Wednesday--successes and questions

My post about how boys learn got quoted in 3 Steps to Homeschooling Success. I haven't been through her whole site, but I have a lot to chew on already! Diane has a book you can download for free too.

Today the kids did their math worksheets as usual first thing in the morning. It's part of their wake-up-get-dressed-make-bed-complete 100 problems routine. It isn't hard math, just review to get them faster on their feet in the basics. Later, I took them outside where I had drawn 1 foot by 1 foot boxes with numbers and had them solve addition equations by walking out the answers. I'm hoping it will connect their bodies and minds together. The boys had a ball racing each other and seeing how far they could jump. Right now, we're reviewing addition and I'm not sure how I'll do it when we get to multiplication. It will take longer to draw the boxes!

Other than that, we did more inactive assignments. J-Dawg struggled with being still although he was the first one done with the assignment. He left and started shooting K'nex arrows all over the living room.

S-man had a harder time with the instructions but got it done once he finally understood what I wanted. I need to figure out a better way to explain instructions because that seems to be our weak point.

My daughter was trying to decide whether to finish her lunch or do the assignment first. Eventually both were completed after I lost patience with her. (She is learning to knit and had knitted through lunch and storytime.) Both boys were off reading and playing with K'nex while she finished up.

We haven't yet launched into American History since I'm waiting to get the newer routines firmly established. Getting our kids into history is a cake walk. I also need to set a book list for the kids to choose their books from.

I'm also thinking about getting the Apologia Astronomy text to go along with the Konos study. Can anyone give me suggestions/recommendations as to the advisability of that? Is that good for active boys? We have the Flying text but never got off the ground with it although I think the boys read some to most of it.

On the other hand, I just discovered S-man is fascinated with Africa right now so maybe I need to direct him toward doing a special study of Africa. Obviously our agenda is not set yet.