Home school week 5 and 6...and lessons learned:)

I mentioned last week that since we had a few weeks under our belt, that we would start to double up on everything in hopes to finish the curriculum.  We don't "need" to finish it, because he DID do the first several weeks at public school, so he will have done the required amount of schooling by May/June, but I really didn't want to waste the curriculum that we invested in.  

We went ahead and planned out a schedule that could allow us the doubling necessary to finish  and we did weeks 5 and 6 in ONE week.  Let me just say that it IS possible, but I learned quickly that we are not going to continue this way!  (I'm glad I went into this with the mindset of learning day by day and being willing to be change things as we go!)  

We were able to get everything we need to get done in a day, but it was overwhelming for both of us.  Not only just the part of figuring out just what we needed to do each day and then add in the extra reading...even I was tired of reading that many chapters of each book.  I think during that time, he started to feel overwhelmed which made everything just that much more frustrating.  We were both more focused on getting the list done rather than really being able to stop and discuss and spend time enjoying the learning.  

Another thing that I learned from doubling, is that when something comes up and we miss a day (like the rest of the kids having a day off from school) it makes catching up IMPOSSIBLE!  Again, not only with the work but just the figuring out what needs to be done.  

It became clear very quickly that it just wasn't worth it.  Josh agreed that I should just go ahead with the curriculum as written and get through as much as we can by the time the other kids are out of school...no doubling (unless we need to miss a day..and in that case, we know it's possible to double if it's only for just one day:).  

For weeks 5 and 6 (done in one week) it looked like this...

Bible:  

~He read several stories from his Bible.  He's not really on a schedule there, and just reads a few chapters  (which are short in his Bible) each day.  

~I read to him each day from Luke (NSV) ...we went through Luke 8:40-12:34

~He read two weeks worth of entries from the American Indian prayer guide, learning about the Wampanoags and the Seminoles.  

~He worked to refine his reciting of Psalm 8.  

History: 

~We read from the book "Incans, Aztecs and Mayans"...from pages 28-108 throughout the week.  I love how this book breaks each tribe down and really gives us a good understanding of the difference between each tribe.  

~We finished up The Very First Americans.

~Read a chapter of The Light and the Glory (which is not making the cut in our "favorites" list:)

Reading:

~We started the book A Tree in the Trail and read chapters 1-9 throughout the week.  

~We finished up The Sign of the Beaver...we both loved this book:)  Chapters 10-25 were read this week.  

~He continued his reading in Pocahontas and the Strangers...reading chapters 12-26.  He also enjoyed this book.  

Handwriting:

~He doubled up on this each day.  We won't be doing that again:)  ha

Spelling:

~He doubled on this as well.  It wasn't necessarily hard for him as he is great at spelling.  He's in the 4th grade book and usually only gets 3 or so wrong on the "pretest" that he takes before even working with the words.  

Science:

~Normally a "lesson" takes two weeks with a lesson twice a week.  We fit in a full lesson in one week, which wasn't bad.  He enjoys learning about astronomy.  We learned all about Mercury.  

Math:

~We had been doing extra in math all along, so this wasn't really a change.  He's just about finished learning his multiplication tables.  

Language Arts:

~He did several writing exercises in Language Arts, but I'll be honest, these suffered because of all of the reading.  He just didn't have it in him to really put in the time.  I noticed this right away, and recognized that it was not good.   I can't even remember (without looking back) what he worked on....haha.  

So there ya have it, a quick recap of that crazy week...it's all a blur:)  We did do some fun projects, but in trying to fit it all in, I don't think I took many pics!