Preparing for the Move

So it looks like we'll be moving at the end of the month. The closing dates are both June 3rd. It's been crazy trying to get ready. The biggest craziness is trying to finish the school year before the movers are scheduled to arrive. I hope, in light of this, that you can forgive the missing posts for the past few weeks!

I have cut the boys' lessons to the bare bones. Jimmy's focus is math. Caleb's focus is phonics, although he also has to finish this year's math program.

Caleb's math is the easiest to complete, since he was scheduled to finish in time anyway. Phonics, on the other hand, has been a bear. We were doing 2 phonics lessons a school day to try to catch up, but it was getting to be such a fight! Caleb didn't even want to do 1 lesson, let alone 2. Yesterday, I had a moment to sit down with my lesson planner. If Caleb does only 1 lesson a school day, we will go over my hoped-for end date by 5 school days. I've decided that this is worth it. Caleb will, from yesterday on, do only 1 phonics lessons a school day. We'll try to sneak some lessons in on the weekends to try to knock those extra 5 days down.

Meanwhile, Caleb FINALLY passed his counting test in math. He really doesn't like counting. He loses focus, which then makes him lose his place. I've told him that he doesn't have to count for school anymore, but we'll practice in the car.

Jimmy still gets 1-3 math lessons per school day. Lessons with tests will be the only lessons that day (unless we need to do some catching up). We'll triple up at the end of the school year, which shouldn't be a problem since those last lessons are merely reviews of what we've already done. Jimmy was miffed that Caleb gets a lighter load, so we agreed that he won't have to do every question on the worksheets. I will go through the worksheets before I give them to him, circling the questions he is required to do & x'ing the questions he doesn't need to do. If the x'ed questions look fun, he is allowed to do them. ;) I thought that was a silly rule, but lo & behold, he did one of the x'ed questions on his worksheet today! I have also cut out the speed drills for the rest of the year. Jimmy was thrilled when I told him that, but the joy quickly faded when I told him that we might use those drills during the summer to keep his math skills fresh.

The boys are continuing their memory work & we'll keep reading through the Psalms.

Here's hoping we make it through this!