I can't believe it's that time of year again. Summer has just seemed to fly by. I'm getting ready to start our official home school year again. Although, here, with my kids, everyday presents MANY new learning opportunities for them and me. Some are good, some not so, but I savor every moment of it. Before long they will be grown and gone and I will wonder where the time went. Some days I already do.
I know some of you are wondering how Lil' Mark's EPGY classes are going. He's doing really well. Of course, starting in the summer when there's so much to be done and so much fun to be had probably wasn't the best of decisions, lol. Needless to say, he isn't doing the classes as often as he probably should but it is summer, right? In another couple of weeks things will slow down and we will start school back full time and I anticipate for him to continue to fly through the grade levels. But if he doesn't, because he's just six, that will be ok with me too.
On the EPGY reading, they keep telling him that he needs to choose higher level books for his reading comprehension. Some of those listed for him to choose from include To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, The Pearl, by John Steinbeck, and Double Helix, by Nancy Werlin. Regardless of how good these books may be, NO my six year old will NOT be reading these books thankyouverymuch! I just keep letting him choose some of the other "easy" books to read and he is enjoying it. Before EPGY he absolutely refused to read anything that wasn't fact, science, or at least a fictional mystery type that was based on fact like the Magic Tree House Series or the A to Z Mysteries Series. Now he is enjoying more books then he ever would have before.
I took a couple of pictures of screen shots of some of the math he was doing the other day so you could see a little of how it works. The EPGY math is really neat. Rather then presenting one subject, mastering, and then presenting the next, they incorporate all terms from the beginning as it's all related. It's not all addition, then subtraction, then multiplication, division, and geometry as individual concepts. They're all interrelated and interchangeable (probably not the best choice of words but hey I'm not in the EPGY program now am I). What I'm trying to say is that he is learning the concepts together. Geometry, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction is all taught in the same lesson. I think it's really neat. I'll try to take some more pictures tomorrow.
I started him out on the lower level because I didn't want him to get frustrated with too many new concepts all at once. If he has to think on something very long he has a tendency to think "it's too hard" and not want to even try (yes, I'm working on that with him...very funny story by the way. Maybe I'll share it later, lol). Anyhow, I now know that he would have done just fine in a higher level, but this is the second grade level and I sure don't remember doing this when I was in second grade. Of course, I could be wrong.