Halfway Mark

WoW, I can hardly believe we’ve passed the halfway mark of this year again. Where on earth does the time fly by so quickly?

This has been an extremely quiet week with the boys being on holiday & Jesse away to Ngwenya with his friend. I really enjoyed not having to go anywhere at all. Must admit being a house mouse is just part of my nature…

On Monday we celebrated Dad’s birthday with some Ten Pin Bowling, lunch at the Spur and a movie at Monte Casino. We missed Jesse, but nevertheless had ourselves a lovely day.

Of course Misha was still around and had a friend over for the day a couple of times, whilst I continued with my usual admin & other home chores & now we wait in anticipation for Jesse to get home on Monday.

Birthday Celebrations

This has been quite a busy week for us. Although Misha’s birthday is only on Wednesday, I had to move his party forward one week due to the school holidays starting & his bestest buddies being away next weekend. We made and sent out invitations & party packs. We planned birthday cake & arranged with Oma to make it for him.

On Tuesday Jesse & I dropped Misha at the zoo for the Honey Badger club whereafter we stopped to buy his party pack contents. Janna fetched the boys from the zoo and allowed them some time to play afterwards. He had insisted the previous day that his hair was too long so I took him to have his hair cut after playing at Joshua’s.

Of course he insisted on filling his party packs when he got home too, saving mommy some time having to do it.
On Thursday we had Gerhard & Keanan over for guitar lessons and a sleepover later so they could join us for ice skating on Friday. Their Technology and art lessons had been posponed to Monday afternoon.

Friday was once again full day at the ice rink. Misha had asked for a weekend sleepover with his bestest buddies. Matthew & Joshua joined us at the ice rink after school. By 4pm the older boys were tired of skating all day, so we headed home.

On Saturday morning we took Misha & his friends to Fourways for their 2 hour long birthday party Lego lesson.

Whilst waiting for them to complete their lesson, their lesson we went to the Spur for some coffee.

After the Lego lesson we headed home for a bring & braai with family & friends. We were concerned with the weather since it was cold & looked like it would start raining. Thankfully it held out & the kids were able to play outside for much of the day.

Fortunately we were able to braai all the meat on my grill in the kitchen. The weather held out until most of the guests had left. We had a massive thunderstorm & lots of hail. The last of our guests left at 10pm & Jesse joined them for a sleepover. Matthew & Joshua remained for one more night. Joshua was fetched this morning & Matthew this afternoon. We went for coffee this evening when when we collected Jesse.

Misha's 10th Birthday Party Photos

Tomorrow Jesse’s doing the Meteor & Comets course with Education Support and Misha will join a homeschooling friend to try out some group learning activities in a co-op type setting. If he enjoys that, he’ll be joining them twice a week in future. Tomorrow afternoon they’ll catch up their Technology & art lessons. On Thursday evening Jesse’s joining his bestest buddy for a week’s holiday at Ngwenya lodge, so the next week we’ll be short one child again, during which time daddy was planning on having Misha’s room fixed & painted.

Technorati Tags: SacHS Blog,2012,Grade 4,Grade 9,Celebrations,Birthdays

Holiday Fun

Jesse’s taken up a part-time job at The Beauty Factory. Today he was due to help out at Fourways together with Devyn, so we set out to drop them off by 10am.

Being true to myself I figured it would be easier for me to hang around there instead of rushing back later to fetch him. After all there were movies & other activities available to entertain Misha.

We discovered a Lego Store in the mall… this kept Misha occupied for at least an hour…

Since I still had two unused tickets from January for Adventure Golf I decided to let him use those… although he sped through the first round in less than 20 minutes….

Fortunately the go-cart & ball on the water were waiting as we got outside… there’s another 20 minutes down the drain…

A quick stop to check on Jesse & Devyn at work before we headed off to the movies for Ice Age 4…

After the movies, another round of adventure golf & then pit stop at the Spur for some juice & playtime… then a few more minutes building Lego at the Lego shop & by then it was 3pm & time for Jesse & Devyn to finish at work…

On our way out we still made a quick stop to buy Daddy a present for his birthday on Sunday & headed home…

Technorati Tags: SACHS Blog,Homeschooling,Home Education,Home schooling,Feedback,2012

Chillax & Celebrate

And here we've reached the halfway mark of another year and the end of our first week of school holiday.

I was quite impressed with Misha this week. He was home alone with me all week & not once did he request a friend to play with. After all this time home educating he's finally managing to entertain himself & has become less dependant on friends to keep him busy. Instead he helped me bake muffins & entertained himself with games inside as well as outside. On Wednesday he helped me bake pancakes. Thursday morning he ate up Daddy's pancakes & insisted to make new ones before dad got home. However by Thursday evening he was missing his Ouboet & couldn't wait for Friday when Jesse was due to arrive back home. Then on Friday he insisted on surprising Ouboet with some pancakes which he made with very little assistance & then he crowned himself the "pancake masterchef".

Last Saturday our eldest turned 15 & with him having been on holiday with a friend, today became the chosen opportunity for his birthday party. We set out to the Northgate Ice Arena for an early afternoon start at 12pm... Although very noisy & cold the kids seemed to have had loads of fun. By 5pm all the adults were quite happy that they were all done & ready to head home.

Of course Misha opted to go home with a friend for a sleepover & Jesse brought his bestest buddies home for some more fun & gaming...

Having wrapped up Jesse's birthday, now it is time again to plan for the next one our list. Clive will be 42 next Sunday, so that doesn't really leave all that much time in the planning department which besides cooking & baking do not rank very high on my gifts & talents lists... At least the next birthday is only in September, leaving ample time to sort out arrangements... but for now I'll head to bed & allow myself to dream up some ideas for Sunday...

Happy Break Time

WoW, we’ve just come to the end of our first batch of 5 weeks school and are looking forward to a  1 week break. Time really does fly when you’re having fun.

Every day I realize more and more how much the “system” has failed me during my school years even though I had fairly good grades, thanks to my ability to learn “like a parrot”. Teaching to the test is failing on so many levels since noting remains long after the tests are done. I' am basically re-learning everything with the boys and am finding all this  learning quite tiring so I can just imagine how the kids must feel after a full term of sitting in class for an average of 5-6 hours a day. Thankfully we don’t need to adhere to such a rigorous schedule and can change our schedule to suit the family’s needs. I really have to guard against bringing the “system” into our home and causing more frustrations, but so far this year it seems we’re coping much better than last.

So here’s how we start most our days… The boys wake up around 8am and since none of us are early birds, they come sit on me whilst we watch How it’s Made and Mythbusters for some overall science general knowledge. I’m amazed at how much they generally remember from what they see. The Samsung Galaxy Tab that I received for Christmas seems to been one of the best investments we’ve made so far. I have added the Kindle reader and now we read The Story of The World whilst Misha colours the relative pictures from the activity book. We do the review questions orally. Of course we play lots of Monopoly for Maths and the World Safari game for Geography.

After about 18 months of home educating I seem to have finally found something that has Misha excited about learning to read. He spent the first 3 days full time on the program and finished about 20 lessons moving himself up from Level 2 to a a Level 3 reader.  Not too shabby for a kid who could hardly read a handful of words in Grade 2. Although his his estimated reading age is only 6 according to the Reading Eggs progress report, I have no doubt that if he keeps up this pace, he will be able to catch up to his peers within the next year or two. I would highly recommend this for struggling & reluctant readers and what's best is that it caters for kids up to 13 years of age.

I have also signed him up on a trial at Ooka Island so he can rotate between the two for now. Then there's also Read, Write & Type so between these 3 I hope we'll eventually conquer the reading struggles. At least he's finally showing some interest in reading, so that already helps a lot.

I recently discovered the Magic Tree House Series of historical story books by Mary Pope Osborne for Kindle. They are fairly inexpensive and I have been reading them to the boys lately. Both of them seem to enjoy listening to these stories and I subsequently discovered the Magic Tree House Game Site to accompany the reading. There is also a UK version of this site available, however Misha and I find the American version more appealing. Now we are able to addres History as well as reading, so I’m quite happy since it saves us the frustration of sitting with history text books. So far we’ve read the first 4 books in this series.

Visit Books Should be Free for a wide variety of audio books to download and listen to.

is another cool site to visit. Into the Book is a reading comprehension resource for K-4 students and teachers. It focuses on eight research-based strategies: Using Prior Knowledge, Making Connections, Questioning, Visualizing, Inferring, Summarizing, Evaluating and Synthesizing. Try the online interactive activities, or click below to find out how to get our engaging 15-minute video programs.

I have decided to focus mainly on Misha’s reading development this year in order to get him onto grade level. I’m finding it is useless and frustrating to have him work through numerous other subject workbooks with his reading not at grade level because still struggles to understand what he’s reading. So for now it’s reading and Maths and all the other subjects we’ll continue through living books, games and videos. For handwriting practise we use the blackboard in the classroom & I’ll be investing in a whiteboard additionally to make him more mobile so he can practise writing & drawing whenever he feels like it.

Jesse’s doing the Learn & Master Guitar on his own now, since Misha’s not all that interested yet. The boys are continuing their technology and art lessons. I’m seeing good progress and am happy to see how much they’re enjoying it. Jesse’s washing line project is nearing completion and Misha’s starting to show interest in drawing at home as well. All in all I'm glad for small mercies and happy to see the sparks of interest which I hope in due time will rekindle a love for learning.

What we Achieved this Year

Since we finished our first year home educating last week, I’ve been asking myself what we actually achieved this year…

I must admit goal setting has never been one of my strong points. Generally I just take life in it’s stride, although I always managed to get things done…

Academically, however, I had their year all planned out. By the end of last year I had bought their “worksheet wasteland” curriculum and expected the schedules to run smooth sailing… but alas, my schedules were met with much resistance. By the end of the first term already they were getting annoyed with my insistence to get the worksheets done.  They wanted to wrestle and play instead of doing the boring bookwork.

During the second term I learnt about learning styles and realised that this approach wasn’t going to work for us and I was back on the internet searching for alternatives. I canned the schedules and decided instead to take one day at a time. I realised that for my own sanity as well as the boys I just had to find a better way to educate the kids.

Misha started with Le-Amen worksheets, changed to All-In-One programme, then we used Switched on Shoolhouse for Language Arts and Teaching Textbooks for Maths. Eventually we converted worksheets into lapbooks and finally we switched him over to Time 4 Learning. He has redone his whole Grade R foundation with Hettie and his gross and fine motor skills as well as midline crossing abilities are finally up to date. He has learnt to read and his overall confidence has improved a great deal. He’s discovered a love for art and has his future all planned out, wanting to become a Science and Art teacher.

Although I eased off on the bookwork with Jesse, he still had to do his assessments and write the Le-Amen exams. He did very well for a child that hated schoolwork so much. It took most of the year to get there, but he’s finally started to open up to me. All the “sit on mommy” time and wrestling have finally paid off. I’m getting to know him better and finally have a better idea how to approach the next year with him. The Technology lessons with the Tutor were a hit and he really seems to love the hands-on learning.

Thanks to HomeSchool Tracker Basic edition I was able to track all their activities and scores to give an accurate report on all they have achieved.

In spite of all the challenges, with curricula that didn’t work for them, both boys still managed to improve their grades substantially.

I was blown away after collecting the boys' reports today…

I have absolutely no idea how Le-Amen got to their scores but somehow, only Jesse's Afrikaans & Social Science results correspond with what I handed in and his 83% average has dropped to 70%.

Misha scored a whopping 86% average for all the assignments he has done, but their report classes him as an average student... Now how does this make sense?

Although the Le-Amen results don’t correspond with mine, at least they have promoted the boys to grades 4 & 9 respectively for next year. I don’t have the energy to put on a fight about it, so I'll just write this homeschool support center off to a very bad experience never to be used again... I will just ignore their reports and use our own instead.

Bringing them home, where they belong has been the best move ever. I just love having the boys around all the time. We’re enjoying our new found freedom and are not missing the daily trips rushing to and from school at all.

I, of course, failed miserably at being super organised (having been a secretary, PA & Office Administrator before becoming a housewife), have everything filled, up to date, know what’s happening where, complete tasks etc. Somehow time just didn’t seem to be on my side.

We did manage to get into a routine and even managed to get them doing some chores. Jesse’s become a master at making fudge and jelly. Even Misha’s been helping around the kitchen lately.

We managed to do many things together, from baking, to playing and of course we even managed to fit in more field trips than our whole family has had in all our schooling careers together. They loved the monthly ice skating trips and the horse camp in September was a major hit.

I’m most impressed with their personal progress though. All the sweat and tears this year were well worth it just looking at how much they’ve grown…

Misha is no longer a tired, stressed-out whiney child and the boys hardly ever fight any more. They play games together and get along so much better these days. Jesse also seems to be much more relaxed. He’s even started doing small maintenance jobs in and around the house. If he keeps it up, one day he may be able to teach Daddy a thing or two…

All in all, our whole family life style has changed for the better… I’m beginning to understand the way they learn and I have an idea of how to make “school” work for us next year… And of course we’ve saved about R20,000 on school fees, even with all the extra murals which included ice skating, Junior Engineering, Tutors as well as camping for both of them.

Misha’s starting to show interest in some forms of learning and I trust by the end of next year Jesse will be enjoying learning again too…

Well done boys, you did us proud!

We’re Finished

WoW, we have finally delivered our evaluations to Le-Amen on Tuesday afternoon and that officially marks the end of our first year of homeschooling. Little did we know that this "school at home" approach would make our journey such a hectic and stressful one for us.

Home education is not for the faint-hearted…

Honestly, I do regret using Le-Amen as our service provider as our experience with them has been rather disappointing. Their material for Misha was way too much "worksheet wasteland" orientated and boring to work with. He hated doing them, & I didn't enjoy marking them either. Needless to say, I’m still waiting for feedback on the missing activities in his environmental studies manual… After repeatedly querying this, I gave up and he was overjoyed when I finally discovered lapbooking and allowed him to cut the worksheets up for his lapbooks.

We eventually replaced all the worksheets with Smart Tutor, Switched on Schoolhouse Language Arts, Teaching Textbooks and many other alternative resources until we recently stumbled onto Time4Learning again. After all the chopping and changing, he still managed to do quite well for a child that was struggling through school years before.

We also discovered his sudden interest in painting after taking him to a tutor to help with his “way beyond his age” art project for his Le-Amen portfolio. We were amazed at the end result and this term decided to let him continue art lessons with Edward.

He thoroughly enjoyed these lessons. From building the frame for the canvas, to painting this picture with Edward’s guidance. It turned out quite pretty. He enjoyed it so much that he’s been asking for more lessons this week.

Thanks to HomeSchool Tracker I was able to track everything the boys did. Misha averaged 86.11% covering Afrikaans, English, German, Art, Bible, Environmental Studies, Social Studies, Life Skills, Maths & Science.

Jesse’s books were not at all homeschool friendly. Pushing this textbook approach, just fuelled his intense hatred for schoolwork instead of help recover his love for learning. The textbooks were classroom orientated & the teachers manuals were aimed at professional teachers and not homeschool parents. When I questioned this I was told English and Maths were important and I shouldn’t worry about the others as they were “poer vakke”. How on earth is a child's supposed to be able to self-study with material that’s not appropriate for that purpose? I finally replaced most of his textbooks with alternatives and also got him Switched on Schoolhouse Science to try out.

Technology VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

He thoroughly enjoyed the technology lessons with Edward. This year he’s had in depth training on architectural drawings, built a miniature sample to accompany the drawings. He also started AutoCAD drawing lessons. As a technology project he’s busy building me a new washing line for the back stoep. This entailed measuring, drawing, planning material as as well as welding lessons.

Although he hated the bookwork, Jesse still managed to increase his average with 14+% from last year to 83.72% covering Afrikaans, English, German, Accounting, Bible, Social Studies, Life Skills, Maths Natural Science, Science & Technology. Now if this is what he’s capable of whilst hating what he’s doing, I can just imagine what he’ll achieve when he loves learning again.

However, apart from the “school” stress, we did also have loads of fun this year. We’ve done more field trips in one year than what Clive & I had in our combined school careers. I love having the boys home with me. We’ve grown so much closer as a family.

Fortunately I have discovered learning styles and how that affects their ability to retain what they've learnt and we still have some time to salvage the damage caused by the "system". For next year I’m planning loads of hands-on activities and fun instead of the traditional “school at home” approach.

I have been inspired to write a home educating philosophy for our family… but this is as far as I got for now…

I must admit I haven't been this tired & stressed in ages. It's already taken me a few days to de-stress and I'm only now starting to feel slightly normal again. I've been in bed by 22h00 most nights this week and am still tired. Fortunately we have a few weeks’ break now and I trust next year will be better and less stressful as we explore educating the WAY THEY LEARN.

For now, I’m looking forward to a nice long break and I’m sure the boys are happy to be on holiday too…

Home Educating a Struggling Learner

We removed our very active, yet highly intelligent 7-year old from private school in August 2010 because he was struggling with reading & writing due to his gross & fine motor skills foundation not having been addressed properly at a Gr. R level, hence the learning problems. He is also a Right Brain Kinaesthetic as well as Visual Spatial learner & his learning styles are not catered for in most of our schools today.

“A mother’s first duty to her children is to secure for them a quiet and growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life, the waking part of it for the most part spent out in the fresh air.”

~ Charlotte Mason

And that’s where the “system” failed our little one quite miserably…

The school focused too early & too much on academics & neglected the motor skills as well as visual perception. Midline crossing & skipping, being very important skills for fluent reading were just 2 of many areas that were not addressed properly. Although he could memorise paragraphs, like a parrot, he struggled to read. He Aced his spelling tests but could not spell when writing sentences. These were just a few of the issues we’ve been working on together with his pre-school teacher to get him through Gr. 2. He was able to cope thus far due to his intelligence, but the struggling impacted his self-esteem very negatively & caused him to dislike school with a passion.

Although the school tried to address the problem with remedial (at additional cost to us as parents) & extra lessons, these showed very little success, but instead placed extra workload & repetition rather than addressing the foundation of the problem… hence we’ve took him back to Hettie Hen Playgroup after school twice a week since August 2009 so she could do physical activities & brain gym with him in order to get the brain development going. This showed shown huge improvement, but his backlog was so big that he still got very fidgety in class when he didn’t understand the tasks at hand. The other problem was that he was constantly stressed & tired, thus making the progress slow.

The following are pages where I found some very useful information to help my struggling learner:

• Homeschooling Your Struggling Learner by Dianne Craft Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) Special Needs Coordinator

• Smart Kids who Hate to Write by Dianne Craft

• Child Diagnostics by Dianne Craft ~ Solutions for Dislexia, Disgraphia & Struggling Learners

• Learning Differently by Kathy Kuhl, author of Homeschooling Your Struggling Learner

• Anna’s House ~ Educational Remediation from the Brain StemUp.

• Heads Up Now! ~ Heads Up! is a company designed to provide expert information and products for special needs children.

We have applied many of the tips contained in these pages & together with the stress release, this has resulted in a huge improvement both in his abilities as well as his confidence.  ~ If you have a struggling learner, be sure to visit these pages & get some help to avoid yourself & your child some stress & frustration.

“ADD seems like a matter of convenience to many adults who are in charge of “round kids” who don’t fit into the “square holes” of home and school. The label helps a teacher get a troublesome child out of a regular class and into a special education room, helps a parent get a drug prescription to set the problem right (instead of first considering other more fundamental changes, and even helps many students get more time to take tests and complete assignments in class. Unfortunately, though it’s the child who gets saddled with the disability label and has to go through school looked upon as less normal than the other kids. Nowhere in this litany of deficit, disability, and disedase is there the recognition that these children may learn very well IN THEIR OWN WAY.” from In Their Own Way: Discovering and Encouraging Your Child’s Multiple Intelligences by Dr. Thomas Armstrong

We have one of those “round kids” that doesn’t fit into the “square holes”, but refused the ADD label and instead, removed him from the “square hole” environment & today, just over a year later he’s flourishing & growing to become a confident student once again.

I’m currently reading this book & am slowly starting to understand why our youngest had such a struggle at school. It seems he’s a right brain kinaesthetic learner. Keeping him interested in schoolwork is quite a challenge & I’m constantly having to change my strategies because he gets bored very easily. Thus far we have used the All-In-One Programme, Switched on Schoolhouse as well as Teaching Textbooksall of which were effective only for a while. I have recently had to change strategy againand now we’re using Time4Learning and loads of interactive educational PC games. Of course I’ve also added an Art tutor, because he enjoyed the few sessions for his art project last term so much.

I have decided to take next few years one day at a time. We’ll continue with Time4Learning for as long as it works for him. In the interim I still have loads of links and books to work through in my quest to find ways & means to help him through.

I trust that in the near future we will be able to conquer this hatred for schoolwork & be able to restore his love for learning.

Educating a Reluctant Learner

School in general is quite a mission in our home for both our boys. Although our eldest managed to cope quite well in school, his love for learning has been destroyed by school pressure.

Next year he will be doing 4 subjects with Alpha Omega Academy. As for the rest of the “normal” grade 9 curriculum I’m planning to do “Story of the World” with them and let him continue his technology lessons with his current tutor. I also want to try our some Woodworking lessons for them. Since they both love the Junior Engineering (JEFA) classes so much, I will let them continue those as well.

Here are some books I’ve found for teaching the child who hates school…

• Teaching a Reluctant Learner by Tony @ Simple Homeschool.
• Teaching the Reluctant Learner By Terry Spray @ NATHHAN National Challenged Homeschoolers Associated Network

The Shut-Down Learner

Helping Your Academically Discouraged Child

Richard Selznick

I Hate School

How to Help Your Child Love Learning

Cynthia Ulrich Tobias

Unfortunately I’ve been so busy helping my struggling learner that I still need to find the time to read through all these books. I’m thus not yet sure whether they contain any tips that will help with my boys.

I know however, during the next few years my greatest challenge will be restoring their love for learning. Yet, I still have no idea exactly how I’m going to achieve that.

Please visit this page frequently as I will be posting regular updates as I find more resources.

Unimpressed!

We stopped by Le-Amen on our way to gym on Tuesday on the way to gym to fetch Misha’s portfolio that was handed in for monitoring last term.

Honestly, I must admit I wasn’t very impressed. For starters when I arrived at around 2pm I was told “I’m on lunch, but I will help you.”, as if she was doing me a favour fetching Misha’s portfolio. When I asked for the feedback on their evaluations, I was told we weren’t getting any this term. So much for support & feedback.

Then I noticed that they didn't give any feedback on the worksheets etc. in his portfolio except for his painting. Except for “Beautiful” on his painting, they didn’t comment on any of his other work although he had many 100% worksheets in there.

The poor kid was quite upset about that. "All that Work for nothing. That's just mean!" he said. I can just imagine how disappointing the lack of positive comments must be for him. Of course, now I still have to try motivate him to do more worksheets for the rest of this term. I can already hear him replying why should he do them if they’re not even going to comment on his work.

Unfortunately his laptop also caved on Tuesday morning. It seems the hard drive has gone. Fortunately Clive was able to swop the hard drive with the one from my old laptop with the broken screen, so at least now it’s up & running again.

Of course Jesse reckons the laptop broke because I made them do “school” on it. I suppose for them anything would be a good excuse not to do school. He’s quite happy that his Switched on Schoolhouse is not yet running again, as it gives him a valid excuse not to do it.

I may need to reconsider how we’re going to address doing school the way he learns next year. I have noticed that Switched on Schoolhouse seems to have too much textbook approach with lots of reading & not enough interaction. I’ve signed him up for a 2 week trial at Time4Learning to see if that will help. So far he says he likes it more than SOS. I may just let him continue with Time4Learning instead for now, until he’s conquered the reading / worksheet resistance. We can always transition him to Switched on Schoolhouse in grade 7/8 in order to get him used to the system by grade 9 when he would ideally need to start Alpha Omega Academy.

I have also found some very cool educational iPad apps that could make a huge difference to their learning on the long run. Only problem is that Clive takes his iPad to work so they can only use it when he’s home . I must admit the Kindle App for iPad has revolutionised our reading. Both the boys & I prefer the eBook reading to real books. I like to hijack Clive’s iPad to read in bed whilst he’s asleep as it’s more comfortable & doesn’t disturb him.

WoW, I can’t believe another week’s gone again. I’m amazed at how fast the time’s flying. We have just 5 & half more weeks to final hand-in for this year.

Watch this space next week. I’m hosting the next SA Carnival of Homeschooling Blogs. If you wish to contribute, please visit the Carnival home page & complete the submission form. Next week’s topic is Math Focus & from the submissions I’ve seen thus far you’re in for some awesome tips & resources.

Wrapped Up the Term

With the boys scheduled to go to a horse riding camp at Mooikrans together with a group of 28 other homeschoolers, we spent last week wrapping up on assignments. Jesse did his exams & I finalised their evaluations for delivery to Le-Amen on Thursday, although they only needed to be handed in at the end of the month.

Misha’s shown huge improvement in many areas of his schooling, especially reading & writing. His confidence is growing steadily. Jesse’s grades have also improved once again, although his enthusiasm for schoolwork was still severely lacking.

We decided to start school holiday when they go to camp & will start our new term on the 5th October as per our original schedule because Jesse is once again going away with his friend, Scott, to Balito after camp.

It has been a hectic week, to say the least. Jesse had to finish all his assignments & we still visited the James Hall Transport Museum on Wednesday.

James Hall Transport Museum VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

With Misha also celebrating his birthday today, we needed to do his birthday party before camp because by the time we get back home, his friends will all have left on their school holiday. Friday was our monthly ice skating day, with scouts in the evening, so we arranged a sleepover & birthday party for Saturday.

Of course on Saturday evening we needed to pack for camp & holiday. We dropped the boys at Mooikrans yesterday morning.

From what we’ve seen already, it seems they are going to have an awesome time.

Mooikrans Equus 2011 VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

We spoke to the boys this morning & they were having loads of fun. I was able to arrange a birthday cake and some snacks for the group, so this afternoon, after lunch Misha was scheduled to have another birthday party. We will only speak to them again later this week & hear how it’s gone, but I’m sure they must be having a blast.

In the interim Clive & I are enjoying our break-away from the hustle & bustle of the big city here in Wakkerstroom.  We will be leaving early Friday morning to attend the camp concert after which we will be heading home to rest for one more week.

Reading Blaster for Struggling/Reluctant Readers

WoW, after almost a year of home educating, it seems I may have finally found a tool that will help motivate my very reluctant reader. I downloaded a demo version of Reading Blaster for him last night.

Boy oh boy, did it manage to get him all excited about reading this morning. I haven't seen Misha read out loud this much in one day ever. I'm sure he must have covered at least a week's worth of reading already in the hour he's been playing the game. Of the 25 read-along books, he's already read 6 & done the comprehension exercises. That's so awesome!

Those that know our reasons for home educating & have been following Misha's progress since August last year, will know this is a major achievement for our little boy who struggled to read & subsequently hated reading. He spent a few hours on this game today & I have NEVER seen him this excited about reading before. This may just be the spark we needed to re-ignite his love for learning...

Children Can Build Their Reading Skills With Memorable, Entertaining Reading Games

Basically they read a short story, then get to play a game that asks them questions about the story at regular intervals to test their comprehension. They receive a printable certificate upon completion of various levels. Parents can also print detailed reports of activities completed.

If you have a struggling or reluctant reader, do yourself as well as your child the favour of trying Reading Blaster.

Descriptions below were taken from the Download FREE Games website.

FREE demo games can be downloaded that allow the child to try the game for 2 hours before purchasing the full version at $6,99.

Ages 5-7

Help the Blaster Team in an Otherworldly Adventure!

The Blaster Team ends up on the Planet of Lost Things, the place where things like lost socks and balloons end up. Can you help them return the lost items to the children by earning five keys?

Children can practice reading and thinking skills that will be useful throughout their lives with these entertaining reading activities. This game teaches skills including spelling, recognizing word and letter sounds, distinguishing vowels, using punctuation and more.

Fun, Memorable and Educational Activities

Children can enjoy a variety of educational activities including catching falling socks that have words beginning with the correct letter, learning comprehension by following directions to build faces and scenes, putting balloons with letters or words in order to make words or sentences, building trains to create words with specific sounds and more.

Children will be introduced to more than 1,500 vocabulary words. Children can read along with a variety of stories and print them out. Children can even send messages to their favourite Blaster Team members and receive funny replies!

Help Your Child Develop Skills that will Last a Lifetime

This enjoyable game is a worthwhile tool that will help children build a strong foundation in reading that will serve them for the rest of their lives. This game even has a progress report so both parents and children can see how far the child has progressed. The fun and optimistic atmosphere will make children want to keep coming back!

Give your child a fun and educational adventure now with Reading Blaster Ages 5-7!

Ages 6-8

Be a Detective and Recover the Books!

The Mumbles have stolen all the books on Earth! Can you help Blaster, GC and Mel find the clues they need to locate the missing books?

Boys and girls ages 6 to 8 will enjoy this game's colorful graphics, charming characters and engaging activities and parents will enjoy seeing how much their kids are learning. This game makes reading fun!

Learn Tons of Reading, Spelling and Grammar Skills

Play six fun mini games with educational themes. Learn to spell words as you build a bridge or learn to recognize certain letter combinations and sounds by climbing a volcano. Navigate mazes to learn punctuation or go skiing to practice reading comprehension.

Learn more than 2,000 vocabulary words and work on vital skills like creating sentences, punctuation, capitalization, synonyms, past and present tenses and much more. Enjoy 25 read-along books and track your progress with a report card. You can even write your own stories or letters and create word puzzles to print.

A Rewarding, Educational Adventure for the Entire Family

The whole family can enjoy this game's creative activities and fun detective story. Parents can enjoy the rewarding experience of watching their kids grow and develop in a fun, memorable setting. Kids will easily become addicted to this great blend of fun and education and realize that learning can be a real blast.

Give your kids the chance to learn and thrive with Reading Blaster Ages 6-8 now!

Ages 9-12

Solve the Mystery of an Evil Madman!

Dr. Dabble is kidnapping people and turning them into appliances! Can you save them and figure out why he's doing this?

This mystery adventure game is a great way for children ages 9 to 12 to practice reading comprehension, grammar, spelling, critical thinking skills, analogies, vocabulary and more.

Piece Together the Mystery by Playing Reading Games

Children are sure to enjoy the feeling of being a detective and searching for evidence throughout the mansion! A piece of evidence is earned for each activity completed.

Activities include building sentences in a memory graveyard game, practicing synonyms and antonyms by jumping on moving ghosts to find the correct words, working on comprehension and critical thinking by solving logical word puzzles, building a bridge by finding words that relate to each other and more.

Make Reading Fun and Memorable for Your Child!

This game is rich with mystery perfect for children ages 9 to 12. They'll feel rewarded as they put together the pieces of the mystery and greatly improve their reading skills!

With various difficulty levels for each activity and nice touches like short stories scattered throughout the mansion, children will want to play and replay this game for endless hours!

Give your child education and entertainment now with Reading Blaster Ages 9-12!

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