Ch...ch...ch...changes!

Yep, we are a month in and the problems are starting to crop up as things get in place.  The biggest problem...Matthew and Saxon math.  Christopher did great with it.  It comes highly recommended.  Matthew did great in pre-algebra with it.  We have now been at Algebra 1 for over a year and he's failing miserably.  He won't ask for help, he won't check his work, and he leaves it for last every day in the hopes that he won't get to it.

That is what we call classic Matthew avoidance or "I HATE this crap!" in passive aggressive behavior.

After trying a few different tacts, it was decided that it was time to try something new.  It's going to be hard because he's in the middle of the curriculum so we will have to try and figure out where he fits into the new curriculum but it should be worth it.  We are borrowing the Art of Problem Solving from Ian which is where we get all the good curriculum for Matthew.  There learning style is so similar that if it has the Ian stamp of approval, it's almost a guarantee that Matthew will do well with it.  There are no tests with it until the end so I'm having him do selected problems from each chapters review section until we find areas where he doesn't understand stuff or just needs more practice.  Hoping we can get at least half way in before he has to start doing full lessons.  It's a pretty advanced curriculum tho so we'll see.  The other nice thing is that there are corresponding online courses for a reasonable price taught by the people who wrote the texts and free online help even without enrolling.  Really nice.  And it goes through calculus so we have time before we have to use the JC for his math.

While looking through his other problems, its apparent that while he wants to do all of the courses, it's an overload so we looked at some ways to tone things down a touch to make it easier for him to get everything done.  *crossing fingers* we've got things set-up better for him now.

In other changes, Jonathan will be starting US History this week.  We had to wait for Matthew to get through the first book in the series so Jonathan could start it and that's now done.  Jon will be going slower through it so there wont' be any more problems with them sharing.  Now I just need to find time to do all the work with him. Always with the needing more time.  *sigh*

And the last big change is that I had to pull out the 3rd box in Hooked on Phonics for Nicholas!  He has completed the 2nd box and chomping at the bit for the next one.  He is doing great with his reading and really enjoying it.  He's starting to try and read all over the place and people are amazed when they realize he just read something to them.  He was at clay class this week (need to post more pictures of that) and picking out his glaze color.  He pointed to one on the top shelf and Margaret picked the one next to it.  He told her "Not that one, the Hot one".  She looked confused for a moment but then looked and realized that the one next to where she was pointing was Hot Tamale.  He couldn't read the second word but he was able to get his point across.  Totally amazed her!  She just looked at me and said "He read that?!"  Um, yep.  He's been able to read that for about 6mos now.

So here's hoping things go smoothly for a bit now.  I know we'll end up tweaking things further, it always happens but maybe we can get a month out of these current changes before needing the next batch.  LOL

The First Month

So it's officially been a month since the start of this school year.  Activities are continuing to trickle in, we have all our curriculum, and are starting to get into a groove.

So where are we:

Chris has settled into his schedule at school.  He LOVES his Math and English teachers.  He has been getting the math teacher to post homework assignments in advance so he can work on them early because he is finding them easy at this point.  He has gotten nothing less than a 90% on his quizzes and the teacher was even giving out extra credit questions on one that were designed specifically for him.  Talk about awesomeness!  He has just turned in his first major paper, a movie review, in his English class.  I really like that the teacher took time to see his beginning work and give feedback and then has the kids bring in several copies of a rough draft a week before the final draft is due to get feedback from him and other students.  Great way of helping them!  I'm excited to see how he did on this one and how he does in this class a teacher that, at this point, seems so supportive. I mean hey, this guy was bringing up old Schoolhouse Rock songs in class which when he couldn't remember them totally, Chris helped him out with and then he went and found it on You Tube and played it for the class.  You can't get much cooler than that!

Matthew is still struggling to balance everything.  His Civics class first couple of assignments consisted of three 2-3 page essays.  Instead of talking to me about it, he kind of let it slide out of view.  It didn't take long for me to catch on to it so we discussed it and came up with the workable solution of a good paragraph for each part of each question the was supposed to write an essay on so it comes out to about 1page per question rather than 2-3 which made it more manageable with everything else he has going on.  Of course, as we are working through that, he gets sick again and is in bed for several days unable to even read so now we are behind schedule on things yet again.  Some things can sort of get caught up but some things can't.  Going to have to have a discussion with him on how to handle it going forward.

Jonathan is continuing to excel at what he loves and balk like a stubborn mule at anything he has gotten into his brain as being "too hard".  This definitely includes writing.  I think because the mechanical process of writing was so hard for him for so long that he just remembers it being hard and has now decided that the entire process is super difficult and he can't do it.  His resource specialist and I keep plugging away at this but it's hard as it ultimately has to be something that he realizes.  Until that time, we just keep trying.  Now if only we could figure out someway to keep him from forgetting everything everywhere as he left his swimsuit at swim class 2wks ago and his backpack with his science materials at clay class last week.  Ugh!

Nicholas is just excelling at everything right now and is actually the easiest of all the kids to deal with (such a change from all other areas of his life).  He has the attitude of "This is easy so let's get it done quickly so I can go play" which is what I've always told the kids.  He reminds me of what hasn't gotten done and is quick to pull it out.  He is reading well and almost through box 2 of Hooked on Phonice (1st grade level).  He loves his math and blazes through that each day and is starting to read most of the ordinal numbers phonetically which is amazing to me. He's already figured out that when he's sounding something out if it sounds off but familiar that it's likely this other word he knows.  His memory is also incredible.  We've been doing these animal worksheets as part of his science and after one reading he can generally answer the questions and I just underline the part so he can copy it down on the sheet.  He remembers a lot of the details from his Five in a Row books as well and we can go to the library and he'll see a previous Five in a Row book and tell me about it (and usually insist that we check it out again).  I remember what a struggle all these things were for Jon so it's a relief and a joy that Nick has such an easy time of it.

Ups and Downs

The Ups:
Chris got a perfect score on his last math quiz and actually had someone wanting him to tutor them.  Considering he's already getting to the point where he needs some help at home, I suggested a study group idea instead but still, it did his confidence good which is priceless.

Jonathan and Nicholas got all their schoolwork done in a timely fashion today which was so nice.  Nicholas even read "Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you hear?" and "Spot goes to the Farm" to me today with only a little help on the words that don't sound out easily.

The Downs:
Notice who I didn't mention in the first section?  Yeah, Matthew.  I started going through his work today and found that a lot of it just isn't done.  *sigh*  Yep, apparently we are back to that.  We discussed it and I gave in on a few points but then also showed him what absolutely had to get done.  He didn't get to go to KSW again tonight because he needed to stay home as he has a ton of work to do to get caught up again.  Here's hoping he's figured out I'm on top of it right now and these things will get caught within a week and he just starts getting it done.

Tuesday = Activities!

 Tuesday is seriously our busiest day for activities right now.  Not a lot of book schooling goes on although

 

 we do what we can along the way.

Our day looks a lot like this....

First Jon & Nico have swim lessons.  It's first thing in the morning so they get a nice wake-up for the day....

 Cause hey, who doesn't wake up well after climbing into a 90F pool to do some laps and have some fun with friends...

 Today Nicholas started clay class right after swim.  It's his first time working with clay and it was absolutely precious to watch.

Here he is just getting a chance to work with clay and the different texturing tools...

 This is his first project.  They are making fish to hang on the wall, working on learning to score the clay, cut out the shapes you want, and play with textures.








Their teacher is really hands-on and so great about offering lots of praise and encouragement.

They had some extra time at the end so she had them practice working on making coil people for next week's project.

And I missed most of Jon and Matt's clay class because I was walking on the beach with Nick (need to get pictures of that but here is one I managed to get of Matthew at the end of class just before his bowl was taken off the wheel...

After all that, we come home and collapse.....

Until soccer practice for Nicholas in the evening.

A Couple of Big Deals & Week 3 wrap-up

Chris ~ Got his first math test back this week and got 9/10 correct.  Woohoo!  He's enjoying the math class and actually went so far as to ask the teacher to put up assignments ahead of time so if he has time, he can work slightly ahead if he understands the material.  He's also got what looks to be a really good fit for his English class.  He had that paper due the first couple of days of class and then the teacher met with all the students this week to go over the papers.  Lots of constructive criticism where he marked out the points he really liked and thought were good and asked questions where things were unclear.  No nitpicking things.  I'm sure that will come but they are also addressing a lot of that in the class as well.  He does things like have you bring in rough drafts to go over with your peers a week before the final draft is due and you can get appointments with him in the writing lab to make sure you are on the right track with what he wants.  What a blessing after his last attempt at this class.  I think it was his English teacher that showed up at his Competitive Gamers Club meeting this week as well.  Really think this is going to be a great semester for him!


Nico ~ Started the second half of the orange Hooked on Phonics workbook.  Couldn't believe it when I showed him the sound cards for it and he sailed right through figuring them out.  They were all beginning blends and he had no problem and started in on the words.  He's been sailing through all the concepts I've introduced so far in his math as well and when we do his animal worksheets, he has no problem answering questions afterward.  He just continues to blow me away with how quickly he picks things up.

Matthew ~ Is continuing to plug along and is keeping up with all his courses so far.  We have a bit of discussion to do but so far I'm keeping up on grading his papers as well.

Jonathan ~ is working hard most of the time.  Our biggest hurdle right now are his own mental blocks where he is asked to do something that he has decided is too hard.  Mostly this pertains to writing and I think stems from the time when handwriting was so difficult for him that he hated the physical process of writing and while we've dealt with that, he now just has a block about writing anything.  His resource specialist and I are doing what we can to help him get over this but it's hard.  Otherwise, he's been doing well and I'm happy to see that his spelling is improving at least in his lessons.  Unfortunately, since he is still working his way through the first book, there haven't been enough words to really make a difference in his writing.  *sigh*  We continue to work on it tho.

This coming week is going to be fun as Nick's soccer starts up and clay class for Matt, Jon, and Nick starts as well.  All of it on Tuesday.  Ugh!