This week

Yesterday we had to take our cat to the vet, so we looked at x-rays and talked about what is inside of Chone (nothing bad, thankfully). 

Connor seems to have for a good understanding of the forms of matter and had been doing well with his reading comprehension workbook. It's a Smart Alec book, with short stories about a mouse, followed by 4-5 questions. I'm aiming to finish that book soon and move on to the factual text workbook for second grade that I bought. I'd like to jump into carrying/borrowing with math. He has really great mental math skills and we haven't needed to use those skills yet, but he is really not challenged by the first grade math we are doing. He is over the counting and grouping and triangle identification, and we need to move him on to more difficult material. Here is an acrostic Connor worked on this week as part of social studies:

It's been nice this week so we've had a few opportunities to go for bike and scooter rides. He's also been walking with Marc a few evenings this week. I'd like to focus on his core this year. He needs PT for a weak core so we need to incorporate new exercises. 

One thing that has helped me wrangle the ETERNAL AND INFINITE BOREDOM THAT IS SCHOOLWORK is a to do list. We use a numbered white board and he lists out all of the things we have to do that day (schoolwork and not schoolwork). It helps him to remember that we will not spend all day in school. 

Science

We started a science curriculum mostly because I felt a little uneasy without one. I  remember enough about the early years of math and reading to at least ballpark what is being taught in the primary years, but science is a black hole for me. Right now we are doing one to two pages of the science book a day. Each unit is broken into weeks, and my goal is to combine a handful of weeks so we will finish it up around the end if the school year. I'm not terribly thrilled with the program (unit one taught that bubbles aren't matter) but it works as a guideline. The first units deal with the forms of matter, and this week we are looking more closely at solids. We should wrap that up tomorrow and finish up the units on liquids and gases by the end of next week. 

Boring

Been a busy few weeks. We've established a good routine here and are working on Math, ELA, and Science everyday using workbooks and worksheets. I picked up workbooks for Social Studies and Geography as well so we will put them in the mix as well. I got a great deal at Michael's in canvases so we've been painting a lot. He also found my camera and has been taking a million photos. Connor has really taken a huge interest in basketball, just in time for March Madness! He picks up on the language and the rules so quickly - maybe he has a future as a sportscaster. Hockey is still a huge deal in our house though!

Our biggest challenge at this point is that Connor is SOOO BORED because his work is SOOO BORING! The workbooks are all first, second, third grade level but he isn't challenged. I don't want to keep skipping up because I'm afraid we will miss fundamentals and make it more difficult for him down the road. I feel really blessed that he picks up on stuff quickly and that he is so far above grade level in most subjects. It gives me a huge buffer for determining where we should be in each subject, as well as time to work on the social and communication skills where he is lagging.

And speaking of social skills, we started attending a very small (2-3 kids) play group class to work on social skills with a therapist. We will reassess after the fifth class (he's had two already).