A Quick Weekly Review

I haven't blogged like I usually do, but school has continued.  Two projects this week have made things interesting. Plus, Dad was home on Monday and he got to get involved in one of the projects.

Laura did a make-up project from last week.  We were reading about Jesus being anointed with perfume.  Laura has, in a jar, her own concoction of clove smelling perfume.  We will open it Monday afternoon and see how it smells.

Daddy helped Laura with making an Icthus out of applesauce and cinnamon.  I think he enjoyed the lessons that day as much as Laura did.  They both were excited for the fish to dry.  It definitely smelled wonderful all week long.

We are totally LOVING our read aloud time.  We are nearly through with Caddie Woodlawn.  Laura was cracking up over the school recitation scene with the little brother, Warren.  We have only a few chapters left and I have to figure out what our next book will be.

Laura is making steady progress in her own reading.  Wanting a little more Christian literature, I had planned to have Laura read some Abeka readers that I had.  However, I decided to give Christian Light publications another chance.  I had the books and the workbooks, which have been sitting in a box.  I decided to go ahead and see if Laura liked them since she strongly disliked the ACE Literature and Creative Writing.  I don't have the funds to buy a reading program.  On some levels, a reading program isn't really necessary if the child is doing a lot of reading.  However, I really like to have help with some of the skills that I want Laura to learn.  In so many ways I am moving or have moved away from a lot of workbook approaches.  But, once in awhile, I like the structure of some of the work.  I'm picky though.

Laura can be picky also.  Sometimes she just takes some things slowly.  She will totally dislike something, but then a few weeks or months later we will retry it, and she will love it.  Other times I catch her tackling something that should be over her head.  While I would think that she would just make steady progress in learning, much of the time it comes is spurts with jags in between of not much progress at all.  I am astounded, when she hits a learning spurt, how fast she catches on the the material.  It's like something just clicks and... bam, she understands it.

One of the benefits of homeschooling is that I can cater Laura's schooling around how she is learning.  We have this issue with math right now.  Needing a new math program, I am on the hunt.  I have come up with a few possibilities. After all this time, it has just become time to quit what we have been using and move on to something else.