School update

Homeschool, that is.  Lukas is doing great and has really adjusted well to a longer school day for second grade (more work + me helping Konrad with "school" = longer overall school time ).  Lukas is getting his math facts memorized, which I let slide last year--much to my chagrin.  He's also doing great at adding 3-digit numbers and carrying to the next column, and I see that he may finally learn to tell time.  I know a lot of homeschoolers would be shocked, but I never put an emphasis on telling time (the child can't argue about going to bed when they have NO CLUE what the time is!) 

Lukas is doing very well with reading and comprehension: I love our new reading program because there is a workbook that goes along that requires written responses, so his writing is also improving.  I switched back to the spelling curriculum we used last year (the one I started with this year was too easy), and we're continuing with the grammar and writing curriculum from last year.  Lukas loves science (human anatomy) and history (ancient civilizations--Tom teaches this), so he's a pretty happy camper this year.  I'm especially happy that he now likes the math program that we're using.  It's the same one we used last year (I couldn't make another change this year), but now he likes it! 

In the picture above, Lukas is drawing a comic strip to show a piece of food as it makes its way through the digestive and renal systems.


Konrad is doing great with coloring, learning his numbers, learning to read and write.  I purchased some dry-erase books for upper and lowercase letters, and numbers...for both Konrad and Natalie to use.  They are great!  Much better than printing off tracing pages or buying a book with paper tracing pages.  Konrad likes to spend a lot of time tracing letters and numbers, and I'm in no hurry to get him to write without tracing yet (he's not yet 4!)  I don't push Konrad to do school (I'm very busy with Lukas!)...but he wants to do it all, so I provide the opportunities.

Here's Konrad showing off his Play-doh creation.


I have to say that it is A LITTLE overwhelming when I have Lukas doing school, Konrad tracing letters AND Natalie working on homework in the afternoon after naps (Natalie still naps, but Konrad is no longer napping).  Thankfully Dominik is still taking a morning (and afternoon) nap...he's threatened to lose his morning nap but I just keep putting him in the crib and he keeps falling asleep...or maybe he's just being quiet?