So great to hear, Tiramisu! It's barely 4 mths since ds graduated from VT. His focus and stamina has improved so much. No more headaches or dizziness in the car! He's a lot more cooperative and easy going. Yesterday, we were bowled over by his swimming. He's learnt since he was 1, but could never coordinate his arms into a rhythmic freestyle swim. It was always this jerky movement despite weekly coaching. There was a time he stopped going because he felt left behind as his friends and younger kids were getting promoted to more advanced classes every few months :(. But suddenly, it's smooth, efficient, and controlled. :o Maybe it isn't VT per se, but it coincided with a some sort of maturation. I read from a VT site that when the frontal lobe is bogged down with trying to manage information input, it can't do its job of overseeing and planning (executive function). This is akin to a restaurant manager who has to do the job of cooking and serving when the employees don't show up. When they do, the manager can go back to actually running and overseeing the business. In the broadest sense, this reasoning may apply not just to vision issues alone. If we can help our kids find their "employees", there could be a significant boost to overall functioning because a primary resource is being freed up.

Glad things are working out, Halcyon! It's all about building up knowledge and stamina steadily. You son sounds awesome! Hang in there!

Dp

Woot! Congratulations to you and your ds!!!

Congratulations!!

We're starting a class at the end of the month too (ds' 4th) - Geometry. :001_smile: #1: How much did I help? In the earlier classes, probably a 3. The most recent class, it would be a 2 (not my help, but a tutor's). I helped out when ds was a lot younger. I put a "3" because, while he probably could have done with more help, he wasn't keen to receive it. I know that's good and all, but this guy was prone to big tantrums, eww. Anyways!! The most recent class at 11yo (ds just turned 12 btw), I hired a tutor for an hour a week to discuss and help with questions he couldn't crack. The teacher of course knows more of the material, but AOPS is such that they both had to work together, and ds had"the insight" many times ahead of the teacher, simply because he's growing up with the material. Ds loves the discussions and sizzles with energy when the tutor comes. #2: Supplement? No. And reading upthread - no calculator. Ds' answers gets picked a lot although he's not a particularly fast typist. I think it's because he does what I'm about to write in the next para that allows him to answer. The most effective way for ds to tackle the classes is to do the teaching problems in the text book (he's tried just reading the solutions - not good enough). Next, actively follow the class and attempt every question that the teacher sets. This provides feedback as to whether ds has understood the material or not. Usually after this step, ds is able to answer most of the questions in the homework problem set. Otherwise, he can go back to read the transcript, post questions on the forum pages, or go back to the textbook. I don't help in this learning cycle as I'm out of touch. The tutor is a good sounding board for everything else, or for honing in what ds has already solved but needs more reinforcement. It took ds a while to evolve his methodology, and there will be more evolution yet. It may make sense to think of the Pre-a class as part of a long stream of classes - I wasn't smart enough to think of it this way, but as it turns out, it's been great for work ethic/character development. Good luck to all the families embarking on this journey! :hurray: :hurray: :hurray:

Last week was a tough one for us as illness, lack of sleep, and the fresh energy from a long X'mas break petered out. My reaction has been to slow down and realign. What worked before last week? A strong focus on learning from mistakes, being happy about small but solid gains, and being forward-planning (ds was a star in that he looked ahead and planned). What didn't work so well this week? Dwelling on mistakes and feeling irritated by them. Ds, that is. I'm trying hard to turn the ship back to the previous weeks of cheerful learning. I'm also trying hard not to lead, but to support. Ds is older than most of the kids here. He is 12, and he has strong ideas of what he wants done. I'm keeping my mouth shut about what he should be doing daily to fulfill his own weekly goals (which we worked on together). As long as that is worked on with some resolve, I'm fine. We can always adjust the pace. Maybe this *is* part of being on track - to explore, make mistakes about attitude (esp for a kid) and muse over them so as to avoid doing it again, over time. On a separate note, ds read his way through a ton of books. I can see his absorption level increase, and he's raring to go to the library today. He's loving his Great Courses DVD (mental math). We've also had very good heart to heart chats about his perspectives and feelings. Communication is critical all the time, but I feel it very keenly now. The goal this week is to encourage ds to write in his planner, which he skimped on last week. And to help him think of making small but steady steps.

Hi Desertflower, no I haven't. Many people I've spoken to have seen the kits abandoned after awhile. Maybe because it's too open ended? Depends on the kid too. Have you had success? What is a good entry point into that? TIA!!

That's great to know, Arcadia! I'm a total noob where programming is concerned. I remember ds' happy days when all he wanted to do was Lego and Mindstorms (his building was better than his programming :)) but all that has vanished in the last 2 years. I haven't exactly been active in helping him find the next progression- Tynker didn't work out. I shall look at more robots.

I get what you're saying, Mike. Exploration is what I'm hoping for too. Ds never took classes to learn Scratch. He was doing Tynker on the Ipad (sorry I mixed it up. Tynker is Scratch-like however). His complaint was that the "correct answer" is too prescribed. He doesn't actually have a problem with the logic, but wants to do things differently. This is a kid who, from young, didn't like to directly cancel out fractions when multiplying but would work it to a factor for easy conversion into percentages. It isn't as deep as it may sound, but the logic is definitely convoluted. He really thinks those are the clearest routes, maybe because it sets the stage for something else he has in mind. Typing that out, I'm wondering if the starting point is a meaningful project rather than a specific language. We don't have the EV3 nor the Raspberry Pi. And he may want to explore the Scratch community, as Slackermom posted above.

I've been watching this thread too, but have been shy about jumping in because I have nothing helpful to add. Anyways! Ds loves the *idea* of programming but dislikes the straight through logic. He does well with the discovery method but doesn't have a very direct (?) way of thinking. The comment about math being like art in my siggy is his, and it's this type of thinking that seems to hinder him in liking Scratch or the process of programming very much. That, and some LDs (dyslexic profile, insidious vision issue) are what seems to hold him back. In any case, he's expressed interest in programming again. Would there be resources or types of programming that are suited to this type of thinking?

https://www.bernell.com/product/BC109/1080#header_member_link I hope that gives you the link to Brock strings (the beads on a string) for $5.95. Otherwise, it's www.bernell.com whereupon you can do a search. I couldn't find the flippers for non professional purchase at bernell.com probably because they come in an assortment of powers. Can your new dr buy these for you, at the appropriate power level?

I saw the thread on homeschoolers who've graduated their kids, Soror. I can't like it enough. Thank you for asking! I really need to slow down to figure things out. This year, we've been rushing all the time because of the added therapy ds is doing. Three more months of this ...

Hope you manage to catch some sleep today, what with the baby so near too. :grouphug: