Download frenzy!

I have been on a download frenzy lately!! I cannot believe how much cool free stuff there is out there. Besides our free music curriculum that we got through a deal at Homeschool eStore, I've recently acquired a free geography curriculum through a a deal at KnowledgeQuest which is based on a free geography game that is way too addicting. (Cassia and I were having a great time guessing the flags of different nations. It was more a game of who could remember the correct answer once they told it to us, than a test of any actual knowledge base, lol, but it was fun. Worse yet, that site also has an online Yahtzee tournament that I also spent way too much time playing last night, lol.) This morning, as I was browsing one of my favorite Classical Homeschooling Messageboards, I found a link to a free math worksheet generator. You can never have too many of those, right?

I've always been afraid to download for fear of corrupting the computer somehow, but DH has officially given me the Vaio to corrupt as I please, lol. I held off for awhile, but I just can't believe the deals I've been finding lately! Besides, when it's free, it's free! I also found some notebooking templates and so many ebooks that I can't even remember where I got them from - much less what they are!! LOL @ me! I guess I'm going to really need to sit down and organize my bookmarks and my files. Luckily, I've been smart enough to throw most of my school stuff into a single folder, but I have a feeling that there are still a few things floating around lost on my hard disk.

Anyway, with all this cool new stuff I figured that I had better get started doing some schooling today! Cameron chose reading, spelling, and science for today. He meant to choose math, spelling, and science but said it wrong and I wouldn't let him change his mind, lol. For reading he did a lesson on adding "s" to the ends of words. He did great. I don't know why he resists it so much! Next we started our new spelling program: Spelling Workout A. It arrived on Friday night and I never once hyped it except to say, "Look we finally got your spelling book!" There's just something irresistible about new stuff. Technically, we are supposed to wait to start it until we are past Lesson 115 of OPGTR - today we did Lesson 82 - but who am I to tell the boy that he cannot practice spelling if he wants to? That recommendation assumes that you will be doing both phonics and spelling every day though. I'm going to aim for phonics 3 to 5 times and spelling 2 to 3 times a week this year. Next year we'll try doing both (along with grammar and math) every day and I'm sure we'll be caught up by then. Spelling Workout starts off very slowly though. Lesson 1 was just practice in identifying the first sounds of words and practice in writing the letters A through N. One great thing is that Cameron really put a lot of effort into trying to form his letters in the exact right way with the correct placement on the line and everything. That's a first! Cassia was working with us in identifying the starting sound of the words and although she couldn't name the letters that were making the sounds, she was able to give me other words that started with the same sound. It was a good family learning moment. :)

Next we moved on to science and did one workbook exercise on the properties of materials and one activity book activity on identifying materials. I was very conscious of not putting any undue pressure on him to know the right answers. Instead of arguing, we floated blocks in the bathroom sink when he told me that wood would sink. I just laughed when he suggested that the tool shed was made of rubber and that the refrigerator was made of clay. Cassia was actually quite good at picking out things made of certain materials because she wasn't afraid of going for the obvious - rubber bands are made of rubber, toilet paper is made of paper, cloth napkins are made of cloth. I had to draw the line at "babies are made of plastic" though. ;)

But it was a good day and we finished with three subjects by 1:00. That's got to be a record for us. Hopefully I can sneak in some math or geography games later or maybe even another unit in music - it's been a couple weeks since we've done that. Greyson is sick again so I think we may be stuck at home for a few days... might as well take advantage of it!