This school year has been an exercise in giving him the belief in himself, that he can do the skill that I'm asking him to do. Often, I ask him to complete a task and, most of the time, the question is not why (that was last year) but "do you think I can". It's almost as if he is asking for a bit of confirmation that he can do it before he tries. I always tell him to try and if he doesn't do it quite right, we'll try again later. The beauty of homeschool is we can always stop, go back, slow down or speed up if needed.
Reading: He has always been ahead of the curve on this one, as he started reading before many kids his age. This year, he's been reading stories from the Bible from a Bible reader that came with the curriculum we purchased. This has led him to be a more intentional reader and I often catch him reading longer chapter books or reading to his sister.
Handwriting: This has still been a challenge for Caleb. He's always had trouble writing, so we have to practice this on a regular basis, but he really does not like it. But we do it. One thing that I really like about this year's curriculum is that there is a point in the week where he is expected to write a lengthy amount, roughly a sentence or two, more than he was required to do in last year's curriculum. He's improving, but it's still a challenge.
Science: Caleb has always been interested in all things science, which is right up my alley. There's a bit of science with this curriculum, but we've taken to doing other science stuff away from the curriculum. While the curriculum is fine, Caleb is more interested in doing other things and I can certainly comply with that.
Bible: The current curriculum we have has a Bible component, which I really do like. I feel as if there is great merit in teaching our children the stories and lessons from the Bible. Part of Jes's family is Jewish, so we feel as if we are teaching a bit of family history to the kids when we are studying the events in the Bible.
Math: Caleb has always loved math and it just seems to "click" with him on some level. I suppose it's that engineering father that he has that gave him that! So far this year, we've covered basic geometry, fractions, multiple number addition and subtraction, among other things. He looks forward to to math everyday and really does well here.
Visual Perception: This was something that I added this year to help Caleb with being able to perceive and analyze certain situations. I thought, initially, when I purchased this book that it would be a battle and drive him batty, but felt like it was a necessary thing to teach him. Basically, what has happened is that a book that was supposed to last a whole year was finished over a month ago and he's begging me to get a new book because he loves it so much.
Piper still loves to work on school, but her attention span is decidedly shorter than her brother's. She loves to work on worksheets, often completing 20-30 at a time. She's mastered completely shapes, numbers, letters and colors, so we've moved on to writing and reading. She's also started reading some words now, so I feel as if we're firmly on this road of having another early reader.
I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but that's the basics of where we are with school, thus far!
