Weekly update for week of 10/22/12

I don't have very many pictures this week.  Not sure what happened. N. did lots of fun things, but I guess I just enjoyed in the moment and didn't snap pics. 

This week he started a new project build for Science.  He built a circuit board.  I do end up being an extra set of hands with this.   Also I usually do the glue gun because his tremors make it very difficult to get the glue right where he wants it.  He was very excited that the light bulbs actually lit up when he connected the board to batteries.  Of course he had to be goofy when the camera came out.

In the Inventor study he finished his reading on Thomas Edison from "Four American Inventors".  He gained a new appreciation for Edison by reading this book.

For his history project he tried to duplicate a painting of Cornwallis Surrendering.  He did a pretty good job.  It might look messy to most people, but I know how tough it is for him to color this kind of detailed work.

He continues to work really hard during the school day.  He starts at 8 and takes a 15 minute break for snack and then takes about a 45 minute lunch.  This means most days he is done around 2.  He has had a few days that go longer than that, but mostly because he has a co-op class that requires about 1/2 hr of reading during the week so the days he does that go longer. 

I did make a concession with his written narrations this week.  I am letting him take notes if he needs to.  In theory it adds time to how long this takes him, but in reality it really doesn't.  If he doesn't take notes he has to go back and look at and sometimes completely re-read sections in order to remember what happened.  It really isn't a matter of him not paying attention when he reads.  It is due to his short term memory issues.  If he takes 1 word notes he is able to then remember what the book says and does very good narrations.

For Storytime we are reading "The Reb and the Redcoats".  We are both thoroughly enjoying this book.  It is a very different look at the Revolutionary War. 

He continues to do well with Grammar and Dictation.  He is having to redo a lot fewer passages this year in dictation.  We are doing it 4 days a week and I think that helps.

Weekly update for the week of 10/15/2012

   This has been a very busy 2 weeks.  N. continues to plug along in Rev to Rev.  He still really enjoys it.  This is really his first time studying in depth American History since he didn't come home until he was 10 and we started with Preparing Hearts for His Glory as our first guide.  I have to remind myself of that because things that I think he should already be familiar with, he isn't.  If he hasn't had exposure to something then his reading comprehension isn't near as good.  We ran into that some these past 2 weeks when he was reading some things in "George Washington's World." 

For storytime we finished reading "John Paul Jones-Pirate Patriot".  I have to say this was one of the tougher storytime books we have done.  Neither one of us is at all familiar with boat terms so it was hard to follow at times.  The epilogue at the end that filled us in on what became of him was very sad.  We have just started "The Reb and the Redcoat".

For history projects he did a stain glass window painting using the Old North Church Steeple as a model.  I really like this painting.

He also made a Liberty Hairstyle.  He found it hilarious the different things the French did to their hair.  He decided to put a canon and a ship in his hairstyle.

 He continues to love Exploration Education Science and he seems to be getting exposure to some tough concepts. 

The big news this week was that he earned his Black Belt in Karate!!  It has taken him 6 years, but he has stuck with it, even though it took him much longer than a neurotypical kid.  He even had to write a 500 word essay.  Thank goodness for the IEW writing program last year.  It was a pretty painless process due to all he learned doing that program with RTR.  He also had to break a board with his hand and with his foot.  I am very proud of him.

Weekly update for the week of 10/1/2012

This was a much smoother week.  Math went much smoother using the Lial's Prealgebra book.  I go thru the lesson with him and then he does half of the odd problems one day and the other half of the odd problems the next.  It is taking about 40-45 minutes I think for math, sometimes less.  We still haven't got into the types of problems that caused the meltdown, but he seems to like the smaller chunks that this book does. 

We finished reading "The Secret Wish of Nannerl Mozart" for storytime.  He loved it.  I was surprised that he enjoyed it as much as he did.  It is a very good book, but I didn't think it was his type of book.  We just started the book "Pirate Patriot" about John Paul Jones.  The first chapter was kind of confusing and he struggled with the oral narration,but I am sure as he gets to know the characters better he will do fine. 

One of the things he has really enjoyed this year is researching the Signers of the Declaration of Independence.  He is supposed to put brief bulleted answers to several questions on the back of the cards.  I don't make him capitalize or write complete sentences necessarily.  Not sure if that is right or not, but I look at it as similar to note taking. He can't write that small so he is using the Ipad with a keyboard to type them in an app called Notability and then he sends it to the computer and we print it.  He does still use the 2 finger typing method.  He has gone through some typing programs, but when he tries to use 5 fingers his tremor really kicks in.  We still are working on it, but I am not sure he will ever be able to type the typical way.  He is pretty fast with 2 fingers.

He finished up his mystery book from DITHOR and then made a board game to go along with it.  He read the 3rd book in the Viking Quest series.  It was an easy read for him, but he really wanted to find out what happened to Devin,Bree and Mikkel so I let him read it. 

He told me this week one of his favorite boxes is the one where it alternates between the composer study and the "Who is God" book.  He really enjoys music of all kinds.

In Science he did experiments with ramps, and pulleys and levers this week.  He doesn't always write as detailed a theory in his log book as what the answer key says, but his ideas are always correct.  We are talking about using the correct terminology when writing up science lab reports.  He was able to give his dad a pretty detailed explanation at dinner about levers.

On Fridays we do a co-op and he is in a Musical Theater class.  He just found out this week that he got one of the leads in a play they will do around Christmas time.  He is very excited.  He has a lot of lines to memorize.  Thankfully HOD has prepared him well to memorize lengthy things.