Special Connection Homeschool

By A+ I don't actually mean that's my daughter's grade, but rather it is the program we are using for math again this year.  A+ Tutorsoft is math program you can purchase to use online or on a CD. It has instructional videos, interactive quizzes, as well as both online and printable worksheets and exams. It has everything we need for one year of math. Gess really struggles with math so we are using the 3rd grade curriculum. Gess has been unable to memorize her math facts so I still allow her to use helps (including counting on her fingers) to help her solve problems, but she is able to add and subtract large numbers that way. We will begin focusing on multiplication and division this year. I prefer A+ over other online programs because the lessons are presented in a way that Gess seems to both enjoy and understand. When it's time to do the interactive quiz I often have her solve the problem on the board instead of a worksheet. She enjoys that. Here she is compar...

With Gess now being in what many call middle school it has been hard for me to find appropriate curriculum. She can read really well and her comprehension is even pretty good, but it is not yet ready for middle school level. Couple that with her inability to read small print and it makes finding a text book hard. We have also been all over the place on science. It has turned out to be Gesserine's favorite subject and many times I have let her choose the topic. Her fascination with weather comes alive every spring and in the winter when she is often sick she focuses on human anatomy and biology. While we have done some studies on plants and animals and various other things, I fear there are some things she has missed. So this year we are doing a full science review. For that I purchased the book The World of Science from Master Books . The book is divided into 7 sections. It covers 6 majors areas of science with the final section being experiments that correspond with the oth...

We officially started school yesterday! I always think I am going to wait until later in September but since all of our friends head back, the pool closes, the reading program ends, and all the other "summer time" stuff ends, we go ahead and start. We had a very productive day! We got in all our subjects including math twice, as well as a haircut, painting class, library time, and the park. I also cleaned two houses, neither of which were my own. I am very excited about the year! I will share our subjects one at a time in future posts.