W read several Dick and Jane stories to me this morning. K was shocked at how well he was reading (she stayed home from school with a bad cold today). I was so proud of him. The words repeat a lot in that book, so he read mostly by recognizing sight words (said, what, something, mother, father, come) and the rest he sounded out. If he got stuck on a word I reminded him of letter blend sounds and he would get it. He is much better with larger blends like "ing" and "ight" than sounding out individual letters of smaller words. He reads pretty fast now and understands and remembers what the story is about. He's defintitely over another huge hump with reading. He also did 6 pages in Writing Words (words ending in nt, mp, nd, and nk, and words starting with ch, sh, wh, and th). For math he filled out most of a chart counting to 100 and practiced writing the numbers' words ("one" "two" "three", etc).

While W was reading to me, J was in her room reading a novel. We set the timer for 15 minutes and she wanted to keep reading when time was up. She's had a hatred of reading since Kindergarten when she had to sit in the back of the classroom and read (and do book reports) by herself. Before that she'd been reading all the time from when she was almost-3. It was sad to see her change like that. Since homeschooling, she reads every now and then, but prefers me to read to her. She will do tons of reading and writing on the computer, though - she's always researching something or someone. But to see her pick up a book was great. She copied a poem called To Daffodils by Robert Herrick and read it to me. Math was multiplication and long division in the 6th grade book. This year math is focusing on mastering the basics.

After that, I read the kids a myth called Proserpina and Pluto. Part of what the kids want every day are readalouds of fables and mythology. I picked up a couple of great big hardcover books the other day (from the bargain shelf and with educator's discount! Woohoo!) - The Children's Treasury of Mythology and Aesop's for Children. K loved the story - she was in the kitchen and I didn't even think she was paying attention, lol, but she gave me a "Keep going!!" when I stopped for a second. I still wish K was home with us. Part of me gets sad when she can't join us when we go places. As far as the new homeschool schedule, we're doing the same stuff we've always done and we're going to try to add a new "subject" every few days or every week. No stress. It's about how the kids want to do it. It's so nice to have the freedom to tailor an education to your own child.