Week in review for week of Oct. 10-14, 2016

We just finished week 8 of the US History 1 guide.  He has been getting up very early in order to get his school work done in time to go to work.  I am very impressed with his motivation and work ethic.  I try to always be honest about our year here and I will admit there are parts of this year that have been frustrating for both of us.  I don't think it is necessarily a curriculum issue, I think it has to do with the heavy duty subjects he has as well as just the fact he has other things going on in his world other than just school.  First let me get the things that have been struggles out of the way so I can end up on a high note.

The biggest struggle remains Constitutional Literacy.  I think this is mostly due to his frustration with the Probe paragraphs.  I have ended up guiding him way more than I want to with these, but I guess that is what teachers do.  The information truly is valuable, but sometimes it is frustrating that he is supposed to watch the video and answer the questions as he goes and he watches the video and the answers aren't in the video, they are instead in the reading he had done the day before.  Not a huge deal, but just an aggravation.  He is getting better each week at figuring out what to listen for and now knows if he doesn't hear the answer to look back in the book.  He is very sensitive to how information is presented and for some reason he doesn't care for Michael Farris's style.  He told me of all the courses he has ever done in our years of homeschooling this is his least favorite.  I actually thought about quitting it and even gave him the option of doing that.  His answer was "no mom I don't want to do that, just because I don't like it and it is hard isn't reason to quit it.  I'm not going to like every subject."  Ha well I guess he told me!  Of course his words sound pretty familar-lol, I'm pretty sure he might have heard those from somewhere.

Chemistry is a hard course, and can be a challenge due to the fact that I am relearning it as I go.  However he is understanding things better each week and taking on more of the learning himself with me not having to do quite as much teaching.  The experiments have been great.

Pre-Calculus is another challenge, again not because of the curriculum, but just the nature of Pre-Calculus.  Again I am learning along with him and I'm not sure how ready my old brain is for this subject.  He has had to teach me a few times.

Now on to the positives.  He really likes the history this year!  He laughed when one of his assignments was a typed narration.  He has done those since he was 11.  He did a much better job on his second highlighted narration this year.  He also finished his table of the formation of each colony.  It is tough to make it look nice when you are having to cut and paste each sentence.

 

He really likes the mapping activities that go along with the history also.  I do end up having to label some things for him as he points them out.  He just can't write that small.

Another positive is the literature.  He is now reading The Scarlet Letter along with a Christian guide to the book.  The Christian guide makes all the difference in his understanding and enjoyment of the book.  Today he shared with me some really good insight he had about the character of Pearl and what she represents. 

The Living Library is another positive.  He just finished a book on George Whitfield which he found interesting and now will go back and finish Ben Franklin's Almanac which he loves.  I am not making him do the follow up activities for these books, but we do discuss things verbally.

He also continues to really like reading through the New Testament for his bible study and he and his Dad have had interesting discussions about Everyday Battles. 

So as you can see despite some struggles there is still lots to enjoy and as he so wisely has told me, each year always has some things that are harder than others.

 

Week in review Sept. 26-30, 2016

Once again I am falling behind in blogging.  I think part of that is as he gets older there just isn't as much stuff to take pictures of.  We just finished week 6 in the US History 1 guide.  He has hit his groove in most subjects and is doing around 5-5 1/2 hours of work most days, not including a lunch break. 

He really likes the history this year.  He finds all the books interesting and he likes the American Testimony DVD's.  The narrator sounds a bit like a computer generated voice, but the information in them is very interesting.  He has been doing talking points each week and it is interesting to me to see what he picks out to talk about. 

I like the different types of narrations that he is doing this year.  N. has found them somewhat challenging at times just because they are different, but he did a really nice job with his opinion one this last week.

He likes the New Testament Survey and Everyday Battles.  One morning it was so nice out he did his bible study outside.  Since the company was so nice to send us a pdf file of the bible study book he does it on the computer just like he did last year.

He is doing better with Chemistry I think.  He seems to understand things when he does the comprehension questions and the review questions although I do have to help him some.  I am using the tests more as spiral review questions when he is working on the next chapter. He loves the experiments and so far every one of them has worked.  The flame test was especially cool when he looked that the color flame given off by different chemicals.  He doesn't love writing up formal lab reports so that is a learning curve for this year.

Constitutional Literacy is probably the subject he struggles the most with, or maybe it is me who struggles with it.  The subject matter is interesting and I think it is crucial material for him to learn, but I just think it can be difficult to perform some of the assignments. .  He finds the DVD's a little dry and sometimes hard to follow.  The biggest challenges are the probe paragraph questions at the end of each chapter.  It can be very difficult to find the information they are asked to research.  Sometimes it takes sorting through webpage after webpage to find anything that even remotely relates or comes from a more Christian perspective.  I wish there was more guidance in a teachers guide that gave some websites to use, or a general idea of the answer.  I will admit that sometimes I have him do it orally or if he struggles, I tell him to just do the best he can and move on. 

 

In Math he finished Algebra 2 last week and this week started Teaching Textbooks new Pre-Calculus 2.0.  So far it has been review, which is kind of nice after the end lessons of Algebra 2 which were pretty challenging.  Math continues to be a strength of his.

He finished The Robe in English and is now reading The Prince and The Pauper.  He really likes the Prince and the Pauper so far.  He finished his first story for In Their Sandals and I had to help him some with knowing how to start a story like that, but it turned out to be a good story.  Now he is working on his second one where he is a sheep merchant in the temple during Passover when Jesus overturns the tables.  

One new thing that has thrown a bit of a glitch in our smooth schedule is that he got a job and is working some afternoon's so he has to get his school done by a certain time.  He wasn't sure he would like working, but so far so good.