I have my book of lesson plans that I refer to daily to see what I thought we would do each day. We have only had three full days of school and already I am glad I am so flexible.
For example, this summer, Child #1 went after the Singapore math books I purchased for her to keep her math skills fresh. It went so well that the built-in review of A Beka’s math program is almost boring for her. I pondered simply skipping the first 29-some lessons completely, but think a little review is good. Besides, I haven’t been doing the mental math with her that A Beka’s program encourages. My lesson plans had us finishing Lesson 5 at the end of this week. We finished Lesson 8 today.
In another example, I planned to ease into Spell to Write and Read. I figured it would take about two weeks to review the 26 (alphabet) single-letter phonograms while doing some other fun games and such. On Day 2, Child #2 remarked that she knew all these so could we go a bit faster? So, the next day, I tested her on her knowledge. When I held up the phonogram card, she was to say the sound(s) as quickly as she could. If she hesitated or got them wrong the first time through (even if she corrected herself), I counted them wrong. She got 25 of the 26 single-letter phonograms perfect. She also knew 24 of the remaining 44 phonograms immediately and perfectly. So, a week early, I gave her a new Learning Log and we started on the Consonant/Vowel reference page.
I have also learned that I might have been a bit optimistic in how many pages we can cover each day in Story of the World I and Apologia’s Astronomy. Child #2 is doing great with Learn to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and is completing, on average, three pages per day of Singapore Earlybird Math (1B).
