Week in Review for the week of 8/24-8/28, 2015

We finished our second week and day one of week 3 and honestly I can't believe how smooth things are going.  I know there are some assignments coming up that will be much harder for N., but right now he is doing well. 

His favorite 2 subjects right now are Art History and Literature.  I'm not surprised by the Art History, but if you had told me Literature would be one of his top two subjects for the week I would have never believed you.  He absolutely loves Ben Hur.  We finished watching the movie and he is fascinated by all the differences between the movie and the book.  Not a day goes by where he isn't coming in to tell me something about the book and what it made him think of or what he thought about a character's actions.  He had his first written narration in lit this week and it was a very different style of written narration.  He was given the topic to write about.  He was to compare and contrast Ben Hur and Arius' view of death and then comment on how his compared to theirs.  I was expecting some "I don't know what to write" type of comments, but he was actually intrigued by this assignment and did a fairly good job.  There is room for him to grow in this area as far as details go, but he definitely got the foundational ideas. 

He also loves the Barry Stebbing videos in Art History.  Again he often has to tell his dad some of the points that Mr. Stebbing brought up.  He has already told me we have to go back to the Art Museum this year so he can see some paintings by the Christian artists mentioned in the video. He also had me look to see if Mr. Stebbing had any books he could read at night!  Ok this is astonishing because he does not read in his spare time at all, so I think it is safe to say that these videos have made an impact.  The Adobe Reader app is working wonderfully for him to type on his art notebooking pages. 

In history he really likes the book Unveiling the Kings of Israel.  He was disappointed to find out that he will finish this book up in a few weeks.  He has done 2 written narrations so far and they have been ok.  He hasn't gotten back up to where he was last year, but that is typical for the beginning of the year.  His timeline is also coming along nicely.

He also likes the bible study this year, combined with the hymns.  Hearing him sing "Great is Thy Faithfulness " this morning was such a beautiful way to start a Friday. He is using the Adobe Reader DC program on the computer for this and wow his answers are much better than when he was writing his answers last year.  He missed a few on the lesson I got the picture of and yes I do give him that grade, but we talk about what the answer is supposed to be and make sure he understands it all.

Spanish is a subject that is just going ok.  Honestly I am still not sure this curriculum is going to work for him.  He needs to have more of a spiral approach and I am afraid the Lifepacs are jumping around too much for him.  I am pretty much sitting by his side and helping him quite a bit.  Today he didn't do very well on his self test on syllabication and accents.  I will give it a month and reassess and see what he thinks at that point.  The other problem is the native speakers speak really fast and he is supposed to reply in rapid fashion.  Due to the CP N talks a little slower than most so he can't get out the words before they are on to the next phrase.

Grammar, Essentials In Writing,Pilgrim's Progress and Math are going well.  Science is his least favorite subject right now because he doesn't care for the way the presenters talk on the DVD.  He is funny about things like that, but basically I acknowledge what he is saying and he still has to watch the DVD's. 

Overall I am very pleased with how this year has started out.

Week in Review for August 17-21, 2015

I'm back.  We started our new school year on the 13th and did one day last week and 4 days this week.  We are doing things this way due to labor day and the first day of co-op falling on the same week so that will be a 3 day week and N. likes to have Mondays fall on day 1 of the guide so it will do this after Labor Day week.  I was expecting things to start off kind of rough because there is a pretty big jump in writing work load and this guide will take even longer than the World Geography guide did to complete each day.  N. faced the first day with his typical optimistic attitude.  He wasn't read for summer to end, but be likes getting done in mid May so he was ok with starting so soon.  He wanted to do a unique first day of school pic.  I also convinced him to give me a traditional one.
His-

Mine-

He started the first day singing "Be Thou My Vision" which was a perfect way to start our school year.  It is part of the hymn study he is doing as part of the Bible credit.  He is enjoying "The Most Important Thing You'll Ever Study".  The company sent us the pdf so I loaded it on to the laptop and he is using Adobe Acrobat Reader DC in fill and edit mode to type in his answers.  What a blessing this software has been.  It is brand new and it is free!

He is also using the app for this software to type on his Art Notebook pages on the Ipad.  I scanned them in using the Scanner Pro app and had planned on using the PDF expert app to type on them, but that was difficult to use. The Adobe app works well, even if we haven't figured out how to make the type black instead of blue.  He likes the blue so he hasn't actually tried to change it.  He absolutely loves the God and the History of Art DVD's.  He even talks about what he learned at dinner.  Which if you know N. this is highly unusual. 

 In Literature he is reading Ben Hur.  We started watching the movie before he read the book and have watched about half.  This has really helped him to get excited about the book.  He loves finding where it is different.  He is annotating well and writing in a Literature journal each day.  He is using Onenote on his laptop to keep his lit journal.  He says the book is awesome-again unusual for this guy.

He has said he really likes the History spines he has used so far.  Last year the main spine took him about 9 weeks before he could really understand and like it.  These books are easier reads and he likes doing the follow up activities.  He had some Critical Thinking questions to do this week and his answers were pretty good.  I think he will show growth in this area as the year goes on.

He also is really enjoying Health.  I didn't think about the fact that this is right up his alley as far as exercise, diet, nutrition, fitness and how your body works. 

He is doing ACE Biology and I have him watching the DVD's as well as doing the reading.  He thinks the speakers on the DVD are boring and he doesn't like that they stick close to the text of the reading, but he will admit that the visuals, video clips etc to help him to understand the material.  He also isn't a fan of how many questions he has to answer each day, but he knows it is non-negotiable so he moans a little and does it. 

His days have ranged from 6-7 hours of work.  The long day was the day of the history written narration.  He has a good attitude about it all and is still finding time to practice his parkour and his American Ninja Warrior stuff so all is good.  I asked him at dinner how he liked it so far and he gave me a thumbs up which is pretty good for so early in the school year.