First week in review of the new school year!

We officially started the World Geography High School guide this week.  I have to admit to being very apprehensive prior to the start of this guide.  I am well aware of the challenges that N faces with certain things and I knew some things were going to be overwhelming for him.  I would like to say I was wrong and that this week went super smooth, but I want to be honest on this blog, so I will say that we have had smoother starts.  It did get better as the week went on.  Here he  is in the traditional first day of school pic.

First I have to say I am impressed with this guide and how it is all put together.  There are so many skills that are imbedded in the different boxes.  This week he worked on taking notes from a reading, drawing a sketch from just a description, annotating, writing a one sentence summary, answered thought provoking questions about literature, searched his reading for phrases to describe 4 different religions and of course did a written and 2 oral narrations. 

In history he read A World of Discovery on the first day and he struggled with understanding this reading and said he didn't even know where to start with an oral key word narration.  I could tell his frustration was real so I let him go back and read a paragraph at a time and then narrate to me.  Not ideal and I know he should be past this point at his age, but it was the only way he could do it.  I am hoping as he moves further into this book he will get back to narrating in more typical fashion.  The rest of the week he read the Archaeology book and did well with it.  His written narration lacked life and was back to a just the facts type of narration, but I didn't have him add too much since this book is written in a somewhat just the facts kind of way. He drew a sketch of the pyramids(I labeled them as directed by him) and he drew a sketch of how they might have moved the stones up to build the pyramids. The DVD's that go with the World Geography are great and really help bring the readings to life.

In Science he did an experiment the first day just to get the hang of the scientific process.  He is going to like this lab kit and guide.  He is doing very well with answering the questions at the end of the reading.

The bible study is challenging.  I am trying to not grade too tightly because I don't want him to feel like he is failing at studying the bible. So if he can explain to me why he answered the way he did then I count it.  If he is way off we discuss it in a pretty casual way.  He is working on memorizing his first verses of the year and he was instructed to put them to a tune today.  He was quite dramatic in his delivery. (on a side note this is my favorite shirt of his, it truly describes who he is).

He is doing well with his World Religions and Cultures assignments.  He did need some guidance in taking a word description and putting it into a drawing.  He made his chart this way on purpose so that things lined up with each other.  We both love the look of the ivory copy paper that he is typing things on for this notebook.

Literature was the big bump in the road this week.  He really struggled to understand the first story and pretty much missed the entire climax.  It was frustrating for me and for him.  Unfortunately this gave him less than a positive attitude towards lit.  He was supposed to type the answers to the end of story questions the next day and the thought had him near tears, so I let him answer verbally and he and I set a goal of next time typing 1 and answering the rest orally and eventually by mid year work up to typing them all when scheduled. 

He loves Spanish and Logic.  The logic doesn't come easy for him, but he likes the way the book is written.

I was very discouraged at the beginning of the week, but then God reminded me that high school isn't a sprint it is a marathon and I need to set small goals for him to achieve and not expect him to have it all down just yet.