Update in school

Just an update on whats going on for the school front. Anyone who knows my homeschool style, knows that science is eclectic in our home. This is mostly led by Tad, he has a lot of interest in science and is very adept at electricity. The last few months have been a lot of studies in electricity. He uses his snap circuit kit and teaches this to Nathalie. There is a book and a disc and its basically a year long study that he is using to teach all of us. We enjoy it thoroughly. He also mends any cords I cut, and makes new power cords for me by mixing and matching cords. Here he is taking apart a broken crock pot to see how it works inside, afterwards Nathalie was subjected to the information.

Tad is a science geek and he is proud of this. We have heaps of science books on nature and electricity, chemistry and anatomy and physiology. He loves all of them and he reads obsessivly to use or tells us about it.

This is a piece of our french. I ordered Professor Toto for Nathalie, Rosetta Stone is a little boring for her. Tad uses RS and loves it as do I. We use all of these books on the floor, and a heap more not pictured. My amazon.com cart is full for next pay day, books, cds, nintendo game (tho my children rarely use the DS) and flash cards. We are enjoying it and they are learning quickly. We used to have muzzy and my children spoke well together, it was child french, just basic 2-4 yr old speak. It wasnt perfect, but they understood each other and I was near fluent myself as a teen. We feel like we can regain this, we will just have to stick to it. They have added in some french spelling along with their english, and their handwriting is now all in french. It doesnt matter what words they are writing, as long as their cursive improves daily so we saved some time by eliminating english handwriting. Next year we will switch back I am sure, I do not wish to neglect any other studies but we must make time for the french.

We are still playing instruments, Tad is soaring in guitar, I dont think he can move faster if he tried. He is going through the books 3 x faster than the teacher expected and he enjoys it so much. Nathalie has moved to using her 4th finger in violin and this is quite a stretch, but she has her timing down and her note reading is spectacular and amazing to me. It was never that simple for me, she sees it as a scale, I saw each note as something to be memorized. She can see in her mind where on that scale it belongs, thus what note it is and what string to hold down.

I am very proud of them, they are working hard and staying cheerful despite the deployment. Today on their outside time (it is warm) they took out trash bags and policed up a huge part of our 6 acres. We get blown bits of trash through the winter which shows when the snow melts, the yard is much improved! Each child gets an allowance of $ 3 a wk, and they definately earn it but today I gave them each an extra dollar for showing initiative without being asked. This is common of both of them, but yard policing isnt fun and it wasnt even today's chore so I was proud.