Update on Mason: Age 6

 

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.

Updates

As our little one turned 6 weeks old we have noticed some major changes. The day before she reached 6 weeks she began pushing her head and upper body up.

Then 2 days later she started rolling over! She rolled over 3 times that day and has rolled over a few times since. I keep trying to get a video, but unfortunately she has been too quick for me so far.

Another milestone is she has started purposefully using her hands. Her main hand activity to date has been using back of hand to push pacifier in mouth.

In other exciting news my 5 year old has started Saxon math. In our family we start Saxon at level 5/4. This is estimated to be at the level of an advanced 4th grader or average 5th grader. Prior to starting this we had him complete Singapore up through 2B. In addition, he does fact practice daily using Sterling Math Facts (http://www.supershareware.com/info/sterling-math-facts.html), and listens/sings along to the skip counting section of the Classical Conversations CD. Prior to starting Saxon we made sure that he was solid in all math facts through the 12's in all 4 operations. In his first few lessons he has been doing well and is so excited to be starting the same math program as his older brother.

Proudly holding up his first lesson