Catching Up

I have realized this week that B was really behind in his Language studies. He usually keeps up with his work and is self motivated. Since he fell ill in mid January, I've allowed him to do his work from the couch or bed. He watches the video instruction, does his seat work and I peek at the teacher's guide to be sure he's ready for quizzes and tests. I think we have done very well, considering how poorly he's been feeling. On Monday I was looking at my grade book and trying to catch up on entering in various assignments. That is when I realized how far behind he was in Language. We should have been on lesson 116 that day, but I took him all the way back to lesson 106 and we watched the DVD's together. It's an important unit titled "The Writing Process" and each day he learns new concepts--book reports, oral reports, post cards, business letters, thank-you notes, paragraphs, outlines, topic sentences, etc. I know I didn't learn most of these things until high school. B is in fifth grade. It's overwhelming to me how many things our children are forced to learn two, three or four years BEFORE we learned them. Anyway, I've been right by his side as we have conquered this feat. On Monday, we did lessons 106-109. On Tuesday we did 110-114. Today, we attacked lessons 115-119. In the evenings he has been doing his Math, Science, History and Reading. We are both worn out. He's finishing up a 150+ word essay on Helen Keller. It's almost 6:30 and we haven't touched the other subjects. About two hours ago, the poor fellow took his temp and he has a low grade fever. I pray this will be over soon.