News and Updates

Just a quick update on the blog.  I'd like to let any followers know that I'm going to be using this blog for my own school projects during this semester since I will have some blogging assignments in at least one of my classes.  Though I am not home schooling myself, since I am taking all of my courses online, I am schooling at home in a sense!  So don't be surprised when I start posting biology labs and such!

If you're interested in all the things the kids have been up too... they have been very busy school-wise this year.  Reagan has adapted very well to skip to 2nd grade.  She has many friends in her new class and continues to do very well academically.  She was just on the honor roll for the 2nd straight quarter, and was so very proud to have brought her grades up from 4 A+s on her last quarterly report, to 5 this time (the rest of her 17 grades were all As too)!  She certainly pushes herself to achieve!  We only ask that she does her own best, and her best continues to amaze us.  At school she also submitted an op-ed for the school paper that is published by the middle schoolers.. we are awaiting the next issue to see if she gets printed, and is preparing for the school-wide spelling bee. At home we have continued our schooling as well.  She has been working on skip counting and converting this skill to use for her times tables.  The way she manipulates equations to factors that she knows better is just amazing.  (Instead of 9x5, she converts it in her head to 3x15.)  She also has really enjoyed watching the beginning portion of the Mental Math course form The Great Courses, and is obviously picking up some of the techniques!  We are supposed to do some science Saturdays, but we'll have to work on those around my school schedule.  A few other activity highlights for her include continuing in Girl Scouts.  She is a Juliette, meaning that she has no troop, and all of the badges and stuff are done by her individually with me.  It's a lot of work, but provides her a lot of flexibility   She just recently was able to earn some patches while we were on our winter break vacation while learning about the sea life of the San Francisco bay area, about light houses, and about the California Missions.  As well as Girl Scouts she began 4-H this year and is very active in rabbitry.

Adam is doing well with his early start into Kindergarten.  He is well liked among his peers and excelling in the classroom.  He is reading avidly and has shown great skill in mechanics as he builds some amazing things with his Legos.  He follows kit directions that are recommended for much older kids, but then goes back and builds incredibly creative things of his own later as well.  He is also involved in $-H and although he enjoys the rabbit is not yet ready to really participate in that, so he is just doing the Clover Buds project this year.  While on our winter break he participated in 3 National Park Junior Ranger programs with Reagan and they earned badges at Alcatraz, The San Francisco Maritime Museum, and Muir Woods.  He continues his interest in cooking and recently helped to bake his sister's birthday cake.  We have also cone some other really interesting kitchen projects this fall like making our own cheese!

Catie is almost 3 now, and is starting to really want to do home schooling while her siblings go to standard school.  She knows all of her colors and many shapes.  She is working on her alphabet, and can usually get as far as G without help.  She also counts to 10 most of the time.  She's started doing some shape and color sorting projects with puzzles and preschool workbooks at home and is very curious!  Of course she is also still a 2 year old and very grumpy when she doesn't get to do just what she wants!  Thankfully she mostly wants to learn, dance, and help out in the kitchen!

Kyllie at almost 1 1/2 isn't really ready for any formal schooling stuff, but she pays a lot of attention to what Catie is doing and her vocabulary is always growing.  She understand so much and her abilities seem to increase by the day!

So there's a quick update on the kids, and on what to expect to be hapening on the blog in the coming months!  I will try to post an update on what we are doing now and then among the biology discussions and labs if I can!