I have to say, I always envision this blog as somewhere I will come daily to describe in loving detail what I did with my children each day and what they learned from it.
Then reality comes crashing in with the lack of time because I'm busy DOING that stuff with my kids and how boring so much of the day to day stuff is. I want to do more fun experiments and crafty stuff with them but so often, life gets in the way of it and we are dealing with that and trying to get the basic stuff in. It does get done and there are lots of good times but it's not what I like to envision.
So instead of focusing on what I haven't been doing with them, I want to focus on what we have been doing and where the kids are at.
We have continued to hit KSW fairly regularly. Or at least Mark and I have and have had good luck getting Jon and Nick to go. The older two, less luck there. Chris seems burned out and Matt seems to spend a good portion of his life lately injured or too sick to go.
I took Jon and Nick to Mori Point for a habitat restoration day 2wks ago and we have another one scheduled for tomorrow. They love going and being outdoors and helping. We try to volunteer at least once a month and because their clay class is nearby, I get to walk over with Nick 1-2xs a month as well just to check it out. We walked by yesterday and he saw the patch where we had been clearing ice plant back in May and was thrilled with how it had stayed clear of that and how the new plants were thriving there. I was thrilled that it had made such an impact on him that he remembered quite clearly that area and what we had done.
Nicholas is doing fabulous when it comes to school stuff. He moved into the 2nd grade math with no problems and when he's focused blazes through each lesson. When he's not focused...well...not so much. LOL His reading has gotten to the point where he will try to read absolutely every word he sees and there is no trying to spell around him anymore. I'm thrilled with how easy it seems to be for him after watching Jon struggle because of his speech issues and I'm glad that it hasn't been that way for him.
Jon continues to be at once the easiest one to work with and the hardest. If I'm working with him, he works hard and wants very much to please me but on the tasks I assign him to do independently, if it's not one he likes, amazing how it doesn't get done. Most things involving writing would fall into this category. His resource specialist and I have been working hard on this with him. It all really boils down to a mental block he developed when handwriting was such a struggle for him. Handwriting was hard therefore writing was hard. I'm really thrilled at the progress he has made in this. A year ago, getting him to write 5 sentences would take a full hour. He's now able to make a nice paragraph with topic sentence, concluding sentence, and 3 supporting sentences in 12min. His new goal is to do it in 10min and even he says that he can do that. A year ago, he would completely freak out at the thought of having to write a multi-paragraph essay. We've worked on that, breaking it down and having him write the main body of the essay as three separate blog entries and then we put those together and have him just write the introductory and concluding paragraphs. The first time I tried that with him, he still freaked out but now he's realized that he can do this and it's not hard. Again, I'm amazed at how far he has come. And it's not just in writing. He's become a reader now and while he's a little slow, his speed is picking up and even better, he's loving to read and will pull out his reading book when bored. LOVING this! I truly think that enjoying a good book is one of the greatest gifts a parent can give a child. This has also made math much easier as he was getting board with Aleks and having problems with their lack of decent explanations so we've moved him to Art of Problem Solving. It's a much more advanced style of math and it's reading intensive. We had problems with Saxon because of the amount of reading it entailed but we discussed how this system worked and he got to look through Matthew's Algebra book and he agreed to go for it. Unfortunately, this curriculum doesn't start until Pre-Algebra but never fear, MathWhiz can pass that pre-test. So yeah, he's in 5th grade and doing Pre-Algebra. I figure it means we can take it as slow as he needs to in order to get it and keep it fun.
Matthew is finally getting to the point where he can work mostly independently and I can trust that most of the work is getting done. Switching the math seems to have helped a bit and we've cut down in a few other places because he was overloaded. We may still cut back further still, but we'll see. He wants to take college classes next year and those won't be a walk in the park so part of me wants to help prepare him for what he'll be dealing with but only as far as it helps and not hinders. Still trying to find that line as he wants so much to do it all and doesn't say when it's too much or too hard or boring or whatever. I have to figure that out once things have started going sideways with him. The fun thing is figuring him out but once you do, all this amazing creativity comes forth and you just have to get out of the way for it. He doesn't like research papers and chapter summaries and book reports or things of that ilk but tell him to write an imaginative story or personal narrative or even poems where he has complete creative control and it's fantastic what you end up with.
Chris has found some teachers that he has really clicked with this semester and it's been fantastic. He's got an A in his math at mid-terms and a B- in his English class. We are still struggling with his thinking ahead and following up on things but when things are immediately in his face, he is doing well. Slowly but surely tho, I think we are seeing progress. I'm saddened that his English teacher doesn't teach at the actual college level (English 100 and above) but he has already been kind enough to give Chris a list of other English professors at the college he believes he would do well with. Definitely a big plus! Now if can just finish things up for his read class from the spring semester, he'll be almost 1/2 way through with credits needed for his AS and over that by the time he graduates high school! It's when I think about things like that that I realize just how far he's come and how well he really is doing.
So there's the catch-up on what the kids are doing. I need to post some of the photos soon of their various activities too but that's for another night.
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