Weekly Report: TOG2, Week 12

We are in transition, I'm reading all about Charlotte Mason so my mind is completely occupied and our lessons are a little lighter until I figure everything out. I have general items that need more prayer and consideration before I'm ready to put them on paper and make them a part of our lives.

Here are the kids reading Usborne's First Encyclopedia of Our World after I read to both of them, we have finished our earth science lessons and will be moving onto astronomy next week. Right on schedule!

History books we've read this week: Camille read the Christopher Columbus book on the right all by herself and narrated it well, with enthusiasm! History is very light right now because I'm doing minimal planning and preparation as I digest Charlotte Mason ideas and philosophies.

Math is going so much better now, I am teaching in between these activities and eliminating where I feel it is beneficial. I told Camille that if she did all of the purple addition problems and got them right, she wouldn't have to do the green ones. She was so thrilled to hear that!! Horizons says not to eliminate any exercises but I think this is best for Camille at this time.

This is our newest French program and I say newest because I've tried a lot of them. This one only takes 15 minutes daily and it reviews the lesson 9 times before you're to move on to the next one. We also have the workbook, which I'm using at the end of the lesson to determine whether moving on is the right action to take or if more review is needed.
It is called Écoutez, Parlez! (Listen, Speak), you look at the book while an audio cd plays with instructions in French and English. No fuss, get 'er done! Lol. (It's at RainbowResource.com)

This is our poetry notebook that I've reformatted for Camille. I want all of her poems that she memorizes in one place, when it gets to be too big, we'll get a bigger notebook. Each poem is copied and illustrated by her. We have poems to put in from first grade and I plan on tabbing it- First Grade, Second Grade, Third Grade. That way she can see her growth through the years and we can use it as an easy review of previous memorized poems.

What it looks like before she does any work.

These two pictures show two poems she has copied and illustrated (with my help).

The picture below is of a page within Comprehension Quickies. I have Camille do 1 page a week to practice formulating her own sentences which I feel is practice she needs. Explode the Code is going well, especially after using the Teacher's Manual this week. She is getting the phonics reinforcement that she needs and she's reading and spelling better. We have dropped Spelling Workout completely. Primary Language Lessons is going well, Camille did her first dictation exercise this week, she realized she needed to study the selection more before attempting to write it from dictation.

Jack and one of the kids' Valentine's Day balloons.
This picture took awhile to take because he was chasing me through the house!
The kids taking a break in-between lessons by watercoloring.
This would be what Charlotte Mason calls "Masterly Inactivity"

I am very relaxed in demeanor about our lessons and gaining confidence about doing things the way I've felt I should instead of following what someone else says we should be doing. It's a mixture of learning how to teach, and gaining confidence in my own knowledge and instincts. I think this is a MAJOR milestone in our journey. It's not that I will have it all figured out but I will feel much more confident listening to my heart and assessing what we need to do when hiccups occur instead of feeling like a complete and utter failure. I'll be able to talk about this more later.

Danny is doing well with read alouds, playing with Camille like above and playing at Starfall.com, which he absolutely loves. I'm not big on computer learning so this is a struggle for me but he's enjoying it right now and developing hand/eye coordination as well as enthusiastically repeating whatever Starfall says. A happy sigh.