Week in review 9/21-9/25, 2015

This is actually 2 weeks of review.  We just finished week 6 of the World History guide.  I am very pleased with how he is doing thus far in this guide and as a bonus he is really enjoying it.  We have started a thing at dinner where he is to tell 3 or more interesting things he learned during the day.  It is fascinating to hear what things stick out to him by the end of the day.  It is also good to see that that his facts come from different subjects each day.

The Art History study continues to be a favorite.  This week his writing assignment was to imagine that he snuck in on Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel and to describe what he saw.  He enjoyed this assignment.  Of course he had to get goofy as I was taking his picture.

 In EIW he has been working on expository paragraphs.  The first one of the week was not the quality that I expect of him and he had to redo parts and we had a heart to heart.  The next one he did was much better.  His prompt was if he could go back in time to any event where would it be and why.  He picked something related to his parkour passion.

He really is enjoying his bible time this year and I love the answers he is coming up with in The Most Important Thing You Will Ever Study.  The hymn this week was "It Is Well With My Soul".  I caught this picture of him lying on the couch singing his hymn.  I love hearing him do this.

He is getting back in to the groove of written narrations and is using more descriptive vocabulary and letting his sense of humor shine through.

I absolutely love how the literature is written in this guide and he does also.  The things the guide points out before he reads are fantastic and the fact he writes in his lit journal each day according to the prompts in the box really keeps him engaged in the reading and helps him make connections.  He mainly highlights for his annotating.  He is now reading Julius Caesar.  I did change it slightly from the guides directions.  He is reading the modern English version as instructed, but instead of then reading the original version while listening to the audiobook, we opted to just have him view the movie.  I knew the lit box as written would take him a very long time and that could steal the joy that he is feeling right now with lit.  He had done 2 days of the book when we watched the movie and I was amazed how many of the characters that he remembered and how easily it was for him to understand the movie.  I know a lot of this has to do with his lit journal assignment of making a list of those for Caesar and those against Caesar. 

We did end up changing Spanish programs.  This was a very hard decision for me because I really thing it is best to use all the recommended resources for each program, but the Lifepac Spanish just wasn't clicking with him.  We went to Visual Link Spanish and he loves it. 

The other highlight of his week was the fact that we drove him 2 hours each way so he could work out at a new gym that is owned by American Ninja Warrior competitor Michelle Warnke.  He was able to try obstacles that he has never tried before and he really enjoyed it.  I used to pray and pray that God would give N. a passion for something.  I never dreamed it would be something so physical.  That totally goes against all logic given his challenges, but that is our God, He loves taking what seems impossible and showing that with Him it is possible. 

Week in Review 9/7-9/11,2015

   We did 3 days of school this week and now we have now finished week 4 of the WH guide.  It is really hard to believe that we have been doing school for a month now.  I didn't take many pictures this week so this will be short and sweet.

    In Art History he studied about Botticelli and did his first writing assignment in his art notebook.  I thought he did a pretty good job, but as with anything at the beginning of the year there is always room for improvement.  I will push him to think deeper and expand on the topic a little more.  At this point I am labeling the paintings for him.  He just can't write that small.

In history he had his first You Are There listening assignment.  I have to admit that I was worried about this assignment.  I wasn't sure how he was going to listen and take notes that were neat enough to go in the boxes in the notebook.  We talked about it and decided that at this point he would take notes about each person on notebook paper as he listened and then I would transfer those notes over to his notebook for him.  That seemed to work out pretty well.  I was also worried that he wouldn't be able to hear it very well, since I had been warned about that, but we used an extra speaker on the laptop and that seemed to help. 

He also had some critical thinking boxes for Short Lessons in World History. I probably made a mistake with this in telling him there isn't an answer key for these questions because now he thinks he can write anything and it is right.  I told him it has to make sense.  I don't think he gave these quite as much thought as he could and next time he does this assignment I will push him a little harder. 

We finished reading The Cat of Bubastes and now are almost done with The Hero Schliemann.  This has been a nice light-hearted read we do at the end of busy days.  His days are still averaging around 6 1/2 hours, less on day 4 where he doesn't have the art projects.  He is finishing up his online drivers ed on those days.

The final thing we did this week was to attend a performance of The Secret Garden at our professional theater company here in town.  He loved it and was able to discuss different elements of the staging with me based on what he has learned in Musical Theater. 

Week in Review August 31-September 4, 2015

We finished up week 3 of the guide and started day 1 of week 4.  This week went pretty well.  He is doing more boxes without my assistance and seems to have the flow of this guide down. 

He is still really enjoying the combination of hymns, The Most Important Thing You'll Ever Study and Pilgrim's Progress.  This week he had to answer all the Digging Deeper Questions in Pilgrim's Progress on his own and he did a pretty good job.  I'm still trying to get him to give a little more detail with his answers, but his thoughts are right on.

In History he did his best narration of the year so far.  If you read it, it may seem disjointed when he jumps from family to abortion, but that is exactly what the chapter did.  He feels strongly about both topics so this one you see a little more of his personality and feelings coming through, but he also used the authors words at times. 

He continues to love Ben Hur and is doing a nice job with his literature journal.  Again he needs to add a little more detail to his answers, but I think that will come as the year progresses.

Spanish was a struggle again this week.  He didn't do very well on a self-test.  It is just very hard for him to learn all the phrases one day and not really go over them much and then try and test on it the next day.  We have agreed to give it until the end of this little lifepac booklet and then decide what we are going to do.  He says he probably will just stick with it, but I think he may start to get really frustrated and he loved Spanish so much last year that I don't want him to end up hating it and also getting a bad grade on his transcript if another program would work better for him.

He has moved on to Mammals in science and is enjoying that more.  

For the Living Library we are still sharing the reading some.  On some days I read it all and on others we split the duties.  This works well.  We just finished up "The Cat of Bubastes" which we both really enjoyed.  He finished his literary synthesis sheet.  He did a pretty good job with it, but we talked about some areas he could improve on and will continue to work on this as the year progresses. 

In TT Algebra 2 he is doing very well because at this point it is review of Algebra 1. 

Next week we will school 3 days only because co-op starts back.  He is doing voice lessons and Musical Theater scenes again, as well as helping with the younger kids musical theater class.  Should be a good year for him.