Boys' Noise School Report

October has been a settling month for our family. The last couple of weeks started to feel like new normal, I think we all welcomed that.

KinderYear

Elijah, as I've shared, has been working on his early reading skills. He accomplished the wonderful milestone of reading his first words this month. I'm thrilled for him, he's thrilled!

In Math Eli is practicing writing numbers, reading analog time, calendar, knowing coin value and doing some small adding with those coins. He has been doing some simple addition as well.

For reading we are working through Teaching Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, for fun we pick through the "Bob" books and other library books.

First Grade

Nate has also taken a huge step in his reading journey. He had been fighting through reading work for a good year. It's been work for him. But this month we seemed to have broken the dam, and he's really successfully sounding out words, and sometimes just blurting them out. I'm so pleased with Nate's hard work, and grateful for the process. This is a good reminder that sometimes waiting for these milestones is all you can do....wait. But the wait works.

For Math, Nate is working through Saxon 1. It seems to be a little daunting for him so he works through a lesson every other day, the other days he works math worksheets. He is working on subtraction and addition. We also are working on the calendar, money math and telling time.

In Reading, Nate reads the level 2 Bob books, and we're also working phonics with the 100 easy lessons. I'm thrilled at his progress this year.

Third Grade

Joey is speeding through Saxon 6/5. We just hit long division, he's begun fractions and been perfecting multiplication this month.

This year Joey is taking a class, Essentials of the English Language. In this class we're studying grammar, spelling, and writing. Joey edits a paragraph each work, and has memorized the 112 possible parts of a sentence. Sounds daunting, eh? We're doing some sentence diagramming as well. I say we....yes, we. ;) For writing he's been creating keyword outlines, then rewriting paragraphs using important things such as quality adjectives, strong verbs and clinchers. Joey will take this class for the next 3 years, by the time he enters 6th grade he should be able to impress anyone with his knowledge and familiarity of the English language.

Essentials is part of Classical Conversations.

Together

I read, which is most certainly a favorite activity here, daily from numerous books. We finished Farmer Boy of the Little House series this month. This very nearly brought me to tears, I found I was quite attached to Almanzo and his family and farm of integrity. So we march on into Little House on the Prairie. I'm also reading from Story of the World Vol. II; the Middle Ages. Highlights have been Robin Hood, (of course!) Charlemagne, & Muhammed. I'm also reading from various science books to the boys, we're studying the solar system. For Bible we're reading out of the book of Luke.

For Classical Conversations this year we are learning about the Middle Ages in History. Math is the same each year, memorizing the multiples of all numbers up to 15, and in English we're memorizing Pronouns, etc. Latin is latin, and Geography is Europe & Asia. In Science we've been studying the solar system and other natural sciences.

For example, one History sentence we have memorized: After the church split into Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, William the Conqueror defeated King Harold of England in 1066 and started Feudalism.

We are also memorizing scripture to recite at Awana, doing our occasional Nature Study and sketchy Tuesday, as well as Lego Challenges (see the side bar for links).

We have had walks to the river and park, a trip to the Pumpkin Patch. The boys have started gymnastic classes that they love and we've done a few fall crafts.

Ambitions for Next Month

I've been working hard to figure out how to get in a little more fun. For November we're going to label Fridays "Unschool Friday" 'cause I've always envied those unschooling households just a little but know that I need a little structure in life to actually get something done too. So Friday's you'll find us out and about, playing games or crafting--doing fun school things that don't fit into our other days.