How's It Going?

Well - it's been almost 6 months since we started the homeschool experience.  When people ask how it's going, I'd love to show them this picture:

Liam is happy and growing (clearly, in more ways than one).  In this Easter picture, taken at our neighbor's house, he's wearing an outfit he picked out - bright yellow pants and a purple sweatshirt and the ever-present Oobie eyes. 

The cast of Oobie - a wonderful preschool show of bare-handed puppets!
 

Liam is doing GREAT with his ST Math progam (now over 80% complete for the year) 

JiJi the penguin's progress postcard showing 80% completeion of the ST Math program from UC Davis

He's been voluntarily choosing reading lessons during our forays onto Brainpop Jr. where we've been using old, favorite short stories like "Frog and Toad" to practice book reports, inference and prediciton.

 

The lessons on magnatism have turned into a fun game of "I'm a magnet and you're iron!" where we take turns chasing each other around the house and sticking to each other.

In his free time, Liam has been exploring "Scratch" and redesigning characters in other people's videos and games.  https://scratch.mit.edu/

He also loves to take videos and then add crazy video effects.

On the home-front, he absolutely insists on doing the laundry (sans folding) and helping with the dishwasher and microwave. What started out as a fascination with the digital displays on the appliances has turned into what seems to be an enjoyable job.  He likes to show off his independence - and has become very clear about claiming his personal space.  All of us laugh when he pushes me or his dad out of his room saying "leave me alone!"  

The neighbor kids have been coming over in the afternoons and on the weekends to ask Liam out to ride scooters on our dead-end street and he enjoys racing out to join them.  And we've continued to go back to his old school two afternoons a week to take advantage of after-school programs in art and computer coding for video games (they use Hour of Code - http://hourofcode.com/us).  His old classmates always greet him warmly and he smiles back.  It's clear he enjoys time around the other kids and an hour or two is about all he needs before wanting to go back home.  

So, in the past 6 months, I've watched Liam grow as a happy, confident kid.  That's how it's going.