Coming to the end of the first term ...

If you read my last post, you know that I recently spent some time doing some heavy planning. We have finished 10 weeks of school this year, so I sat down to decide what exactly I had wanted to finish by the end of the first term. I decided that I would spend these last two weeks on the following:

• Finish study of Renoir
• Finish study of Robert Louis Stevenson
• Finish study of the Opera
• Finish reading Twig
• Get to Moses in the Old Testament
• Get each child to Lesson 60 in their Queen Language Lessons books

So, this week and next week are looking a little bit easy and light. We're focusing on the regulars (cursive, language lessons, reading and math) and just getting the above mentioned things accomplished. Of course, we'll also continue with our Bible stories and Fairy Tales.

What exactly does that entail?

To finish up Renoir:

• I want to do Picture Study on two more prints, "Madame Georges Charpentier and her Children" and "The Girl With A Watering Can".
• Read aloud "The Girl With A Watering Can" by Ewarzynska
• Coloring Page of "Girl With A Watering Can"
• Paint outside like an Impressionist
• Watch the little Nick Jr. video (only a minute or two) entitled, "I Love Art: Renoir's The Umbrellas"

 To finish up Robert Louis Stevenson:

• I'm going to have each girl choose a favorite poem of Robert Louis Stevenson's to memorize.
• They will each copy their poem, one line or stanza at a time.
• They will each illustrate their poem.
• They will each recite their memorized poems for me and later for Daddy.

To finish up the Opera:

• This is pretty simple. We are using Hansel and Gretel as our fairy tale this week. We will also watch Hansel and Gretel: An Opera Fantasy on youtube this week.
• Other than that, we are listening to our Opera station on Pandora each day as we do our written work.

To finish reading Twig:

• We just need to read 2 chapters a day. That sounds so very simple, yet it is always the one thing that doesn't get done. I just have to DO IT.

To get to Moses in the Old Testament:

• We will be reading a chapter a day in The Child's Story Bible by Catherine Vos.
• The Hippie will choose a story this week to draw and do copywork from. She will choose another story to illustrate and do copywork from next week.
• As long as we read the remaining 7 chapters, we will be ready to start Part II (Moses) when we start our second term.

To get each girl up to lesson 60 in her Queen Language Lessons book:

• Another simple one. I planned out the next two weeks, really looking at the lessons and split them up appropriately.
• The Princess is already on lesson 56, so she will finish up this week. We will work on some of her Delightful Reading Lessons next week instead (we haven't done that in quite a while).
• The Hippie will finish up some copywork this week and then do about 3-4 lessons a day next week (none of those involve copywork, so it will be fine to do more than one).

That about sums it up. We will use these last two weeks to get to the point where I'd like us to be to start the second term. Then, we will start our second term on April 9th. I'll put up my outline of terms 2 and 3 in another post.

Do you ever just stop and see where you are and where'd you'd like to be? Do you worry about being behind or do you just take some time to catch up?