MIA?

Well, I seem to have been lapsing in my blogging as of late. I guess that's what pregnancy, 3 kids, a bad cold, a bunch of birthdays, and trying to figure out our curriculum for next year will do for you.

What have we been up to the last while or so?

E enjoyed taking a dance class with her little friends at a birthday party, and can again be seen twirling through the house with beautiful poise and form. She really is quite artsy LOL.

The kids finished up their swimming lessons, and are both so much more brave in the water. We'll have to go again soon, before they forget that they aren't afraid of water :-)

We are slowly working our way to the end of her math book. In the last few weeks we have learned to count all the way to 100 (she likes to practice this on unsuspecting strangers and friends who don't have the heart to tell her they really don't feel like listening to her slowly count that high). She has also been practicing her math facts 1+1, 2+2, 3+3, 4+4, 5+5, and anything plus one. After that, she tackled learning 10+ 10, 10+20, etc... and 20+20, 30+30, 40+40, 50+50... and last week we finished up learning how to add 100+100, 200+200 etc...

Finally, just yesterday we started a lesson on beginner algebra (in kindergarten??)... she is learning to play 'detective' because someone stole part of a math problem:

?+3 = 6

She uses her math blocks to figure it out... and she's getting quite quick at it.
Before we're done this year, we have to tackle beginning subtraction, and telling time on an analog clock.

We've finished with phonics for the year, because I bought a new program for phonics/spelling that takes a completly different approach. It's called Spell to Write and Read (or SWR). I was hoping I could teach myself some spelling while I was at it. Both dh and I are products of the whole-language experiment and rely soley on spell-checker to look at least a little credible.

Next year we are planning to work hard to get reading, writing and math down cold, and spend some more time reading good books on science, the saints, history etc...