Been a While

The end of the academic year is looming, along with the portfolio review we must endure (either that or do standardized testing; I hope I chose the lesser of two evils).

I've been trying to talk J into less structure, but I'm always me with increased structure from him when I do. When I first suggested we put away all of our plans and textbooks, etc, he immediately went and drew up a weekly schedule and brought it to me. Now it's taped up in his "study room". It looks like this:

Monday:
History in the morning
Math after lunch
Science before dinner

Tuesday:
Grammar in the morning
Music after lunch
Latin before dinner
Wednesday:
Same as Monday

Thursday:
Spelling and Writing in the morning
Art after lunch
Latin before dinner

Friday:
Same as Monday and Wednesday

So that's what we've been doing, and he seems to really like it this way. He was balking at the majority of what I was introducing, which was why I suggested we can it all, but since he drew up the schedule, things have smoothed over. I guess he just wanted it to be on his own terms.

We're lagging behind in history, but in a good way. We've been spending lots more time than we "should" doing lots of projects and reading lots of supplemental materials from the library. We've just finished up the Persians and are going quickly through the Greeks. J loves Greek myths and has been reading them since for the past few years.

We've changed from Saxon to Singapore math, and J is very pleased. He zooms through the lessons and isn't tortured by the repetition and length of lessons we experienced with Saxon. I think Saxon might work really well for B. He started working on the K level Saxon book in the fall and still really enjoys it.

For spelling we're still just working on words that he misspells in everyday usage. He'll occasionally pick up one of the Spelling Workout books and plow through a lesson for fun.

We've started 2nd grade grammar and he's enjoying that. I've started using the books he's reading (currently, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), pulling out sentences for dictation. He has a great grasp of punctuation. It seems as though he's just absorbed it from the constant reading he does. He was writing something like "the birds' legs" and put the apostrophe in the right place even though we've never talked about that and I know it hasn't come up in the grammar lessons we've been doing. I asked him why he put it there and he understood the rule perfectly. It shouldn't, but it still amazes me what they're learning when I'm not paying attention. You'd think I'd be used to it by now.

We're also finishing up the skeletal system. J had me trace his body on butcher paper and is filling in the bones and labeling them. I'll post a picture after I finish this entry. We've been renting DVDs from Netflix to supplement our studies and they have some great ones on the human body. We've also found some great ones at the library. Next we're on to the muscular system.

We do formal art lessons once a week and they've been a big hit with all of the boys. I'll post photos of J's recent pieces shortly.

J is also continuing with Music Ace on the computer, and his brother is getting a child-sized guitar for his birthday in May, so Papa will be giving them lessons this Summer. We're attending a Tom Chapin concert in Maryland on the 16th of this month, and that promises to be loads of fun. I think I'm more excited about it than the boys are, if that's humanly possible. I have a crush on Tom Chapin and I'm not ashamed to admit it.