A Letter to the Principal

Dear Mr. Principal,
TJ is a student living in my dorm. He has a brilliant mind, yet is wasting it. His room was left a mess -against regulatory policy- and when he failed to clean it, those excess things were removed. He has since gone into the storage department & removed the items he desired.
Also, as per regulations, he has certain set "chores" to do each morning. Today is Thursday, & it has come to my attention that the said work was left undone. Indeed, the scanty work he performed this AM was not complete.
Please advise me on how to proceed with this young man. I perceive him to have an underlying brilliance that I do not wish to be tainted with such tarnish.
If you would like to schedule a telephone interview with the student, please advise me of a good time.
Thank you, the staff.

Spelling Course

In class today, I introduced the SWR Learning Log to the girls. As we went along, I explained that we would be writing example words that include the letter making the different sounds. This page was a learning experience for me!

For the letter A, its sounds are /a/, /A/, /ah/. The example words were /a/: am; /A/: apron; /ah/ wasp.. MissB spelled that last one W-O-S-P.

When we got to Y as a vowel, I again explained that we would be using Y to say it's vowel sounds, /i/, /I/. The first word was gym, /j-i-m/, using a G for the /j/ sound. They both wrote G-I-M.. And Y also says /I/, as in cry, /k-r-I/. Guess what? I want to cri, too.

Deep breath, they're just learning & will sort it out as they learn the rules.

Candle Experiment

A simple experiment: light a candle, cover it with glass and time how long it lasts.

Now, uncover, place a plant next to the candle, relight the candle, cover with glass, and time the life of the flame.

Which one lasted longer?
Why?

The children had lots of fun with this. They decided to try doubling the number of candles, too.

Library Issues

I'm terrible about going to the library. At our local library, there are computers with baby games central to the children's section. Surrounding that are "early readers" that seem to have more about magic and witchcraft than much else. It's certainly hard to find history books that don't have children using magic to be in history instead of stories about people (including children) of those times.

I'm leaning more & more to library trips on piano lesson days, but that means the older children, who really need to learn to use the library, would miss out. I'd use that 2 hours to walk to that library, check out the books & walk back.

The other option, which will be more difficult for me, would be to go to the different branches myself and pick one I find the books more accessible, then start taking the children. Maybe on bikes.

This is certainly a learning curve for me.

Spelling Program

I'm starting to be excited for the next school year. Ben has been involved in the preparations of the schoolroom and seems somewhat interested in what the children will be learning. Praise the Lord! He and I are reading through the MoTH book together and aim to prepare a schedule soon.

We've agreed on the History program (Veritas Press) and both like Shurley English Grammar. I'm not so great at *doing* science yet, but love the Apologia texts. I like Saxon math, if there's something more thorough, but a repetitive mind like mine can do, let me know. I liked Math U See until I figured out they never get to the easier way to multiply.. Just drove me crazy! I'd fight TJ because he'd do as the video showed & couldn't seem to get what I was showing him. Some of the other ones, I just don't get, like abacus. Sure, they make sense, I can figure them out, but they don't seem to be the simplest, most logical -boring :) -day in, day out Math.

Anyway, we have several beginning readers in the house. I'd like to teach them to read well. Personally, I subscribe to the Charlotte Mason philosophy and do not want the dumbed-down children's books in my home (they can read those all they want at the library). I prefer to surround them with great works, great language. If one is taught to read well, straight away, then the Bible makes the perfect beginning reader.

We started somewhat in this manner with MissA, using Phonics Pathway, but we focused on the reading, not writing & never finished the text. She can read well, but her spelling is atrocious. TJ was taught with more of a speller/reader idea, but I wasn't fully involved with that. My good friend, Brenda, introduced me this week to Spelling to Write and Read (SWR). This program goes that next step by introducing the phonemes & preparing more spelling capacity pre-reading.

As much as I'm hoping to look more into this program, I'm going to focus on getting my schedule together and start the curricula we already have & know we want to use.

Modules

I've been working away at the Study Group modules. With M & H out of state, catching babies, it's down to just K, D & I who attend our Study Group. My children were in VBS this last week, and the nursery gals even took the Little Guy, so M, Tu, Th, F, I was able to sit in the cafe and study! (Wed, the big 2 had piano lessons)

Saturdays, Ben takes the children -to see a movie today!- and I get to study more! I've got 3 modules almost done in just a week!!

My computer wasn't working the other day (I'm posting from my phone), and I'd Really like to type them up & send them in, so I'm hoping it just needed time off.. Ben said it started up fine today, but staying on once it was warmed up was the issue this week.