Math adventures

Maggie had the opportunity to learn some more new math with Peter. They learned another unit and now she has worksheets to do for me tomorrow.

She also wrote a book report on the book, Maggie's Dare. It may be the first book she has ever read all the way through. I had to really keep on her to finish this book as she is not one to read books all the way through voluntarily. She kept saying it didn't interest her that much, but amazingly, once she got halfway through the book, she couldn't wait to see how it was going to end.

I also have a science worksheet on my desk to grade. I will have to look at the answer key to double check the answers, but it appears that she got most of them right. She is currently studying human anatomy.

I'm hoping her Switched on Schoolhouse program will arrive before the end of the week so she can begin working on it by October 1.

Math!

Maggie and Peter are in the other room working on math. He's the math guy, so I let him do his job.

I did get the switched on Schoolhouse curriculum so by next week, I will be better able to do work with her as well and she will be able to work independently.

Today, while I saw a client, Maggie worked on science. When I came home she could tell me all kinds of good anatomy facts. I was really pleased!

Friday

Today Maggie will continue reading Little House in the Big Woods. I wasn't able to test her vocabulary yesterday, so we'll do that today. She's done reviewing math and ready for Peter to start teaching her the new math lessons. I will know by the end of the day if I have won the Switched on Schoolhouse 6th grade program I have been bidding for on Ebay. I have decided if I miss the discounted one, I will just spend the $300 and buy a new one for 2009.

Math and more math

Maggie has discovered that she really enjoys math. She is working out of Math U See, the Epsilon book. I'm waiting for the Switched on Schoolhouse to arrive so that I can give her more consistent assignments. She is also reading Little House in the Big Woods and we are using the book to pick out spelling and vocabulary words and she is learning to enjoy reading aloud to me. I can't believe we never read these books together before now.

This week

Maggie has had a great week of working on her homeschool materials. She took her first speling test and only missed two. We have been studying longitude and latitude and the hemispheres, which is mainly review. She score 100% on jer quizzes. In language arts she has been reading Little House in the Big Woods. For Bible she is studying her Little Catacism and learning about the steps toward being confirmed. She attends confirmation classes on Sundays. She and her dad have been studying human anatomy and memorizing the major bones of the body for science.

I have decided to purchase the full curriculum of switched on schoolhouse. It's relatively inexpensive and will help me with her grades and keeping her organized. I ordered some of the past years's programs and discovered that they won't run on any of our computers properly. It's disappointing b/c they were very inexpensive. I am angry at myself for not realizing they were old programs and wouldn't run on vista or windows 2000. However, it did show me that the program suited her. So, we are getting a late start, but it will ultimately be ok. Peter is installing a bigger hard drive into her computer so she'll have more room for these programs.

We are enjoying homeschooling so far. Next week she will start horseback riding classes on Wednesday and then homeschool PE on Thursdays while I am at work.

Tomorrow we leave for a ctr and she's bringing her books with her so we can do somework in the car.

Getting Started

I thought I knew all summer what we were going to do for homeschool this fall. So, I didn't worry about it too much when everyone else was scurrying around making a plan. But, as luck (and newness to homeschool) would have it, my best laid plan didn't go so well.

I found a book at half price books called Learn at home. This is the book that we used this summer, but we didn't get very far. I discovered that she should be studying post Civil War United States this year (according to this curriculum) The problem is that she has only ever studied up to the 13 colonies, several times. None of her school work has ever taken her into the Revolutionary war...so scratch that. I did find a history book series called The History of the United States. I got it from the library and we read some of it over the summer, but I really need to purchase it.

After floundering for a couple weeks, I decided on a more formal plan. I ordered Switched on Schoolhouse so Maggie can do much of her work independently on the computer, which she loves. I have the Bible, History and Language Arts curriculm from there. I also ordered 2 science teacher's manuals from Songlight. We are catching up her literature, which has been sorely neglected (no one ever made her read the Little House series) and I'm choosing vocab words from those books and testing her weekly. I have sets of spelling words from my Learn at home book. I still need to find a way to get her spelling better b/c it's her weakest area. Math is going to be the Math U See workbook series, which she loves from Flint. She understands how the math is laid out and really enjoys working the problems in the book.

So far, so good. We're off to a start.

Our weekly schedule looks like this so far:
Monday, all the subjects and assign work for her to do with her dad
Tuesday she is with her dad and will be working on projects with him.
Wednesday she goes to a riding apprentice program from 1:30-5:30, after which she is home and she and Peter will do math.
Thursdays we hit all the subjects again, grade papers from the earlier days in the week.
Friday, catch up on anything we left out

If necessary, we also do school work on Saturdays and Sundays. She probably will have to some to stay on track since I'm sure her dad will be doing more project type learning than actual book work. Last week they worked on teaching navigation and and she learned about longitude and latitude.

She has some volunteer opportunities during the week as well, going with me to the nursing home as well as seeing one client who enjoys Maggie's company.

We did look at a 2 day per week school, but it didn't pan out for us at this time. I just didn't have the money.

Today I have to go see a client in the morning (getting ready to leave shortly) and Maggie will be doing math and reading another chapter in Little House in the Big Woods as well as studying vocabulary while I'm gone. She has a vocab and spelling test when I get home and we'll do some catch up history when I get back.