(no subject)

[mommydama]

It is taking us a solid two to two and a half hours to get through everything in the Calvert K curriculum. And a lot of it seems like over the top repetition. I had hoped to supplement this with some religious ed and maybe start learning Spanish, but that is just too much time spent on school with a five year old! I'm not sure what to do. Mari loves it and asks me all morning when we are doing school (we are doing it in the afternoons), so she isn't anywhere near burning out, but I know I will be soon if we add much more to this. I don't know...any suggestions from Calvert pros?

We are only a week and a half into this, so I shouldn't make any judgements yet, but I'm feeling very confident about my ability to teach Mari right now. I was nervous about it at first because we do tend to rub each other the wrong way sometimes, but so far it is mostly like playing together and there has not been a single instance yet of me having to push at all. Of course, so far this stuff is way too easy for her so that might be why I've not had to push. I've looked a little more closely through the books and we'll be getting to more challenging stuff for her in about a month. This must be the famed (notorious?) Review that I've heard Calvert users lament. The first few months are just review so this must be review of the pre-K stuff and a time to help get the child settled into the routine of school. At least I hope so. Otherwise, we really should have started with first grade, not K.

Zoe wants to do school today too. I'm going to have to look and see if I have some workbooks or something to go along with todays lessons that she can do with us. Funny girl. I should pull out our FIAR stuff and do some of it with her and Luci...but that is more time spent on school. I never imagined it would take up this much time at this age.

I'm tired today and I don't really understand why. I got plenty of sleep last night. I want to get out of the house too. I feel antzy. Maybe we will go for a walk today. It is very pretty outside.

Laundry. I hate laundry. I must go do laundry now.

Comments

[mommydama.livejournal.com]

Very helpful! Thank you! It definately helps me think about this in a different light.

So...the curriculum doesn't get more time intensive as you go up in the grades? I thought it would and so two hours seems like a lot to start with if it gets more intense. I was imagining my fifth grader with six hours of sit down work. That wasn't working for me. So your wife only spends about two hours a day on "strict curriculum" stuff even with the upper grades? That is encouraging. I like the way you guys have it planned out with one day for field trips or whatever. I don't think we'll work on the weekends, but I was thinking we might work through the summers and longer holidays, because it seems like those are times that kids in regular schools lose a lot and that is why the long reviews at the beginning of each school year are necessary. Are you guys year rounders or do you take summers off?

[noetic-toe.livejournal.com]

The upper grades do get more time intensive. For us, it increased about 30 minutes per grade up to a maximum of about 4 hours per day in the 4th through 6th grade. No one needs to work more than 4 hours per day.

All this is really variable, though. Some kids will need more time for math; some kids will need less time for everything. It's really hard to generalize. The only rule to carve in stone is to not carve any of this stuff in stone.

We take a very definite three-month break for the summer. Going straight through would burn my poor wife out.

We're also pretty flexible with the schedule. We always take a month off for Christmas. We've also been known to take a month off to have a baby, get a child implanted with a bionic ear, etc.