The First Month of School Review

September is over and we are now well into October. I love this time of year! I get excited about all the possibilities. The kids curriculum and classes are working out really well. September always is the month of change and tweaking for me. After all the years of teaching I know what I want for the backbone of our curriculum but there's always a few things to fine tune by the time October rolls around.

One of those is Peters Spelling. I had pulled him out of Sequential Spelling for a number of reasons. Now I am putting him back in the program. The Christian Light curriculum is working very well for him. I'm moving him at a fast rate through the Language Arts program. I actually placed him at a 2nd grade level to catch the little nuances in the program and the vocabulary that the curriculum uses that may be different than other curriculum's. As a result of being placed so low and because we started in August he is now half way through the LA 2nd grade year. It was good for me to place him that low. It firmed up some missing areas, mainly the one of punctuation and capitalization. His third grade books are ordered and on the way. I will move him through those quickly too with the goal to be in the fourth grade books by February. Then we can slow down to a normal pace.

His history is working beautifully. He loves the map study. I ordered the loose leaf maps that match the fourth grade history lightunits. He is filling those out to have his own atlas at the end of the year. He is also making a salt clay map of the continent of North America. Unfortunately, I didn't stick to just salt clay. I added the oil in like I do for play dough so the map has been in the drying process for a week now. The middle of the US is still doughy! I'm going to have him paint it Monday regardless of the swamp conditions in the Midwest!

So other than adding in some extra PE classes, a digital story telling class and Sequential Spelling things have remained almost the same with Peter. I'm also working on getting him into a geometry class during the time that Tink is in her two hour history class. Peter would love a more advanced approach to geometry than what his dear mother is giving him! Psst, I'm not good at geometry but don't tell anybody!

Tinks classes and curriculum haven't changed at all! I am proud of that! I worked so hard on ironing out the creases and rough spots in her Middle School curriculum that there really was no need of change. I did add in a history class but that was so she could fellowship with 11 other middle and high school kids who are all Christian. Most of the kids she knew years ago and we had just lost touch. So this is wonderful for her. The history is World History and the exact same years we studied last year but I'm keeping her in the class anyway for the friendships and the potential friendships that may develop from that.

                                              

(This is Peter playing cards while on a break at the charter school)

I have put pics of Peter in here but none of Tink because I havent managed to get around to Tinks classes yet and get her pics. I will be sure to include her next time!

So this now finds us neatly tucked into the month of October! I couldn't be happier with September's results! So how are your plans panning out? Any glitches? Any changes? What are your thoughts as we move into this second month of fall schooling?