Josiah

Last time I talked about Gabe's schooling. Today I'll touch a bit on Josiah's. I have to admit he is not always an easy one to teach, then again teaching each of my children is a challenge! They tend to whine when they don't understand something, rather than ask for help. It is something I'm really trying to work on with them.

Josiah does not like math. I'm actually quite surprised because when Hannah did this math book she really *got* it. He doesn't always get it no matter what we do and I'm uncertain of what to do. I certainly will not move him forward after this book until he gets it. While the other two children are way more than halfway done with their math books, he is not (and that is totally ok). I just wish I could get him to get it and enjoy it! I really believe they go hand in hand. I love the way Steve Demme teaches math concepts- even to me a light goes off like "Yeah!" I'd wished I'd learned math the way he teaches it! He is slowly improving though, but there will be times when I ask something simple (like what's 4+2) and he has to really think about it. Last week he learned about inches and measuring with a ruler. I thought maybe he'd really like it, but I was wrong! This week he's learning about the perimeter of things. Hopefully he'll enjoy it. I'm even sad to say that today he didn't even know what shape was what for a square, rectangle and triangle. I think maybe with him I need to go back to sitting with him at the start of the school day and doing math, while his mind is 'fresh'.

He does great at spelling! He really surprises me in this area. I really like our Spelling that the kids have. They do a test three times a week (pretest, practice test and final test). They have two workbook pages they do on Tuesdays. Wednesdays they have a dictionary skill where they learn something about the dictionary. Thursdays they write in a journal (and the words they misspell in their journal they write in the back of their spelling book to use as 'climbers' that they pick every week, which are two words they pick to learn). Fridays they also read 'The King's English' where it gives a word and elaborates on it, like sacrifice, grace, star, pure.

We've been reading Abeka readers that somebody had given to me years ago. He really seems to like the stories in them. We usually read out loud, he and I, taking turns on each page. He reads pretty well (in my opinion) but I'm not really sure how well kids are "supposed" to read in 2nd grade! I know Hannah read great, but she's always excelled in reading!

English is going well. This unit he's learned about pronouns, plural nouns and abbreviations. He's done great at it!

His handwriting is going well, he's almost done with his book. It is his favorite subject. I haven't even taught him any of it! He's learned cursive this year and he seems to just follow right along on his own! There are some times when I've had to try to show him various letters, like the Z (I think that's a hard letter to write in cursive). When he wants to he can print and write real neat, sometimes even neater than his sister! Mom, I'll have to have him write you a letter sometime!

I think I've pretty much covered everything. We also do history and science but we all do it together. Oftentimes outside of school Josiah will be found drawing. Sometimes he'll even draw things we've talked about during the day. Or he'll go and build something with Lego's that we learned about, which is a great way of remembering! I need to learn to be more patient with him, as he does work at a much slower pace than what I'd like at times!