Today was our first day back to school after being off for 5 or 6 weeks. It was a mixed bag day...some things went pretty well and others were a bit difficult. My lesson learned is that 5 or 6 weeks off was a bit too much for them, as they really slid backwards in their writing ability and that was the thing we had really worked on a lot (ability and endurance) and had made a huge amount of progress. I almost feel as if I need to buy another handwriting curriculum and start over with them and I may end up doing that. AND the backwards slide was for both cursive and manuscript. In retrospect, I probably should have had them writing something at least every other day or so, just to maintain what they had learned.
The other lesson learned is that I need to pay more attention to where we are stopping in math when we take a break. We just stopped at whatever point we happened to be at and it was at a bad place. I think I probably need to back up a bit and cover some of what we had already done again. I think they need the refresher to remember what we had learned and they also need it for their confidence level in math because it is currently not there. I had thought they would start math again and think it was easier because they had been doing Math Reflex games during our break but we were just at a really bad stopping place and Math Reflex didn't help with that.
In retrospect, I probably should have planned for a week or two of review in our skill subjects, instead of trying to jump in right where we left off. I will correct that little oversight tomorrow and we will hopefully have a better day.
On the other hand, history went very well, their narrations were good in both history and grammar and our new Bible and spelling curriculum both went pretty well also. Their reading seems to be coming along very well also. We read so much that they didn't lose anything there but I do need to have them read aloud more. Nick does a lot of mumbling through words as he reads because he reads faster than he talks and he finds it frustrating to have to slow down long enough to enunciate well. But, overall, they are both reading well and it seems they are also comprehending pretty well.
They still have to do their music practice for today and, while one is practicing, the other will be reading aloud to me. Then we will be finished for our first day. We took off for a long, special lunch out today so we are running a bit late.
Well, I was interrupted by the timer, as it was time for music practice and reading. So we are all finished for the day now and we have eaten a quick dinner. The boys are cleaning up their toys and then we are going to head over to the pool for some good, energetic playtime.
We are reading Farmer Boy now, as our fun read-aloud and we are all enjoying it a lot, especially me and Nick. I don't think I read this when I was young. I am enjoying learning about how they did everything back then and I am astounded at how much time they had to work and how little leisure they had in comparison to now. It really is amazing.
Off to the pool...
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