Acquara Independent School

Ok, I am obviously not getting these done each day. But I think I will shoot for once a week. Once a month is too long to remember what we did.

Classes:

VH Explorers has finished. They finished “Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing” and have started “SuperFudge.” They have both asked for more time at VH next quarter, so they will be going the whole day.

Naim finished Soccer. They did well and I warmed up a lot to the coach (who Naim always liked) and they had their party and he got his trophy.

Avery and I made the mutual decision to quit Early Childhood Special Ed. There was just no point, really. He started hating it and Nik went to visit and just found that he zoned out and didn’t do anything. They stressed procedures and rules so much and not communication. It was disappointing to see it go, but since then, I have gotten to spend more time with him and his language is just blooming when you sit down and talk to him. He is very entertaining.

He continues for now to go to Goddard. I did visit Goddard and he seems to do well there. He runs around happily like a regular kid and the other kids motivate him to talk and interact with him. Here are his DARs.

We decided to quit (or not start?) DI, which was disappointing. I am not blaming the parents who organized it, because it isn’t like I bothered to organized it…but they just couldn’t get it together and from June to November he had just one experience with DI and he just lost interest. He did not really get what it was to begin with. He liked the idea, but it was hard to grasp what it is this was supposed to be when they just never got started. They kept delaying and delaying. We went to three things and no one showed up which was really disappointing for Naim. And there was bad communication, and then they moved the time all around on me. He wants to do theater on Mondays anyway and I just couldn’t get myself to get him there when they kept moving and canceling it. I think if they just would have GOTTEN STARTED no matter what, the kids could have started to understand and gotten hooked, but they just kept putting the kids off.

Curriculum:

We continue to work through the workboxes. The biggest thing that I think they like there is the morning meeting. We go over the calendar and so they better know what is coming up. We also have the downstairs “family computer” up and running now, so that is nice for school.

We are in Ch. 18 in Math which is very basic multiplication and division concepts. They seem to be getting this OK. We have also done timed math fact tests each day using an app on the iPad and we record the results using a spreadsheet. They like seeing the results and they are improving on addition and subtraction facts.

We finished our “James and the Giant Peach” unit and we went to the play at NWCT. I would like our next unit to be more organized into a “final product.” We will be starting “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” for winter.

Aaron has completed the Green level in HOP Master Reader and is reading the second chapter book in The Strange Museum series.

Naim and I are still on Ch.1 in Reading Horizons. I am not seeing this program as being the answer to all things for LD kids. But partly that may be my fault. I think for him he needs to just do one thing and one thing only. No Sylvan unless it directly relates to what he is learning in RH. I think we need to spend a week a lesson and do three days with mom and one or two days with the computer. He is not learning it because for one, he gets so frustrated with the test portion. He did finish his K Sylvan books, though, and I have the first grade book, but I might just hold on to it and give him specific lessons that support what we are already doing in RH. So he will get one big reading lesson. I may even do handwriting like that.

We are working on the numbers section of ZB in handwriting for Naim. Aaron is in the back fourth of his HWT book.

Fieldtrips:

Hmmmmmmm…….Let me think. I need to refer to pictures to remember where we have gone!

Ok, It looks like Avery has gone to Washington Square.

They also all went to Outdoors In with Nik.

Aaron and Naim and I went to NWCT to see James and the Giant Peach. We took Ruoda, too.

This isn’t really a field trip, but we had our garage sale at the end of October. Naim helped a lot with that.

They went to see “Planes” at Valley Cinema.

They went to Out of This World Pizza twice. Once with the soccer kids and once with my dad.

They went to Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum with my dad. We saw a movie about air shows and plane races.

We all went to Rice Museum of Rocks and Minerals with my dad.

We went to Sky High Sports for homeschool day with my dad.

Avery and Naim went to the city landfill. Heh. Naim also went to the vet with Sully and Kai.

They have gone to the nursing home twice, and then D just got home so they have not visited him yet.

On Halloween, they participated in a Orenco Business Trick or Treat activity, as well as regular trick or treating.

Pictures:

Filed under: Uncategorized |