Still chugging along. Week 7 & 8

This week is only a three day week.  My big kids are out of town today and tomorrow.  It has been a good, uneventful two weeks.  Nothing to report on.

Wait, I can always ramble about homeschooling...

As much as the girls complain about doing school, I am surprised how much they want to do more.  Charlotte wants a full load like Savannah.  However, I need to spend more time with my three little ones.  I finally put my foot down and told her no.  She has to go and play.  She is only in first grade, for heavens sake!  What is the rush to grow up?  Lol.  I've also trimmed back her required academic school work.

Required academics 1st grade: Math Mammoth, XtraMath, Spelling & Latin (as a family), 2 sentences of copywork, and reading outloud to me. 
Optional: phonics and spelling workbooks, science, geography.  She was begging me to let her do Writing With Ease too.  NOooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!  I don't have the time. 

Required academics 3rd grade: MM, XM, Spelling & Latin (as a family), R&S English, WWE 3, Greek Myths, read for 1 hour.  Optional: science,  geography, spelling workbook.  And I'm thinking about dropping WWE 3 again.  I really don't want any wasted time.



So, spelling as a family:  I was going to start Spell to Write and Read, then changed my mind because of how time-consuming it was and went to R&S spelling this year.  The kids actually really like it, but I kind of thought it seemed like busywork still.  In R&S spelling, the word lists are easy, but the value supposedly lies in the application of the spelling rules to the word lists.

So I took that idea and applied it to SWR.  Instead of having the girls in separate levels, I started them both on Charlotte's level.  First we review our phonogram flashcards.  Then I dictate the day's words (20 of them) and they take turns writing them on the white board and mark them (apply the spelling and phonics rules).  Then we sing the spelling rule that applies (songs are from Phonics Road) while the girls dance around the room. 
After that, they sit down and get out a piece of paper.  I dictate two sentences to them that have one of their new spelling words in them.  Then they take a test on a previous list of words from a few weeks ago that I dictate to them.  I have found this method to be very effective.

Anyway, that's it.  I'm tired.
Salvete!