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!

Week 2 recap

Had our first meeting of the year with our ES.  Matthew now has his Civics and Physical Science books and the 8th grade grammar for once he's done with 7th grade.  Jonathan also now has his 5th grade science so this will be the first week for both of them having all their courses.  Yay!

Nick is loving the Horizons Math and continues to generally be very easy to work with.  He'll generally sit down and just knock everything out quickly and if we are home or somewhere he can in the morning, he'll be done by lunch.  What's more amazing is that I had Matthew help me a bit with him this week so instead of doing Hooked on Phonics, Matthew had him read Hop on Pop aloud.  He did it!  Even words like Constantinople and Timbuktu!  So proud of my little guy.

We are still trying to figure out a good writing program for Jon.  He's working with a resource specialist to try and bring his writing skills up to grade level but it's a struggle.  They are going back to basics again with subject and predicate.  *sigh*  I wish this stuff wasn't so hard for him.  Looking into different things right now and there may be some back and forth between therapy and home which is fine...so long as I can find a few more hours to work on it with him since he absolutely loathes writing so it's always a struggle to get him to do it.

Matthew is plugging away.  He's complaining about LotR and how can it possibly take 3 chapters for them to get from one end of the shire to the other.  "All they do is walk!!!" I frequently hear wailed from the other room.  I get to laugh.  It's good for him tho.  He can't always have his way with the main character being attacked and stabbed in the first chapter.  Poor guy.

Chris has been doing well in his math course.  Got his first quiz back today with a 9/10 which is great.  He does his homework online and gets immediate feedback on if it's correct or not so he can retry it if it's wrong so that's wonderful for him.  Still haven't heard how he did on his first paper in the English class.  He's currently doing the research for the next paper which is a movie review on Deep Blue Sea.  Need to talk to him about getting a plan together on when to have each step completed by.

In all tho, the school year is going well so far.  I can only hope it continues this well as we go forward.  We still have a few activities left to add in so we'll see how that shapes things as we go.

2nd week in progress

 Yesterday was super busy with running around but we did manage to get almost all schoolwork accomplished.  Today was only a touch less busy so I asked Matt to help out a bit with Nick.

Yeah, he's a big help.  LOL

 A few days ago I had promised little chef that we would make cookies.  We were given the Trader Joe's sugar cookie mix for Christmas so he pulled that out and prepared it on Sunday so today I kept my promise and we working on culinary skills like flouring a board and rolling pin and how to get the right thickness of dough.

 And of course, the mechanics of the cookie cutters that can produce such cool Star Wars characters. LOL

 Such concentration...I can only wish he was like this with his regular schoolwork.

But thankfully, these two can actually sometimes settle down and get it done.  Gives me hope for all of them.

End of Week 1, Only 34 more to go

Here we are at the end of the 1st week of the 2011-12 school year.  Here's a recap:

Chris ~ Was looking pretty dicey for him getting into all the classes he wanted at CSM but as of today he is enrolled in all 3 for a total of 10units.  He has already completed his first math assignment and has his first 4page essay due on Monday.  He also still has to complete the accounting work for me from last school year.  Ugh!

Matt ~ Still trying to finish up a few classes from last year and behind for the week as he got nothing done while housesitting and then exhausted from housesitting thus killing two days of the school week.  He's working hard to try and get things done but he'll be working this weekend to catch it up.

Jon ~ Got most things done.  Completed 5th Grade math in Aleks and has been bumped up to 6th.  Missed spelling 2 days this week so he'll be doing it this weekend.  Also didn't get any Prairie Primer in so we'll have to figure out why that's not happening and remedy that.

Nick ~ Progressing nicely with everything.  Even did a page in his animal workbook today on caribou.  We found Italy on a map and learned a couple of words in Italian and some great new vocabulary words.  He's been eager to get to work and get everything done as quickly as possible most days which helps a lot.  Here's hoping that it continues!