September 19, 2008

Bridgetender School Newsletter

Bridgetender School started again on September 2, 2008. Children attending are Elizabeth in 4th grade, Jessica in 2nd grade, Kyle in Kindergarten, and John in pre-school. This year, Kris is doing more of a literature based unit study approach, which mainly means that there are several subject we do together as a family. Before school starts, we all do chores, focusing on one room. School starts with worship, prayer and Bible study. We are currently going through Proverbs, which is Providential because Elizabeth is also studying Proverbs in church. Then we do Math (individually), History or Science (combined), Language Arts--Literature, break for lunch and recess, then get back together for Language Arts--written arts for the girls. We start around 8:30 and are usually done by 2 p.m. Our history study is a Diane Waring study of the ancient cultures with support from Streams of Civilization. For science, we are studying Botany through Apologia. Fridays involve our homeschool group which is currently studying Spanish, geology, and doing logic exercises.

For Elizabeth, we will be focusing a lot of effort on expanding her writing ability. One day a week, she is journaling. This month, we are working on book reports and developing essay skills. In October, she will be submitting an essay for an essay contest sponsored by the Homeschool Legal Defence Association. She has Spanish homework from the homeschool group and we are going through a Latin Roots book. Elizabeth is over halfway through the Gamma book from Math U See, which involves multiplication and division. We are trying to get through two chapters a week as long as she can. We are continuing spelling and grammer, focusing on prepositions this month. She finished reading The Green Glass Sea and is reading Caddie Woodlawn. For P.E., she is taking Gymnastics three times a week in the Level 5 competitive team and participating in the homeschool P.E. group. The P.E. group is currently using letterboxing in a "great race" format. In home skills, Elizabeth learned to clean the refrigerator, which also helped her earn extra money. She participated in a one day horseriding "field trip" for homeschoolers that she paid for with her own money.

For Jessi, we are working on penmanship skills, which are still pretty weak right now. However, this week, they improved dramatically when I explained that penmanship should be a thing of beauty. She is flying through math as quickly as she can and claims that it is her favorite subject. She is working on spelling. For P.E., she is taking Gymnastics twice a week as part of the Jr. Trainer program and is participating in the homeschool P.E. program.

For Kyle, we are focusing on developing reading skills and learning about money. He can currently recognize pennies, nickels and dimes and can count by 5's and 10's. He can blend sounds easily when he knows the sounds of the words. We checked out the "BOB books" from the Library. He is enjoying botany with the girls and is taking a Jr. Engineering program through the Grayslake Park District. He also decided to do gymnastics when the Grayslake Park District cancelled their fall T-Ball program for lack of interest. He is also participating in the homeschool P.E. program.

John is learning to listen and enjoys reading time and play time with momma. He is learning to play card games, dust and pick up his room. He plays with clay, playdough and colors when we get together on topics. Once a week, on Tuesdays, the girls and Kyle spend an hour at art class while momma and John play.

I hope you enjoyed the update.

September 17, 2008

Garage Sale results

I held my first ever garage sale last weekend. My DH helped a lot with setting up the garage and putting tarps over the stuff we didn't want to sell. We kept a lot of stuff in the garage because there was a forecast of rain for at least part of the weekend. However, we had put something in CraigsList and we didn't want to disappoint. It started raining Friday afternoon and didn't stop much until Sunday afternoon. We were only planning to have the garage sale Friday and Saturday, but we ended it early on Saturday. We sold a few things, but still have a lot of stuff. We will try and have another garage sale in a couple of weeks and if it doesn't pan out, we will give the remaining toys to Hurricane Ike victims and I might put the rest on Freecycle. It was nice to see that some of the stuff was worth buying. I will say that seeing someone walk away with empty hands from your stuff is a little humiliating. You feel like saying, "What, my stuff isn't good enough for you?" But then again, it isn't good enough for me....hmmm.