Quick post today, but I just wanted to share an Elimination Communication success from today. While we were getting ready for bed Arden got her toilet seat, carried it over to the toilet, set it on top and said "Momma".
I took off her diaper, set her on the toilet, and she quickly went before raising her arms to be taken off.
I don't remember how old the boys were when they started indicating when they needed to be put on the toilet, but I am so proud of how hard she's working to communicate.
At 10 months old Arden is really starting to speak more. Currently she can say: Mama, Dad, brothers, dog, go, bye, good girl and yay.
One of her favorite things to do is call for her brothers, especially when she first wakes up. We'll hear a loud "Brothers! Brothers!", and then when they come running she has a huge grin.
She uses Little Reader once or twice a day, and although she is not saying most of the words, I know the exposure to so many object names and concepts is incredibly important.
Today I'd like to give you an update about my sweet little buddy who is now 6. Mason continues to amaze me in everything he does. Particularly with his math skills. He recently finished Saxon 5/4 and is moving on to 6/5, which is written for the average 6th grader or advanced 5th grader.
I wanted to give you guys an idea of exactly how amazing his math skills are. Here are 2 videos. The first shows him speeding through an assortment of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division problems over a 5 minute period with perfect accuracy.
The second shows me asking him complex 2 and 3 digit division problems with remainders which he solves in his head.
A regular day for Mason starts with French and Music on the computer with his brother. They use Little Reader French and then Little Musician together. Afterwards, they listen to the skip counting songs up through 12 on the Classical Conversations CD. Following that he does a math program in which he practices his math facts (this usually takes about 5 minutes). He then does a lesson of Rosetta stone French. After French he does a lesson of cursive writing.
The cursive writing program is based on historical facts so he is learning important dates while practicing writing. It also incorporates a daily art lesson.
When he is done with cursive he moves onto his math lesson for the day. He reads the lesson and then does the lesson and mixed practice and then brings it to his father or I for correction. Anything that is wrong we have him re-do, which usually solves the problem. Any problems that are still incorrect are worked through together.
One of Mason's last lessons in his math book.
We then move on to reading, both him and his brother try to get 2 hours of "school" reading in a day. Theses are books I've chosen that span classical literature, history, science and just old favorites of my own.
The last subject we try to work on almost daily is writing. Mason is constantly writing his own stories and drawing diagrams for machines he'd like to build. For a formal writing program we have been using Writing Strands and he is at about an early 4th grade level, however we are considering transitioning to Saxon Writing and Grammar to get a more rounded language arts education.
A recent writing assignment from Writing Strands creating a story with conversation between the characters.
Mason also recently started swimming competitively and loves swimming, skiing and soccer. He hopes we'll get manage to spend more time on the beach so he can take after his big brother and become a better surfer this year.
