Hello

[joannqn]

I'm new to this subforum.  I don't have a lot of time to participate in the forum anymore but I might be around from time to time.

I've been homeschooling for 9 years.  Five of those years, we utilized a virtual academy which allowed me to determine our curricula and do all of the teaching; we just reported what we were doing each week.  Last week, we enrolled DS12 into the local middle school.  With last year's standardized test scores and a discussion with the school counselor, DS was enrolled in their most advanced courses.  

The transition has been interesting.  

DS is gone from 8:35am to 4:10pm.  He has about an hour and a half to two hours of homework each night.  He has boy scouts and youth group on Wednesdays and Thursdays, respectively.  The other days of the week, we do a family read aloud and discussion.  He feels like he doesn't have any free time anymore.  And somehow, we want to fit AoPS into our day after school.


We are hoping that school is either A) a place for him to thrive or B) a learning experience that motivates him to be more cooperative and respectful at home so we can return to homeschooling next year. 

[Caroline]

My son has about the same school hours as yours. Like Heigh Ho said, he needs to figure out how to get the homework done faster. My seventh grader plays competitive soccer, and he still has a lot of free time. On soccer nights, his free time is limited. He is doing a JAVA course through Stanford, reading an extra book at all times, extra math work from mom and dad (not all AoPS, but we pull lots of problems from those books) and British history. (That wasn't a proper sentence. Sorry.) He always gets 9 hours or more of sleep.

 

It really is about time management, healthy eating, well-chosen soccer carpool mates (who will gladly discuss British history or am AoPS problem on the way to practice) and he is just a good kid.

 

Your son will get there. It will take a little time.

[wapiti]

We afterschool with AoPS, though my boys are in 5th and fortunately haven't had a ton of homework just yet.  I'm anticipating that our afterschooling will end when they start middle school (here, that will be in 7th; they stay in their current classrooms for 6th).  It is a huge pain to try to catch them when they have plenty of mental energy.  When they get home from school, they want to relax for a while, then I'm caught up with the little ones and making dinner, and suddenly it's almost bedtime.  If I had more time in the morning before school, I'd like to do it then when one ds is more awake.  The other one sleeps late...

 

I'd plan to do AoPS over the summer - though that can't account for a whole school year's worth of math, it might at least make up for the afternoons when it's just too tall a task to get math done.

 

If every day is too much, consider planning on certain days of the week (say, MWF or TTH plus a weekend day).

[Nart]

I keep reminding myself that school is in session 180 days and NOT in session 185 days. We do a lot of afterschooling weekend, holidays, and summer/winter vacation.

[LibraryLover]

My youngest started school for the first time as well (9th grade).  Help your ds get organized with a couple of 3 ring binders and added manilla pockets. (Trapper keepers are a mess.) Get a 3 hole punch. Encourage him to put all handouts in the pockets, and to separate the subjects in the binders with colored tabs. If he can keep everything together, it will help. Help him understand that any handouts should not get folded up and stuffed into pants pockets or the bottom of the backpack. Have him hole punch the important handouts (which will have dates and assignments) and put them in the binder by subject. 

 

I agree that once he becomes more time -efficient,  hw time should decrease. 

 

As for afterschooling, getting used to going to school is emotionally time consuming, so be patient. We keep our afterschooling to discussing what is happening in classes (there is a lot going on there. DC's history and literature classes are especially good) current events, trips to the library, museums, cultural events etc.  During vacations we try to do a bit of travel. As a PP said, school is 180 days a year. There is still time to explore as a family, even if it is quite reduced.

 

I know you would prefer to hs him, so I hope everything works out!

[joannqn]

The school has a list of required school supplies.  

Right now he has a 2-inch three ring binder (they wanted 3-inch, but I had 2-inch available and they don't seem to use it much).  He has colored dividers for each subject, and each divider has a pocket.

He also has 7 composition notebooks that he has to carry every day, one for each class and an extra for English.  This school seems to rely on photocopied handouts rather than textbooks.  The handouts are half pages that are glued into the composition books.  No textbooks were issued in any of his classes.

This past week, he started asking for his math homework at the beginning of class so he can work on it during class.  Apparently, the teacher has been ok with this. 
 

Every Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday he has a class called tutorial.  Students are assigned tutorial with the teacher that teaches the subject they need extra help in.  Since he doesn't need extra help, he spends that time in the school library.  He's been doing independent reading during tutorial because he doesn't have the day's homework yet (it's the first class of the day).  I told him to start using that time to work on his weekly essay or monthly book report for English so that will take care of Wednesday and Thursday.   


I also talked to his English teacher Friday, and that cleared up a lot of questions.  She had never given him a packet of information he was suppose to have gotten, and she showed me where to find the teacher's websites..  She also admitted that there really isn't much time to ask questions during the school day or after school and showed me where to find the teacher's email.  A couple of the teacher's websites indicate that students are suppose to ask three classmates for help before bothering the teacher, but that is hard when you don't know three classmates.  And the one time he did ask a classmate, he was given inaccurate information.
 

We'll get it down I'm sure.

[Caroline]

One hint...teacher blogs can be full of information. Or not. I am not a good teacher blogger, but most of my students only have smart phone internet access. My kids' teachers' blogs have everything we need on them. Miss a day of school? Read the blog and you will have the make-up work.

 

Another hint...we often have to buy the books for reading for English class. Sometimes it's a pretty short turn around. Amazon Prime is my friend.

 

Those composition books are sometimes called Interactive Notebooks or keepers, just so you have heard the terminology. Neither term is a good one, but there you have it.

 

I will really be happy to answer any crazy questions. I am on my second trek through middle school with a boy. It can be a challenge.