Another Busy Day

So I have to brag on Jayden for a moment, simply because Austen and Riah have had the week off thus far due to getting over a fever which took a very tiring toll on their bodies :( Anyways, I was a little nervous at the start of this year trying to figure out if I should really move Jay into 3rd grade math. He did so well at the 2nd grade level but he is barely seven and I am all about moving at their pace and not my own. I wanted to make sure that it was really him and not me that was ready so I prayed and prayed about what to use for him for school this year and I am so thankful we are using Horizons.

I am not gun ho at all about the spiral method. I truly feel there are so many other, much better ways to teach math. For me, at this point in time, I feel that it gives me the structure I'm looking for as well as the confidence to veer off and teach something in a "real life" way or in a different way but still making sure we are heading in the right direction. A few years from now I'll probably laugh at myself as I prance to the trill of my own flute ( like that mental picture? :)) while doing my own math ideas but for now.....this is where we are at....still a little unsure of the math waters.

Mainly, I think my apprehension comes from the fact that math and language arts are two very sequential subjects. All the other subjects, honestly, it does not matter when you teach about the human body vs inventions vs the civil war and the revolutionary war. As long as you show connections...but l.a. and math....you can't jump to paragraphs when you don't know what a sentence is and you can't jump to multiplication if you can't add 1+2 , etc. Sooo, anyways, sorry for rambling.

Ok, so we started with horizon. I have a bunch of supplements that I am using along with math for both boys, especially Austen but we are moving steadily through the first few lessons of math and Jay is doing fantastic! The first lesson, wow, we spent 1.5 hr working through it together. My brain was fried afterwards and I was like, " Umm, this is going to be very slow going" but, by the 3rd lesson he started branching out with his white board, multi colored dry erase markers, counting blocks, pencil and his book; he started solving problems with carrying and sums resulting in the 100s all by himself as well as subtraction problems like 98-72=26!!! I was thrilled! He never even needed to ask me questions! Even if he needed to that would have been fine; simply to see him working hard on his own, independently and solving and understanding made me feel so proud of him! Great job Jayden!!!!! His proud little smirk made my day!