Joshua is now 6.5 and in first grade. He was attending Athens Bible School, but we decided last semester to switch to homeschooling after the Christmas break. We’re 4 weeks into homeschooling and are both absolutely LOVING it. I’ve already seen a lot of progress in Joshua, now that he’s able to go at his own pace in each area. He’ll be starting grade 2 math in a couple weeks, he’s reading chapter books regularly and working on increasing his reading stamina (given that he read an entire Star Wars chapter book this morning, I’d say that’s definitely happening!). We’re working on strengthening his hand for more writing (this is a weak area for him), and have also changed how he forms his letters. He’s doing very well. He’s getting used to doing copywork and narrations a lot, as well as several dictation phrases during spelling. I’ve seen so much academic growth in the last 4 weeks, I just can’t believe it. To keep up with his homeschooling progress and the nitty gritty details, you can check out my homeschool blog here. I have it on Blogger so I can quickly and easily post pictures from Picasa and such. Plus I don’t want to bore the people that just want to hear about the family on this blog.
Other stuff… Joshua is playing Mites hockey this year, which is the next level up from Termites. He’s starting to go after the puck now, getting a little bit of aggression. We’ve been waiting for that to come out! Besides hockey, Joshua is also crazy about Star Wars, despite having never seen the movies and only having seen a handful of the Clone Wars TV series. He also enjoys playing computer (especially chess), and his DS that he got for Christmas. He’s definitely a geek like his daddy (and a bit of mommy). My dad got him a Snap Circuits set for Christmas, and he loves that too. Joshua is a big help around the house – picking up rooms, clearing the table and wiping it down, getting drinks for the family at dinner time, etc. He’s turning out to be a fine, young man.