Need to change curricula for next year for ds

[Storm Bay]

Ds is definitely a much different learner than my dd's. While he definitely has gestalt traits, particularly when he is under stress (then he fits an entirely different dominance profile) when it comes to school, he needs to learn the auditory/sequential way. If you've read The Dominance Factor he leans mostly to type GG, although, as Dr Hannaford said, that shouldn't be used to limit anyone and in my family brain dominance gets very, very fuzzy for some of us. I should add, for those of you who haven't read this book, that the book says this type of listener learns better if they can fidget or manipulate something, which I've known about ds for years, so hands on things may be helpful if they work with this type of learning.

 

Some of what we use can be use but he's fed up with it.

 

What we have been using:

SM, but he's nearly finished that

 

LOF Decimals and Percents

 

R&S English, but he hates it because it's old school (aka old fashioned) He abhors diagramming, and I don't think it's helping him nearly as much as it helped my dd's

 

Rosetta Stone German (he likes it and we own it, but it's not the best for him, so I'd love to augment it)

 

RS4K 1 He likes it, but will need something else next year, anyway. I don't know if I'll start the Chem 2 or not next year.

 

Spelling Power, but since nothing works well with him, I plan to stick with that.

 

a Pathways Reader since he reads little fiction on his own (doesn't like much fiction, but is reading Behemoth at the moment) I need to work on getting him reading more fiction

 

We're all set with art becuse he likes what we have. Latin has failed miserably around here this past year. We have Latin Primer, but he hates it a LOT.

 

SOTW this worked well for my dd's, but not much is sinking in for him, in part because we've been in a slump this year and I have neglected ordering all the extra reading, but in part because it doesn't seem to stick for him. We already own All American History, and so I'm wondering if I can make that work for him next year and how. Again, my dd's were able to read the text and do extra reading for much of it so I didn't have to do the teaching part of it. Ds needs that and he needs to discuss things more than they do.

 

He far prefers math and science to language arts and history.

 

Is MCT good for this type of learner? He does like depth once he gets into things. We have been doing paragraph Town, but so far haven't made it to any of the written assignments as we have been neglecting this much of the time even though I like it.

 

What we already have in the house for post SM is Russian math from Perpendicular Press which is harder than SM 6 and can be used for preAlgebra. This worked well for my middle dd who self taught herself from it, and I'm wondering if anyone here used it for this type of a learner. He does often make huge cognitive jumps in math, but I'd like to use something that fits with the profile I found for teaching it. I should add that I have taught Saxon and would prefer not to have to teach it again even though I realize that it has worked well for others. I also would prefer not to buy TT, but since I have the Alg 1 for it would consider using it as a supplement at the right time.

 

Now that my eldest is in ps and if my middle one continues to stay at home we're all set with curricula, I can finally focus on getting ds more things better suited to him.