Friday, September 11, 2009

First day of 'school'

It sounds SO funny to say that considering we never stopped and we have had classes at least three times a week for two months! But... we started Math U See today... so that means that we 'started school'... LOL!

We started out with a review of the math rods. I pulled out her princess addition and subtraction flash cards and I (or Alex) would pull a card and she would make them with the rods, and then tell us the answer. The problems were not the important part... she has been adding and subtracting double digits for a while now... but it was the use of the rods that I wanted to reinforce.

She did just great! We quickly moved on to the first lesson in her new math book and found out that even that was review! She already knew her place value... but it was good to get some reinforcement for that as well.




I moved her on to reading, and went to check on Alex... who was doing great! He was doing a lesson from his math that was a unit review as well... and without my help he was able to look up where he was in the text book, figure out which problems. I can't tell you how much of an improvement over when he was in public school. He couldn't do anything (and I mean ANYTHING) by himself. Now he is looking up words from his math book in a dictionary, and then finding the correct lesson and doing the problems all by himself. If I pulled him out for the self motivation alone, it would have been worth it. He is a really amazing kid.

And turning into a beautiful young man as well.

I just love my children... so very much.

We also started the most wonderful science curriculum EVER today. I will tell you about that tomorrow. ;)

3 comments:

Crescent Moon said...

We use Math-U-See, as well. I love all the little math tricks that make the problems easier to solve. I don't remember learning any of those when I was in school.

Katie said...

Val,
You are such a good mama! Your family is so blessed to have you.
You make me want to homeschool in the future, now I just have convince the husband!

Val in the Rose Garden said...

Oh Katie... If only I could convince him myself! lol... I have turned Don from a hardcore public (or at least out of home) schooler into a diehard advocate of homeschooling... just with the results with Alex. The changes are amazing. I can't even tell you. And we were in a 'good' school district. It still amazes me that it took me 5 1/2 years to pull him.

Love Val