How's everyone's school year going so far?

[Runningmom80]

We only started this week, but I'm kind of feeling overwhelmed and confused re: older DS, and plain overwhelmed adding in my 6 year old twins to the mix.

 

I think we are ending up where I thought we would for DS, although I'm really wanting to go a tad more classical with him this year as last year we were "relaxed" which kind of turned into "lazy." I learned a lot about how both DS and I work, and it turns out we need guidelines. (That's putting it lightly. :lol: )

 

Math: we were going to finish the Arbor book series, but I'm moving him to AoPS. I just got it in the mail on Friday and I think it's going to be a hit with him. (Hopefully I didn't just jinx myself.)

Lit: I seriously don't know what this kid should read. I was going to try to do an American Novel year, but there aren't enough that would interest him. I'm making him read Island of the Dolphins right now because I have it and I had nothing else for him to read. :leaving:

Spanish: we were going to to Homeschool Spanish Academy, but I could not get it scheduled! I was really disappointed at the lack of availability. I wanted the same teacher for at least the majority of his classes and there was no one available. So we are now waiting on SYRWTLS, but I think he really needs a fluent speaker to get him further. I'm going to see if I can find someone locally.

Latin: He refuses to do Latin, I'm getting Caesar's English back out to try to convince him Latin is great. :laugh:

History: Was going to be interest-led, but I bought the K12 text and we are following the schedule another poster shared on the logic board. We haven't started yet so he may balk at this.

Science: Biology! He's really loving Uzinggo. I accidentally bought him middle school instead of highschool so it's really easy, but I'm letting him have at it for fun for now until I can figure out how to switch it to highschool. We also have McHenry's Cells to work through. We will do Botany and a human body unit as well.

Grammar: Finishing up Caesar's English and I'm letting him drop it if he agrees to try Latin again. If not, back to MCT.

Writing: He's doing an after school creative writing program so we will just do some fun free writes and some short writing assignments for history and science.

Computer Science: Scratch workshop at G3 and then he and DH are going to try out Swift.

 

Not very "unschooly" or "out of the box" at all, but I'm learning that he hyperfocuses on anything with a screen and wants to spend all his time doing that, so he really needs my guidance.

 

My youngers.... :willy_nilly: :willy_nilly:

 

It's just been rough start so far. I'm going to back up and just ease into things with them. They LOVE Miquon (and I figured it out! :hurray: ) so that's a plus. I started "The Trumpet of the Swan" and they don't like it. I offered to switch to another book but now they want to see what happens with Sam and the swans so, IDK, we'll see where the next week takes us.

 

I'm a little concerned about dyslexia with my DD. I think she's got the whole GT kid masking the LD thing going on, and I need to figure out what to do about that. Otherwise, they are pretty well set. They want art everyday which has been a challenge. I found a weekly homeschool art class for them, just waiting to hear if they have space.

 

How about all of you? How are your AL's doing? Any curriculum hops?

Edited September 4, 2016 by someonestolemyname

[quark]

Sending you a big hug, Amber. Some of the concern with your DS sounds very familiar to me. I struggled a lot to find things that would fit neatly into one unit or theme (e.g. American Lit). I decided to take the "lazy" route some days and let those theme boundaries go and we were both much happier (and learning more freely) when I did. I know it's really hard to let go. And also hard to not have structure. I'm not saying that's what you should do but I think it is a common struggle and wish you all the best figuring out what to do. :grouphug:

 

Once again, I feel like DS has bitten off more than he can chew this semester but he always pulls through in the end. Every semester he does something a little harder than before (except of for one semester where I asked him to take less on purpose, really wanted him to have that extra time for his other interests). Every semester, he rises to the challenge so it's good but I wish we could dial back a few years and stretch out those unschooly days of ours a few more years. I miss that so much. It felt like we were doing nothing for so many days but at the end of each year, there really was a lot of ground covered and a lot of interests bolstered. Some months we completely dropped one subject to spend more time on another. And then I would have these bursts of panic and dial down the other subject to focus on the former. And you know what, it all worked out. We completely ignored earth science for example but he knows so much about clouds and weather (but not much about geology) and I prefer that he learns things like that (the content stuff) with passion vs fulfill some requirement.

 

Anyway, just wanted to say good luck!

[Dmmetler]

FWIW, my DD did all of the Uzzingo middle school in about 2 months, and they let me bump her to high school after she had without paying again-and actually gave us 12 months on the high school before it expired.

[Runningmom80]

FWIW, my DD did all of the Uzzingo middle school in about 2 months, and they let me bump her to high school after she had without paying again-and actually gave us 12 months on the high school before it expired.

I was hoping this was the case! Thank you for letting me know, that's one less thing to stress about. :)

[Runningmom80]

Sending you a big hug, Amber. Some of the concern with your DS sounds very familiar to me. I struggled a lot to find things that would fit neatly into one unit or theme (e.g. American Lit). I decided to take the "lazy" route some days and let those theme boundaries go and we were both much happier (and learning more freely) when I did. I know it's really hard to let go. And also hard to not have structure. I'm not saying that's what you should do but I think it is a common struggle and wish you all the best figuring out what to do. :grouphug:

 

Once again, I feel like DS has bitten off more than he can chew this semester but he always pulls through in the end. Every semester he does something a little harder than before (except of for one semester where I asked him to take less on purpose, really wanted him to have that extra time for his other interests). Every semester, he rises to the challenge so it's good but I wish we could dial back a few years and stretch out those unschooly days of ours a few more years. I miss that so much. It felt like we were doing nothing for so many days but at the end of each year, there really was a lot of ground covered and a lot of interests bolstered. Some months we completely dropped one subject to spend more time on another. And then I would have these bursts of panic and dial down the other subject to focus on the former. And you know what, it all worked out. We completely ignored earth science for example but he knows so much about clouds and weather (but not much about geology) and I prefer that he learns things like that (the content stuff) with passion vs fulfill some requirement.

 

Anyway, just wanted to say good luck!

Thank you for this Quark. :) I'm definitely open to rabbit trails, relaxed learning, and supporting his love of video games. I just have to be careful because he quickly becomes consumed and refuses to do anything else. I find the more we hit a rhythm, the less he argues and whines. It's such a fine line. He is doing a scratch workshop through G3 which I forgot to mention. He likes it so far and jumped right in trying to code.

 

I'm hoping that what I've planned is just a jumping off point. I may have to model this a bit for him, I think he has a very rigid idea of what "school" looks like, and it looks like something he hates. ;)

[Jackie]

Double check Homeschool Spanish Academy. I had a lot of trouble scheduling with my daughter's favorite teachers for the fall when I tried about a month ago. I went back this weekend to see if they had any more availability and managed to switch every single one of her fall classes to her favorite teachers. I don't know if they added availability or if a lot of parents over scheduled themselves and then cancelled, but it was much more open.

[Runningmom80]

Double check Homeschool Spanish Academy. I had a lot of trouble scheduling with my daughter's favorite teachers for the fall when I tried about a month ago. I went back this weekend to see if they had any more availability and managed to switch every single one of her fall classes to her favorite teachers. I don't know if they added availability or if a lot of parents over scheduled themselves and then cancelled, but it was much more open.

 

Thank you!  I'll look into it.

[Dmmetler]

Overall, stuff is going well here. We've been kind of distracted in that DD has a conference at the end of the month and I've been buried in trying to get course descriptions written for her dream school application (which is now submitted on my side (whew!!) ).

 

DD isn't enjoying the other kids in her high school bio class much (she finds them "silly and unfocused"- which is kind of strange given that she's 3-4 years younger than they are) but does like the instructor, who is letting her substitute a college textbook for the high school one and extend the labs.

 

Other subjects are going well, except for Latin, which we're going to start this week. We have our first math club and etymology club meetings this month as well-the last is DD's replacement for mythology club. It will be interesting to see if anyone actually shows up. The first Team My Little Python meeting went well.

 

Cheer team has moved up in pressure-DD made a new tryout team. Luckily, so did some of the other girls she liked on her old team, and she has the same coach who she likes.

 

Overall, I feel pretty good so far.

[Jackie]

We're doing fine. All of the fall extracurriculars are getting up and running, and our time is more crunched than it should be. I probably need to look at whether my expectations for what we can get done are unreasonable or whether I'm just being inefficient somewhere. I've already decided we're cutting down to a four day school week because her Thursdays are too overloaded to do anything else.

 

A few months ago, it finally clicked with me that DD wasn't being willfully disobedient, but rather she was so distractible that she would forget what she was doing right in the middle of doing it. I'm assuming at this point that she has ADHD; DH does and he concurs that this is all looking very familiar to him. She's not hyperactive, but exercise seems to really help with the inattentiveness. We upped the physical outlets by a lot, and that's stretching the schedule (and the budget), but her brain can't quiet down enough to focus (or to sleep) without well over an hour of sustained physical activity daily. She's really a book and art kid; she likes classes with movement, or open gym at a gymnastics place, but she plain won't run around the back yard or a park to get the energy out.

 

She's taking her first online class through Athena's and she absolutely loves it. I was nervous; she's still a young 6yo and there's also that feeling of "is she really as advanced as I think she might be?" but she seems to be fitting in fine with the assignments and class discussion. Thank you so much to all on this board who discussed and recommended Athena's, especially dmmetler!

 

I decided to join her in starting piano lessons and taking a parent/child aerials class, and DH decided to try out the aerials class with us. The class is hilarious. By the second class, all the adults except DH and I just gave up; the kids take to everything right away while the adults are all struggling to get off the ground (absolutely including me!) and I'm certainly not the only adult who was incredibly sore and bruised. It's fairly humiliating, but I actually managed to climb the silks a foot or two off the ground this week... while DD spent every minute of available time easily getting 8-10 feet up over and over. Lol. However, given her anxiety and perfectionism, I refuse to give up because I figure it will do her good to see me struggling so much, and it will do me good to try.

 

Piano, on the other hand, seems to be stretching her anxiety/perfectionism to almost a breaking point. I'm glad we scheduled our lessons back to back, because what is really happening is she does the first 10 minutes or until her frustration is boiling over, then I do a bunch in the middle with her listening in and therefore learning some of the terms and music reading (and, again, hearing me not do well), then she takes the last 10 minutes.

[Arcadia]

I was lazy to make sure my kids cover what they are suppose to cover for science after two weeks of just do your own thing. So I paid for the Thinkwell homeschool chemistry account for each of them. My DS10 happily watch the videos and forgot to do any quiz. Luckily he did do okay on the quizzes with no review when I told him to go and do the quizzez for all the videos he has watched :)

 

Edhesive Java is a hit so far with DS10. He does a lot better for classes with rigid deadlines.

 

Most of their outsourced classes start back next week so we haven't been stretched for time yet.

Edited September 5, 2016 by Arcadia

[Cake and Pi]

It's fun to read these!

 

Things are definitely going here, though going different than I'd planned.

 

I decided to ditch FLL and WWE and try 8yo DS#1 in MCT this year.  He absolutely loves it so far, possibly because it's so easy for him right now.  We'll see if his opinion changes when we eventually get to a point where it becomes challenging.  We took a nice long break over the summer so it looks like he won't outpace the BA production schedule until December at the earliest.  He wasn't happy doing Mystery Science just on the weekends, so he's also doing science with the homeschooling charter and I added in the Building Blocks version of Real Science 4 Kids during the week.  

 

DS#2 (6yo, turns 7yo in a month) surprised the heck out of me by requesting full time public school.  He decided that he doesn't want to and will not learn from me, so there just isn't any point arguing.  His goal is to get into the GT magnet his God sisters go to, but there's an extensive application process and if he gets in next year I don't know how we'll actually get him to school (we're a 1-vehicle family).  We had to bump him up to 2nd grade to get him in the charter program he picked for this year.  He's in a super small (10ish students?) mixed 2nd-3rd grade class.  We're having a lot of issues though.  In the first 2 weeks one teacher came out to talk to me in person at pick-up and I got 2 notes from one teacher, an email from another teacher, an email from the lady in charge of discipline, and an email from the principal.   :ohmy:

 

It turns out 4.5yo DS#3 wants to do a lot more school than I'd originally planned for him, so I've been scrambling to find more for him to do.  He likes workbooks for whatever reason, so I picked him up a few of those.  This stuff isn't going to last a whole semester much less the entire year though.  Reassessment will likely be necessary, lol.

[Loesje22000]

Being in the middle of our first day,

I think things are not going too bad.

BUT, we have lenghtend our day seriously, which means we will not be finshed until 18h (last 2 hours is mostly reading though), I hope I can focus that long.

 

We did already the classical stuff, math, history and science,

Now drinking my afterlunch coffee, and then modern languages + lab...

[Shoes+Ships+SealingWax]

Things have been going well, though also not as planned.

 

DS 3.5 began LOE Essentials over the summer & is now nearly finished with B. We will start C this month & it looks like we will complete all four levels this year instead of just the first half.

 

RightStart A has taken a similar trajectory; we will finish that this semester & move to B in the spring.

 

For art we'll been spending 1-2 weeks on each of the principles of art (line, shape, color, value, form, space). For science we are doing interest-led unit studies, nature walks & just adopted a pet snake. We only began these subjects last month but so far they are going well.

[HomeAgain]

This year has already had its ups and downs, and we're only 2 months in!

 

For a brief second DS 6yo wanted to go to public school.  I showed him the school website and the classroom schedule, along with the curriculum they use.  He suddenly decided it was a bad idea (there's no gifted program at that school) and spent the morning researching other schools, settling on a middle school or an alternative high school..and then home again.

Mostly it has been good, though. We instituted pre-algebra Fridays for a change of pace, and he's really liking our history units that I put together.  I took out the books to start our Egyptian unit yesterday and he immediately grabbed Egyptology and ran off with it.  The one nice thing about our units is they're very flexible.  I only put together 7 so we could take as little or as much time as we wanted and nibble on rabbit trails along the way.

[Runningmom80]

I had a talk with DS last night.  We are going to be science heavy this year, and literature is going to be "finish all mom's lists of elementary lit before middle school regardless of the challenge level."

 

We are still at an impasse over Latin.  He just doesn't see the point, and I'm not going to force it.  That's the LAST thing we need. :lol:

 

I had a talk with him about unschooling/child led learning/out of the box/whatever. I told him I'd be ok if he wanted to take the lead in some areas, and that I want him to be interested in what he's learning because that is really valuable.  He told me he doesn't like that idea, because he "wants to know everything he needs to know."  I asked him if he doesn't trust himself to figure it out. He said no, that's not it.  I then asked "do you prefer me guiding you?" He said, "I just prefer you." :001_wub:   So that will sustain me through this year at least. :)  

 

He lacks EF skills so I'm going to make that a big focus of the year and worry less about how much we get done.

[Loesje22000]

Dd also does not want to take lead in her program.

Her argument is like:

How can I learn about stuff, if I Don't know it exits?

So we work in the broadth.

[SeaConquest]

I am still in complete denial that we are "officially" starting school tomorrow. I don't want summer to end!!!! It's only been since Memorial Day. Come on, what's a few more weeks? Starting after Hanukkah isn't so bad, right?

 

I was completely unprepared for the fact that Athena's classes started a few weeks ago (oops), so Sacha and I have been kinda half-a**ing them because we felt like we were still on summer vacay, which we technically were.

 

And, even though tomorrow is our official start day, our charter is having a 'back to school' picnic at 11, so it's going to be a shorter than normal day for us, which is going to make it even worse. I won't even want to bother starting. Gah!!! I hate transitions!!!

 

Speaking of sounding like a child, my threenager has really been grinding my gears lately,  :smash:  and the thought of ever adding him to our homeschool sends me into panic mode. :willy_nilly:   (No matter that I have already decided to red shirt him for a year., so this isn't going to happen for 3 more years anyway.) TBH, all I really want to do is send him to preschool M-F from 9-5 for the next year, so that I can magically wake up one day and have them return a sweet, compliant, eager to learn child to me. Man, I suck at parenting.   :leaving:

 

I am also freaking out because, as both kids are starting to do extracurriculars, our schedule is packed so full, I have to consult my handy dandy excel spreadsheet/schedule anytime anyone wants to do something with us. And, did I mention that we are moving in two weeks? To a 5th wheel! And we haven't started packing at all! Denial: it's what for dinner.

 

I just want to curl up in a ball.  :nopity:  

Edited September 5, 2016 by SeaConquest

[Dmmetler]

Outside classes are the reason we've been going for a month. It gets even more annoying when no two have the same Fall break.

[Runningmom80]

I am still in complete denial that we are "officially" starting school tomorrow. I don't want summer to end!!!! It's only been since Memorial Day. Come on, what's a few more weeks? Starting after Hanukkah isn't so bad, right?

 

I was completely unprepared for the fact that Athena's classes started a few weeks ago (oops), so Sacha and I have been kinda half-a**ing them because we felt like we were still on summer vacay, which we technically were.

 

And, even though tomorrow is our official start day, our charter is having a 'back to school' picnic at 11, so it's going to be a shorter than normal day for us, which is going to make it even worse. I won't even want to bother starting. Gah!!! I hate transitions!!!

 

Speaking of sounding like a child, my threenager has really been grinding my gears lately,  :smash:  and the thought of ever adding him to our homeschool sends me into panic mode. :willy_nilly:   (No matter that I have already decided to red shirt him for a year., so this isn't going to happen for 3 more years anyway.) TBH, all I really want to do is send him to preschool M-F from 9-5 for the next year, so that I can magically wake up one day and have them return to a sweet, compliant, eager to learn child to me. Man, I suck at parenting.   :leaving:

 

I am also freaking out because, as both kids are starting to do extracurriculars, our schedule is packed so full, I have to consult my handy dandy excel spreadsheet/schedule anytime anyone wants to do something with us. And, did I mention that we are moving in two weeks? To a 5th wheel! And we haven't started packing at all! Denial: it's what for dinner.

 

I just want to curl up in a ball.  :nopity:  

 

activities are killer!  I cut lots out and I'm still overwhelmed!

[deerforest]

We're only on our 2nd week, but it's going well.

 

Forester's algebra I -- this was the right choice. We are doing a lot of living math along with it, and I think we're both going to be happier. She just doesn't love math enough to be an AoPS kid, and I don't blame her. I wouldn't have been either, and I was on the math competitive leagues in school because I really didn't have a choice, but I never loved it.

 

Literature--we are using Mosdos Jade and Figuratively Speaking. I think it's going to be fine. Analyses aren't as in-depth as I'd hoped, but it's giving us a very solid short story and poetry overview that didn't require me to put it together. It's forcing DD to write about literature which she doesn't really like to do.

 

Writing--we are finishing Lively Art of Writing and I have a bunch of other materials that we're using to focus on persuasive essays and some other essay types this year. We are also incorporating info about note taking that I've gathered from Note and Notice and Reading Nonfiction from the same authors.

 

Logical Thought/Argument--I've built my own half-year course around nonsense and Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments and other materials. We are rich with samples to analyze thanks to the election year.

 

Family bookclub--we read different non-fiction books and this year we are focusing on books about single foods that focus on their scientific, environmental, social, and political impacts. We started with Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World. We all agree that it's excellent! 

 

Science--doing too many things to list. Stuff as a family, history, labs, just covering a lot of material. 

 

Spanish--Español Santillana 1B and we continue to love this program

 

History--Renaissance. I've built it myself using a bunch of different resources, including source material, historical fiction, projects, etc. Incorporating art and music history into it too.

 

We have a lot of other extras mixed in so we're pretty busy. DD is also a teaching assistant for 3 aerial classes every week, a preschool class every 2 weeks, and she has an outdoor program all day 1x a week plus she is still doing clay (6th year now..) and spends about 15 hours a week on aerial practices or performances. We're stretched pretty thin, but hoping we can pull this off. 

 

 

[Donna]

Dd started back slowly about a month ago with a week's break for a trip to Ireland. She has been doing a lot more "car schooling" than homeschooling though.

 

She has started all her courses except math which will start this week. We started French, Gaelic, History, and Science a month ago then met with her Writing/Lit tutor to come up with a plan and her online music theory course started last week. She started back with classical violin lessons after a six week break due to travel and this past weekend had a lesson with her fiddle teacher, though he thinks he has nothing left to teach her, she wants to go to him once a month or so for a tune up here and there (I think she enjoys just playing with him and coming up with new, creative variations and ornamentations with him). 

 

She is very motivated and self-directed so I feel like I have very little to do unless we decide to read or do science experiments together. She is enjoying all her courses and is already planning next year's electives. 

[Runningmom80]

Dd started back slowly about a month ago with a week's break for a trip to Ireland. She has been doing a lot more "car schooling" than homeschooling though.

 

She has started all her courses except math which will start this week. We started French, Gaelic, History, and Science a month ago then met with her Writing/Lit tutor to come up with a plan and her online music theory course started last week. She started back with classical violin lessons after a six week break due to travel and this past weekend had a lesson with her fiddle teacher, though he thinks he has nothing left to teach her, she wants to go to him once a month or so for a tune up here and there (I think she enjoys just playing with him and coming up with new, creative variations and ornamentations with him). 

 

She is very motivated and self-directed so I feel like I have very little to do unless we decide to read or do science experiments together. She is enjoying all her courses and is already planning next year's electives. 

 

I love hearing about other musicians!  My DS recently stepped away from double bass after 5 years.  He's switching to piano as soon as I find him a teacher. (I need to find a high ability, incredibly patient saint of a piano teacher. :))

[Runningmom80]

Today was better, but I think we have some ADD stuff to deal with.  I just bought Smart But Scattered for my kindle and will be immersing myself in that for the time being.

[Black-eyed Suzan]

Glad to hear Miquon is going well! :) I remember that was a conundrum.

 

This is our third week, but I feel as if I've just started because we keep getting interrupted by circumstances outside our control. We can't seem to get any momentum. The first week I seriously looked at local private schools and discussed them with DH within earshot of the children. That got their attention (they could tell I wasn't bluffing) and attitudes improved.

 

Math is going well. ODS has set his own goal to finish AOPS Algebra this year. I don't know that he is on track to do that at this point, but he is doing larger chunks at a time now, so he may surprise me. YDS continues to chug along in Miquon; I'm happy with his progress.

 

Plutarch has been an unexpected hit. They are remaining engaged and are understanding it.

 

US History and science have just been reading so far. I hope to add more hands-on projects and we will (!) do a science fair project this year. (Hold me to it, please!)

 

I am not happy with spelling for ODS, need to buy a mechanics workbook, and actually start writing and typing. So Language Arts is a bust so far!  :mellow: MCT and copywork are the only bright-ish spots. 

 

Latin seems to fall into and out of ODS' head with regularity. And we've started studying a heritage foreign language in earnest.

 

:cheers2:  to a happy and productive year!

 

[theelfqueen]

My 11 yr old started 6th grade about a month ago... I am kinda rolling with it right now. I don't know what to do with him... he's considered HG in Language and G in math....he's been in public school up to now and has had great support from his GT teacher in 4th and 5th -- she's the one who asked me 'where is he going next year?' and I said 'We're homeschooling' and she responded "Oh, THANK GOD.' Then gasped and said "it's just that I know you, I know your family -- you're going to do this! It's going to be GREAT for him!" So that was reassuring! :

 

English : He's doing WWS1 -- he likes the varried readings.  Vocabulary.com (lists I've made or found to go with his lit, 1-2 times a week), Painless Grammar (1-2 times a week), Fallacy Detective (1 time a week) and we do Poem of the Week once a week... We're doing British Literature in preparation for our upcoming trip to Ireland and the UK.... we've finished Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland with a study guide -- it took less than half the time I had planned for it. We are finishing up the Hobbit as a read-aloud and have done some additional lectures from the Tolkien professor with it and some additional readings. He skimmed alongside his 10th grade brother for the end of Beowulf, they built Lego Heorot and are shooting a Stop Motion video. We're starting Gawain and the Green Knight this week (also alongside 10th grader)... He's really not finding most of this terribly challenging but he is working to find his homeschool groove, as this is our first year, and there's a lot of variety available in the literature. (He's also re-read Harry Potter books 4-7 and some Heinlein juvies -- this month) He likes that I have a good idea of books he's going to enjoy. His brother dumped some Gaiman books on his desk and said "Gaiman is British Lit!"

 

Math: I started him on Arbor and he said "I need review to make my brain 'mathy' " ... I happened to pick up "Keys to Algebra" at the used curriculum sale for unknown reasons (aka it was so CHEAP!) .... so he burned through Book 1. I really could have, based on testing, skipped a formal Pre-Algebra for him but I wanted to give him an introduction to the Discovery Method...  We moved back to Jousting Armadillos. And did a couple of chapters of Zacarro.... He's burning through JA even faster than I expected but it's going really well!

 

Science: I only kind of had a plan for this... I decided that he and his brother would both do a semester focused on Astronomy. 10th grader is focused on a Coursera course plus labs I've added. They're watching Crash Course Astronomy together... I picked up the Space pack of Kids Discover magazines and a super cheap copy of RS4K Middle School astronomy. These offer ZERO challenge but they are giving *me* some framework. He reads a chapter and does a vocab list one day, he reads a magazine that coordinates, sometimes he looks more up in the College textbook I've got on the shelf... he does some other more hands-on activity once a week (we made a constellation viewer in a shoebox, did a moon map, did some constellation mapping, etc.). He's doing misc stuff from his big Forensics book  (He finished the Great Courses course he had and the professor's book) and he's been building things -- lego machines, Tinker crates, etc. ...  He's been doing a lot of hands-on. We've taken out his telescope and binocs a few times.  Again, I don't feel like I'm really challenging him much but he's HAPPY.  And right now that's pretty great.

 

History: We're doing British History (Again in prep for/inclusive of upcoming trip). He likes our timeline activity. He HATES the text I had him reading -- and his brother hated HIS text.... so I ditched them and have gone to lecturing and adding some misc videos. Hey, I'm a history teacher -- I gotta do something. He read a stack of the Horrible History books this summer. They're loving the audio book we're doing (Lacey's Great Tales from English History). They have liked the projects I've given them (I had 11 year old build a Norman Motte and Bailey castle from legos -- today he saw one in a movie and started explaining all the features :) )

 

Greek -- He's almost done with Code Cracker and excited to move to Elementary Greek.

 

His co-op classes are an Improv class -- he's so happy he could DIE. and "Adventures in Liberty" (sort of an  American History/intro to civics/government thing) which is turning out to be really fun. I've had him do some extra activities with that. He went to Constitution Camp this summer so I knew he'd be excited. 

 

And he started an RPG (Dungeon World) with his brother and a couple of their friends.... GMing is a GREAT Fit for him. It's his first time so I was a bit nervous for him but it went really well.

 

I don't really know where we're going ... moving ahead but I've definitely seen him finding his groove, and that's feeling good.

 

[zaichiki]

Still trying to establish a rhythm...

 

We started last week with one new subject each day. By the end of this week we should have all subjects going strong. And hopefully I will retain my sanity!

 

Dd14 has become very responsible and independent with her schoolwork and her practice hours. I really like that because it frees me up to spend nearly all of my time with dd6 and ds10... trying to get them on task!  lol The favorite thing to do here is to hide somewhere with a book when you think mother is about to call your name...  I swear I spend half the day searching the house for children and the other half doing laundry, dishes, and cooking.  I miss summer already!

 

**Most loved activities are CNN Student News, history, and our daily bike ride. Oldest also enjoys her French and the younger two love their math.

 

[OlgaLA]

I really feel like we are slacking this year. It's our 6th week, since my DD's geometry class started in the beginning of August . So she is doing her AOPS geometry, DE chemistry, and BW writing. She is reviewing her US history, hoping to take SAT this Fall. French and Russian are still not fully started, although we did some reading in Russian. French tutoring is still up in the air, since we are doing a major landscaping project, and we can't have her at our house, but I don't have time to drive them to her because of various schedule conflicts and the near constant need to babysit the contractors.

DS9 continues with Beast Academy, although I slowed him down to have him do CTC Building thinking skills figural book. I signed him up for a CTY reading class, and while we wait for it to start, we do WWS1, just because I had it, and he seems ready. Botany was supposed to be coupled with gardening, but with the delays in the construction project, our backyard is nowhere close to a garden. So far we just use Botany for gardeners, which he likes. History is still episodic. French is limited to duolingo, and Russian school starts this Saturday. 

I am feeling really overwhelmed this year, with high school starting, DE driving, and this construction project. We had one day when there were no contractors at our house, and just homeschooling felt so nice... I just need to survive until Christmas or so with my sanity intact and hopefully not ruin my kids education. Oh, and my in-laws are coming for a month at the end of September. I can do it, right?

[zaichiki]

I'm a little concerned about dyslexia with my DD. I think she's got the whole GT kid masking the LD thing going on, and I need to figure out what to do about that. 

 

We are living with dyslexia here (dd14). She's GT, which masked the LD pretty well. Dyslexia has impacted her reading, writing, spelling, and sightreading (dd is a musician).

 

She made a huge leap the year she turned 7, after we started using All About Spelling.  Heads up: there are different types of dyslexia (dh's family has the dyseidetic type), so it's possible that what worked best for "our" type wouldn't work as well for another type.

 

When dd was 6 and I brought one of the books she was reading to her pediatrician. I shared my concern and the doctor asked dd to read aloud. After about a paragraph, the pediatrician referred to a developmental ophthalmologist to rule out tracking and convergence issues.  Ophthalmologist ruled those out (L-O-N-G appointment) and referred to a neuropsych.

 

If you suspect dyslexia, go with your gut and check it out.  I talked to friends and family members about my concerns. So many of them told me it was nothing!  They said she was just neurotypical and the disconnect was *me* b/c I was used to GT ds. They said she was active, she simply wasn't a bookworm, and it was normal.  They were wrong.  (And IQ tests showed that she's just as gifted as her older brother.) I'm very glad I followed my gut and chased this down. (It was hard to do that while everyone was telling me I was imagining things.)

 

Bring some books to her next check up.  Tell the pediatrician about your concerns.

Good luck!

[MamaSprout]

Outside classes are the reason we've been going for a month. It gets even more annoying when no two have the same Fall break.

 

or spring break! That's a major reason we're not doing anything online. We already don't get a spring break because the classes I teach and take don't line up.

 

I feel like we are stuck in low gear right now. Hopefully things will pick up now that we're through vacation, long visit by older sibling, new braces, illness, allergic reaction and starting of face-to-face class.

 

Comment about unschooling. We are completely interested led, but not like most unschoolers would recognize (ie, commit to your subjects and finish them, let the bunny trails fall where they may).

 

I have 4 kiddos, and none have ever been allowed video games during the week. I think that takes too much time away from discovering their interests. YMMV

[Runningmom80]

My 11 yr old started 6th grade about a month ago... I am kinda rolling with it right now. I don't know what to do with him... he's considered HG in Language and G in math....he's been in public school up to now and has had great support from his GT teacher in 4th and 5th -- she's the one who asked me 'where is he going next year?' and I said 'We're homeschooling' and she responded "Oh, THANK GOD.' Then gasped and said "it's just that I know you, I know your family -- you're going to do this! It's going to be GREAT for him!" So that was reassuring! :

 

English : He's doing WWS1 -- he likes the varried readings.  Vocabulary.com (lists I've made or found to go with his lit, 1-2 times a week), Painless Grammar (1-2 times a week), Fallacy Detective (1 time a week) and we do Poem of the Week once a week... We're doing British Literature in preparation for our upcoming trip to Ireland and the UK.... we've finished Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland with a study guide -- it took less than half the time I had planned for it. We are finishing up the Hobbit as a read-aloud and have done some additional lectures from the Tolkien professor with it and some additional readings. He skimmed alongside his 10th grade brother for the end of Beowulf, they built Lego Heorot and are shooting a Stop Motion video. We're starting Gawain and the Green Knight this week (also alongside 10th grader)... He's really not finding most of this terribly challenging but he is working to find his homeschool groove, as this is our first year, and there's a lot of variety available in the literature. (He's also re-read Harry Potter books 4-7 and some Heinlein juvies -- this month) He likes that I have a good idea of books he's going to enjoy. His brother dumped some Gaiman books on his desk and said "Gaiman is British Lit!"

 

Math: I started him on Arbor and he said "I need review to make my brain 'mathy' " ... I happened to pick up "Keys to Algebra" at the used curriculum sale for unknown reasons (aka it was so CHEAP!) .... so he burned through Book 1. I really could have, based on testing, skipped a formal Pre-Algebra for him but I wanted to give him an introduction to the Discovery Method...  We moved back to Jousting Armadillos. And did a couple of chapters of Zacarro.... He's burning through JA even faster than I expected but it's going really well!

 

Science: I only kind of had a plan for this... I decided that he and his brother would both do a semester focused on Astronomy. 10th grader is focused on a Coursera course plus labs I've added. They're watching Crash Course Astronomy together... I picked up the Space pack of Kids Discover magazines and a super cheap copy of RS4K Middle School astronomy. These offer ZERO challenge but they are giving *me* some framework. He reads a chapter and does a vocab list one day, he reads a magazine that coordinates, sometimes he looks more up in the College textbook I've got on the shelf... he does some other more hands-on activity once a week (we made a constellation viewer in a shoebox, did a moon map, did some constellation mapping, etc.). He's doing misc stuff from his big Forensics book  (He finished the Great Courses course he had and the professor's book) and he's been building things -- lego machines, Tinker crates, etc. ...  He's been doing a lot of hands-on. We've taken out his telescope and binocs a few times.  Again, I don't feel like I'm really challenging him much but he's HAPPY.  And right now that's pretty great.

 

History: We're doing British History (Again in prep for/inclusive of upcoming trip). He likes our timeline activity. He HATES the text I had him reading -- and his brother hated HIS text.... so I ditched them and have gone to lecturing and adding some misc videos. Hey, I'm a history teacher -- I gotta do something. He read a stack of the Horrible History books this summer. They're loving the audio book we're doing (Lacey's Great Tales from English History). They have liked the projects I've given them (I had 11 year old build a Norman Motte and Bailey castle from legos -- today he saw one in a movie and started explaining all the features :) )

 

Greek -- He's almost done with Code Cracker and excited to move to Elementary Greek.

 

His co-op classes are an Improv class -- he's so happy he could DIE. and "Adventures in Liberty" (sort of an  American History/intro to civics/government thing) which is turning out to be really fun. I've had him do some extra activities with that. He went to Constitution Camp this summer so I knew he'd be excited. 

 

And he started an RPG (Dungeon World) with his brother and a couple of their friends.... GMing is a GREAT Fit for him. It's his first time so I was a bit nervous for him but it went really well.

 

I don't really know where we're going ... moving ahead but I've definitely seen him finding his groove, and that's feeling good.

 

This all sounds amazing!  Want to come teach at my house? :)

 

[Runningmom80]

or spring break! That's a major reason we're not doing anything online. We already don't get a spring break because the classes I teach and take don't line up.

 

I feel like we are stuck in low gear right now. Hopefully things will pick up now that we're through vacation, long visit by older sibling, new braces, illness, allergic reaction and starting of face-to-face class.

 

Comment about unschooling. We are completely interested led, but not like most unschoolers would recognize (ie, commit to your subjects and finish them, let the bunny trails fall where they may).

 

I have 4 kiddos, and none have ever been allowed video games during the week. I think that takes too much time away from discovering their interests. YMMV

 

If we were unschooling, that would definitely be a rule.  As of now we do no screens before 3, and 2 days a week he's at an afterschool program from 3-5:30.  (unless it's school related.) It's something I go back and forth on, and I'll never know the "right" answer. :(

 

I guess we are interest led, DS has a giant say in what we study. 

Edited September 7, 2016 by Runningmom80

[Runningmom80]

We are living with dyslexia here (dd14). She's GT, which masked the LD pretty well. Dyslexia has impacted her reading, writing, spelling, and sightreading (dd is a musician).

 

She made a huge leap the year she turned 7, after we started using All About Spelling.  Heads up: there are different types of dyslexia (dh's family has the dyseidetic type), so it's possible that what worked best for "our" type wouldn't work as well for another type.

 

We have AAS but haven't started yet! Hopefully it works here.

 

When dd was 6 and I brought one of the books she was reading to her pediatrician. I shared my concern and the doctor asked dd to read aloud. After about a paragraph, the pediatrician referred to a developmental ophthalmologist to rule out tracking and convergence issues.  Ophthalmologist ruled those out (L-O-N-G appointment) and referred to a neuropsych.

 

We were just at the dvelopmental opthamologist yesterday.  DD's eyes are perfect. We didn't do the visual processing part yet, but there were no convergence/divergence issues, sight was excellent, depth perception was also great.  I'm happy to at least rule that piece out.

 

If you suspect dyslexia, go with your gut and check it out.  I talked to friends and family members about my concerns. So many of them told me it was nothing!  They said she was just neurotypical and the disconnect was *me* b/c I was used to GT ds. They said she was active, she simply wasn't a bookworm, and it was normal.  They were wrong.  (And IQ tests showed that she's just as gifted as her older brother.) I'm very glad I followed my gut and chased this down. (It was hard to do that while everyone was telling me I was imagining things.)

 

Thank you for this.  She's reading fine for a newly 6 year old, but she started reading, sounding out short words at least, at 4.  Also she says she hates it and it's too hard, which is the biggest read flag.  She's a bright girl, at least moderately gifted.  It's not adding up.  (She has trouble following lines of text, she mixes up sight words, like reads "the" for "a" or "a" for "and," things like that.)

 

Bring some books to her next check up.  Tell the pediatrician about your concerns.

Good luck!

 

We just had her 6 year well check and honestly she didn't read that much over the summer so it wasn't on my radar.  I did call the ped last week to get a rec for dyslexia testing.

 

Thank you Zaichiki!

Edited September 7, 2016 by Runningmom80

[SeaConquest]

If we were unschooling, that would definitely be a rule.  As of now we do no screens before 3, and 2 days a week he's at an afterschool program from 3-5:30.  (unless it's school related.) It's something I go back and forth on, and I'll never know the "right" answer. :(

 

I guess we are interest led, DS has a giant say in what we study. 

 

We are the same. I never know the "right" answer re screens. I basically say that if you do your school work, get some exercise, play time, and reading time, then I am not going to regulate your free time very much. If you want to spend it with screens. so be it. 

Edited September 7, 2016 by SeaConquest

[Arcadia]

DS10 had his first class of WTMA German 1 and DS11 had his first class of Roy Speed's Romeo and Juliet. They also started back on chinese with a tutor.

 

German B&M Saturday class and swimming Sunday class starts this weekend.

 

So far so good :)

[zaichiki]

Thank you Zaichiki!

Following lines of text and losing her place within a line were two of the red flags for us.  Her eyes wouldn't see all the letters in a word, either, so one word would look like another to her and she'd misread it. Most noticeable to her pediatrician was her ability to read words like "molasses" but needing to sound out "log" or "cat" every time they came up in a paragraph (she had been sounding out words, at that point, for three years).  Dd (6 at the time) often auto-filled words in text ("horse" for "pony" and "the" for "a" etc.) because she was compensating. 

 

The first clue for me happened when she was 3.  She'd happily create words with magnetic fridge tiles, sounding out all kinds of things and spelling them phonetically.  She could even write her letters at that point and LOVED writing whole sentences (sounding out each word and writing it, phonetically, quite clearly).  BUT she couldn't read back what she had written the next day. I remember thinking it was weird and seemed so backwards. When I asked around, no one I knew had ever seen any child to do anything similar.  Truth be told, we're rather outside of the box in many ways around here, though.  lol

[Runningmom80]

Following lines of text and losing her place within a line were two of the red flags for us. Her eyes wouldn't see all the letters in a word, either, so one word would look like another to her and she'd misread it. Most noticeable to her pediatrician was her ability to read words like "molasses" but needing to sound out "log" or "cat" every time they came up in a paragraph (she had been sounding out words, at that point, for three years). Dd (6 at the time) often auto-filled words in text ("horse" for "pony" and "the" for "a" etc.) because she was compensating.

 

The first clue for me happened when she was 3. She'd happily create words with magnetic fridge tiles, sounding out all kinds of things and spelling them phonetically. She could even write her letters at that point and LOVED writing whole sentences (sounding out each word and writing it, phonetically, quite clearly). BUT she couldn't read back what she had written the next day. I remember thinking it was weird and seemed so backwards. When I asked around, no one I knew had ever seen any child to do anything similar. Truth be told, we're rather outside of the box in many ways around here, though. lol

Wow, that's really interesting! I've never seen that either. She sounds like a cool kid. :)

[La Condessa]

We started last week.  I think we're nearly past the attitude issues that always come with a schedule change from change-averse dd1.  We're off to a good start and things are going well.  Though I learned this week that I need to condense our plans for Singapore--dd1 was insulted that I wanted her to do "baby math" after finishing a Beast Academy book, so we went through doing a couple of questions from each section until we found something she didn't already know.  Also, I had purchased the workbook for dd2 because last year she seemed to need the work at the basic level before stepping things up with intensive practice (big sister just did intensive practice at that level).  Except now she doesn't seem to need that much anymore, it's overkill.  I don't think buying the book was a waste though, as we're doing about half of the basic workbook pages before doing the intensive practice.  She is being really resistant to working on reading, saying that she can't read.  She actually can decode at a pretty high level (once I make her actually look at the words instead of guess) but has no fluency.  Hope we can get past this hump soon.

 

Ds1 is going through an explosion right now.  My all-boy, goofball, knock-his-head-into-a-wall-to-see-what-happens son.  (The one I privately thought was just not as clever as the others, to be honest.)  He's demanding phonics and math and violin and every other subject he can get every day, drinking in as much as I will give him.  He's beginning to read, all of a sudden.  He's beginning to play actual tunes.  I don't know if this is just a phase, but if he keeps on like this, he could be at the point of starting Singapore 1 in a month or two.  This is the kid with a summer birthday, who I was planning on holding off on calling a Kindergartener until he was a young six instead of young five.  (He's four now.)  And when he's not begging me for more school, he's still every bit as much of a wild little boy with no apparent common sense--leaping, rolling, fighting, deciding to strip naked and then run into the brambles to pick blackberries.

Edited September 8, 2016 by La Condessa

[purpleowl]

Our school year is going...slowly. We've had a million interruptions, from sicknesses to a hurricane. It is driving me a little bit crazy that we're not in a good groove. That aside, things seem fine.

 

DD#1: Most everything is good and seems to be hitting the right level of challenge for her. I adjusted how we do science a bit from last year, and the changes have been good. Beast Academy is the bestest thing ever. The only thing that bothers me is that she doesn't seem to really enjoy the books I'm having her read for school (she loves reading when she chooses the books). I wish I were having better luck picking books she'll like. But then, I distinctly remember being in 10th grade when I realized it was okay to like a book my English teacher had assigned, so it's possible that DD is simply being my child. ;)

 

DD#2: She's excited because she just started several new things. So far, they're working well. She says her very favorite thing to do for school is math.

 

I do a bit of letter/number/shape/color stuff with DS, but it would be a stretch to call it "school." ;) He has fun with it, though.

[luuknam]

3rd day of school here. 5.75yo (while practicing multiplication): "I think I could actually go into 2nd grade."

 

:rolleyes:

 

(For those who missed it, last year he wanted to be in 1st grade, so we did 1st grade last year, and he scored 81st percentile on the standardized (end-of-1st-grade) test in June (which I know is not a stellar score, but certainly high enough to promote to 2nd). But, then he said he wanted to be in 1st grade again this year, so he's in "1st grade". Kid really needs to make up his mind, lol. (not that this affects much other than the answer he gives people when asked what grade he's in))

[regentrude]

My last year of homeschooling has begun, and it looks very differently from prior years.

DS is taking two college courses. He requested to be in complete control of his schedule.

DH teaches math. While we have used AoPS for many years, we feel that their calculus text is very theoretical and benefits from direct instruction. We still use the book as a guide and source of problems, but DH does two lessons/week with DS.

US History is done via GC lectures and book reading.

No science this semester; he will take an atronomy class at the university.

 

No more researching curriculum, designing assignments, nagging about completion. I just have to do my counselor stuff for college apps.

DS feels he can handle being in charge of his time. We shall see how the aplication process goes. I want to be done.

[egao_gakari]

Second week with our 4th grader! It's going pretty well as I learn how she learns. 

 

Re the post up above about the ADHD concerns, I'm wondering the same thing about mine. Definitely wiggly, particularly during history. (We are following WTM's recommendations for 5th grade Ancient Times, except that I'm not making her outline. We're also reading the relevant chapters from SOTW, and sometimes doing the activities.) Today I began scheduling in a movement break once an hour no matter what, and that has really helped. However, she simply can't focus on silent reading--if I want her to learn anything from reading we have to read aloud. I don't mind, but I do worry that the issue will continue...

 

On the plus side, I got this very pop-oriented kid turned onto classical music by playing Ravel's "Bolero" yesterday, and she's asked to listen to it twice since then.

 

"Draw Squad" and Dance Mat Typing have been a hit. FLL she finds boring, but the lessons are short, so she doesn't fuss about it. BFSU has been a great choice for science so far, but I've only planned about 8 lessons from it, so I'm getting nervous about finding enough time to plan more. All About Spelling she is enjoying. And we've been doing "The City of Ember" as our daily read-aloud. She loves loves loves this book. In the past, reading aloud together has been kind of a chore that she participates in because Mom wants to do it. Not this time!

[Arcadia]

While we have used AoPS for many years, we feel that their calculus text is very theoretical and benefits from direct instruction.

In what way? My DS11 just started on that text and haven't asked for help yet. He does ask me for help if he is unclear.

I do have a few not that old Stewarts, an old Leithold and an old Krezig as reference.

[Arcadia]

On the plus side, I got this very pop-oriented kid turned onto classical music by playing Ravel's "Bolero" yesterday, and she's asked to listen to it twice since then.

My kids love the flash mob version by Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra inside Copenhagen Central Station. They watch it on YouTube countless times. They also like the BBC Proms version.

[regentrude]

In what way? My DS11 just started on that text and haven't asked for help yet. He does ask me for help if he is unclear.

I do have a few not that old Stewarts, an old Leithold and an old Krezig as reference.

 

The text is very theoretical with more fine technicalities, much more so than previous volumes. I noticed a distinct shift in style and tone compared to any of the preceding books.

It is not that my kids would not be capable of understanding it, they certainly would - but having a live instructor explain concisely and discuss difficult points right when they arise saves time and frustration and allows us to streamline the material.  As lovely as the discovery method is, we like to keep our children's math goals in mind.

 

For a student who is planning a career as a professional athlete and will major in athletic training, a strict treatment of epsilon-delta proofs (which even our STEM university's math department has now cut entirely from calc 1) is unnecessary. My DS studies calculus for exposure and general education; it already exceeds the requirements for any of his possible majors.

My DD OTOH had to get through calculus 1 quickly because she needed it as a prerequisite for the calculus based physics course she took at age 15; it was clear that she would retake the coomplete calc sequence at the university and go way beyond since she is a physics major. So, direct instruction shortened the process and saved time that we could spend more beneficially elsewhere.

 

ETA: YMMV, obviously, since you have  a genius child who apparently is studying calculus at age 11. That is so far outside the norm that your math education will probably look very different than ours; most importantly, there will not be any time constraints.

 

 

Edited September 8, 2016 by regentrude

[KarenNC]

First semester of dual enrollment is in full swing, and she loves ASL, likes the professors in her other classes but isn't wild about the content (required transfer success and composition). Overall, she is enjoying college classes. Math at home, not so much, but that's par for the course. We have lots of college visits going on, and she's looking forward to October---transfer success class ends, camping with Girl Scouts, starting a tech theatre class, and--the big one---Halloween ;) .

[Arcadia]

regentrude,

 

Thanks. Your explanation is really helpful. I was wondering if I should teach or just be around for him to ask. He wants calculus for physics and not for math sake.

My younger one need more hand holding and direct instruction but still prefer aops so since we have the time to go at his pace, we let him continue. He likes projectiles (fireworks, rockets) so he is happy enough for the time being with algebra done.

[theelfqueen]

This all sounds amazing!  Want to come teach at my house? :)

 

 

You're super sweet!

[Runningmom80]

Just popping in to say that I think that my great idea to ramp up super quick right when my almost preteen is starting to become hormonal wasn't my best. :lol:

 

I know he's not into puberty yet, but SOMETHING is going on. He needs space.

 

I had this thread bookmarked, and just came across it tonight. A post on the high school board about creating great middle school years.

 

(sharing for anyone else who may benefit. :) ) http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/76668-high-school-parents-looking-back-what-would-your-ideal-be-for-7th8th-grade/?do=findComment&comment=739982

 

I also read an article called "How to Raise a Genius," (poor title but the content was great) I'm feeling a tiny bit better about the amount of time DS wants to spend on the computer. :laugh: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-raise-a-genius-lessons-from-a-45-year-study-of-supersmart-children/

 

Things are getting better here, the kids are getting into a routine. i'm figuring out what is going to work and not work. I let some subjects slide this week after our rough start and I am glad I made that decision. It's a marathon, not a sprint, right?

Edited September 9, 2016 by Runningmom80

[Arcadia]

Just popping in to say that I think that my great idea to ramp up super quick right when my almost preteen is starting to become hormonal wasn't my best. :lol:

 

I know he's not into puberty yet, but SOMETHING is going on. He needs space.

My DS11 has always needed space since he was born so I can empathize.

 

My DS11 plays the cello. You can just imagine what it is like when he is hormonal. So far the cello has remained unharmed.

 

Luckily DS10 decided to switch back to the flute after a spell with the cello.

 

I am tempted to put my boys in sports classes every day just to get them tired enough to sleep. They won't do PE for me. However my budget can't afford that :P

 

My DS11 is reading his story book while his "not at all efficient" programming homework code is running. He can spend all day reading and just drink milk if I let him.

[quark]

Just popping in to say that I think that my great idea to ramp up super quick right when my almost preteen is starting to become hormonal wasn't my best. :lol:

 

I know he's not into puberty yet, but SOMETHING is going on.  He needs space.

 

I had this thread bookmarked, and just came across it tonight.

 

(sharing for anyone else who may benefit. :) ) http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/76668-high-school-parents-looking-back-what-would-your-ideal-be-for-7th8th-grade/?do=findComment&comment=739982

 

I also read an article called "How to Raise a Genius," (poor title but the content was great) I'm feeling a tiny bit better about the amount of time DS wants to spend on the computer. :laugh:  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-raise-a-genius-lessons-from-a-45-year-study-of-supersmart-children/

 

Things are getting better here, the kids are getting into a routine.  i'm figuring out what is going to work and not work. I let some subjects slide this week after our rough start and I am glad I made that decision.  It's a marathon, not a sprint, right?

 

Do you know how many times I have posted plans here only to have to dial back the very next day due to some cognitive leap or hormonal set back? I definitely can empathize.

 

Oh I love reading these old threads! That SA link has been floating around my feed and local community too. I'm glad things are looking up! :hurray: