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I feel like I'm missing something for my 7th grader


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The new logic stage board is up in perfect timing for me. I have a logic question...

 

My 12yo has a full day, about 4-4.5 hours of work per day, 5 days a week (well, sometimes 4 if we have a field trip or something), but I still feel like I'm missing something.

 

Here's what he's doing:

 

Explorer's Bible Study: Discovery: In the Beginning - every day

30 minutes of math - either Life of Fred or Key to Decimals/Percents - every day

Reading Detective - 1 day per week

Fallacy Detective - 2 days per week

Latin Prep - 20 minutes per day - 4 days per week

Getting Started With Spanish - 15 minutes per day - 4 or 5 days per week

Lightning Lit 7 - every day

supplemental reading (either from LL or tied to history) - every day

Analytical Grammar - 1/3 of an exercise every day

IEW Ancient History Based Writing Lessons - every day unless LL has a writing assignment

Vocabulary From Classical Roots - 4 or 5 days per week

Exploring Creation With General Science - 4 days per week

Mystery of History 1 and supplemental materials - 4 days per week

world geography study with worksheets from Challenging World Geography and reading from a DK geography book - 4 days per week

music study from Classical Kids web site - 3 days per week

art study using various drawing books and Watercolor for Artistically Undiscovered - 2 days per week

tae kwon do - 2 or 3 days per week

fencing -1 day per week

 

It looks like a lot on paper too. Can anyone tell me if I'm missing something or if I'm just panicing for nothing.

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He did Spelling Workout for years and did so well with it that I didn't see any point in continuing with it. He's very strong in spelling.

 

He's not weak in math, but he doesn't like it. He was doing 25 minutes per day, which I increased to 30 and told him would be slowly increased to 40 or 45 minutes a day.

 

I'm glad to hear that everything else looks pretty good.

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I wasn't thinking time with math, I was thinking of the subject matter covered. Your daughter does 1 Saxon Algebra I lesson in 30 minutes? Impressive :001_smile:

 

ETA: I mean even if you do odds or evens still good.

Well, we're just starting and I think it's nearly all review with a few cool factoids thrown in. Then, she enjoys math and that can make a HUGE difference. Ds can take for-ev-er to do one lesson in Singapore, but he's not a big fan of math ;)

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Wow, I'm feeling worse than I did. :lol: I was going to post nearly the same thing but we truly are lacking a great deal. I think your list looks good. The only caution I have is not to focus on time but on content. Some kids just work faster in certain subjects and that doesn't mean they should be given more work unless you're heading for a deadline.

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Well, we do time on some subjects and content on others. I've divided the science course and geography work into 140 days of work, grammar and literature into 180 days, etc. It usually takes around 20-30 minutes for him to complete a day's work, but he needs to keep working until it's done. For Latin and math, he would just get overwhelmed or frustrated when I gave him a certain number of pages or exercises to do, so we switched to just assigning a time limit. I'm happy with his work in Latin, as I'm near him when he does it, so I know he's working well for the whole 20 minutes. I am concerned with the math, though. He does it in his room while I'm doing math with the younger ones in the dining room. He says that it would be too distracting for him to do math in the same room as us, but I do wonder just how much of his attention he gives to the math.

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You are really doing every single one of those subjects! I am not even doing close to what you are doing with my seventh grader. Boy, if you feel like you are missing something, I feel like I am not even close.

 

You are doing excellent there is nothing more you need to add.

 

Blessings to you.

 

Sincerely,

Karen

http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/testimony

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I wonder if what is "missing" is a chance to dig deep and make connections on his own.

 

It seems like these are done pretty much every day-

Bible Study

math

Latin Prep

Getting Started With Spanish

Lightning Lit 7

supplemental reading (either from LL or tied to history)

Analytical Grammar

IEW Ancient History Based Writing Lessons

Vocabulary From Classical Roots

Exploring Creation With General Science

Mystery of History 1

world geography

 

Without having seen very many of these programs it seems like there is a lot of overlap. I also can't see how you use the programs so some of this might not apply anyway.

 

I imagine Lit, reading, IEW, Latin, Spanish, and Vocab all involve or could involve some kind of vocab study. But instead of tying his actual content based reading and writing to digging deeper, or making a clearer arguement, or understanding the books he is reading better- vocab happens during the vocab part of the day. Again, I understand that you could be doing all those other things too, but I know that for us, when I know we are going to do vocab later, then I am not as picky about making her write down words she doesn't understand during reading or making her do as much analysis during our writing program. Instead I push that vocab work off onto the part of day that is labled "Vocab". When we aren't doing separate vocab, the actual vocabulary work we do (during writing or reading) seems richer and more enjoyable and deepens our understanding of topics.

 

In a similar vien you've got IEW, Lit, MOH, and geography (and probably Bible to some extent). Is there someway to get rid of some of the programs and simplify the lessons so you can have more time to go deeper into topics. If he really wants to study geography great, but could it just be based on what ever you are studying in MOH? Even if you still had a geography time of day you would be using it to help deepen your history topic.

 

And finally, for us there is way too much Language Arts and not nearly enough Math, Logic, and Science. I know you said he doesn't like math, but would he like Hands on Equations, or some geometry solids to play around with volume/area, or patty paper, or some logic puzzles/games? How about more reading or writing about Science topics (it looks like all of your writing is about history)?

 

Again, I think what you have could work fine, but if you feel something is missing, maybe some of my rambling helped :tongue_smilie:

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I wonder if what is "missing" is a chance to dig deep and make connections on his own.

 

 

Maybe that's it. I'm happy with the IEW and how it ties into his history studies, so I don't assign any supplemental writing for history (other than outlining Kingfisher sometimes). As far as I'm concerned the IEW is like an extension of his history coursework, giving him a chance to dig deeper with those assignments. But really he doesn't want to dig deeper on his own. If I didn't give him a vocab book, it would be like pulling teeth to get him to look up words that he doesn't understand in his writing, reading, history, etc. For instance, the geography is really meant to be an opportunity for him to expand his understanding of countries and cultures. We cover some mapwork in history, but I wanted him to get more of an appreciation of other cultures. So I gave him the worksheets and told him that he can use them as he likes, find answers on google earth, read through the DK book we have just for interest, etc. He does the work, but it's not creating any spark. Sometimes he'll share an interesting tidbit that he's read, but mostly it's just and attitude of, 'get the work done.' I don't know. I guess what's missing is the spark, the interest, the desire to dig deeper. And maybe that's just too much to ask of a 12yo boy. I mean, he is getting all that work done, and doing well on most of it. I suppose that I should be happy with that, at least. And I can try to find opportunities to ignite that spark if possible. Thanks for your response. It has given me food for thought.

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