Once again it has been a few weeks since I posted. This year has flown by as we just completed week 16 of MTMM. I also can tell it is close to Christmas because we have hit a few bumps in the road which seems to always happen around this time of year.
I will start with the smooth sailing parts first. N. just completed The Elements book in science and felt like he learned quite a bit and really enjoyed it. Here he is building chemical bonds with marshmallows.
For his history project this week he made Tollhouse cookies. He wanted to make them without any help from me. Usually I help to just steady measuring spoons etc, but he was determined to do this on his own. He did a great job, and really didn't spill too much flour on the counter.
One of his Draw and Write projects this week was the Golden Gate bridge. He also did Mount Rushmore but he didn't want me taking a picture of that. It was a tough one to draw.
Nature journaling continues to be an activity he enjoys. For a kid that has some much trouble with handwriting his drawing has really come along.
Now for a few of the bumps in the road. The oral narration where I type it continues to be a very stressful thing for him. He just freezes up. He was to narrate on the stock market crash and the Great Depression. It should have been pretty easy, but he really struggled. He said he didn't understand the stock market enough to really understand what was going on. We talked a bit about that and that helped, but it is almost like he has test anxiety with this activity. I am not sure how to make it better for him. So we just keep pressing on and I tell him there is no right or wrong answers. I think the fact that he has words he has to include makes it seem like there are right and wrong answers though. They are really there to help him, but he gets stressed about including them.
He also struggled with an activity to list signs of prosperity. He really has never seen true poverty other than on tv so I decided to pull in the help of my Dad. My dad was born in 1927 so I had N. call him and ask him to describe his world during the Great Depression. That worked wonders. The depression came to life for N. and it was a great bonding time for grandpa and grandson.
Math has been our final bump. He is doing Teaching Textbooks Algebra and I do believe it is a good fit for him. He says he understands the teaching, but he doesn't like how long it takes him to do a lesson. He averages an hour to an hour and 15 minutes. He had a major meltdown this week over it and so we are continuing to talk about attitude and how this is just how the upper maths will be.
We have one more week of school before we will take a 2 week break.
