End of August

Helllllllllllllllllooooooooooooooooooooooo September! We've dipped into the new school year slowly, and plan on going in full force by Monday.

Book club starts meeting again this month. We are really excited, especially with the book chosen this time. We are reading "Wonder" by R.J. Palacio. It's a wonderful novel written about a boy, August, born with a facial deformity. He was homeschooled until 5th grade, when it was decided that he would attend school. We are only about 1/3 of the way through the book but it has opened up a great dialogue on how August must feel while trying to adjust to no longer being homeschooled, being the new kid in school, and dealing with everyone thinking he is so different from them based on his appearance.

Tying in our book club with Language Arts, we are using Bravewriter's Arrow with our novel.

Our general schedule with Bravewriter is: 

Monday- copywork, which includes an excerpt from a part of the book, as well as going over the spelling and grammar we see in the excerpt

Tuesday- Teatime Tuesday, which includes copying down a poem unrelated to our novel, reading poetry, having tea (iced or hot), or hot cocoa, and a treat

Wednesday- Reverse/French dictation. Reverse dictation is when I type up Monday's excerpt but leave out punctuation, misspell words, and/or use improper grammar. Then they have to rewrite the sentences correctly. French dictation is when I type up Monday's excerpt but I leave blank spaces for words that they have to fill in while I read the passage to them. They prefer reverse dictation because they like finding my "mistakes"

Thursday- Dictation, which is just me reading the same passage to them that they've been working on, and they have to copy it, remembering how to write it properly

Friday- Freewrite Friday, where they can write about whatever they want! Last Friday Caitlin wrote a letter from our dog Lucy's perspective to Cait. Jayden started a story about Lego's and wars. 

Jayden completed his first full module in Spanish and is doing great. He just finished an oral exam with his teacher. He was so nervous despite knowing the material, but he got 100%!

He is working through his science and so far, one week into it, really likes it. He has also decided that he wants to work on Chemistry if he is available when I am teaching it Caitlin.

This little lady is finishing up her second week of her new spelling curriculum and is doing very well. She loves when I make up crazy sentences for her spelling words during her pretest.

Summer is coming to a close. Bring on the fall and the cool weather!!!