What have we learned?

It's been a long while since I've updated what we've learned, so let me give you a quick rundown:

Baxter:  He rolled over all on his own for the first time today!!  Watch out solid foods...coming soon!

Ruby:  Can write her own name.  Seriously, she taught herself.  The girl is a genius.  She traces letters everywhere she goes (on books, on sweatshirts, on signs, etc.)  She can write every single letter of the alphabet and just needs a little help on a couple of them.  It's amazing what a third child can pick up from just watching and listening!

Ford:  He has started to read!!  He really, really, really wants to be able to read, so we got him the Bob Books pre-reader set and once we finished that together, he has started the Bob Books that he will read on his own.  He is already on the fourth book and doing pretty well.  In my mind, I think Rachel just picked up the books and zoomed through, but I know that she had troubles here and there, so I know this will take time, but Ford is doing remarkably well.  He has been doing great with his math.  He can add +1s and can do a few of the doubles.  Adding was so fun for him when on his math video Mr. Steve told him it was just like coupling up trains.  Couldn't have come up with a better analogy myself!

Rachel:  She has almost made it all the way through subtracting with single digits.  We need to go back and do some review, but she's really starting to get it.  Once she figured out that subtracting meant the number had to get smaller, no problem!  She is an extraordinary reader.  She's reading chapter books on her own during nap time (as in almost an entire Nancy Drew notebook each day).  She tries every day to make her handwriting neat so that she can move up to the next handwriting book and start cursive.  She tries all the time to write in her own kind of cursive...so cute.  We've been learning poems and figurative language.  In Social Studies, she's learned about Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt.  In Science she found out about conservation, pollution, and taking care of the Earth.  We've been pretty busy and I'm starting to get my groove back as far as planning goes, so hopefully this Fall we'll have a lot more focused lessons and activities.

Extra-curricular:  Baxter can laugh :)  Ruby is so excited about starting ballet in the Fall.  We use it as a reprimand all the time.  "You can't do that at ballet class."  "You don't want to act that way for Ms. Kelly in ballet class, she'll send you home." etc  Ford started up his Spring Soccer League.  Rachel continues violin and has gotten really good.  She will finish up Daisy Scouts in a few weeks and that will be the end of her girl scout career for now.  It was fun, but it's taking up a lot of time and energy that we can put elsewhere.

It's been a regular old Ingram Roller Coaster of ups and downs.  We spent a lot of the winter with Allen on snow days, so his spring break is very short, but we still intend to make the most of the next few days with him and enjoy our Easter/Spring Break a lot!