Is Spelling Really That Important?

I've talked a lot in the past about how my son struggles with reading. I recently bought a program called All About Spelling to see if this would help his reading ability. But you know what? I don't like it. And you know how it is if you don't like something, you don't use it. So it sits here unused. And we still struggle with reading. So what do you think of the importance of spelling? Is this something you spend a lot of time on? Do you spend any time on it? I know most of us do our writing on a computer. And every computer has a spell checker, right? So why do we even bother with spelling?

My father only had a third grade education. His father became ill when he was in third grade so he had to drop out of school and go to work to help support his eleven sisters and his brother. But my father was an excellent speller. To him, it was extremely important that we learned to spell well. He would quiz us on spelling words until he was sure we knew them. But that was a different time. I wonder if he would still feel this way today.

I think it's important to be able to spell. When I was sick and the drugs were making my brain fuzzy, I had trouble spelling. I even had trouble coming up with enough of the word to be able to use spell checker. One of the ways that I knew that the chemotherapy drugs were working their way out of my body was because I could spell again. It was a great relief to me to be able to spell. I also think it does help you read better.

I don't know what I'm going to do with my little one. I know he will eventually be a fluent reader. I can see improvement in his ability all the time. For a while I was considering tutoring for him. But I think he will get it when he's ready. Whenever I begin to have doubts, I just come back here and read my old blog posts. I remind myself again that it is important to let his mind develop as he is ready and not to push him beyond what he's ready for.

So dear reader, how important is spelling to you?

And The Winner Is.....

Lora! Congratulations Lora for being the winner in my Blogging 101 giveaway. Please send me your email infomation is I can pass it on to the Blog Writing people. I hope you will come back in a few weeks and let us know how you like the course.

For everyone else. Thank you for entering my giveaway.

I Officially Hate Winter

I hate winter. I totally and completely hate winter. I understand that we need to have the cold weather to kill off certain insects and germs or whatever. But come on, can't we think of a better way to do this. It's cold. I heard on the news last night that we have had 56 inches of snow since Christmas. Last year we only got 51 inches all winter. We are going to break all records this year. I am over it. Everyone I know is over it. Can we move on now please.

As some of you know, I don't go outside when there it is snowing. We missed a production of King Tut on Wednesday because of it. So what do you do when it's like this? I like to play learning games online. There are math games, language games, geography games, spelling games. My favorite is the jig saw puzzles. They have animals, music, geography. All kinds of jig saw puzzles. Playing games is a great way to while away the time on these long, cold, snowy winter days. Sometimes I even let my son play.

I also like to spend time on my blog. I've been thinking about taking Blogging 101. It's an online course to help you improve your blog writing skills. I really want to learn how to add all those little widgets and gadgets and things like that. I've gotten pretty good at inserting links but there is so much more to learn.

So playing online games, improving my blog writing skills, a bit of baking, and a good book. That's how I've been spending these bitter cold days. How about you? How are you spending all these snow days at home?

Blog Writing Course Blogging 101 Giveaway

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To enter this giveaway, all you have to do is leave a comment for this post. Be sure to leave a way to contact you as well. If you post about this blog on Facebook, you will get another entry. Just come back and tell me about it. If you write about this giveaway in your blog, you will receive another entry. Come back here and leave a link to your blog page in the comments section.

This giveaway will end at midnight on January 28, 2011. The winner will be notified on January 29. Okay now, leave a comment to enter this giveaway now.

Homeschooling High School

We have spent so much time lately cooped up in the house. The weather has not been nice to us this year. And we are expecting another 6 inches of snow tomorrow night. This has caused a great deal of togetherness. Maybe too much togetherness. I don't know. At any rate it has certainly given me time to think. Of all things, I've been thinking about high school. I know, I know. My son is eight years old. He's a long way from high school. But that's what I've been thinking about lately.

We love our curriculum. We have used it since preK. However, it only goes up through eighth grade. What am I going to do when he goes beyond eighth grade? He can't continue with the cartoon characters that he loves. We're going to need another curriculum if we are going to be homeschooling high school. I'm sure we will continue to look at things that Dakota is interested in. So there will continue to be rockets and rocket building classes. But there is also going to be algebra and triganometry. See, I can't even spell that one. I know I'm going to need a lot of help with that. Fortunately my husband knows a lot about math and science and things like that.

I'm sure we are also going to have to do a lot more writing. Right now writing is the worst thing ever. To ask Dakota to pick up a pencil is like pulling his teeth with no anesthetic. I know there are some great writing courses out there that we will be using when he gets a bit older. While looking around the internet for writing courses the other day I found an online blog writing course. Can you imagine. I love to blog. I love reading blogs. I even love reading about blogs. This learning to blog course sounds perfect for me. Oh no, I meant perfect for a high school student to learn about blogging. Okay, you're right I'm thinking more about me. Writing isn't that much of a problem. I usually have something to say. I know how to use spell check and grammar check. But what are all those little things like widgets and things like that. I may have to check into this course for myself. But I also think it would be a great learning tool for a high school student.

Yes, I have several years before I have to worry about homeschooling a high school student. But it's good to look ahead. It's good to think about what we will do when the time comes. And who knows, maybe this blog post will help someone who is a lot closer at looking for a high school homeschool curriculum.

Snowed In Again

We woke up this morning to 8 inches of fresh snow outside. I can't believe how much snow we have gotten this winter. Dakota has been out playing with his friends all morning. He just came in covered with snow, soaked to the skin. Now he is huddled up in his bed with a video game to try to warm up. I don't know if he'll try to go back outside today or not. He's really cold right now.

Since it is way to wet and cold to spend a lot of time outside, I'm sure we will spend a lot of time today playing games. We love playing all the great online educational games that are out there. Dakota has so much fun with them that he forgets that he is learning as well as playing games. There are so many great games out there. If he wants to learn about maps, or about words, or even about math, we can find an online game to learn about it.



Sometimes when it's cold like this, I like to bake. Baking is another way to work on math skills. Today, though, I think I would rather sit huddled under my blanket, playing on my computer more than anything else.

I wonder what kinds of things other people do on cold cold days like we've been having lately. I would love to get some comments about cold weather activities.

Back At It

Well, the holiday break is over and we are back at it with our school work again. We are trying to get at least halfway through the year in all of our subjects by the end of January. Dakota is already halfway through language and language extensions. He is almost halfway through social studies. I think we will get there next week. We are way behind in science. But that is entirely my fault. I just don't like science so it is way too easy for me to say, "Let's just skip this for today." Fortunately there are not as many lessons in science so we will be able to catch up. So that leaves us with math. Dakota loves math. Or at least he did until we started working on multiplication. Now he is really struggling. Part of me wants to follow the math curriculum straight through. But I am finding it much easier to skip around with it. If we work on multiplication one day and then go on to something more interesting for a day or two, he is much more willing to work on multiplication again. One of our homeschool friends loaned us a copy of Times Tales. This book uses cute little symbols to represent the different numbers, 4 is a chair because it has four legs. The first grade class is represented by the number 6. Then it tells a story to help you remember the multiplication fact. The first grade class played musical chairs for 24 hours. 6 (the class) times 4 (the chair) equals 24. It's a great program. I think it will help a lot once we get used to using it on a regular basis. We had just started using it when the Winter Holidays started. Another thing that I am doing to help Dakota with his math skills is to let him play online math games. It's great how he can have so much fun playing the games and still be learning.

Today we are learning about being snow bound once again. On the news last night they said that we would probably only get about 2 inches of snow. We've already passed that and the worst part of the storm has not arrived here yet. Dakota loves it when it snows. Tomorrow we will start the four or five changes of clothes again as he runs in and out all day. Ah, winter. Only 74 more days until spring.