Book-Reading, Journal-Writing, and Art...What Fun!

I think I mentioned the last time that William got some new books, what are called "graphic novels," which are set up like comic strips.  I have never liked such, but he is loving them.  The ones I got are about historical persons and events.  So far he has read Anne Frank, Race to the South Pole, and Alexander the Great.  I think he has started Pizarro and the Incas.  They're very educational, and they start out by introducing the cast, giving facts about each person, and ending in the back of the book with a glossary of terms.  He has read another of his Cul-de-Sac Kids books.  It was about a tree house mystery. 

 For those interested in the historical graphic novels pictured above, they can be found at Timberdoodle.com.  Some can also be found on Amazon.

William also writes in his journal and draws a picture almost every day.  Some days his writing is neat, but his spelling is poor.  Some days it's not so neat, but the spelling is better.  Some days his drawings are good, and other days they are poor.  One thing is for sure; the journal writing is helping his spelling skills.  I think I mentioned it before, but in case I did not, he free writes and draws a picture to go with it.  He is currently dating by the Roman calendar at the top of the page, and then he writes his name at the bottom.  I then write everything correctly, which shows him where he made punctuation, spelling, capitalization, or other errors.  Well, he likes to write about things that he loves on most days.  I enjoy reading the short entries.  I also am pleased with his writing structure.  He always starts out saying what he likes (or doesn't like or whatever), and then he says why he does and describes the topic. 

Here are some of the latest samples:

For the sabbath, we have now restarted the Bible Stories book from the start again.  If there's anything else that needs to be addressed, I do that, too.

Most days during the week, we read a chapter of Proverbs, then William works in Complete Curriculum Grade 2 on reading, math, language arts, and spelling.   He's nearly finished with reading and math.  We sometimes read something on the human body.  We look into certain things he learns more in-depth.  For example, after he read Race to the South Pole, we talked about frostbite, and I showed him real pictures on Google Images.  He also plays outside, and he's looking forward to "busting ice" in the winter and also playing in the snow, if it does so.  He shoots a bb gun some days; he needs new arrows for his bow.  He loves to collecting rocks and collecting bird nests that he find.  He also pretends sticks are swords.  He's definitely a boy.  A few days ago he found a salamander, much to my surprise:

I've been letting Trusten free paint or play with chalk.  Pictured below is him working with water paints and also William painting a picture:

These are my plans in the near future:

Next week William will be done with the reading lessons in the CCG2 book and probably finished with math.  He'll continue to work on language arts and spelling, until it's finished.  He will read his books as he pleases.  We'll continue to look at and read our magazines:  Ranger Rick, Your Big Backyard, and Birds & Bloom.  I ordered William a typing program with lessons and games, so he'll be learning how to type.  I also have a book for him to start practicing cursive writing.  He'll be able to continue writing in print in his journal.   I also ordered Trusten a six-book set so that he can learn to draw, color, cut, paste, etc.  He is still watching his two videos on numbers and letters.  I alternate them each morning, except Sabbath. 

I look forward to the arrival of these things.  Well, this is a fair summary of what we've been doing lately.  Until next time....

Back to Serious Work After Feast of Tabernacles

Since the feast of trumpets, when I updated last, Will has had at least nine days of journal writing and reading, math, spelling, and language arts lessons.  That's all I have recorded.  We've been quite busy, though.  We left Sept. 20 to head to Idaho for our feast of tabernacles trip.  We got back on Oct. 1.  Will took two chapter books, both 70-something pages long, with him.  He completed one during the trip there, and he read the other one in full on the way back.  It worked out the way I had hoped it would.

We had a nice trip.  Oddly enough, I got out of habit of reading to Will his daily proverb while we were there.  I did not take any bible story book along, but I did take the holy day salvational plan map that I always use for holy days, pictured here:

Usually I go over the map with them both on the first day of the feast of tabernacles (a holy day) and then right after Tabernacles, on the 8th day (another holy day).  We did not do this at all on the 8th day this year, and I was rather in a meditative mode nearly all that day, thinking about the number 8 and eternity and time.

Two of the non-holy days were spent driving through Yellowstone National Park.  That was a great way to spend a couple of days during our great God's thanksgiving feast.  The views are absolutely breathtaking, or as Nathan said, "Everything is a picture."  I took many pictures, but I've yet to sort them onto our Shutterfly share site.  For those waiting on that, please bear patiently with me.  I've felt overwhelmed.  We actually all got colds while on the trip, and though I suffered badly only one day with cold symptoms, including a bad sore throat that took my voice away, it turned into bronchitis, and I stayed sick for a long time.  My ribs were all sore from coughing, and I had pain in my chest and back.  I was in such bad pain that I resorted to an OTC painkiller and NSAID--ibuprofen--for a couple of days, and I have been considered to have a fairly high pain tolerance (though I don't personally think so, anymore).  That's the first time I've used a painkiller of the like in 8.5 years.  It helped enough, though, for me to bear through it.  It surely wasn't as bad as the distress my body was in.  I'm still sore, but I'm recovering quite nicely.  Add to this that the boys went to stay with my sister and my parents for a few days, which gave me a needed break, but then I made a trip down to get them.  I also have had to make corrections to my book proof that is now in the publishing process.  I also wanted to add an introduction.  I've just been busy, busy, busy with so much.

We got to see a black bear and three moose.  These were great to see!  We saw a lot of elk, bison, and other animals, too.  The hot springs, geysers, fumaroles, mud pots, mountains, rivers, streams, and other landscape features we saw were fantastic!  Here are a few of the pictures we saw on our trip:

Interestingly enough, the day after my last blog entry was a weekly sabbath, and we went for a sabbath drive.  Nathan stopped down a dirt road and commented on an animal track in the mud.  I hopped out and ran around.  I just knew it was a black bear track, and I was able to take two pictures, one with one of my shoes and a nickel for comparison, but a car was coming, and so after that I had to rush to get back in the truck.  After we got home, I confirmed the track with our track identification guide.  This is just a few miles from here:

Will has found bird nests, neat rocks, and the like in the past month.  He also found a tree across the road that he loves to climb high up into.

I am not sure how much I like the Cul-de-Sac Kid books he has been reading.  I bought them from a Christian bookstore, but the name "Christian" doesn't always mean it's modeled after the true Christ.  The first one he read was about a mystery of something.  I can't remember what now, but it revolved around the christmas holiday.  I think the mystery was a lit-up evergreen tree in a new neighbor's living room.  Then another book was something about "green gravy," and it apparently revolved around St. Patrick's Day.  When I scanned over the books, I noticed one was about another day of a so-called "saint"--St. Valentine's Day.  Will took a book with him to my parents', and when I was there, I picked up the book to see how much he'd read.  He said, "Oh, Momma, in case you're wondering which holiday that one talks about, it's Flag Day."  LOL!  It was so funny.

I bought him some historical fiction "graphic novels."  Well, it turns out that they are laid out inside like comic books, but they are fictional stories BASED ON true historical figures.  The one he is currently reading is about Anne Frank.  He said he really likes it.  GOOD!  I do wonder whether they are a tad advanced for him, but he hasn't seemed to have any trouble.

I recently started having him do journal entries.  I then have a notebook of my own that I write what he wrote with corrections, and then he takes it and writes on the next page of his journal the correct way.  This way he gets more practice learning how to spell properly, punctuate, indent, etc.  Plus, it gets him thinking about things to write about.  I also have him draw a picture at the top.  The journal notebooks I have bought him have a space to draw something at the top.  I really like them.

Here is a sample of one of his initial journal entries and then the corrected one:

 It's about a dog for which we are now caring, until we find it a home.  He drew a picture of himself and then our front screen door with a dog outside it.  He can definitely read words a lot better than he can spell them, but that's why he's doing journal writing.  ;-)

Well, now that it's cooling off and we have no trips to take, we'll be getting more serious about learning and book work again.

Until next time...