It has been a while since I updated this blog, and Joey turned four recently in December 2013, so I think it is time to take stock of where we are at, academically.
Math: the last update I provided was in October 2013. At the time, Joey was taking Grade 3 Accelerated Math with the John Hopkins Center For Talented Youth, which we love. Even though he completed 3rd grade in a little over a month (with an A+), we thought that he wasn't as solid on these skills as he would have been in a real classroom, so we decided to wait until next fall (fall 2014) to continue with 4th grade math with this program. In the meantime, we are still doing Grade 2 Singapore Math (we are about half-way) and will probably start 3rd Grade next fall, right about the time Joey will tackle Grade 4 Math with JHU-CTY. Another area we thought we should focus on before moving on to 4th Grade math were word problems, the kind where you have to generate an equation and then solve it. Solving simple algebra equations (up to two unknowns, depending on the problem) is not an issue for Joey, but generating them from a word problem is still a struggle. JHU-CTY provided a lot of help in generating equations, and I think this is a limitation of this program. So we decided to have Joey participate in the Continental Math League (CML) meets for 2nd and 3rd Graders, and we registered as a homeschool for this purpose. Honestly, these problems are hard for Joey because they are meant to challenge gifted 7 and 8 year olds and as all word problems do, they require the integration of math skills with language art skills, as well as some real world knowledge. But we are not giving up, and one strategy that has been helping significantly has been to group the problems by type because, at least until much higher thinking skills are involved, this is a lot about pattern recognition. After we finish CML for this year, we will wrap up all 2nd grade math by reviewing any material that Joey masters less than perfectly, and we will be off to 3rd grade math for good by the time he is 4 years and a half.
Language Arts: this is a difficult one because I have been struggling trying to figure out where Joey is with reading comprehension (his reading fluency is probably 3-4th grade now). He understands most of the material presented in the Lakeshore Learning Read & Comprehend Science Activity Folders (Grade 2), so I know he is about four grades ahead in reading comprehension. However, I wanted to get some practice with grammar and writing, so on the advice of a wonderful lady whose child is also highly gifted, we have been doing the Kumon workbooks (Reading, writing, simple sentences, etc) and to be safe, we started at 1st grade. Joey is zooming through the material, and I think that once he gets through 2nd grade, we will switch to an actual language arts curriculum, and I believe we will choose the Michael Clay Thompson curriculum, which came highly recommended and starts at about the 3rd grade level.
Science: we are currently doing the Thames & Kosmos Little Labs Stepping into Science, but this is not Joey's only exposure to science. Since he showed some interest in chemistry (see November 2013 update), we also got him The Periodic Table: Elements with Style! and Basher Science: Chemistry: Getting a Big Reaction, which he loves. This is in addition to the 'Class of Their Own' books (Bacteria, Fungi, Archea, Protists - but no viruses, don't ask me why..). In the future, we are considering Building Foundations of Scientific Understanding: A Science Curriculum for K-2 along with The Story of Science: Aristotle Leads the Way (the whole series); other possibilities are Real Science for Kids, Inquiry in Action, Super-Charged science, or Science Fusion.
Languages: we have just started a more structured program in French (all the details are here) and Hebrew with Shalom alef bet!: A pre-primer for Shalom Uvrachah. I think we will stay with this series until Joey can read Hebrew fluently, then we will devise a program similar to what we are doing in French. I will have a separate post to teach Judaics for those who might be interested.
Geography/History: I think we will start history with A History of US: Eleven-Volume Set: Paperback Set, but in the meantime, we are sticking with simple geography (currently with Replogle 12" Intelliglobe ; the advantage of this toy is that there is a French option in addition to English).
Other: we are also continuing with the wonderful Building Thinking Skills® Level 1, which is good through 3rd Grade.
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