Friday, September 28, 2012

What our (not so home) School looks like this year....

In the month or so  I've been catching up the blog with posts about our Texas trip, life here at the ReaderChemist household has marched on, so now I've got various things to share about what's been going on.

The biggest news is school -- The Writer is officially A Freshman this year. Wow. He's enrolled in TTUISD's on-line program, which has taken us some getting used to but is mostly good. There's one class and teacher that I am not thrilled with, but his other five courses seem to be very good with teachers who have obviously put a lot into their classes.

The set-up for a TTUISD course is not like K12, which is what everyone thinks we're using. There are no live lectures (or even video lectures), no chat rooms or on-line tutoring sessions. There is, instead, an on-line listing of assignments for each class, with as little or as much extra information as the individual teacher wishes to supply. For some of The Writer's classes, that's been quite a lot. For others, it's been barely enough to manage the assignments.

Challenges and all, though, The Writer is doing very well. He's just finished his second week and we're still tweaking things like pace and schedule of course work, but he's tolerating it nicely. I won't quite say enjoying it, because the longer day is a bit of a drag, but he is thriving academically which is nice. It's a bit of an affirmation to put your always homeschooled student into an  outside high school program and see him handling the work load with ease, making 100 after 100 on the quizzes and assignments he's submitted thus far. It's a bit of a joy, too, to watch and see that his work ethic doesn't waver even in the face of lost free time. I am so proud of the student he is, of the man he's becoming.

The Artist is taking one class thus far from TTUISD, and we're waiting (rather impatiently) for his second course to be uploaded so we can officially enroll him. The plan was for him to take Science and English from TTUISD (and continue with math, geography, and extra reading at home), but the English class hasn't yet been released. I'll be working on a schedule this weekend that he can use to begin working through the textbook, just in case.  Meanwhile, he is powering through his other course work. He's got all 100s in math so far, has finished the first section of a study on Africa, is reading The Hobbit (with thanks to his M friend for some needed encouragement), has improved his cursive dramatically and is zooming through a vocabulary workbook as well. He's had The Chemist help him with a few science experiments and is enjoying the material for that class quite a bit. We submit his first set of assignments today, once I figure out the exact procedure for his class, and I'm proud of the work he'll be turning in. Bar graphs, lab reports, quizzes....he is doing a fantastic job.

The Adventurer is surprising me with his attention span. We've taken a very gentle approach to most of his school subjects the past few years as we focused on helping him learn to read. This  year he's got a full course load --- history, Bible, science, math, and read-alouds (aka, story time). We will add in reading lessons soon; I'm still formulating a plan for how to effectively teach him to read. On the other stuff, though, he's thriving and blowing me away. We start with math -- he uses Miquon math which has a hands-on component (Cuisenaire rods) -- and then he plays with the math manipulatives while I read to him from a history book, then a bible story, then his science book. He listens throughout, interrupting with questions at least once per subject.  He even comes to me later in the day, or sometimes a day or two later, to ask follow-up questions about what we studied, which shows me he's not only paying attention, he's also retaining what he hears.  Later in the day, when he is struggling with boredom because his brothers are still doing school, we stop and read a story. I planned to read him a chapter per day; he's asked for no fewer than three chapters per day and so we've finished two books already and are three chapters into our third. Two weeks into the school year.  (so far, we have read George's Marvelous Medicine, by Roald Dahl, and Capyboppy, by Bill Peet; currently we are reading My Father's Dragon, by Ruth Stiles Gannet).

I am mostly enjoying the role of overseer instead of teacher; I no longer have to sit and supervise every single subject, which frees me to focus on The Adventurer, and to sew. It's odd, this feeling of having more free time in the day, even while my boys have less. Of course, that means I  no longer have an excuse when I forget to do the dishes, but at least I'm getting more sewing done! That has to count for something, right???

All in all, a good first two weeks. I look forward to what the rest of the year has in store.