Week 18

Beauty has been spending most of her extra time outside learning to ride her bike better.  She has pretty much covered every way you could fall off a bike.  She has definitely earned this patch.  I bought her a new helmet, too.  She may need some bubble wrap soon.

Something we really enjoy working on is gardening.  This is one of Beauty's pumpkin plants.  It now has a couple of blooms.  Pumpkins won't be far behind.

I ordered two more books.  They are both Kumon books.  One is for telling time and the other is for counting coins.  I didn't feel these were covered enough in her other books.

I've been pondering a lot over her curriculum.  I'm not satisfied there is enough work in areas I think are important.  Mostly math and handwriting.  Beauty has been working out of her curriculum's math books but also a book from Lifepac.  The handwriting book's lessons are too short and Beauty can easily do a full page of work.  She is going to finish her book in a few weeks.  I've ordered her a second grade handwriting book.  I think she'll start cursive writing when she officially starts second grade in the fall.

Beauty is also working on writing letters and addressing envelopes.  I'm not sure how relevant learning how to address envelopes is these days with the shrinking service of the post office.  I think it's important to know how to decipher where the mail came from, though.  

We still have yet to embrace any formal science unit, unless spending time in the garden counts.  Maybe when she completes another of her books I will use that time slot for her science.  It's one of those classes that will require planning on my part.  Bleh.