Halftime Review

Bring out the bands to entertain the crowds, and give the players time to catch their breath and review.

Sunshine:

Sunshine is coming along very well in reading. We're currently using the OPGTR which Brighteyes just finished. She's working on words with consonant blends. She's much more patient with these lessons than Brighteyes was. Brighteyes would (will) go over something twice, then scream if she didn't (doesn't) get it right by the second try. Sunshine will go over the same word five or six times if need be to get it right. Consequently she's learning these lessons faster. She is also becoming much more talkative and more willing to state her own preference instead of waiting to get what her sister gets. While she still throws tantrums, their frequency has diminished. She has also become more demonstrative and affectionate.

I'm not sure what to do about Sunshine's writing and drawing though. She doesn't command a pencil well. I started reading Drawing With Children to see if that will give me any good ideas. If I can help her improve her drawing, her handwriting should follow.

At least, I'm trying to read Drawing With Children. It's treading really close to some old wounds about how badly art was taught to me. I keep having to put it down and run around fuming, "Where was this when I needed it?"

Brighteyes:

Brighteyes has been cranky lately. She doesn't want to do what she's told, and if something doesn't go her way she often throws a temper tantrum. I'm told it's a 6yo trait. I hope it leaves soon.

Then again, by the time I was 6yo I already had symptoms of SADS. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to start giving her cod liver oil gelcaps. She hasn't needed any vitamins or supplements so far (we eat a lot of fresh produce), but now might be the time to start. I tried giving the girls a gelcap last night. Brighteyes got it down after a few tries, but Sunshine couldn't handle it.

Brighteyes finished OPGTR and Singapore 1A right before Christmas. She's looking forward to starting Minimus. She's not looking forward to Singapore 1B. They're working on adding numbers in the 20-40 range, and that intimidates her. There's a 1 - 100 chart over her bed, so we'll be doing math in her room for the next few days until it stops being scary.

I haven't decided if I'm going to try to begin teaching Sunshine Latin now as well. I think she could handle the verbal work at her age, but only if she's interested and she has only shown mild interest. We'll see if she wants to be included once we start.

Foreign languages scare me. I was never introduced to them properly, and I don't have the kind of mind that can learn them well the way they were taught in high school and college. Hopefully, by starting early and going slow I can avoid the girls running into my problems.

Previously Brighteyes has insisted that we do the same work every day. Small children are procedural, and she likes her procedure. She fusses at me because we don't do both science and history every day, even though she's too little to handle both. But this time I worked up a schedule that has us doing alternative lessons on Friday and she was intrigued by it. I put all the things that don't normally fit, for one reason or another, on that day.

Monday - Thursday

Math
Latin
Handwriting Sheet
Jumpstart
Literature
Grammar
Spelling
History or Science

Friday

Math
McGuffey Reader
Draw, Write, Now
Writing Letters
Literature
Madlibs
Spelling
History Project

We'll see if that livens things up a bit.