@lewelma Oh, but 1 correction I noticed from my Planning Thread, we do school work 2.5 to 4hrs a day, Sunday to Friday and 1 to 2 hours on Saturday. Saturday is typically our shortest day.

Thanks, but it's essentially Homeschooling Commandment #1. Over the years, when I get too out of line from the 10 Commandments, things usually start to go wrong. So, when I notice morale dropping and tempers rising, I go back to the commandments and check what we've been up to, and see if it's inline with the The 10. I've had them for years now, and they seem to still be working well for my homeschool.

Traditionally, neither do I. I always just created the threads the years I was active. This is the most posting/discussion I've ever done in one of these.

Why people don't seem to do RTK 2 and 3--certainly not at the same level as RTK1.

It figures; Did you do volumes 2/3 as well? The Boys are still confused on RTK after discussing it with the local language group--they couldn't get a straight answer. What is there to judge you for? I'm not sure if I'm out of the loop or if everyones gone nuts in my absence.

What approach did you use for learning the Kanji?

Spanish Update: We have completed our end of year evaluations and both of The Boys did really great! Pal was especially pleased with his "measured growth" in reading comprehension and writing so I couldn't be happier for the little guy. He's over the moon, he's been walking around all evening with his chest puffed out. Of course Buddy is pleased as as well, but based on his track record, that Buddy would show marked growth was just kind of expected. He's quite the Word-Nerd these days. Buddy has read 37 books so far and has 2 more in progress. He's bummed that he won't hit his goal, but I'm so proud of his endeavor and encouraging him to take it as a win. But he's still a little bummed because he's worked so hard this year on his reading, but I still think he's done fantastic work. He has his eye on another book, so he might get in 40 books this year. Additionally, our encyclopedia-reading project is coming along nicely. We started out doing 1 article a week, but these days we easily get through 2-3 articles a week. If the articles are short, we might get through 4 or 5 of them in a week. Of course we still have a long ways to go before HS Graduation, and so much work if we want to keep our skills strong and flexible but we're in a good place heading into the new year. :D.

Hi @lewelma. You give me too much credit, lol. I don't know, now that you called me fascinating--and twice in the same post--I feel a little under the microscope. Good to be back. 🙂

Ok, you are entitled to misread my posts anyway you like, but please refrain from letting me know just for the sake of letting me know, as it distracts from the OPs actual line of discussion.

Ok....and? I mean, I'm sure it's great that you don't think that fun math has to be gimmicky, and that math can be both enjoyable and rigorous at the same time. But what of it? What's that got to do with me? Did I typo and say that anyone could thrive with Saxon? I could've sworn I advised the OP to ditch Saxon in this case. I thought sure that I advised she stop misusing Saxon by butchering it up, and just find something else.... 😕

Which post? You can copy it. I'm not sure if you want the year-round schoolers post, or the math post. But whatever you want, copy away.

It's that time of year again. What are the big picture goals for your AL for 2020? 2018 thread 2017 thread 2016 thead 2015 thread

re: how are your plans for next year going? Our plans are pretty simple, so they should be done sooner, rather than later. Nothing terribly exotic. The Boys will be in "7th grade" and have 4 courses: Autodidactic Studies (Home made | Required, based solely on The Boys interests/whims) I don't care what it is that they work on, but they must work on something and will be checked up on/monitored. Communication and Composition (Home made | Parent-directed, all-inclusive language arts, speaking, reading, writing, etc) This is the space where we work on oral reading and silent reading, reading comprehension, writing passages, essays, reports, stories and what have you, discussing books, vocabulary building, grammar patterns, word play, etc. I also count a few other activities under this umbrella, such as public speaking. We use the books that we have at home or get via the library, more of a method than any particular publisher. Information Technology (Home made | Parent-directed, based on a combo of what I think they should learn and The Boys interests), we're going to be working on programming, hacking/cybersecurity and hardware. I'll also be helping with a couple of individual projects. (*mumble, mumble*). Intensive Japanese (Store bought | Parent-supervised, child-led) They're going to shift their literacy focus towards tackling Kanji this year. Outside of a text, they'll continue to read any childrens books we can get and keep up the media immersion outside of systematic study/practice. I told them they're required to have a "program" and they're still researching options. So this is our one unknown. We'll be keeping the same routine of work 2.5 to 4hrs a day, Sunday to Friday and 1 to 2 hours on Saturday.

Don't teach your kids from a place of fear and don't make yourself and your kids a slave to a tradition that isn't in-line with your reality. Your gut is to reprioritize the school day for a (limited amount of ) time for this student, and I would explore options to follow your gut. I would first speak with his other parent and make sure that WE, the parents, are okay with it. If both parents are in accord, then I would sit with him and work out a WRITTEN agreement, that he can have 30, 45, 60 up to 90 days off from math; that instead of doing math, he will redouble his efforts on the guitar and take full advantage of the opportunity he has for growth in this field while he has an excellent teacher. Make it clear that this respite is our gift to him, to enable him to progess on guitar and maybe even other 'worthy endeavors' as much as possible for a short period of time. If he doesn't apply himself to guitar or other "worthy endeavours" sufficiently, then he is to resume a daily math lesson immediately. This is not a break from school lessons, this is a special session of school with different priorities. When he returns to math, ditch Saxon. I don't think that using Saxon incorrectly, is worth the time and energy. (Note: We used Saxons upper grades books as a part of our program and I would do it again, but we used it as prescribed: every problem from every lesson, worked in order. I have "particular" math tastes. I think that Saxon is a great program, but it's a specific, and highly particular program. If you're not going to do "the program" then I'm not sure that it's worth doing. Rather than continuing on misusing Saxon, get a copy of virtually any text titled Basic College Mathematics and when he's done, go straight into an algebra text. You can also get virtually any text titled Basic College Mathematics: Early Integers and it will give him more exposure to and practice with integers. Most BCM books that I've seen have 12 or fewer chapters. They cover all the essential topics from a 5th-8th scope and sequence with minimal fuss and tend to introduce integers in the last chapter. An Early Integers text will introduce Integers in the first 2 or 3 chapters, and keep using them throughout. Pedagogically, you can take a break from math at this stage in the game and be no worse for the wear within 6 months of resuming math. My only hesitation in taking an extended break from math would be IF he is the sort who would not honor/cooperate with the return to math, or if he has some sort of severe math-disability or learning difference that would make an extended break from math cripple him. In those cases, I might do different, but I have very strong feelings about math, math education, and children's ability to learn. I've tutored 100+ kids and I feel confident that if this is a NT kid, with average, or even slightly below average math-aptitude, that he'll be fine to pass up some months of math practice in exchange for some other worth-while endeavors. Yes, he'll miss out on some of the repetitious, spread of practice, but it won't cripple him. Kids take summer break, get ill, miss chunks of school due to deaths in the family, etc and still manage to learn and understand enough math to do well in school. He can still become an engineer, doctor, or lawyer if he decides that's what he wants to do, and if he doesn't become an engineer, doctor, lawyer or business whiz, it won't be because he didn't finish every lesson in his 7th grade math text, I assure you that much. He is old enough that he may be able to be trusted to participate in such a conversation and understand the ramifications of his decision, but while he has access to an excellent teacher, I would want him practicing as much as possible, so that he can progress as much as possible while this teacher is available. Why not take advantage of one of the benefits of homeschooling to give your child a better education? I will admit right now, that my kids are not naturally self-motivated. They do NOT come up with loads of educational, super beneficial learning projects on their own (at least not many that they're able to see through to the end independently). My youngests idea of a well rounded education includes copious amounts of Nintendo and drawing. They do best with externally provided structure and it's easier on everyone if I just take the reigns and be in charge. I'm very comfortable being The Adult in my relationship with my kids, though I've wavered in the past and I understand that the nagging uncertainty can be a real !@#$%. I would work with my spouse and child to take better advantage of the special opportunity that having this excellent guitar teacher presented. I wouldn't go looking for a gimmicky "fun math", I wouldn't butcher Saxon, I would present him the opportunity to prioritize something special for a maximum of 3 months. It'll feel harder to take that time off when he's in highschool and you have to keep transcripts and whatnot. I think that for NT kids, the middle grades are ideal for "gap years" from disliked or uninspired subjects.

No. They're 2 distinct courses. Intensive Japanese is one course, Autodidactic Studies another. They've worked very diligently for Japanese, so it's just so gratifying for us to see that it's paying off. I'm not familiar with the book The Last Samurai.

Japanese Update: Biggest news is that The Boys completed Beginning Japanese. It wasn't fun or edutaining, but boy does it seem to work. They can hear Japanese and they can speak Japanese. They can put sentences together and understand enough Japanese to get the "gist" of it. Lots and lots of work still needs to be done, but it seems like a truly fantastic start. They are easily some of the more able speakers at the Japanese Conversation group we've been attending this semester and so we likely won't be going back after this semester. Many of the people who attend this group are Japanese majors in their 2nd and 3rd year of Japanese at the university and the boys are able to speak as well as or better than most of them, but the big caveat is that they do speak in an "old fashioned" way so they've got some clean up to do but we're not worried. I keep explaining to them that the ability to hear a sentence in a secondary language can not be understated. When they listen to Japanese dialogue, they can hear it and they can take it and break it down and build it back up how they need, which is key for us in second language. Being able to "capture" a sentence or phrase easily and manipulate it is one of the markers that I look for in speaking a language. They have mastered Kana and own some native Japanese childrens books (written in kana) that they can read. They've read and re-read these books, and have used them for copywork and played with the sentences and were able to take a couple of the books and read/discuss them with one of the native Japanese speakers at the conversation group to get better understanding of some of the words/sentences. We are working from some of the audio-based courses that we can get through the Library and it's not a perfect fit, but it's not a waste of time either. Their next step is undecided, but they're looking at Living Language Japanese, Complete Edition The Ultimate Japanese Phrase Book Use Japanese at Home as a source of dialogue and sentences to work through as they continue to learn their Kanji. They have also been doing some lite media immersion for the last few months but they're back to the careful, slow watching of familiar movies and taking their time. They may watch the same movie 4 or 5 times before they watch the next one, but they are memorizing huge chunks of dialogue as they're going. They are excited to feel like they're closing up "step 1" in learning Japanese. They will need to step up their media immersion by a lot though. They probably have 2 more years of Intensive Japanese learning and practice ahead of them before they can really claim to "speak Japanese". I'm going to continue to encourage them to be diligent and work hard on this endeavor. If they keep it up, I'm going to let them take a proficiency exam in Japanese to try and rate their language abilities holistically so that they'll know where they need to improve more and if they have any strengths in the language. I want to be supportive and helpful but I really can't help them with Japanese as a language aside from serving as grantor of screen time, purchaser of resources and of course, task master holding them to their daily commitments.

Re: Dog. Not an option at this time. I almost wish that I could get him into horse riding. I have heard a lot of good things about the calming effect that horses can have on troubled kids. But we don't have access to a horse currently. I'm not a fan of animals and a part of me would be worried that he'd be kicked, crushed or thrown from a horse anyway. But barring the expense and the possibility of a tragic accident, I'm almost desperate enough to get him into horses.

Are you and/or your spouse able to speak the language? Is there any one in his day-to-day life that speaks the weaker language with him consistently? If you don't boost his vocab, he's going to drop the language. Kids like to be able to converse, and be understood. They don't want to sound like toddlers or be limitted to baby words. When you say he needs help with subject verb agreement, what do you mean? To what degree and in what context?

I do think that's reasonable, but I taught The Boys verbiage and terminology in mathematics and coached them to "speak Math correctly" so yes, I did expect and require that they be able to explain their solutions. I didn't expect that they do it spontaneously or through osmosis. Talking through solutions and "math speak" was something that we did focused practice of right along with writing numerals correctly and math facts. Right around 7 is when they started really having to be able to justify and explain their work. At 7, they should begin learning how to display their full solution for a problem. One thing that really helped The Boys get used to it, is talking through/teaching from/explaining an example that I had written out. Then writing out a full solution to an exercise that paralled almost exactly the one that I'd done and talking through their solution after they were done. That evolved into explaining their full solution as they went. Once they were comfortable with a solution format and type, I would intentionally make an error and have them find and explain what it should've been. Or cue them to listen in case I make a mistake and when I mis-explained something, they could correct it. We have an "in house" style that I used very consistently so the notation and color scheme wasn't random. The way that a problem is worked is systematic. By watching me systematically work problems out, and teach/justify/explain the steps, by taking a few moments to focus on terminology and concepts outside of calculation exercises each day they learned to do the same thing. By now, they do it automatically and easily, but it wasn't something that they did spontaneously. I think that 7 is old enough to learn to speak on and explain some process and concept that you are familiar with. I would expect to be modeling and scaffolding in the beginning and I wouldn't expect them to be able to explain something that they aren't familiar with but for a skill/concept that they're confident with and understand? Yes.

I can't tell if you are serious or not. Re: Volunteering. Volunteer opportunities for an 11yo are scarce. Most local places don't allow just child volunteers under 13 or 14. The few places where children can volunteer, require they volunteer with a parent. I (somewhat) have a life and am not able or very willing to take on more right now. Re: Scouting. Not an option for us right now. Re: Big Issues. He's the family humanitarian. He writes letters to politicians and officials a few times a year, he has a cause that he raises money for/donates too. He follows current events and attends local town meetings. He often asks me to sign (or not sign) certain petitions being circulated in our area. Re: Running Laps. HAHAHAHAHAHA. I wish that'd work. But thanks for the laugh any way. When I said that he gets rigorous exercise twice a day, that's exactly what I mean. Those exercise times don't include the time that we spend practicing sports outside of Sports Practice or just playing a sport or outdoor game either. Re: Sending him away for camps/programs. Not an option for him right now. Re: Tutoring. Each of The Boys are allowed 2 tutees and he does well with them; he takes his tutoring very seriously and does good work with them.

Not for lack of trying or exposure, but he doesn't have any particular passion. He enjoys learning new things. He likes to tinker and build things or learn new things--like juggling or stilt walking, etc, but I wouldn't label those things as "passions". I've tried to get him "into things", and he enjoys the exposure and he learns the basics and gets "pretty good" at various things within a short amount of time, but nothings caught him up just yet. He is not competitive. He does really enjoy winning--and he usually wins but even if he doesn't he does perform very well when he participates in a contest, but he isn't driven by competition. He has mastered the art and science of "getting his work done" so when he works on personal interest projects say for music or video games he works efficiently and the projects don't steadily consume large chunks of his time. It might be a big time sink for a weekend or so, and then "blip" over that hump and smooth sailing from there. Or if he's stuck, we're stuck and the project gets set aside for a few weeks or longer. His brother found a passion/hobby that he's able to invest large amounts of his free time too and enjoys. This hobby keeps him creatively and constructively occupied and out of trouble for an hour or two most days. Unfortunately it leaves LiveWire with even more time to "find something to do". You know the saying about Idle Hands... Plus, he's very imaginative. Very. Yes, Calvin is a good example. He's daydreaming his way through an adventure and not paying the other people any attention whatsoever. None. The only thing that I've found helpful for keeping him grounded in the moment is putting him in a leadership position. On his own, like for school or a movie he can concentrate/focus for only about an 1h15m, but when he's "in charge" of smaller kids, he's on his A-game for hours on end. He's amazing with toddlers and smaller kids. He's like the Pied Piper almost, little kids adore him, everyone calls him The Baby Whisperer. He does well with people much older than him, or much younger than him. He can take or leave his same-age peers though.

If you have raised a spunky, spirited, mischievous, fun-loving, hyper-active, prank-loving kid who has way more energy than good-sense, let's talk. Note: Malicious and mean are not on the list. This kid is a handful, but there isn't a mean-bone in his body. He may accidentally break stuff on occassion, but he isn't destructive. He's just...a lot. He just doesn't have an off-switch. He never gets tired. He has a wicked sense of humor and can be very impulsive. What clever parenting tips or life style hacks have you come up with to help wrangle that beloved individual before you had to strangle him? (metaphorically speaking of course.) He isn't a mean or malicious kid, but dammit is he...a lot. He's a live-wire energy wise. He gets rigorous exercise at least twice every day plays sports both team and individual has personal time has 1-1 parent time has academics that are leveled as appropriately for him as I'm able to get them has limits and boundaries and clearly defined consequences for when he exceeds or violates them doesn't eat junk, dyes, preservatives, etc. is a fairly happy kid He is 11 and still very much a kid. He loves to play. And play. And play. And play. And play. And when he's done, he wants to play some more. When I say "stop playing" deep down he hears "change the game". I have come to the conclusion that he isn't trying to be "bad". He just...hears a different drum. He is so very energetic, he has a wonderful sense of humor. He is going to be such a wonderfully interesting adult and probably a great parent. There is a lot about him that is good. But he is he is wearing me out. What outlet have you found effective for the live-wire kids energy?

How good is your understanding of fractions and your ability to communicate that understanding? If you comprehend fractions well yourself and you can teach fractions, then buy nothing else. There isn't anything magical about Math Mammoth (which we did every grade level of and many of the upper level supplements as well), or Key to Fractions (we also used all 4-books in that series). If you understand the topic and can convey your understanding of that topic then the only difference between math books is the formatting or layout of the text itself. Because the books are going to boil down to being just a collection of graduated exercises that students complete to gain fluency at various thought-processes, manipulations, calculations, relationships, etc.

Assuming we're talking about an able-bodied, child with no extraordinary situations: Yes, it is reasonable to expect a 10 yo to wake up to the alarm and get themselves ready in the morning. I have that expectation for my 10yos. I sure as hell expect them to retain the ability while they're 13yo. OP, I can understand your frustration with the situation entirely. But I urge you to figure out what you are dealing with. Is she willing to get up at 7:00, but struggling to gain wakeful consciousness and get out of bed? If she is willing, but needs scaffolding and support, I'd give her scaffolding and support. Any time I'm teaching a skill or habit--even if it's something I feel shouldn't "have to be taught"--I teach it according to the learner. Some kids need scaffolding and support for the most ridiculous seeming things. *shrug*. Teach the kid in front of you, not the one you think the kid in front of you ought to be. IF she were being willfully defiant/lazy/uncooperative about getting up, I'd go another way with the situation entirely.