Bit by bit we are finding our way at school!

Joseph is a real trooper. I have not really gotten him started on anything yet (tracing letters, cutting with scissors, etc). So, I pull out a box of toys and he plays upstairs. Then he can play some games on the ipad. He will play outside. One thing he has decided recently is that he wants to be strong. So he spends part of his day doing this......

It won't be long before he can do a pull up / chin up (what is the difference between the two? I will have to look that up). He is still doing speech. We dropped one of his private therapists to once a week. Now that school is in session, his qualified for school services. So he sees his therapist from last year's pre school twice a week. This kid has therapy Tues, Wed, Thurs and Fri. So good for him to get the repetition but it can make doing school work in the afternoon hard.

Here is our corner of homeschooling. Not much but just what we need. It seems like every couple of days I think of a better way to organize us. Here we are listening to a Longfellow poem called Paul Revere's Ride.

This table where Benjamin is sitting was a recent purchase. The first piece of furniture I think I have ever bought. When we were married we used a table and buffet my grandparents had when they married. It only seated 4 so made meal time hard at our house. I have been on the hunt for a while, that seats more than 4. I finally found it. Now I was able to pass along the other table and buffet to the next generation (my nieces). We use this table every day. I love watching my boys play games with the neighbor kids, as well as eating together with plenty of elbow room.

Since so much of our time is spent home schooling, the blog will probably become our showcase. One of the subjects Benjamin is really enjoying is art (no surprise). We are studying complementary colors and warm/cool colors. (Something I must say I never knew for sure...which colors went together.) The top picture is project about warm and cool colors and the second one is complimentary colors. The second picture we got the colors confused, but now we have a way to remember how to pair them. Red and Green for Christmas, Blue and Yellow for our local university, and then it only leaves purple and orange.

One of the other things we are working on, is handwriting.  Every week Benjamin will pick one person to write a letter to.  The lost art of hand written letters.  He happily sat down and wrote this one to his cousin Gaby that spent 6 weeks with us this summer!

We are finishing up our first historical fiction novel, called The Sign of the Beaver.  It is about a family who is heading to Maine to homestead some land.  The father and his 12 year old son go stake things out and then the father leaves the boy so the father can head back down south to get the rest of the family.  It is set in probably the 1600s.  The families journey takes much longer and the boy is left to fend for himself for much longer.  A great book to get an idea of what life was like.  I can't imagine leaving a young son for that long.  We will finish the book today and then Benjamin will write a book report next week.  I have a friend of mine that will help me 'grade' projects like this.  I think something subjective should be graded by someone other than me.  I am hoping to work through a book every 2 weeks.  (He loves to read and I hope once I turn him on to another genre - historical fiction - he will read these in his 'spare' time.)  I have showed him how he can read his homework questions before he starts the chapter so he knows what answers to look for as he reads.  He is amazed at how much easier that is.

In History we are learning about the early explorers and in science we are learning about classification of animals.  I keep saying we, because I learn right alongside him.  One thing I have always enjoyed doing, and think I am pretty good at, is finding word pictures to help remember things.  Benjamin was confused on the classification of mammals.  I gave him some word pictures and I think he was amazed how easy learning/remembering can be.  For example, he could not remember what a marsupial was.  So, I used the word marshmallow and told him if he had a bag of marshmallows he would probably stuff them all in his pouch.  Marsupials have a pouch.  Pinnipeds are mammals with flippers (both words have 2 p's).  Ungulates start with uncommon letter U and they are mammals with hooves and hooves have a V, another uncommon letter and it is similar in appearance to U and right next to it in alphabet.  The little 'tricks' are things that I hope he will tuck away and remember when he needs to pull them out and learn how to apply to the subject he is studying.

I just might enjoy this homeschooling more than Benjamin :-)

He is struggling a bit with Spanish...just hearing and pronouncing some of the sounds/words.  I need to find some Spanish songs online and play them.  It is amazing how much easier it is for me to pronounce things because I have been exposed to the spoken language for much longer.  He is also learning rhyme scheme in poetry.   Right now in computer he is learning how to do power point presentations.  He has also discovered online 'thinking' games!

Another quiet weekend in store.  Tomorrow marks opening day of early bow season.  JR will be looking for bear, deer or elk.  It is getting colder but not really snow in higher elevations to drive the animals lower!