Some days it feels like his brain is a sieve

[mamaraby]

Ds is 11yo. We've used FLL 3 and most of FLL4 so we've done our fair share of diagramming. He's also diagrammed Latin sentences in LL. So, I'm thinking he should have a comfortable grasp on the parts of speech and an ability to diagram simple sentences. Silly me. None of what he did when asked to diagram sentences lately looked like anything we've ever done. When in doubt, he just draws a vertical line and sticks the words he doesn't know what to do with after it. Ditto with his Latin vocab that we review everyday. What does that word mean? "Uh.....I don't know."

 

Is this a thing? Like do preteen kids' brains become addled by hormones? Maybe it's just the end of the school year thing, but his output has been disappointing lately both in quantity and quality. I want my kid back from the middle of the school year. He had this stuff down.

 

I suppose since he can't remember to brush his teeth and hair, I shouldn't be surprised that he forgets other things too. Tell me the kid is normal.... In the meantime, I just have to make it for two more days.

[Sahamamama]

I read only the title of your post and my first thought was, "He must be 11."

 

Yup. I have a female one of those.

[Sahamamama]

I will also add that we are switching from FLL4 (we nearly finished it, but we just can't do any more) to CLE LA 600 (at half pace) for 6th grade next year. We only plan to do the grammar portions -- not composition (we do WWS), penmanship (she does typing instead), or spelling (she doesn't need it). We also will work through the extra diagramming practice, as much as is necessary to master that aspect of grammar. FLL worked well for us from Level 1 to about halfway through Level 4, then the format seemed to be less of a fit for us. I think she simply needs something more student-directed, less teacher-dependent.

If you've done FLL for a while, your student may be tuning you out. Mine did, I admit it. Because all the teaching in FLL is in the teacher guide, the only thing you can do is to plod on, even if the student is just DONE with hearing you drone, LOL. I'm hoping that switching to CLE LA will put more responsibility on the student, where it belongs (at this age). HTH.

[Sahamamama]

And we are at this point because this (my) 11 year old was all like :huh: "Um, noun? verb? adjective? pronoun? something?" and also just drawing random diagonal lines and sticking random words on them, so....

[CelticHaiku]

I read the title and had to laugh. Just the other day Susan Wise Baur posted a day in the life from 10 years ago onto the Peace Hill Press Facebook page. She talked about her son sitting down with his lesson and basically forgetting all the Latin he had ever learned. 

[freesia]

Commiserating. My 11 is doing the grammar review at the end of his Climbing to Good Grammar today. After doing well all year he was asking what an adverb did, telling me that he's never heard of a direct object before (and I had to orally do EVERY sentence with him), etc. It's either the end of the year or 11. My dd (now 13) at that age and time said to me, "Is is a preposition, I know it is, I saw it on a list once!" Ack!

 

Both of you will survive --I'm on my third 11 year old and the older 2 are doing just fine.

[mamaraby]

And we are at this point because this (my) 11 year old was all like :huh: "Um, noun? verb? adjective? pronoun? something?" and also just drawing random diagonal lines and sticking random words on them, so....

Hey, so neither of us are alone in this then!

 

I had decided to switch things up grammar wise for 6th grade. Originally I had decided that we'd maybe not do grammar because he totally had it.

 

I appreciate the commiseration and the btdt advice. I'll take a few deep breaths and expect the swiss cheese for a bit then. And maybe employ the run around the block thing. It's like multi-tasking and should totally help with soccer.