February Update

I realized today that Jonathan is almost finished with his 3rd grade spelling. We've gone ahead on the spelling lists, and he's only missed one word, so far, out of the three grade-level books he's gone though. Beginning. Those two "n"s really threw him for a loop. He ended up putting "n"s everywhere. It's funny, because it seems like such a simple word, compared to the ones he spells correctly.

We're studying Venus this week in our astronomy, and we're studying the black death in history. He's fascinated with both. He really likes the grizzly stuff, even as it repulses him. He hates human suffering (any suffering, really), but I think this section of history holds a strange fascination for him. It is really interesting, if you can get past the immensity of a thing like plague.

We're chugging along in math, and now that we've begun multiplication, he's really enjoying himself. He multiplies much faster than he adds and subtracts, and he loves being able to finish the work so quickly. We're still doing it three days per week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and then we practice cursive handwriting on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He's doing well with his cursive, and seems to be getting the hang of it fairly well.

He's doing well in grammar, as well. We've been writing letters to friends and family and he hasn't had any problems remembering what goes where on the envelopes or in the letters themselves. He likes sending out the letters and getting responses. He loves to write, and has written lots of books in the last few weeks. He's also writing on his blog a bit more often. He really enjoys the writing prompts from Doing the Days and Writing Down the Days, and I'm so glad we found those books. If we come across one that he doens't seem interested in, we just skip it (or I change it enough to pique his interest) and pick up again the next day.

He's taken up with Latin again, sporadically, and has relearned some of the vocabulary that dropped away when his interest waned. Since he's taken up Latin, again, we've been doing less music an art, though, and I don't know why that is. I think, like with all things, there's an ebb and flow to these things, so I just try to ride along with him.

Outside of the topics we study formally, he's been doing alot of reading related to his current obsession: Bionicles. He plows through the 100+ page chapter books on a daily basis, and loves those stories. He's also doing alot of reading on things that come up in our daily life. Wikipedia.com has become a favorite resource for him. I also check out lots of books and videos about upcoming holidays and occasions, and all of the boys seem to really enjoy those.

Benjamen and I are doing some sort of formal learning session every day, usually alternating a reading lesson with a math meeting. I think he enjoys the math more than the reading, but he continues to ask for both, so that's what we do. He's always the first one up in the morning, so that's become our special time together. He eats his breakfast while I prepare our lesson, and then we usually have a half hour or so before Nicholas comes stumbling out to join us.

Nicholas, too, is always willing to help Jonathan and Benjamen with their lessons. I think he's picking up quite a bit. I heard him counting by tens while playing with his Playmobil the other day.

Foil Heart Cupcake

Foil Heart Cupcake
Originally uploaded by jjfbaltzell.

We love Presidents' Day! Or something. We didn't make these back on Valentine's Day, so I made them for our Presidents' Day celebration. We're watching movies about the presidents, reading the D'Aulaire books about Lincoln and Washington, and talking (and writing) about how we would rule if we were president. Happy Presidents' Day!