Braden's First Six Weeks

Whew!  We made it through the first six weeks of school!  Braden is really doing well and I am starting to get used to being lots more structured in how we do school here.  I decided a certificate was in order, so I made one up and printed it out on card stock and presented it to him.  We got a shot of it.

I'm going to rework the certificate a little bit...I'm not quite satisfied with it, but I like adding this to the reward system.  I hung it on our dining room wall, since that is our school room, too. :)  Sam is really doing an excellent job being Braden's math teacher.  I am so glad he's doing that subject with Braden instead of me.  I learned math in a round about way and I'd rather Braden learned it way better than me!  I'm pretty sold on Sonlight and intend to start Zekes on it next year for Kindergarten.  Braden was having issues holding his pencil and writing.  He was holding it using all four of his fingers to guide the pencil and he was moving his whole arm and wrist to write.  I had my mom and Aunt Kathy (both Occupational Therapists!) take a look-see and my Aunt Kathy had him try a few things and then I implemented one of them pretty strongly at home every time he writes and it has made a huge difference!  Right now, he puts the pencil between his first and middle fingers with his thumb supporting from behind to train him to set his pencil on that middle finger and to use those three fingers to guide his pencil.  He tried writing with his first finger on the top of the pencil in correct form and he did really well for a bit, but still wasn't there all the way yet.  I think it will be soon, though!  He also remembered another technique that Aunt Kathy had him try that he wasn't able to at the time and when he tried it again without any sort of prompting from me, he was able to do it very well and was extremely excited about it!  I really enjoy that about him!

Right now, Zekey is doing a great job of learning his letters.  He's already got his numbers 1-10 down and we are working on 11-20.  He knows all his colors and shapes and matching and sorting and all that good stuff.  He enjoys doing school work, too, only in smaller increments.  He's really funny because he'll have hardly done anything and he'll ask if he can take a break.  He so loves to do what Braden does.  Ailey goes into stealth mode and will take a page out of Zekey's workbook and draw on it.  She likes doing school, too. ;p  Here are some pics of her using a particularly interesting writing technique:

That's my girl! :)