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expectations for 9yo 4th grade boy


EmilyGF
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Hi all,

What subjects and how much time would you spend on them with a 9-yo 4th grader? He's gifted, perfectionistic, and extremely physical. He is a good leader and hard worker when he gets interested and down to work, but getting there is killing me.

Fine motor skills are difficult for him.

I'm trying to figure out how to make it through the year without going nuts. Today was especially bad. (Curriculum suggestions welcome, too.) We live in a place where starting school mid-year is well nigh impossible.

Thanks, Emily

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Considering that, with a new trumpet and a new box of origami paper in the house, I spent most of the day today *redirecting* this child, take the following with a grain of salt...

My DS9 4th grader is doing the following *assigned work* this year:

  • Greek, 15 min
  • Grammar, 15 min
  • Math, 45 min
  • Spelling, 10-20 min
  • Cursive, 10 min
  • Typing, 10-15 min
  • Logic, 10-20 min
  • Writing, 20-60 min (this one is often a slog)
  • Science (3 days) or History (2 days) 30 min (reading only)
  • Literature, 30 min (reading only)

He reads voraciously on his own time, anything he can get his hands on: nonfiction, DH's old college textbooks, instruction manuals, graphic novels, poetry. He has a fondness for calculus books. 🤷‍♀️ He's likely gifted, and probably on the spectrum.

He's also teaching himself fairly sophisticated origami, is knitting a scarf, and plunks on the piano. He had a serious bicycle accident with a head injury last spring and has become very sedentary, preferring to work inside, though he loves to swim. He and I have started walking laps while DS12 practices with the cross country team.

I spend a significant amount of time each day redirecting. He is who he is.

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My oldest has autism, ADHD and anxiety. He was not a picnic as a fourth grader...or, really, any other grade.

Then my second has autism, ADHD and anxiety, plus violent, aggressive ODD and DMDD. He was much, much less fun as a fourth grader, and this year is in public school as a fifth grader.

For us, math has always been non-negotiable. My kids have always done better with an uber-consistent schedule, so they do math e.v.e.r.y day...like 350 days a year. But, in fourth grade they only spend 20-30 minutes on math. Often, even that is split into 15ish minutes doing "arithmetic" in Math Mammoth and 5-15 minutes doing "problem solving" in Hands on Equations or a Zaccaro book or logic puzzles.

Literature is just reading for ~20 minutes from a book basket that I stock with appropriately challenging novels, poetry, non-fiction, etc. These are not necessarily classics, just one baby step longer, denser, and deeper than they are willing choosing for free reading.

Spelling is always All About Spelling...but without all the bells and whistles. Just the guide book and a notebook and 10 minutes a few times a week.

We run through Daily Grams to catch all the nit-picky grammar and usage rules like what types of titles get quotes versus underlined.

Writing is our other big non-negotiable. My kids tend to go through a couple levels of Writing with Ease and Evan-Moor Writing Super Sentences. Then they are ready to start classes through Lantern English. We do Lantern classes supplemented by Even-Moor Paragraph writing and Text Based Writing workbooks. We also go through short resources covering Main Ideas, Summarizing, Outlining, and Note Taking. My oldest was ready to start Writing with Skill in 5th grade.

My kids start memorizing a growing Anki deck starting in first grade. I gradually add cards to their decks in the categories of: geography (locations of states, countries, famous landmarks; state abbreviations; capitals of states and countries), facts about great works of art, kitchen safety, musical notation, personal information (address, phone number, grandparents' full names, etc), poems, quotes, speeches, science (names of bones, classification of living things, eons of geological time), the presidents in order, Spanish vocab, spelling and grammar rules, literary elements, math basics (prime #'s up to 100, fraction and decimal equivalents, divisibility rules, geometry definitions, area and volume formulas, measurement conversions).

The rest of the subjects my kids (in fourth grade) don't really consider school. History (either Story of the World or Oxford University Press) and science (Mr. Q and lots of living books) are read aloud of just offered as appealing free reading options (particularly successful with non-fiction graphic novels and Horrible Histories/Science books).

I also read a lot of Michael Clay Thompson aloud - we LOVE his grammar, vocab and poetry books.

We spend a lot of time on Spanish, but it is mainly listening to me reading entertaining books aloud, watching videos, playing on Duolingo, etc.

Plus some educational screen time: typing games, code.org, Prodigy, etc.

 

All told, my oldest "worked" for only about 2 hours a day in 4th grade...but he also listened to me read aloud for about 2 hours a day, and free read for about 2-3 hours a day, and spent the rest of his time playing Snap Circuits, chess, Legos, helping with chores and cooking, getting dragged outside into nature and watching Great Courses lectures on college level science and math.

OTOH, last year in 4th grade, my second DS only "worked" for 10 minutes on math, 10 minutes on math review, 10 minutes on writing, 10 minutes on spelling, 10 minutes playing the piano and 10 minutes reading or listening to literature. For a grand total of 1 hour that he often tantrummed so much about that it took from 8am to 7pm, and almost always resulted in either me or him or the ABA therapist injured by the end of the day. So I am the queen of meeting the child where he is...academically, emotionally, behaviorally, etc. You just do what you can every day.

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10 hours ago, EmilyGF said:

Fine motor skills are difficult for him.

What are you doing on this? He's at a good age to be doing an OT eval. By googling, I found on OT within say an hour drive who specializes in handwriting and assistive technology assessments as well as of course the therapy. I can't say random OTs have been particularly successful with my ds (hence me looking for another, lol), but I would definitely want an assessment on that. The fine motor stuff is usually a progression of things that need to develop, so you want to know where he is in that and why it's happening. (retained reflexes, postural issues, tone issues, gross motor, visual perception, fine motor, etc.) My dd and my ds have both had OT for handwriting, so I'm pretty much in the don't treat as behavioral things that are legit issues, get evals.

10 hours ago, EmilyGF said:

He's gifted, perfectionistic, and extremely physical.

If the OT has Zones of Regulation, that might be helpful to him. It could bring that perfectionism to a more cognitively controlled place. Are there sensory issues? My ds' most extreme physical like that was when he had reflexes not integrated. Once those were done, what was left was more kind of internal regulation. If he gets dysregulated (hence the Zones of Regulation suggestion) he ramps up that physical seeking, like he's trying to get regulated. So we want to make the dc more aware so they can deal with it more cognitively and with awareness rather than reactively. It will then put him in a better place to do his school work and to be able to say he's ready or to know what he needs to do to be ready. Those are the kinds of conversations I have with my ds: is your body green zone and ready to work, if it's not what do you need to do to be ready to work?

Schools are using these tools but they're things you can have access to. If he's hard enough to work with that school is on the table, then you are looking for better tools. Treating it as behavioral isn't the same as giving them more self awareness and tools to deal with themselves using their cognitive.

9 hours ago, Noreen Claire said:

My DS9 4th grader is doing the following *assigned work* this year:

  • Greek, 15 min
  • Grammar, 15 min
  • Math, 45 min
  • Spelling, 10-20 min
  • Cursive, 10 min
  • Typing, 10-15 min
  • Logic, 10-20 min
  • Writing, 20-60 min (this one is often a slog)
  • Science (3 days) or History (2 days) 30 min (reading only)
  • Literature, 30 min (reading only)

He reads voraciously on his own time,

Yes, this is the type of schedule I would expect to see and the type of short spurts we've used with my challenging ds. Fwiw, with my ds I make a list of things that are a goal (those short sessions) and work up to his tolerance with breaks interspersed. In only push his tolerance for a day or two and then I expect him to speed up if he's getting in the groove. If he's NOT getting in the groove, then we hold. If he speeds up, then we add more to get to a full load. 

Usually (for a NT, typically developing child) we say grade + 1 at this age, but that includes reading. So if the list I quoted is say 3 ½-4 hours, she has reading on top of that. My ds listens to books avidly. Did op mean her ds is a leader or a reader? 

I think, and this is just me, that when things are hard I would focus on pairing and positive relationships, things that give success. I would bring into the day a component for mental health and self awareness (10-15 min), increase the challenge (that's usually when behaviors happen, when they're not feeling challenged), and keep the work tight enough in time that you can be successful. 

So when I'm having a hard time wrangling my ds in, I'll bring out something MUCH above grade level. Like you said he's 4th, so you're looking for something at least marked 5-6th gr, maybe 5-8. Around that age I used some Didax math workbooks that were fun. Something with tiles. I think we did HOE which was kind of boring after the way cooler Didax book but who am I to say, lol. I think with my dd at that age we did some of the math olympiad competition books, just a few problems each day. Something to really push the envelope and let them THINK. 

I'm not trying to be fun when I do that but literally HARD. It's very uncommon for a very bright or gifted dc to find something HARD and bringing that element into the day can snap the back to a good place.

On the work time, I would aim for 3 hours, working up closer to that 3 ½, but I have a very flexible approach with my ds. We *have* done approaches in that past that are very firm, like suck it up, this is the list, very behavioral, and it can be done. However (and this is just me), I wrangle with my ds has a human too, that not everything is behavioral, some things are just that his body is stinking hard. So I have kind of plan B things, things that are an easier reach. You have more kids to wrangle, so that makes it a lot less practical. My plan Bs are things like science kits, math games, cliffhanger stories, math mysteries, things where I'm doing most of the hauling and he's just along for the ride. So he gets to be engaged and connected but it's not as hard for him to get there. 

http://teacher.scholastic.com/maven/index.html  Here's something I have open in my browser right now that I'm meaning to use with him. We've gotten a lot of mileage from math mysteries. They're engaging, on that challenging side, and they smooth over times when his body is giving him grief.

I'll tell you another controversial thing we do... Shhh... WORKBOOKS. My ds responds well to clear structure and doable amounts of work. I buy ebook workbooks from every publisher (Carson Dellosa, Scholastic, Teacher Created Materials, Teacher Created Resources, etc.) and I make packets. He's finally stable enough to where he has an 

-independent work packet

-together work packet

-therapy level work with me

Getting the independent work packet going was like pulling his teeth, so his father has had to do the dirty work. That is behavioral, which means it's literally just do it and get it done, do it because I said so. Independent work is NOT AT INSTRUCTIONAL LEVEL. It's below instructional level while still being interesting or worthwhile. It takes a lot of research to find this, and frankly my ds didn't function well enough (despite his quite bright IQ) to do that for a long time. Now he bangs it out. I can check, but I think he has 12 pages in his packet right now. They range from very simple (word searches for spelling) to vocabulary pages (a strength for him) at or above grade level. I throw in science pages too. 

I'm not saying do those exact things, but I will say when intervention specialists come to our house they have ALL said to get him working independently more to help with behavior and confidence issues. My ds is a hard worker when the structure is very clear and he knows he can just sit down and do it, and it takes a lot of work to find the EXACT FIT to make it so he can do that. For your ds, it could be typing software or logic games, anything you are confident he can do completely independently if it's put on a list. My ds' independent work packet takes a solid hour. I would plan on it taking an hour when it's done efficiently and not cry if it takes 1 ½+ during their learning curve. It should feel like WORK. Not busy work, just doable work that they can sit down and do and that allows you to walk away and know you can expect it done.

 

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Gifted, perfectionist, and active.  That sums up my youngest.

4th grade looked like a lot of short or open-ended lessons with dedicated fine motor skills work:

Math: Gattegno (oral, visual, kinesthetic. Very little writing)

Science: Homemade, using Janice Van Cleave's Human Body book for "labs" and the interactive anatomy notebook from Getting Nerdy With Mel and Gerdy.  The interactive notebook pages came in a file that had 2-3 options for each activity depending on the level of motor skills.

Language Arts: English Lessons Through Literature - 3x a week of grammar, writing instruction, and literature.  We still used Montessori tiles and symbols for grammar sometimes.

Spelling: Dictation Day By Day - one passage.  We switched to 10 words a day with Reading & Spelling Through Literature in 5th and it worked well, too.

Handwriting: D'nealian workbook

French: Nallenart 3x a week, low writing worksheets.

Art: Paper Sloyd - learning to create precise folds and cuts

History: reading, projects, little writing

Music - violin.  This has seriously been the best thing ever for working on his precision of movement with his elbow and wrist

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https://payhip.com/Didax  You can buy Didax books as ebooks here or your library may have the print versions. If you hit the filter for middle school math, you'll get some great options. We did their Advanced Pattern Block book around 4th. They have the books on Conflict Resolution that I think @Pen has mentioned. (I know someone did, they're on my hit list!)

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My 4th grade boy is 9, turning 10 at the end of October.  He's got dyslexia and dysgraphia going on, so that causes challenges in what we are doing.

He listens to 45 minutes - an hour a day of read alouds along with DS12.  This is Bible, literature, and world cultures/geography this year.

about 45 minutes/day of math, with me scribing about 75% of the time, and reading it all aloud to him.  This is usually his favorite subject and he is ahead of grade level (He's in Beast Academy 5C). He's been a little frustrated with some of the puzzles in BA this year, so we are also mixing in some Zaccaro word problem work and I need to decide on something to pull in to review fractions, because it's pretty clear he needs some review in that area.  

15 minutes-ish of him reading aloud from a book

5-10 minutes of typing with Touch Type Read Spell (I would like it to be longer, but he is pretty much hating it, so I ask for one lesson a day right now and rarely he does more)

30-45 minutes of Orton-Gillingham work (So this is phonics/reading instruction and drills, spelling, grammar, handwriting, some very basic sentence-level writing).

2x per week science (usually just 15 minutes or so of me reading aloud to him. We're reading an Apologia book right now)

2x per week Writing and Rhetoric book 1, all done orally or me typing what he composes aloud.  (15-20 minutes/day)

This is the "required" subjects -- we take lots of breaks between subjects, and his favorite thing to do is go run laps around our cul-de-sac between subjects.  He also does 2-3 hrs a day of audiobook listening, plays a lot of board games (with me, his brothers, or with himself if no one is available), does the Chess Kid app, often tags along with DS12 for an online science class 2x per week, sometimes does other educational apps or videos.

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Ds9 is pretty academic, but extremely slow and easily distracted. Today we did:

With me:

Morning work (Bible/memory work): 15-20 min

Greek: 15 min (we alternate every other day with Latin)

Spelling: 15 min

History: 20 min of listening to me read (this one can take an hour when he has other things to read on his own) (we alternate with science)

 

Independent:

Reading: 30 min

Piano practice: 20-30 min (scratch that...he just told me he forgot...arg!)

Writing: 30 min (we alternate every other day with grammar)

Math: 30 min plus 10 min of Xtra math

Typing: 15 min

Writing mechanics (Comma placement, etc): 20 min (because of distraction)

 

I think we're finally at a good point, but I'm still constantly redirecting him or reminding him to do school (and he's always surprised that, yes, today we are doing school...). He works faster work me right there (although sometimes he just asks a million unrelated questions), but that's not always possible. You are not alone. Ds7 is much more physical, so some of our work is done standing up. I'm thinking as he gets more and more work we'll have to schedule in frequent movement breaks for him.

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Mine is the same age and is doing:

GSWL, going great

10 min of Spanish practice per day

40 min of cello practice with me. He is in Suzuki book 4.

Abeka math

Spelling Workout

MP Grammar recitation + Core Language arts

Handwriting workbook I made to go along with MP memory work. 4 days per week.

MP Greek Myths *

MP Astronony  *

MP 13 Colonies & Great Republic + 200 Question on American History (He is listening in on dd reading this, and he works on flashcard memorization.  He isn't doing workbooks) *

MP Lit Guides*

IEW All Things Fun & Fascinating *

MP Poetry memorization *

MP Christian Studies I *

MP Geography I *

The MP is scheduled so it's not everything everyday.  All items with * are rotated.  He seems to be thriving with the new switch to MP.  I thought it would be a battle with all the extra writing because he has hated the physical act of writing, but his handwriting and spelling have improved in the first month and he enjoys the memory work. He likes the workbooks and having more independent work. I think it is a good fit for him right now, but will likely change the science and history next year as I don't know know other offerings would work as well. Really, it's too early to say.

 

 

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We are constantly changing things up, but today was a pretty typical day for my 9yo, age-grade 4th, 2e son (ASD, ADHD, anxiety, enormous processing speed gap, but *no* disabilities in reading, writing, or math).

Core academics:
40 min math
40 min writing disguised as science (including reading about science and discussion before the writing assignment)
10 min writing disguised as history
30ish minutes listening to me read history aloud
50 min actual language arts instruction (10 min grammar, 10 min vocab, 20 min W&R, and 10 min reading comprehension)

Interspersed between:
1 hr 15 min social skills group
2ish hours "educational" Marvel movie
1 hr playing in Scratch -- but he was supposed to be in a G3 webinar and forgot
1ish hr reading whatever he felt like while I tried to get him to pay attention to what I wanted him to do
1ish hr playing with Zome Tools
30 min video games
1ish hr playing outside
2ish hrs eating (for real)

*We school four days per week on average.*

 

Curriculum:

Right now he's using Fix It grammar, MCT vocab, and Writing & Rhetoric. A few weeks ago language arts looked like IEW Structure & Style for Students with Moving Beyond the Page. In a few more weeks he'll be starting a writing workshop through Athena's and probably switching from W&R to a Fishtank literature unit or going back to MBtP. I hope to get through the rest of the MCT components at some point as well, but I don't mind if this level bleeds through into next year. We've been all over the place with language arts, but we keep coming back to MCT, W&R, and IEW. Fishtank is new for us this year and is surprisingly awesome. I also like to incorporate The Writing Revolution style assignments into other subjects.

At the moment he's doing a mash up of EMF, Khan Academy, and Alcumus review for math, but he's asking to take another AoPS class, so we'll probably switch to that soon. Today he worked for my scheduled 40 minutes; however, he often works for longer because he likes math. Right now I'd say he's averaging around 80-90 minutes on math per day.

As of this week I have him doing a Fishtank science unit because it's easier to get him to write about science and math than about literature. Before that he was doing a combination of Mr. Q Advanced Chemistry and Biochemistry Literacy for Kids. When this Fishtank science unit is over (or earlier if I decide it's not working the way I want it to or he decides he's not into it), we'll probably go back to Mr. Q and Biochem Lit for Kids followed perhaps by a second Fishtank science unit in the spring. In the past we've had good luck with REAL Science Odyssey and online science classes.

History is perhaps our most consistent subject. I read aloud our spine(s) and/or related literature at bedtime -- usually around 45min, but anywhere from 15 to 60 min. Then the following day I give a short TWR-style comprehension assignment, a 2-3 sentence dictation, map work, or a History Detective worksheet. We've had this same history routine working for us for more than a year now, so it's a "win" for sure.

I feel like we are constantly switching things around and readjusting in general. My kids get bored and crave novelty. DS 9 and DS 12 both get very resistant, especially towards writing, if we stick with the same program for too long. DS 9 is often appeased by being given a choice between two curricula when we hit natural breaks/transitions within a curriculum.

My 2e 12yo, who has more extra Es, including SLDs in reading and writing, is much more tricky. He ends up going on academic strike, and it's hard to get his buy-in. I'll say, though, that he's had several years of public school, and they haven't had any better luck getting him to cooperate than I have. Putting him in school just gives us a break from each other. It doesn't improve his learning in any way.

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First and foremost: I have single-parented 9yo boys before. They're a handful, I know. If you have a co-parent, get on the same page with any and all co-parents so that there is no playing sides against each other. Every parent in his life needs to be checking up on him and holding him accountable.
Whatever his currency is Reward and Punish behavior as needed.

Once the Adults are in place, look into making the family routines more beneficial and sustainable. As a single parent, I could change my family routine on a dime and didn't need to coordinate that with another autonomous adult.

1st: Start each day with making his bed followed by plenty of physical exertion.
If he needs to wake up 60-90 minutes earlier, then wake him up earlier.
Take him outside: have him stretch and then jog up and down the driveway or around the block. Jump rope, do push ups, army crawl and run some more, do a cool down.

2nd: Have him take a 3 minute shower, brush his teeth and eat a good breakfast and wash up the dishes that he used.

3rd: Start his academic schedule.

 

On 9/22/2021 at 9:03 PM, EmilyGF said:

Hi all,

What subjects and how much time would you spend on them with a 9-yo 4th grader?

 

What is your educational priority? We eschewed a lot of Traditional Subjects. I chose a few subjects that were important to me and only did those.

Pick 3 or 4 subjects that are important and do them. Every.Single.Day

The subjects will change as he masters fundamentals and goes from learning a skill--such as handwriting or reading--to simply using the skill in his studies. Once a child can read, they can read. So apply their ability to read to something else.

 

I don't know what you mean by his fine motor skills are difficult for him, but I'd start with 10 minutes of focused fine motor skills work. Whether it was clay, pencil skills, or whatever type of work is appropriate for his physical ability. I'd put 3 sessions of focused fine motor skills into his day.

Fine Motor 1/3 -- 10 minutes. After Fine Motor, do a run in place break.

Handwriting 15 minutes. Use a method of your choice. I used WRTR because you didn't need workbooks, but you can use whatever you want.

Math 45 minutes -- Start with quick oral quiz of math concepts and facts that he should know well, then go into his daily lesson. After the lesson, do a jumping jack break, and have him do lesson practice. Require that he write neatly during math.

Reading 45 minutes A chance to rest his hands. Frankly, I though that fiction was highly over rated, so I leaned very heavily towards nonfiction reading for The Boys, so I recommend a steady diet of nonfiction. Have him read for several minutes a loud, then several minutes silently, then several more minutes aloud. Have him go outside and run up and down the drive way 5 times or around the block or whatever makes sense for your residences.

Fine Motor 2/3 -- 10 minutes of FM work, read aloud to him or listen to an audiobook while working on his Fine Motor skills.

Geography - 30 minutes. Blobbing maps, IDing countries on the map, reciting geographical knowledge, reading an article about a country, continent, etc. After geography do another round of handwriting.

Handwriting 15 minutes -- have him review his written work of the day and ID and fix the worst of his written work. Have him go outside and run up and down the drive way 5 times or around the block or whatever makes sense for your residences.

Fine Motor 3/3 -- 10 minutes should be done in evening, near dinner time.

So,  you have done Handwriting (30 min) , Geography (30 min), Reading (45 min) and Math (45 min) and it's taken you 2.5 hours of your day. 3 hours in you count the 30 minutes of Fine Motor work, but that's something he should be working on anyway.

 

If he's an amazing reader, you might not need to spend time on reading, perhaps instead you'll swap it out for a subject that's important to your family.

 

 

 

 

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My DS8 (2E with ADHD) is a year behind yours. He needs the consistency of a set schedule, so we begin each day at 9am, break for lunch & a rest from 12-1p, then return to wrap up our day.

We use a workbox system with 10 drawers, which can be worked through in whatever order he chooses (with the exception of messy or time-consuming projects that need to be saved for last). I aim for a blend of longer vs shorter boxes, as well as a variety of difficulty levels. Each day includes:

Tabletop Game (30-45min) These are hugely rewarding for DS, so I make a point to buy new games each year that go along with our studies thematically & we start our days here.  

Reading (20min) Any book from the classroom shelves, which are stocked to be at a comfortable reading level. After reading he narrates & I type his summary into a book log. Later this year, once he’s finished learning to type, he’ll take over the log. 

Grammar / Poetics / Vocabulary / Spelling (5-20min) Often we’ll cover these topics in units that span several weeks, with the exception of spelling which is weekly. Some days are a lesson, some are writing exercises, & some are simply poetry appreciation. 

Typing (15-30min) One lesson each day on Typing (dot) com. Once he’s done there I’ll assign other work to be typed daily, such as his reading log. 

Composition (45min) A mix of MCT Town, an IEW Theme Book, & NaNoWriMo. We might also use CAP W&R Narrative II at the end of the year, but most likely we won’t get around to that until 4th grade. 

Math (45min) Beast Academy; currently 4D. 

History / Science (30-60min) We alternate these subjects weekly. Some days are only a notebook entry & others involve several books, videos, a lab or project, etc. In the latter instance, each item would be a workbox of its own. 

The remaining boxes contain logic exercises, supplemental resources, review activities, art projects, etc. He has just begun taking one online class per week, so the class takes the place of a box on that day & any “homework” is spread into work boxes throughout the week.

He participates heavily in sports; 60-90min each day between soccer, tennis, & swimming lessons. We’ve just started listening to audiobooks in the car & also read aloud literature in the evenings before bed when he can better relax & focus. 

Edited by Shoes+Ships+SealingWax
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Thanks, everyone.

@Gil I think what you said is exactly what my dad (who is great with kids) would say if I asked him, but I've not yet swallowed my pride to ask. My older boy was such an EASY kid to homeschool and my dad always said, "Wait until your next boy..." ominously.

@Shoes+Ships+SealingWax Workboxes may be a great thing for him. Thanks for reminding me about them.

For now, I've made days a lot more consistent. I took some things that were only twice a week and made them daily, among other things. Thanks.

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9 hours ago, EmilyGF said:

Thanks, everyone.

@Gil I think what you said is exactly what my dad (who is great with kids) would say if I asked him, but I've not yet swallowed my pride to ask. My older boy was such an EASY kid to homeschool and my dad always said, "Wait until your next boy..." ominously.

@Shoes+Ships+SealingWax Workboxes may be a great thing for him. Thanks for reminding me about them.

For now, I've made days a lot more consistent. I took some things that were only twice a week and made them daily, among other things. Thanks.

I dunno if it’s a boy thing, even. My troublemaker child is a girl 😛 

I think consistency is a great idea, but we’ve always been VERY consistent, and that didn’t do it around here. My kiddo was resentful about basically everything I asked and I didn’t figure out how to change it.

What’s been going on with your kiddo? How are things bad?

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You already have tonnes of good advice so my two-bobs worth is just that this year is probably the worst.  My kids got more difficult to homeschool toward the end of grade three and better around mid grade five.  That doesn’t mean you don’t work on stuff or they’ll grow out of it by themselves but there is a certain amount of it just seems to be a mismatch between what they’re intellectually capable of and what they’re emotionally capable of that makes things hard. 

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You have good input here, and I’m not sure this will be helpful (not knowing the exact nature of your challenges), but I’ll throw it out — Andrew Pudewa gave this talk (I don’t remember what it was called) where he basically advocates for setting the bar super, super low, then gradually ratcheting up expectations. Each time you ratchet up expectations, the incremental step up should be pretty small. For parents, the approach can be disconcerting because it feels like you / your child are not accomplishing anything, but his point is that gradual changes over time add up; whereas expecting too much at one time can damage the relationship.

 

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1 minute ago, WTM said:

You have good input here, and I’m not sure this will be helpful (not knowing the exact nature of your challenges), but I’ll throw it out — Andrew Pudewa gave this talk (I don’t remember what it was called) where he basically advocates for setting the bar super, super low, then gradually ratcheting up expectations. Each time you ratchet up expectations, the incremental step up should be pretty small. For parents, the approach can be disconcerting because it feels like you / your child are not accomplishing anything, but his point is that gradual changes over time add up; whereas expecting too much at one time can damage the relationship.

I wish something like that had worked for us 😛 . 

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23 minutes ago, WTM said:

Hugs! Yeah, it wouldn’t be effective my my DD, but it has been helpful for my DS. Each kid / parent dynamic is different…

Agreed! I think the question is always what the issue is. It sounds like for your DS, being overwhelmed is a big issue, so then starting small is a great idea. (Correct me if I'm wrong! Just my impression from your other posts.)  

For my DD, her issues seem to be her attitude towards me and her work 😕 . And ratcheting down expectations didn't improve her attitude in the least. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

My 4th grader's daily checklist:

-Clean your room 20 mins

-Touch Type Read and Spell for 20 mins www.readandspell.com/us/

-xtra math

-Read from mommy approved book shelf 20 mins

-Singapore Math with me

-Critical Think Company Science Detective or This: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Social-Studies-Interactive-Notebook-Print-and-Digital-for-Distance-Learning-933658

-Critical Thinking Co Word Roots

-Writing with Ease with me

-Bible app for 20 mins

-Read anything 20 mins

-Beast acdemy online or Prodigy 20 mins

-Dreamscape or Night zookeeper 20 mins

-Draw or built or handwork or read to mommy 20 mins

-Message dad (dad has weird hours so sometimes the only change for him to hear from the kids)

-Pick up trash for 10 mins

-Put away stuff laying around that you know where it belongs 20 mis

-Replace one thing on list with 20 mins of something that gets your heart rate up can't bump the same thing more than once every two weeks.

We do Charlotte mason inspired book basket at night while the kids plays with legos or playmobils or draw

I set the routine on Alexa that it's basically a 20 min timer, but every 5 mins reminds him to stay focus.

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  • 5 weeks later...

First remember your child's temperament.  Mine is like ooblek.  You have to judge very carefully how and when to push or he will go hard and everything will stop.  At 9 he would still run away and throw things and you would probably not get him back in course.  At 12 he now goes to his room.  Mostly he comes back after a while.  Any more than 4 subjects will overwhelm him though I am working towards 5 for high school.  Gil's methods would not work and not would most other peoples.  If he gets exercise and does maths, writing and reading the rest is jam.

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12 hours ago, kiwik said:

First remember your child's temperament.  Mine is like ooblek.  You have to judge very carefully how and when to push or he will go hard and everything will stop.  At 9 he would still run away and throw things and you would probably not get him back in course.  At 12 he now goes to his room.  Mostly he comes back after a while.  Any more than 4 subjects will overwhelm him though I am working towards 5 for high school.  Gil's methods would not work and not would most other peoples.  If he gets exercise and does maths, writing and reading the rest is jam.

What a great description! I have a kid who is like silly putty; you tell her to keep her butt in her chair, and somehow she ends up on the other side of the room without having ever seemed to remove her butt from the chair. Not sure how she does it... 

Emily

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On 9/22/2021 at 8:03 PM, EmilyGF said:

Hi all,

What subjects and how much time would you spend on them with a 9-yo 4th grader? He's gifted, perfectionistic, and extremely physical. He is a good leader and hard worker when he gets interested and down to work, but getting there is killing me.

Fine motor skills are difficult for him.

I'm trying to figure out how to make it through the year without going nuts. Today was especially bad. (Curriculum suggestions welcome, too.) We live in a place where starting school mid-year is well nigh impossible.

Thanks, Emily

For a 9yo person, first I wouldn't think of him being a "grade level," or of "subjects," especially if he's a perfectionist and "extremely physical," and fine motor skills are "difficult for him." I would look more towards a unit study such as KONOS or the Prairie Primer, where the dc learn by doing instead of doing lots of written work which a perfectionist could obsess over. Both of those unit studies do everything except English and math skills. For those, you could think about Winston Grammar and something like the original Writing Strands; and for math, something like Miquon, or even Making Math Meaningful.

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How are you guys doing? 

We've been doing something like unschooling for more than a month now (letting DD9 self-motivate for her work, anyway), and it's been really awesome. It has really removed all the power struggles. 

I don't know if that would work for everyone, and I'm not at all sorry I pushed her when she was younger (and I'm not unschooling DD5), and the things DD9 is doing with her work time is what she was doing before she was picking her own work anyway (because she already had SO MUCH choice), but I'm really glad that's what we're doing right now. 

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44 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

We've been doing something like unschooling for more than a month now (letting DD9 self-motivate for her work, anyway), and it's been really awesome. It has really removed all the power struggles. 

I'm so glad it's been working well for you. I know before you took a break it was a troubling time for you.

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3 minutes ago, Clarita said:

I'm so glad it's been working well for you. I know before you took a break it was a troubling time for you.

Hah, yes. We were kind of spinning in circles trying to figure out DD9's attitude issues. It was driving me totally nuts. 

We aren't really taking a break from any of the schoolwork except me teaching her directly... she's taking co-op classes and she works all morning on the subjects she likes (which are currently math, Russian, and writing.) We're starting to slowly phase in me teaching her again, since she'd really like that -- but we're making everything her choice.

She's been studying for the AMC 8 and doing really well on the practices, so really, this is working out better than I expected, given that I really didn't want to stop teaching her! But the break from that has been excellent. 

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On 11/9/2021 at 1:11 AM, kiwik said:

Mine is like ooblek.

I love this description btw. That's so totally my ds. Fwiw, there are things that improve the escape behaviors. I try to work toward *me* being a reinforcer, the reward, the thing he wants to be with, rather than *not being with me* being a reinforcer. Someone mentioned games, lots of games, 

 

On 9/28/2021 at 2:25 PM, Shoes+Ships+SealingWax said:

Tabletop Game (30-45min) These are hugely rewarding for DS, so I make a point to buy new games each year that go along with our studies thematically & we start our days here.  

and this is so spot on. 

When my energy drops I tend to get very reductionist and start with the things I'm most worried about rather than spending that extra energy.

One of our SLPs this year is working on conversation and they read controversial articles together and talk about them. This is all via tele, so she pulls up a news article to share (something that might interest his age) and they talk about the perspectives, what the article WASN'T saying, what else came out later with more of the story, how it turned out, etc. It has built some skill with him to discuss controversial things (not debate as he's not an arguer, just discuss). It has made it easier for him to be at dinner, and also I'm finding it has *expanded* his ability to have more school subjects.

So like right now we're using the VP history cards successfully, which I never ever expected. I had used them with dd in a more typical way (cards, activities, historical fiction, crafts, blah blah). With ds we read the card and hone in on the CONTROVERSY. He's 13 and with this new skill that engages him. (How do you think this is going to turn out? What was their goal? What could go wrong?)

And I agree, some kids are very challenging to teach. Someone described it to me as getting a step stool so we could reach higher with our teaching strategies. 

On 11/9/2021 at 1:11 AM, kiwik said:

At 12 he now goes to his room.  Mostly he comes back after a while. 

Have you ever looked into Interoception work? https://www.kelly-mahler.com/what-is-interoception/  We had had break language (requesting a break, etc.) in his IEP for years, and it was when we worked on Interoception that he started being able to actually DO it. As you say, we want a safe break, and we want to see the duration decreasing and even some growth (natural, not forced) in his ability to take a break with someone in the room. It might be he needs breaks *sooner* than he is taking them and that some strategies there could prevent the need to leave the room for a more dramatic break. On the teacher side of things, watching that, you're wanting Zones of Regulation, which simply teaches you to watch for their body signals and structure breaks to keep them green or while they're easing into yellow, not when they're all the way to red. 

Whatever, it's just stuff. I just loved your term ooblek because it very much captures what the dc looks like. 😄 

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On 11/9/2021 at 9:59 PM, Not_a_Number said:

but we're making everything her choice

There's a term in education for this--facilitator. Instead of being her teacher, you are becoming her facilitator. It was how I worked with my dd. I used to say that I wouldn't do for her what she could do for herself. So where she could make it happen for herself and drive it for herself, I was there to facilitate. 

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11 hours ago, PeterPan said:

There's a term in education for this--facilitator. Instead of being her teacher, you are becoming her facilitator. It was how I worked with my dd. I used to say that I wouldn't do for her what she could do for herself. So where she could make it happen for herself and drive it for herself, I was there to facilitate. 

I wouldn't mind being her teacher again 😄 . She keeps saying she does want that. We just need to separate my teaching from the stuff she does on her own, I think. 

And the break has been great.

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