This morning it was 80 degrees at 7 a.m. and I was complaining about it in my mind, and then wow, I remembered how many days it was 100 degrees by 8 a.m. when I would commute to the desert. That kind of puts things in perspective. But as the desert dwellers would always say: it's a dry heat.

Today I hope to get back on track with Enki. We're in the middle of the number qualities block and need to recall, draw and write about Contest for a Crown, which is a greater than/less than story. That is our main lesson for today. Now that I have the new Enki math guide I am hoping that I'll be able to revert to a 3 or 4 day school week and still finish a block in 3-4 weeks. The information in the old guide was for teachers following a 5 day week. I haven't had much of a chance to read the new guide yet, or to look at the blackline masters.

It's also time to put back in practice work, which we didn't do Monday or Tuesday. We're working with word families and sight words. For word families we're using our ConsoNant town board (see earlier post on 5/23/06 for a picture), and for sight words we're using a bingo game. We also have printed cards to put on a ring when they learn a new sight word, but haven't fully implemented that yet.

I have to say I am struggling with two things. One, even though I chose not to take our break during the summer (because fall will have gorgeous weather and being outside will be fantastic, plus it fits better with the way I am teaching both boys at the same time), many other people are taking a break right now, and well, it just feels like summer. For me that means curling up and reading for hours at a time and just doing the bare minimum elsewhere.

The other thing is that it has been hard to incorporate unschooling. I mean, obviously they come up with things they want to do and learn, spontaneous projects, etc. and they do have chunks of free time, but I find it really hard to just shelve a day because we want to do something else, without feeling that we've gotten behind. No matter what, I do have a goal of covering certain material before our break. I've already adjusted and cut some things outs, and now I'm at a point where there isn't much flexibility