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Well, we finished our fourth school day using my new "daily schedule," and it's still working beautifully. I typed it up over the weekend, printed it on yellow paper, and taped it to the wall right above the couch. Math is first everyday and Konos comes after lunch, but everything else is a little different depending on what day it is. For example, we're doing Bible copy work on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and a typing lesson on Mondays and Thursdays. So far my older son is loving it....which surprises me actually. Every time we finish one task, he rushes to the schedule to see what's next. My younger son, however, has adopted "I don't want you to do school" as he favorite phrase. The schedule is definitely keeping us (me, especially) on track and is helping us complete everything we need to do. We're no longer skipping reading because I feel too tired by the time we've finished math. We're no longer skipping spelling because it just doesn't seem so important at this stage and wouldn't we rather just go ahead and stop for the day? Looking forward to the next item on the schedule seems to be making my son more attentive to finish his current task more quickly. Math is only taking 30 minutes instead of an hour, and I've been amazed how quickly he has done his typing lessons this week. He's still quite slow, of course, since he just started learning last week (and he IS an easily distracted six-year-old), but he progressed from 6wpm on Tuesday to 8wpm today. I told him when he hits 15wpm, we can move on to Lesson 2. Haha! Our school day is lasting longer than ever, but we've got it broken up by a 15 minute break mid-morning and an hour for lunch. I'm so glad I decided to make the schedule because it has made a world of difference in what we're doing. Not that Nicholas wasn't learning before, but we definitely weren't working at 'full potential' or even half potential. I've decided not to stop school entirely for the summer. I know he would forget every math fact he's learned this year and probably plenty of other things too. So I plan to make a modified schedule for the summer. Something like Mon-Wed-Fri of one week we do math and a little reading, and Tue-Thu the next week we do a little math and reading. Hopefully that will keep things fresh enough in his mind that we can start back without having to review in August. We're still studying rocks with Konos, and we're supposed to learn about metals tomorrow...but I don't have any books on the subject yet. I've been thinking about seeing if Nicholas and I could ride our bikes to the library this afternoon (with James in the baby seat on back of mine). Since it's almost three miles one way, I'm not sure we could do it though. Plus I just remembered I'm supposed to cook a turkey for dinner tonight. Better go put it in the oven. I guess that cancels the library idea! |
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