Recap Thursday, Feb. 12, 2008

Today is a travel day, since I have to take Cameron in a day early, so we completed a few assignments and will play "catch-up" by extending a couple of days next week.  Here is what we did:

1) Journal

2) Spacebar Invaders typing practice

3) Algebra practice, finding the missing answer

4) Pre-writing lesson, using this site for instructing and this site for graphic organizers

5) Completed pre-writing worksheet as I taught

6) Did his own pre-writing using any method (I taught tree, cloud, spider and star) he chose

7) Email

Recap, Wednesday--Feb. 11, 2009

1) Journal

2) Spacebar Invaders, typing practice

3) Scholastic Writing Practice, pg. 17-18

4) Complete Sentences review

5) Scholastic Reading Comprehension, Practice Test 4

6) Scholastic Subject and Object Pronouns (worksheets and assessment), pg. 23-28

7) Dictionary guide words and abbreviations worksheets

8) Math Drill--Division and Multiplication Review

9) Email

Recap Tuesday, Feb. 10, 2009

Today was "Library Day",  so we had an abbreviated day and spent a couple of hours at our library.  

1) Journal

2) The Human Body, read pages 24-46 and completed worksheet

3) Completed Aristotle and Scientific Thought, Chapter 6, read and did worksheet

4) Reading

5) Email

Recap Monday, February 9, 2009

1) Journal 

2) The Human Body (book from Library), read pgs. 1-23 then did worksheet

3) Aristotle and Scientific Thought--read chapter and did worksheet

4) Dictionary worksheet (look up definitions, antonyms, synonyms and write context sentences)

5)  General Math Drills

7)  Math Arcade (Levels 1-23) 

8) Spell Check game on "hard"

9) Email

Recap Week of Feb 2-6, 2009

I have been horrible about updating for the past couple of weeks, due to some horrible cold I came down with after visiting Southeast TX for the weekend.  Finally I started feeling better this week, but I've just been so busy catching up that this is my first chance to update!

As for last week, since I was pretty sick, Cameron did a lot of independent work.  Here is what was accomplished last week:

1) Journal Writing

2) Scholastic packets--Reading Comprehension, Grammar, Writing Practice, Reading Tests

3) Brainquest packets--Language Arts & Math Practices

4) Order of Operations worksheet review

5) Independent Reading

6) Chapters 19-21 of Treasure Island

7) Chapters 2-4 of Aristotle and Scientific Thought book (worksheets and reading)

8) Math Drills

Just Musings...

So, today Cameron made his first friends and it was so cool.  I loved watching him outside, playing hide and go seek and tag with this little boy his age and a little girl.  He had a lot of fun, running around our courtyard with them.  

One of the things I seriously considered when I started thinking of home schooling was that age-old "socialization" question.  You know, the "how will he make friends" thing.  I read everything I could find on it and I discovered what I had already thought--that the "socialization" from 5th-12th grades in public schools is far more detrimental than good.  Peer-pressure, bullying, drugs, sex...it all gets progressively worse as they go through public schools.  I had a pretty good idea of it, but after reading the studies from all over the country, I was shocked at the statistics on the number of kids that come out of high school who have had sex, done drugs, been victims of all sorts of different things.  It's just ridiculous.  I have to say, it scared the hell out of me really, as I'm sure lots of parents can relate.  We did not choose to home school Cameron for this reason (although it probably would have been a good one!) but it's a definite plus, knowing he isn't being exposed to that.  (I plan to do a longer post on how we came to the decision to try home schooling later.)

Now, I don't want to be misunderstood here--children will push limits.  I get that, totally.  They will experiment with things and I accept that this is something that no matter how much you want to control, you just can't control all of it.  The thing is, that I want to make sure I am doing my part to limit the amount of access my child has to situations that he doesn't need to be in.  With the home schooling, Cameron will have friends in much more supervisory environments--outside with the kids in plain view, or in boy scouts under leaders (I'm getting him in that in February). It's done a lot for my peace of mind to see him out playing and having a good time, and knowing that it's good, clean fun. 

I know that the days are coming when Cam will be off and running, going to friend's houses and just getting into mischief, trying stuff I will warn him against, but for now, just that slice of time when he was out yelling and laughing, it's good to remember that he's still just a little boy with limits, yes, but so many possibilities as well.

Recap

We did a lot yesterday, so today was a shorter day, but we still got a lot done.

1) Journal

2) Brain Teaser

3) Order of Operations Worksheet (15 problems)

4) Brainquest Math Practices: Complex Subtraction Practice p. 167-168, Rounding Review, p. 147-148, Multiplying and Dividing Money, p. 207-208, Probability, p. 230, Word Problems, p. 240

5) Logical Reasoning, found this awesome site!!

6) Basic Grammar Exercises & Reading Comprehension

7) The last 2 activities from another great site I found today

8) Email