Andrew's Progress

January 2012

2012-01-05T19:03:00.000-08:00

Here's what Andrew is up to as he enters the 2nd half of 1st grade:

Math~Still plugging away at Saxon and supplementing with SmartTutor.
Reading~Just started some books from Sonlight that a friend lent me that he is blazing through.
Phonics~Explode the Code 2 1/2, which he just started. He pretty much does this independently.
Handwriting~I've been giving him a Bible verse to copy every day. We were doing Handwriting Without Tears, but it's so boring! I may go back to it eventually if he needs it, but right now I find more value in him writing out Bible verses or journal entries.
Spelling~Spelling Workout: Level A. He seems to enjoy this.

We took a practice test and he got them all right so we can skip the test tomorrow.

I plan on starting the American Revolution this month and possibly a unit on the eye since Joel is getting glasses. We also read scads of books each day, and more and more I catch Andrew reading to himself. I think he would really like to go to school to play with his friends and cousins, not for any education. We are trying to work on finding him friends he can play with. He told me the other day that he should go to school because he wanted to learn about Vikings and I didn't know anything about them! I guess we will have to remedy that.

A+ Spelling test!

2011-11-22T05:43:00.001-08:00

Andrew is using Spelling Workout this year. Each lesson is just a few short pages and we really don't spend a whole lot of time on it, but he's getting good writing, phonics and reading practice, plus we take a traditional spelling test at the end of the week.

memory

2011-11-13T16:20:00.001-08:00

Is it will of God that you should be saved?
Yes.

Why so?
Because God is love and will have all men to be saved.

How has God revealed his Lord to you?
By giving his only begotten son our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Andrew's Math lesson

2011-11-12T10:14:00.001-08:00

Straight from from Ray's Arithmetic. Note the plutification problems sprinkled in with the addition and subtraction.

2011-10-22T08:03:00.000-07:00

my name is andrew.

Plutification

2011-10-01T12:46:00.000-07:00

Today Andrew learned how to do ~~plutification~~ multiplication. We used lego blocks. The first number is the number of dots on the block; the second number is the number of blocks. He picked it up really quick. Good boy.

andrew catechism

2011-09-21T17:06:00.000-07:00

What then should be your chief concern in this life?
To do the will of God and to save my soul.

Andrew posting his catechism memory

2011-09-17T13:09:00.000-07:00

1. Who made you?
Almighty God our heavenly Father.

2. Who redeemed you?
Our Lord Jesus Christ.

3. Who sanctifies you?
The Holy Spirit.

Andrew blog post

2011-09-15T17:14:00.001-07:00

is it the will of God that you should be saved?
Yes.

3.24.11

2011-09-10T06:35:00.000-07:00

Math test today. He did very well. He wrote his 2 backwards and wrote 8+8=19

hello

2011-09-10T06:31:00.000-07:00

hi my name is andrew

Sample

2011-08-18T18:39:00.000-07:00

Here's a sample of Andrew's work today. School starts full force on Mon.

This was copy work but we are going to work up to Andrew doing his journal entries on his own with little to no help from mom.

3.23.11

2011-03-24T10:01:00.000-07:00

Finished Lesson 49 in math.

Did two more pages of EC.

2 sick kids and teething baby. :-)

3.22.11

2011-03-22T15:17:00.001-07:00

Between vacation and sickness, its been awhile. But we did lots of school today. :-)

Here's some of what we did today:
The first page of Lesson 48 in our Saxon Math workbook. Andrew is learning how to count by twos and even and odd numbers. As you can see, handwriting still needs work. :-)

Andrew started Lesson 2 in Explode the Code 1 1/2. He is doing very well sounding out words. I am glad I decided to do 1 1/2 instead of skipping to 2. This book is a bit more difficult than 1 and good practice for him.

I copied a page out of the McGuffey Reader and had Andrew circle the buzz words. These are words that have the buzz 's' sound like in 'as,' 'his,' etc.

We also did HWT practicing the number 9 since I realized he always writes this letter backwards. I'm not sure what to do with handwriting since it is nearly impossible to get him to sit still without threats, etc.

I got a reading comprehension workbook out of the library and he read a short 8 sentence story and then had to answer 3 questions about the story. This is really the first work we've done with reading comprehension and he did very well.

3.3.11

2011-03-03T09:29:00.000-08:00

Math~Lesson 46, counting by twos, and addition math sheet (adding one to a number). Phonics~Waiting for Explode the Code 1 1/2 to arrive so we did this sheet.

Reading~McGuffey Lessons 27 and 28 (He is doing so well! He is really sounding out words better now.)

Bible~Elijah and the widow

Handwriting ~ 'M'

3.2.11

2011-03-02T12:45:00.000-08:00

We read 2 lessons from McGuffey. Yup, that's all we did. :-) Maybe he'll do some tux math later.

3.1.11

2011-03-01T12:52:00.001-08:00

Bible~David and Mephibosheth, went over Bible memory for Sunday school

Reading~McGuffey Reader, Lesson 24-he only needed help with one word, 'boy'

Phonics~Explode the Code end of book test-not real well, got 5 out of 20 wrong (all in the verbal portion). Part of his problem is he still mixes up his b's and d's. I think I will order book 1 1/2 before we do book 2. I think I will also work on dictating words for him to spell and recognize.

Math~Doubles sheet. Did very well. Wrote 7+7=14 at first and then the next two times wrote that it was 4. He's not real good at concentrating on a task he doesn't want to do.

2.28.11

2011-02-28T10:46:00.000-08:00

Phonics~Finished Book 1 today, test is tomorrow
Reading~McGuffey Reader-read lessons 22 and 23 (he is doing really well!), did Click n Kids on the computer (learning to spell and read words with the silent 'e' at the end)
Math~Finished up L.46 today (addition story problem, addition problems)
Handwriting~Wrote the letter 'N' today

Update

2011-02-26T10:36:00.000-08:00

We have been schooling, just not updating. :-)

Andrew is almost halfway through the 1st grade Saxon math. Here's a picture of his most recent test:

The penmanship leaves something to be desired, but he does seem to grasp the material.

He has finished his first Explode the Code book. Book 2 has been ordered from Amazon. I may save it and order book 1 1/2. I have to check out book 2 to see what its like.

He is continuing to read, its very hard to get him motivated. He's not real willing to do school so some days its a struggle to get him moving. Have to find some more interesting things to do with him. He will let me read to him all day long but he's not real interested in doing it himself.

12.7.10

2010-12-07T17:21:00.000-08:00

Math~We are now on lesson 25 in our Saxon math, a quarter of the way through the 1st grade curriculum. Andrew is doing very well as he is now learning addition. He seems to enjoy math.
Phonics~We are working our way through Explode the Code 1. I love this program! It teaches phonics, spelling, and some penmanship practice all in one book.
Reading~Andrew is still attending his reading class. He has 4 more classes and then we will be working on our own. I haven't thought about what I'm going to do next, probably just find a variety of books and practice reading with him every day. He is getting much better at sounding words out, but he still tends to guess what the word is, even after he has sounded it out correctly. Chris has also been reading in the McGuffey reader with him.
Bible~Still working our way through the Bible stories. We are now learning about David. He is also learning verses and questions each week for Sunday school. He is singing "O Little Town of Bethlehem" in the church Christmas program.
Writing~uh, what's that?? Need to find some systematic approach because his handwriting ain't gettin' any better!

2010-11-27T12:42:00.000-08:00

hello

2010-11-27T12:36:00.000-08:00

hi...my name is Andrew.

November 22, 2010

2010-11-23T09:21:00.000-08:00

Andrew is now starting to learn addition in his Saxon math. We are currently on lesson 21 and have been counting and adding apple seeds today. He also continues to work on ordinal names such as first, second, third, last, etc.

We are almost through his reading class at the Homeschool building. I think he has a better grip on the letter sounds and how to sound things out, his biggest problem is concentration. Its easy to become frustrated with him when he's reading because I KNOW he knows what the letter sounds are, but he is in a rush and says the sounds wrong. So we keep working.

He started the phonics program Explode the Code today. I like how it goes through all the letters in a systematic way. I may also get Handwriting Without Tears because that is definitely an area he needs practice in!

November 13, 2010

2010-11-13T19:31:00.000-08:00

Um, oops. Haven't been updating. But we have been schooling. :-)

Andrew is on Lesson 18 in his Saxon math book. Next week we are diving into the beginning of addition. He is currently counting a lot better than he was a month ago. Still have a bit to go there but I am happy with his progress. He's also learning about angles in shapes and how to draw pictures for story problems.

He is still attending his reading class. He has now relearned all he vowel sounds as well as many consonants and we are working on differentiating between different vowel sounds in words. I read him words and he tells me what vowel sound he hears. Some days I really think he's getting it while others I realize we still need to practice! :-)

Will try to post more details about our lessons next week.

October 11, 2010

2010-10-11T11:38:00.000-07:00

We have been doing school, I promise! :-)

Bible~story of Isaac and Rebekah
Math~Lesson 11 in Saxon (learning ordinal names: first, second, third, last. Also practiced writing number 10.)
Reading~Practiced 'l' sound, practiced recognizing 'i' and 'a' in words.
Writing~Handwriting, wrote words: blue, yellow, read

October 4, 2010

2010-10-05T05:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I started a new thing with Andrew. I wrote each subject that we hoped to cover on a 3 x 5 card and then I cut out a blue circle that he can move to the different index cards as we finish subjects. I think it helped him stay on track a bit better because school went very smoothly yesterday. The 4 subjects we do everyday are Bible (which includes a story, singing, and Bible memory), Math, Reading, and Writing.

Bible~Ishmael and Isaac, sang psalters 7 and 83, started learning his Sunday school memory.

Math~1st test of the year! This includes an oral and written portion. For the oral portion, he had to count and he was only able to get to 12 without making a mistake. I know he can go farther to about 20 usually, but yesterday he didn't, so we will definitely need to work on counting. He aced the written portion of the test. So far I am loving the Saxon curriculum.

Reading~Played one of our reading games. I gave him a bunch of words on slips of paper with the 'a' sound or the 'i' sound in the word. He then had to place them in the correct column, a or i. He did all this and then we selected some cards to sound out and read. He is doing a bit better, but I still need to remind him to look at each letter and say the sounds.

Writing~I found a handwriting worksheet on the internet and he practiced some writing. I need to look for some more comprehensive worksheets.

Reading Class

2010-09-17T05:39:00.001-07:00

Andrew started his reading class at the homeschool building yesterday. He learned the sound 'a' (which he already knows, but hopefully this is good reinforcment). We are going to go once a week for 14 weeks. I hope the class speeds up a little, or he might get a little bored. But the teacher does lots of hands-on things to reinforce the sound so he really enjoyed it. There are only 4 little boys in the class, along with their moms and a couple little sisters. The teacher gave them each a little bag to carry their stuff in each week and he is really excited about that, plus he liked having one-on-one time with mommy. :-)

Kindergarten, Day 6

2010-09-15T11:44:00.000-07:00

Finished our math lesson from yesterday and started Lesson 5. We also practiced some skills from here.

McGuffey~Read lessons 12 and 13

Bible~Finished the story of Noah.

Kindergarten, Day 5

2010-09-14T12:35:00.001-07:00

Bible~sang Ps. 7 and read the story of Noah's ark

Math~Lesson 4 in Saxon, practiced writing, 1, 4, and 5. Made towers 1-9. Plus did our regular stuff.

Kindergarten, Day 4

2010-09-13T12:21:00.000-07:00

Today we did Lesson 3 in our Saxon Math book. Andrew practiced writing 1, 4, and 5, as well as counting. We continued our weather graph and 100s chart.
We also read lessons 10 and 11 in our McGuffey reader. Tomorrow we hope to practice some writing.
We are learning Psalter 7, all three verses.

Kindergarten, Day 3

2010-09-02T11:33:00.000-07:00

Math
Every day in math we start with the same things: Check the weather and fill in a square on our weather graph, Find the date on the calendar and write it down on a slip of paper, fill in the next shape on our calendar pattern, and count to 30 on our 100s chart. Today Andrew also did his first Saxon math sheet. He built towers with his linking cubes and colored towers in on his sheet. He loved it!

Reading
We read Lesson 8 and 9 in our McGuffey Pictoral Eclectic Primer. In two weeks he starts a reading class at the Home School Building.

Bible
We talked about Cain and Abel. I am skimming through the first stories of the Bible since he is very familiar with them.

I hope to do some school on Monday (Labor Day) and then we are taking the week off while we go camping. Picking it up full force the next week! Oh, and we take Fridays off to do special trips or let mommy run some errands.

Kindergarten, Day 2

2010-08-31T12:45:00.000-07:00

Today we did some more in our Saxon math book. Andrew is learning how to write the date and how calendars work. We are waiting for his workbook and cubes to arrive so we can do some other things. I plan to do about 6 lessons a week in order to get through the book by June. This should be pretty doable since the lessons seem pretty short. But we will slow down if need be.
We also read out of our McGuffey reader. In a couple of weeks we will start a reading class at the home school building. This program breaks words down into decodable chunks with hands on activities. We will see how it goes. It is only for 14 weeks.
I used to think I would run my home school just like a normal school, but then I thought, Why? One of the reasons we are home schooling is so we can do things differently. I'm still formulating how I'm going to do it, but I think I'd like to try the Charlotte Mason approach. In the mornings, we will always have Bible, Psalter singing, math, and reading. But all the other subjects will be incorporated by exploring things Andrew is interested in. I'm sure this will be a learning process as we go. But right now, we are just trying to get a routine down, not so easy with 3 younger brothers running around! :-)

Andrew's first day of kindergarten

2010-08-30T07:52:00.000-07:00

Today we were done with school by 9:45!

We had a Bible story, sang some Psalters, did Lesson 1 in our Saxon math book, practiced writing, and read out of our McGuffey reader.

Go, Dog. Go!

2010-05-18T09:07:00.000-07:00

We read Go, Dog. Go! by P.D. Eastman today.

More Writing from Andrew

2010-05-08T10:50:00.001-07:00

Andrew with his writing sample.

He had help with his spelling. He wanted a sign to post in his room.

Andrew's Writing

2010-04-28T14:54:00.001-07:00

Here is Andrew's first documented spontaneous writing sample. He has written other things on his own, but this is the first time I've seen him try to write a sentence. He did this without prompting randomly after dinner the other night. For those of you who can't tell what it says, he wrote, "Andrew is a cat." He also included an illustration. :-) Obviously, he doesn't know all the dynamics of a sentence, but he did a pretty good job by himself.

The Small Pig

2010-04-22T06:53:00.000-07:00

Today Andrew picked up this book and started reading it. He is doing so well! He read about half of it (30 pages) with some help from me and then I finished it for him. I am amazed at some of the words he knows! Of course, it helped that he was quite familiar with the story to start with. :-)

An Update

2010-04-19T09:18:00.000-07:00

So, we have been homeschooling, just not updating!

Andrew is continuing to practice his reading. He is up to lesson 35 on Click n' kids. He read Just a Little Sick by Mercer Mayer today. This is a beginner reading book I got out of the library. I've been choosing a few different beginner books each time we go to the library so he has a little variety in his reading and I have books that are more at his reading level. He did a great job this morning! Some words in the book that he had trouble with: school, bear, temperature, fever, play, anymore, anyway, tomorrow, being. But I was really surprised with some of the words he already knows. We will keep practicing.

He also has slowly been working on addition. I give him addition sheets and a pile of pennies and he counts them out to find the total. He can now count to 20 with only a little help. Numbers seems to be the hardest thing for him right now.

We practice writing almost every day and he is doing so much better. His writing is much more legible now. He still has trouble forming some letters, but is doing better. The 'w' in his name gives him fits!

2.15.10

2010-02-16T05:01:00.000-08:00

Today Andrew did a few preschool sheets: patterns, matching baby animals to their mothers, tracing lines, and counting. After dinner, he picked up a little book I had put together, but we had not read yet, and sat down and read the whole thing! He was so proud of himself. He says its his favorite book. :-)

2.4.10

2010-02-04T13:02:00.000-08:00

Today Andrew did lesson one in McGuffey's Pictorial Eclectic Primer. He did fairly well, but I think the time we spent on the lesson was a little long for him. He was laying upside down on the couch by the time we got done. :-) He also did two phonics pages (basically review), practiced writing the numbers 4, 5, 6, and 7, and wrote "The cat is in the hat" twice.

2.2.10

2010-02-02T06:58:00.000-08:00

We already finished school today. Yay!
Today Andrew practiced writing some sight words: to, the, is, of. The handwriting definitely needs some work, but I realize his fine motor skills are still developing. He also practiced writing 1, 2, 3, and 4 in his Kumon workbook. Kumon does an excellent job of showing them how to write numbers. I may also get the book on letters eventually. I will definitely use it for Noah. We tried to do a phonics sheet identifying the short 'u' sound, but I think it was too advanced for him. I found a program online that quizzes you on the middle sounds of words so we will probably do that later. We also sang a few psalters and practiced his memory.
I showed Noah the letters A, B, and C. I also tried counting with him and I think he can count to five. Yay!

2.1.2010

2010-02-01T14:56:00.000-08:00

Today Andrew reread some of his little books (which we haven't done in over a week!) and I was pleasantly surprised at how much he could read. I have another one we will start tomorrow. He also practiced some writing, wrote some numbers, did a page of phonics and did Click n kids. He is currently on lesson 22 of Click n kids. I noticed he is having trouble distinguishing the middle sound of 3 letter words so we will work on that. His handwriting is atrocious, but I realize he is a five year old boys so we will just have to practice, practice, practice! We also did some addition/subtraction using our fingers instead of pennies. I noticed he didn't always have to count my fingers, he could recognize how many are left just by glancing at my hand. When I worked with 1st graders, I know some of them still had to count each finger and weren't able to just recognize with a glance so it seems he is on the right track. He also seems to understand the concept of zero. He knows that zero is nothing, but he doesn't know immediately that subtracting zero from any number always results in the number. That will come with practice.
Yesterday I read him the story of Samson and how Samson killed a bunch of Philistines by breaking the pillars of the building down and Andrew said, "But Samson didn't die."
I said, "Yeah, Samson died too."
Andrew looked at me in horror and Chris says, "You had to tell him that?! I remember how I felt when I found out Samson died!"

math...wow!

2010-01-25T18:21:00.001-08:00

Andrew surprised me tonight. I gave him a bunch of pennies with a math worksheet consisting of single digit addition. He was able to do most of it with very little prompting from me. I do believe this kid might be better at math than I.
I started yesterday by showing him how to take the top number and take that many pennies out. Then add to this stack of pennies the lower number.

Lesson plans-Jan. 25-29

2010-01-23T17:44:00.000-08:00

Mon, Jan 25
Bible-Isaac and Ishmael
Math-Kumon, pg 18-19
Phonics-Click N kids
Writing-Write sight words: of, the, is
Reading-Practice books

Tues, Jan 26
Bible- Review Sunday School Bible story
Math-Kumon pg. 20
Phonics: Click N kids
Reading: Practice books

Wed, Jan 27
No school planned

Thurs, Jan 28
Bible-Offering of Isaac
Math-Kumon pg. 21-23, practice adding
Phonics-Click n kids
Writing-Write "The dog is hot." Draw pic to go with sentence.
Reading-Practice books

Fri, Jan 29
Review Bible stories
Library outing

Daily: Sunday School Memory, Psalter 428 vs. 2 and 5

First math worksheet

2010-01-23T05:53:00.001-08:00

Here is Andrew's first math worksheet.

1.20.10

2010-01-20T19:10:00.000-08:00

Andrew read another book today: Fishing. This one was a bit more difficult, but I thought he did really well. We also finished our phonics workbook. I have another one that is a bit more advanced, but he also gets phonics on Click N Kids. We are still practicing writing numbers and letters. His writing is getting much clearer.

See Andrew go!

2010-01-19T15:27:00.000-08:00

In My Hat

2010-01-19T13:04:00.000-08:00

Andrew just read this book from Hubbard's Cupboard. He did fairly well the 2nd time around. His most difficult word was 'sat.' He kept saying 'sit.' He also had trouble with 'scat.' But definitely an awesome job for reading his first book! Now he is going to color the pictures. I think if we do some extra work with word families, it will help when he does Click n kids.

1.5.10

2010-01-05T13:43:00.000-08:00

Today Andrew drew the letter S and also learned about circles and squares. He is very interested in dinosaurs right now so we got a few books out of the library and he is starting to recognize different kinds of dinosaurs and identify them by name. Yesterday he told his cousin that he wanted to be a dr. who helped sick babies when he grows up. :-)

Moving along...

2010-01-04T14:32:00.000-08:00

Andrew is now five. He is a whiz at click-n-kids. Has no problem with the words. I think he might be learning alot of the words by sight, tho. Will have to watch that.

12.18.09

2009-12-18T12:55:00.000-08:00

Today Andrew did a few more pages in his beginning sounds book, started his Kumon counting book and did 4 pages, traced and wrote the letter R and r, and did a few pages in his preschool scholar book. He also did his Click n' Kids. Now they are starting to ask him to spell words, like 'the' and 'a.' Must be working on sight words.

Beginning Sounds

2009-12-15T08:00:00.000-08:00

Andrew is almost through his beginning sounds workbook. We hope to finish it this week. He will have done the whole book in less than a month. Then I hope to concentrate more on ending sounds. He is also starting to recognize different words he sees.

It's official

2009-12-05T11:30:00.000-08:00

I guess we can say Andrew is officially reading now. His click-n-kids is getting easier and easier. He is now easily able to discern what the first and last letter of a word is from hearing the sounds that are made. He reads words like rat, can, mat, ran, cot, dot, etc.

2009-11-24T14:32:00.000-08:00

Last week, I bought these:

The clicknkids is also proving to be a worthwhile purchase. Andrew is making steady progress. He can now analyze words by pronuoncing each sound to himself. Hence, when the man says "Mac" Andrew can pick out this word from a group of words by analyzing the individual sounds. For instance, he can distinguish "mat" from "mac". At any rate, we plow on.

Purchases

2009-11-07T18:09:00.000-08:00

This week we made some purchases. Got tired of just printing random stuff we found online. We bought:

We also purchased a subscription to ClicknRead. ($54)

Phonics

2009-11-05T14:34:00.000-08:00

I figured out today that one reason Andrew is having trouble learning to read is b/c he doesn't know what the first and second letter of a word are. I would ask him what sound the first letter made, and he didn't understand what I was talking about. So today, I gave him a list of words and he told me the first letter, second letter, etc. Hopefully, this is a breakthrough.

8.31.09

2009-08-31T17:53:00.000-07:00

It's been harder to get homeschooling in everyday than I thought. I think I'm going to have to slow down and stay home more. :-)
Here's what we did today:
Reviewed the story of creation and made a picture chart to break down the days.
Sang Ps 1 vs 1 and 4
Sounded out some lists of words.
Practiced writing numbers.

8.24.09

2009-08-24T10:56:00.000-07:00

Started Vreugidhil's Bible story book-6 days of creation. Will review that the rest of the week.
Sang: BIBLE, Zacheus, Ps140, 400, and 360
Wrote the letter Q
Did some preschool worksheets.
Sounded out some words.

still working on words

2009-06-16T17:14:00.000-07:00

Today, we continued our way through Word Mastery: A Course in Phonics for the First Three Grades by Florence Akin, published in 1913. You can find this resource here.

Andrew still can't read words. I figured out tonight that he doesn't know what I mean when I ask him what the first letter of a word is. He can recognize the letters but he doesn't know that the first letter of "cat" is "c". We will work on that.

We also sang psalter 400. Andrew got a penny for his efforts.

smarties

2009-02-18T15:17:00.000-08:00

Andrew counted smarties with Heather today. She also did some letter pointing and sound making. Andrew can't count worth beans. He has his father's math ability. great!

2.09.09

2009-02-10T16:20:00.000-08:00

Andrew and I played a new game he got called Alphabet Go Fish. He was very good at matching the letters, but is still learning the rules of the game. We also looked at his letter book and he is able to sound out three letter words, but he doesn't know how to put the sounds together and say the word.

2.5.09

2009-02-05T05:48:00.000-08:00

The last couple of days we have counted things. He counted four smarties on Tuesday and did it perfectly the first time. But subsequent times, he couldn't get past one. On Wednesday, we counted his Thomas card and he counted perfectly up to 5 the first time and then was not able to get past one after that.
I also noticed that he looks at things backwards. I put his Word Factory dvd on and the WB for Warner Brothers came on the screen and he said, "Look, Mommy, there's a B and a W!" Not worried about it, but just found it interesting.
It is interesting to see the connections he is starting to make. Yesterday we went out for lunch with my mom and sister and Andrew said he wanted to see Grandpa, but he needed a helicopter to see Grandpa. My dad is in Guatemala and we told Andrew he went on a plane to get there so Andrew knows he would have to fly somehow to see Grandpa.
Yesterday he was playing on the top of his bunkbed while I was cleaning his room and told me he was way up high and that he was God. So we had a talk about how God was perfect and there was no one else like him and he can't be God because he is not perfect. Not sure how much sunk in, but its a start.

1-28-09

2009-01-31T06:16:00.000-08:00

Andrew did the letter B page in his workbook. He counted smarties and sang Psalter 431. He is trying to learn Ps. 23. Heather is trying to learn Hebrew.

On Thursday he played with his Leapster. On Friday, he did nothing. Pity.

Leapster

2009-01-27T09:20:00.000-08:00

Andrew was playing his leapster. So I sneak downstairs to do my exercise. I finished my exercise and was coming back upstairs when Andrew comes running around the corner. He was devestated to find that I had done my exercise without him. He likes to watch the video that I watch while I do tae-bo. So I took him back upstairs, and we watched a few youtubes.

Fooray!!!

2009-01-26T10:56:00.000-08:00

Andrew is phonetically a little challenged. His joyful shout of triumph is a modification of Hooray. He yells, Fooray!!

songs and more

2009-01-23T19:50:00.001-08:00

Today, Andrew sung his songs while riding in the car with Heather. He also spent about 30 minutes on his leapster before he went to bed.

1.22.09

2009-01-22T10:46:00.000-08:00

Today we sang through Andrew's repertoire of songs and then we sang a few new songs. He also watched his Word Factory dvd and practiced writing letters on his leapster.

1.21.09

2009-01-21T06:55:00.000-08:00

Today we started a little booklet about letters. On each page we are learning how to write the letters and then the child is asked to color in the pictures that start with the correct letter. Today we learned how to write the letter A, but Andrew's fine motor skills need a little work!
We also sang Away in a Manger and Psalter 431.
We have to work on adjusting his attitude. He is unwilling to try things and sulked most of the time.

shapes, colors, numbers

2009-01-20T18:28:00.001-08:00

Today, I put a half dozen shapes on my computer screen. Some were yellow, some red, some green, some blue. Then I asked Andrew to tell me what color the triangles were, what color the circles, etc. Then I asked him to count the different shapes, colors, etc. He can now count to three fairly well. He does not realize that when he is counting, the last number is how many of something there are. Suppose there are three squares. He will count 1, 2, 3,.....then I will ask him, "So how many squares?" He will reply, "4!" Ugh. Any ideas?

1-19-09

2009-01-20T18:17:00.000-08:00

Nothing was done yesterday. Heather didn't feel good.

First science experiment

2009-01-15T19:34:00.000-08:00

Heather did a science experiment with Andrew tonight. At 10:30pm (don't ask me why) she boiled water, took it outside in 5 degree temperature, and threw the water in the air. Supposedly the water would evaporate before it hit the ground. It did work pretty well. Lot's of steam.

We also did some number action tonight. Lesson 1 in Ray's arithmetic and the first lesson of MEP were the materials used. He can now count to about 4 with some accuracy.

We also regularly give him words and ask him to tell us the first letter. He is pretty good at this.

1-14-09

2009-01-14T18:03:00.000-08:00

Nothing was done with Andrew today.

1-13-09

2009-01-13T16:29:00.000-08:00

Andrew played on Starfall today. We did some counting before bed. That all.

1-12-09

2009-01-12T12:19:00.000-08:00

Today we read Mig the Pig. This a book aimed at preschoolers and it has flip pages with a different word ending in -ig on every page. By the second time through, Andrew was able to "read" some of the ig words, but he doesn't understand how to put the sounds of the words together yet.
We also sang Psalter 140 together.
If we have time later today, we will work on numbers. Right now he is napping. 4 shots in one day wore him out!

Update: Did some number games before bed.

What this blog is

2009-01-09T16:15:00.000-08:00

This blog is a record of Andrew's educational progress. Everyday, Heather or I will post what he has done. So.....until he's 18 years old D.V., this blog will be in progress.