he'll shout to them, "Bye!" They'll return the goodbye, but then he'll say, "Love you!" He is sure a hoot.

*After Will finishes up the current science book (plants) and the history, we will take a break from the books for 2-3 weeks. We'll probably take a complete break for two weeks and a break from everything but phonics and writing for another week.

Okay, that's it for now!