Week in Review 2/11/13-2/15/13

This will be brief as I didn't take notes as we went along.

I've been reading Charlotte Mason's original works with some online friends and having a book club with it.  It's been very inspirational and motivating for me.  Some things we've incorporated:

Narrations-I've always done these the WTM way.  WTM way is to read a passage, ask a few review questions (if the child doesn't know the answer, read the part of the passage that answers the question again, have the child answer), have the child tell you what they remember.  It was very difficult w/ Pigby.  He'd often not remember the answers to the questions (and it's no wonder considering the passages were so long) and get frustrated by the whole thing.  Even after that, I'd be lucky to get one sentence of what he remembered.

Charlotte Mason way: read a paragraph or a verse, have child tell you in their own words what happened. There is no repeating of the paragraph, asking questions or giving hints about what happened.  It took Pigby quite awhile to figure out that this was work, but eventually he did figure it out.  To keep from having a meltdown over doing it w/ school work, we started doing it w/ a Ramona the Pest book.  We went on for quite a while before he asked to quit.  The first few paragraphs, he said he didn't remember.  I told him he better start paying attention or he would miss out on everything that happened in the book.  Then he started doing it well.  Then he started repeating the last sentence of each paragraph.  So I started having him tell me things that happened in the beginning and middle if he could remember them. 

This week, we started doing narrations w/ SOTW.  He fussed about it at first, but I told him he was going to do it and I would wait til he was ready.  When he found out the chapter we were doing was the one on writing (one we've already done), he was very excited to do it.  I think we did two or three chapters, it's gone very well.  After reading and narrating, he draws and colors a picture in his history binder (a spiral bound sketchpad).

Spelling: Last week, Pigby participated in a homeschool spelling bee.  I was very proud of him.  He didn't do as well as he wanted and is determined to win next year.  I came across the Charlotte Mason method of spelling after the bee.  I think practicing it all year long will help for next year's bee.  Essentially, you have the child close their eyes and picture the word written.  And when they write it on paper, you're supposed to watch and correct them immediately if they start to make a mistake.  Supposedly if they see it written incorrectly, they'll really struggle, even if they have to write it fifty times correctly.  They'll always be confused as to which one is correct.

So before he uses the AAS tiles, I tell him to close his eyes and picture it written on the chalkboard in his mind.  Then he has to spell it out loud, forwards and backwards.  The backwards spelling is a trick I learned in 10th grade.  It really cements the "seeing it in your mind technique."  And he's doing really well with it.  Always able to get it right. Although it's now taking a bit longer as he has to ask if it spelled backwards is another word.  One of the words was "DINE" which does make a backwards word: "ENID".  It's the highlight of spelling now.

Math-not so much Charlotte Mason.  We're still reviewing all the 0-9 math facts.  It's going better.  I just printed off a bunch of sheets for him to review and we're using the blocks again.  It seems to be coming back more and more.  Once we've got a pretty good handle on that, I'll do some flash cards and we'll drill so he can just rattle them off.

I think that's about it.

Oh we did a Valentine's exchange from WTM.  We sent ours out a few weeks ago and have been collecting them from the mail.  It's been a lot of fun to see their excitement as cards came.  Last night we opened them and the boys had a blast.  Poor Chuck was a bit upset that she had none, but them's the breaks.  Maybe next year I'll deem her old enough to try.