September is gone

Tomorrow is the last day of September. I'm not sure what happened to the month. Two of the girls had their birthdays, so we have a teen and a preteen now. The youngest will have her birthday in October.

We continue to work with interactive notebooks in both science and social studies. The girls are enjoying the process, and it is forcing me to come up with creative ways for them to learn the material and to review it. Harder for the teacher but much more interesting for the student.

We have been using traditional textbooks for reading which means that all three girls have a different textbook. This is appropriate because they need reading materials at their own reading level. But I was finding that the two younger ones did not know how to answer comprehension questions. So here is what I have come up with. For the next few weeks, we will read their stories aloud, one each day for the first three days of the week. That way, everyone gets to hear the story. We can discuss it. I can sneak in those comprehension questions and teach them how to answer questions without it having to be written. When that is accomplished, we will work on writing the answers. I think this method will work because it will expose all three girls to a greater amount of literature.

We are moving very slowly on the Latin. I want to make sure that I am teaching them the correct pronunciation, and I am soooooo rusty. But I have wonderful resources and I will gain confidence as we go.

We completed the Kaya series of American Girl Books and will have our American Girl History Club meeting tomorrow. We spent most of today compiling our Kaya lapbooks. The girls really seem to enjoy this activity and it gives me a good idea of what they understood and remember from all six books. Since I have them answer in complete sentences, I can check for grammar, spelling, comprehension, understanding of historical facts, and composition. Not bad for one activity.

We grew pumpkins in our garden this summer and have 8 of them waiting in the kitchen to be dealt with. We are going to make pumpkin puree for pumpkin bread and pumpkin pies. You can freeze the puree for a short period of time, so we should be good for Halloween and Thanksgiving. I also have a diagram for the parts of a pumpkin to teach the girls more vocabulary.

We are still working on math facts. Yes, I am making them memorize their math facts and I am giving them speed tests. If they can do this, math will be a lot easier for them in high school.

Well, I'll sign off for now. I am planning to start writing more often. Until the next time....