Finishing school

With Silas' fight with cancer, our homeschooling has looked a little more like unschooling. We have been very relaxed about school but still trying to get in plenty of learning. While we may have not done a lot of handwriting or algebra this past year and a half, we have learned a lot!

I have continued to keep a "school" journal, recording our school days and what type of learning was done. They actually got to go on quite a few field trips! The radiation lab where Silas received his radiation treatments, the South Carolina Aquarium, the Georgia Aquarium, the Georgia Sea Turtle Center, etc.

We have 5 weeks left of our school year. Or 24 days left to reach 180 for the year. If all goes according to plan they will be finished just in time to have the last week of August off, the week of Jason's 8th birthday.

My main goals for the next 5 weeks are to get Gideon and Jason reading better, and to have Michael writing better. Of course there will be other learning as well, but those are some areas that I really see a need for improvement in. Michael also has to take his 6th grade test this year.

Gideon can actually read better than he thinks he can. He has been in vision therapy for 4 years now and his poor vision really interfered with his ability to see to read. Now though, we have made great progress with his vision and its time to buckle down and pick up the reading! I think he mostly needs confidence and practice. He really does know the basics.

Jason has not really had an interest in reading before now, but he is showing some and I would really like to start working on it more with him. He is really bright and I think he will pick it up quickly. I worked with him some a few weeks ago and he flew through the lessons with ease.

Michael started reading at the age of 3. Which threw me off a little! I did not read until I was 11 years old and was determined not to push my kids to read until they were ready (my parents did not push me either). Then Michael at age 3 starts begging me to teach him to read and by 5 was reading at a 2nd grade level! His writing on the other hand.....well, we need to work on that.

We talked with each of the boys about what kind of extra curricular activities they would like to do this coming year. (We'll start back to school again in September). Michael wants to work more on making videos for his youtube channel. Gideon wants to do more art. Jason wants to do gymnastics. All three of the boys will take swimming lessons next week. Probably for the last time, they can all stay above water now, so I think this last year of swimming lessons will be it for them, unless of course one of them decides they want to get into swimming more.

Well, that's about it for this post. God bless!