Mainly pics tonight as we ease back into our usual homeschooling and family life blog. Those of you who have stuck around—I think you for your patience. Now, on with the show! Instead of being dinosaurs for the umpteenth time, this year the boys were struck by an 11th hour inspiration: Willy Wonka and Charlie, [...]
This morning Jim and the boys headed to their weekly Wildwood Running Club, for kids ages 6-12 and their parents. Daegan did this program a couple years ago as well—and the boys are having such fun with it. When I returned from a quick grocery shop, the club was heading back from an activity where [...]
Over the past few days the boys have been playing with the free Mad Libs app we found and downloaded on their iPad. I’m assuming most of you know how Mad Libs work—basically, they are a series of stories with blanks you fill in, often with riotous results. You begin by typing in answers to [...]
In addition to All About Spelling, which I reviewed in depth here, Gareth has become a fluent reader over the past several months through daily levelled reading—something that, in all honesty, I am not a fan of and never expected to use with my own children. But for this child, it was exactly what he [...]
Last year my friend Valerie told me about a new spelling program, All About Spelling (hereafter AAS) that she had used with her daughter—and which her daughter felt was key part of learning to read. Valerie brought it over one day, and I had a long look, and decided to order it for Gareth to [...]
Yesterday evening was spent like this: That’s Gareth in the hospital bed distracting himself by watching TV, while big brother amuses himself with various games on the iPad. Gareth’s asthma was bad enough we finally took him in to the Children’s Hospital, something in retrospect we should have done before now. Apparently 6-year-olds can be [...]
The other day Gareth came up with an experiment he wanted to try, involving tearing paper. He gave each of us a sheet of paper, and asked us to fold it up as many times as possible. Gareth then put his folded sheet into a large bowl of water, let it soak for a minute, [...]
Today the boys had their final performance from their homeschool drama class that they had been doing at Evergreen Theatre. The play was about Whooping Cranes, the challenges they face, and what we can do to help them survive. I’ll have a video link to the performance up later, but for now here are pictures [...]
In my recent blitz of “learning to read” materials at the library, I stumbled across a DVD series that Gareth and I have been working through and enjoying. It’s called Webster’s You Can Read! Phonics Video Tutor, and comes in two levels: Level One for ages 4-6, and Level Two for ages 5-7. (It actually [...]
I recently blitzed our local library for phonics and learning-to-read books, putting some 50-odd titles on hold. Many of them were "How to teach your child to read” type books, and sadly, I have found most unhelpful—games-based or video-based learning seems to work better here. But I also put on hold a number of “first [...]