August 13, 2020

I cannot say that our days are difficult.  I cannot say that they are easy. They seem vague like out of focus pictures. Although they pass quickly, they seem not to move at all. We repeat the same activities every day. So, today seems like yesterday and the day before that.  Knowing that tomorrow will be like today, we don’t make any special arrangement for tomorrow.

Yes, we continue to study by following the simple and rigid pattern. However, we mostly review topics we dealt with before. No giant breakthroughs.  Not even slow accumulation of knowledge or skills. And yet, our hour or two of learning together became the cornerstone of our days. After breakfast (as late as it happens now) Robert joins me to solve a few math problems, practice pronunciation, read, and write a few sentences about his day.

A few times, we didn’t study in the morning. It happened  either because I was shopping or because one of us had a virtual doctor’s appointment. But if I thought that we could skip learning, Robert proved me wrong. It was not his love of learning but his OCD that precluded him from going to bed without an hour spent on completing  his worksheets.

The plan for desk ( well, dinner table) work is simple.

1. A few math problems – currently from Singapore Math 5th grade.  Today – rounding number to two decimal places.

2. Grammar and Punctuation. Today- using comas in letters.

3. Reading. A chapter from Pearson English Active Readers Anne of Green Gables.

4. A text in Functional Routines. Today-  how to make salad for dinner.

5. Pronunciation.  Today – words and phrases beginning with “sn”

Also: one Sudoku, two pages from Logic Links, and a few short texts to practice inference.

Robert concludes his study with coloring a page from, not very interesting coloring book.  He  hangs the picture on the refrigerator and gets ready for a walk. .