Continuing Push

In an effort to be as geeky as possible, we're celebrating Pi Approximation Day.  22/7!  I also spent this afternoon teaching reading... using the text crawl at the front of Star Wars.  Because one kind of geekery isn't enough.  ^_^

Today, we skipped over math again.  I haven't had a chance to plan, so it's hard to focus on the math.  It inevitably needs preparation, and I haven't had the ability to plan, and I've been so busy running in circles that  I haven't had the headspace to make good use of my time, either.  Hopefully, I'll have a chance to get it tomorrow.  LP has been sleeping a little better, so I should have my evening time back again, which would help considerably.

I have been on reading, though.  That's a lot easier on me, truth be told.  I put in a DVD, we go over the pages, he's done.  It's a lot less planning and pieces.  Of course, it's also a lot more nerve wracking, as LP is getting better and better and I'm starting to go a little googly-eyed at the strides he's making.  Today, he tackled the entirety of unit 1.  The whole thing.  We did review of the Big Words from yesterday, he did all of unit 1, and went through the unit review.  I'm going to have him do the unit again tomorrow, as he was having trouble with -sh and -th at the end of the words.  Not enough that it was giving him trouble with the actual words ( /h/-/u/-/s/-/h/  hu/s/-/h/... hush!), but I'd like to see him without that middle step.  So, tomorrow will be review, I will try to breathe, and I will try not to panic.  There are so many things I want to be doing right now, not the least of which being gearing up for logic introduction in August, but I'm just so out of the groove from the time off and LP's poor sleeping that I haven't been doing as much as I'd like.

I'm hopeful that the sleeping issue was the result of his making two simultaneous strides - he's grown about an inch and a half, and then the reading thing.  Of course, as that would see a fairly quick end to the issue, that's mostly wishful thinking, but hey.  I'll take it.

Long Break

We took a ridiculously long break.  We spent a week in IL with Hammie and Buppa, and then when we got home, we spent a week trying to get the Little Prince back into his usual headspace... then went to Day Out With Thomas.  It's been an interesting couple weeks.

Today, we started back up with reading.  We got up, got dressed, got breakfast, got vitamins, and I turned on his Hooked on Phonics DVD.  This prompted an immediate meltdown of epic proportions (like, shrieking and screaming and crying along with flailing and throwing things) because I wasn't turning on Franklin or Curious George.  Needless to say, that's put a kibosh on his watching television for a while.  Yikes.  Anyhow.  He finally settled in, and watched his lesson... and then asked to watch another.  And another.  And an hour later, he'd gone through a full unit worth.  So I called it there, as that was the last unit in level 1 of Hooked on Phonics.  We read the review page for the unit, and while he's having some trouble with the sight words and the BigWords (like kitten, happen, traffic, and muffin), he has it all.  I shake my head, as he went through lessons 8 and 9 (unit 2) and then the unit 3 introduction, and lessons 10-15.  In a set-up where the two levels take approximately the 36 weeks that are in a school year, this amount of work would take 9 weeks.  I was planning for it to take 6 weeks.  He finished it in AN HOUR. I called off math for the day, as I can really only take one shock per day.  Maybe we'll do our history read-aloud, maybe we'll put it off until tomorrow, I don't know, but right now, I'm very much shaken... and very glad I picked up level 2 a month ago.