Weekly Wrap-Up

My 8yo is learning how to multiply!!!!! This is amazing to me because I am 31 years old and I am still not proficient at multiplication! Luckily, Daddy is teaching him, not me. He tells me he is doing really well with it. It helps that on Fridays, he has a whole class at co-op that teaches times tables rhymes and stories to help the kids remember them. Multiplication is the main reason I was terrified to teach math this year. I never had a good understanding of it. There is no way I would be comfortable teaching it too! Our math program is really hands on and fun. It breaks things down easily. In fact, maybe I will start the second grade curriculum with him.... Nah. 

This week my 5yo also made a huge math leap. He is learning to add and subtract! All this time we have just been counting. This week he added butterflies and subtracted earthworms. When I saw the worksheet I though, "Oh no!" but he tackled it like it was nothing. He continues to amaze me at how quickly he is picking things up and learning! Last spring and even this summer I was worried that he would not be able to keep up with the Kindergarten work load but he is doing great!

He has begun to read more than just CVC words. This week he read, "big eggs, little eggs, pretty eggs." He is also beginning to read some of the words in the Sound Box books that we read every week. Almost every word in those books is on the Dolch sight word list for Kindergarten. 

My 8yo has been reading James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. I am not sure if Charlotte would call it twaddle. It might be to her.. but we tried reading The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood... It was like reading the King James Bible. We also tried reading The Five Little Peppers. We read it for a few weeks and he was so bored with it. I had to explain what everything was because it is not his world. He did not understand the technology. Also it was really written for girls I think. When I was 7, I would have LOVED that book but a 7 year old boy doesn't want to read about how to bake a cake. 

He loves reading about James! He smiles ear to ear when he delivers his oral narrations. When he talks about the bugs, it is like he is talking about his friends. I love that he is loving reading a book. So, "twaddle" or not, we will read Roald Dahl in our house... I think there is plenty of time to read the classics when he gets a little older.