Man.  Wasn’t it just May or something??  :o)  Time is really flying for us and it just seems to keep picking up speed. :o)  I can’t believe we are completing our second month of 3rd grade already!  Everything is still going great.  Time4Learning has just been amazing.

I know I keep going on and on about this…I feel like a walking ad, but I am truly being sincere.  I can’t begin to express how this program has affected our lives.  Especially with the busy schedule and the weather changing and the holidays coming up.  Example…we went on a cub scout camping trip this past weekend.  We had a great time but it was VERY cold at night.  Naturally most of us got sick. (feel better Tracy and family!!)  Me and my 3 year old are both sick, but Bailey is fine.  So the past two mornings he has just gotten up and logged on and started school.  I’m still here for him if he needs me, but he is plugging through and I’m able to stay curled up in my chair with a kleenex attached to my nose. :o)  I remember the last time I was sick and his curriculum was different.  We were both miserable because I was sick but had to sit right there with the teacher’s manual.

He has really enjoyed the program this year, it’s so different than last year.  He loves the science and social studies, just loves them!  And he loves to tell us about them, which my husband and I both enjoy.  We are struggling a little with the math.  Not the lessons, but the resources sheets.  He conveniently “forgets” to do them during the lessons and then we have to spend a good portion of the afternoon going back and doing them, but we are working on that with him.

We are looking forward to the holidays.  I’m one of those holiday freaks, where my official start to the holiday season is November 1st, haha. :o)  The last 2 years we always took very long breaks from school during the holidays because everything was so chaotic, but this year we are planning to keep our schedule as normal as possible.  Yay Time4Learning! :o)

Well the stomach bug has been visiting my house this week…gotta love that !!! But through all of the sickness we still managed to log on and complete our lessons.  My third grader has been pretty behind in math in several areas, and I have been struggling with finding the right curriculum for her.  She does great on several topics but still counts on her fingers all the time and has trouble with place value.  She has been doing the second grade math as a review but a week or so ago began the third grade section.  T4L has been such a blessing. ( she is the one that announced in the bathroom about the lines of symmetry)  All week last week she was running around announcing that she “got them all right…I got 100″  This has been such a big boost to her.  She still needs work with addition and subtraction facts but I found these video’s …my 7th grader says they are “lame” called Can Do Kids, they are this family of kids doing exercises to the math facts.  There is one for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.   Hey…Math and PE too, you can not beat that.  I think that we will use those several times a week for practice….  My only question is why they have to wait to do the sit ups until the 12 fact family, when you are already tired ???  The kids got a big kick out of Old mom trying to do sit ups….
 

Good Morning Everyone,

I have very exciting news! My little Natalie currently in Kindergarten attending public school has moved from her Kindergaten Language Arts to First Grade Language Arts Curriculum. She was so excited when she did the last review and realized that she knew everything.

I noticed over the last couple of weeks that she avoided the Kindergaten Language Arts lessons. Finally I said, why don’t you just do the review so we can see how much you know. She went through all three reviews in about 15 minutes with flying colors. I told her that she will be able to work on 1st grade lessons from now on which is good because they are working on some of these lessons in school as well. That was music to her ears. She was so excited and asked if she could tell all her friends and maybe have a sleepover–Ha Ha!! Anything to get her way. She will have a play date with some of her friends later this month- she earned it.

The reason, I believe, she did she well is because we started over the summer and although she may not do lessons everyday, she does well and really enjoys the online programs as well as the playground activities provided. She can recognize many of her site words and is doing really well recognizing words in her first reader books. I give her different books just to be sure she’s not memorizing but actually reading.

I just wanted to share this with everyone– this has been a great week for Natalie!!

Terie

Today I found it amazing that there was such an amazing difference in my two kids.  Grasping math concepts has always come so easy to my oldest son.  Q would fly through math and never blink. He could tackle anything we threw at him.  While still in pre-school he was adding double digits and we were told that he was surpassing all the other kids and would have trouble if we put him in public school.   I always wished that his reading was as advanced but in time he became more comfortable with it.  Our youngest son flew through reading, loves English and struggles every day with any type of Math concepts…. Until today..

This morning he learned “rounding”.  I did not realize that he was even doing it until he got stuck and called me over.  I let them get started and then “check-in” after they get settled.  When I went over to Z’s desk to help him I was surprised he was doing “rounding” and my first thought was to have him move on to something else until their dad came home.  Their father spent two weeks helping Q understanding rounding up and down and I am not even sure that he totally has grasp it.

I asked Z which way the problem was to be rounded and he gave me the answer without even thinking about it.  I looked at him in amazement.  This son of mine who struggles so with math could figure out how to round and understood the concept easily.  The rounding was not the problem, it was the actual subtraction and addition after he rounded.

I wish I knew what the difference with that single part of math that his brain understands so easily and why he can’t add 5+6 without a struggle……  Where one boy can add multiple numbers in his head on the fly but can’t round a number to save his life, the other boy can round any number thrown at him but can’t seem to add a single number in his head….  Weird…..

(here is my “slouchy” son  the way he enjoys doing his work until I say “Sit up and pay attention!”)

Hello all….  First I want to thank you all of the Math post ideas.  And…

As you all know we are new to homeschooling so naturally I am doubting myself .  Tonight I was taking a bath….( without the toddler…a rare luxury) and reading The Well-Trained mind.  I was looking at all of the things that I needed to cover, and frankly getting a bit depressed and worried that I was not doing enough.  When in barged my 3rd grade daughter and announced that the squares in the tiles on the floor have 4 possible lines of symmetry.  She then went on to talk about how many a circle, triangle and rectangle have.  I asked her where she learned that ( I knew the answer) and she said…Time 4 Learning of course!!  The Lord works in mysterious ways to encourage us…..he uses a small child…and time4learning!