First week of the Cram

As I said in my last post, I've decided to speed things up so we can finish this year's lessons by the end of May. This week was the first week of what I'm calling "The Cram." I cut out all but the bare bones of finishing up this year. That meant FIAR is on hold; I'm hoping to make that a light summer program.

The bare bones elements are as follows: allowance (1X per week), Psalms (1 or part of 1 per day), math (more on that later), Caleb's phonics program (more on that later), Jimmy's memory work, & Caleb's catechism work.

The joint work should be pretty obvious - on Monday's, I hand out their allowance & we review what it is to be part of a family. ("I am part of the family & I share in the work & the rewards.") Then we read a Psalm or, for the longer Psalms, a reasonable chunk of one. Tuesday through Friday just has the Psalms.

Jimmy's work: He reviews his memory work. The memory cards are in sets of 12. We'll go through all 12 in 4 sets each (weeks 1-4, 5-8, & 9-12) twice, then 6 sets each (1-6 & 7-12) for the final 2 weeks. On math test days, we'll review either the US Presidents (using flashcards) or the US States (using flashcards & a US map). Math gets more complicated. Generally, we will have 2 math lessons. However, when a math test comes up, we will only have the math test lesson. Math test lessons have 2 worksheets (the independent work and the test sheet), but there is no lesson. That frees up time to work on the presidents or states. See?

Caleb's work: Each day, he gets 2 phonics lessons. On Monday through Thursday, we'll have a math lesson. He gets a reprieve on Fridays. Caleb's memory work is still his catechism memorization. We are continuing to add 1 catechism Q&A each week, reviewing all questions to date each day (we're currently up to question 26).

This has resulted in quite the juggling act. It's too much, for instance, for Caleb to go through both phonics lessons back-to-back. It's also a lot of time spent with 1 kid while the other gets bored (read: gets into trouble). Here's a sample of what our lesson schedule evolved into over this past week. I'll use a typical Jimmy-has-2-math-lessons-and-Caleb-has-math day:

• Math lesson with Caleb while Jimmy works on first math lesson's independent work.
• First math lesson with Jimmy while Caleb plays with math toys.
• First phonics lesson with Caleb while Jimmy finishes first math lesson's worksheet & works on second math lesson's independent work (Jimmy plays with math toys if he finishes early).
• Second math lesson with Jimmy while Caleb practices handwriting for first & second phonics lessons (Caleb plays with math toys if he finishes early).
• Catechism memory work with Caleb while Jimmy finished second math lesson's worksheet.
• Memory cards with Jimmy while Caleb wanders off somewhere, bored with the math toys (this is still a work in progress).
• Call Caleb back so everyone can sit (mostly) still for the Psalms reading.
• Heave a big sigh of relief that no one burnt down the house while I was busy with the other child. Make & serve lunch.