Quips & Quotes from The Adventurer (age 7)

I promise I really am going to talk about what it's like to decide you need to evaluate your not-yet-reading seven year old, and then the emotions of getting a dyslexia diagnosis, the therapies & remediation that were prescribed and how we're implementing those. First I want to share a glimpse at who he is, though, because he is so much more than his diagnosis. He is cute, and sweet, and funny, and smart, and creative, and....well, you'll see. Here are a few quotes & quips from The Adventurer from this past week of school. Enjoy!

While I was reading to him about Alexander the Great, who took his father's plan to invade Persia and then expanded it to the rest of the known world, The Adventurer had these questions:

"But, don't all people speak different languages? So, wouldn't that be a problem for him??" 

(a page later we learned that Alexander taught Greek to all the people he conquered)

When we read of the library at Alexandria, and the scrolls contained therein:

"So, how do pirates find treasure maps anyway? And how are treasure maps made in the first place?" 

(I answer that I do not know, and we can discuss it after school; he offers to explain what he knows based on a Tom & Jerry episode he watches fairly often; I decline and redirect him to listening to Alexander's adventurers.)

As we learn of Alexander's death after he had successfully conquered the world and was planning to return to Greece:

"So, will some random Greek guy be their king now, since the real king died?" 

(we learn in the next paragraph that Alexander instructed his generals to fight it out; they did, and 4 winners split his kingdom into 4 parts, each choosing one section to rule; of those four, only Ptolemy I, who took Egypt, is really remembered in history)

As I read to him about Joseph and his brothers, and Joseph's journey from the bottom of a well to a throne in Egypt, he was full of commentary and questions on why the brothers would be so mean, and why Joseph would be so nice, and then wondering why Joseph would hide his silver cup to make it look like Benjamin stole it. Perhaps my favorite comment during this story:  "What's so important about a dumb cup anyway? Didn't he have another one?"

As I read to him about Job, and the conversation between God and Satan about Job's loyalty: "Why would Satan do that? He must be pure evil." And later, "So, why couldn't he just be the next most powerful person after God? Wouldn't that have been okay?" (as I tried explaining who Satan is, why God doesn't like him, etc...)

As we do math, and I ask him questions, he most often replies with the answer and then, "Duh. Don't you have eyes, too??"  As he also talks back to the computer in this manner, I have realized this is not so much about giving me attitude, rather, it's how he responds to pressure, stress, and frustration. We will work on more appropriate ways to respond to frustration, but as we've only recently moved from "don't hit; use your words" to this, I don't want to shift too soon to "okay, now make your words nice and kind at all times." We just spent ages on teaching him and training him to use his words to show he's frustrated; he is doing exactly what we asked, although not in the way we imagined. I'll take it, for now. As long as I just reply with "yes, but YOU have to answer the problem, because it is your math homework, not mine..." it all goes well.

Singapore Math 1B

As he does handwriting, once he's written the letters he then draws stick figures -- being the letter, holding up the letter, jumping over the letter, etc. I get running commentary, lots of giggles, etc. as he does this. I so enjoy watching him add his spark to everything he does.

As he does his coloring pages, he seeks out the most defiant way to comply with my instructions. For a page that said "color this car with pastel colors" he chose the darkest gray he could, proudly told me he was not going to use a pastel color, he was going to use a dark gray instead, and then colored it as light as possible so that it looked pastel. He was absolutely delighted that he could thus "trick" the page into believing he had followed the directions, even though really he used a dark color, not a pastel. I probably shouldn't, but I adore those moments. My boy is full of spunk, that's for sure. I love watching him use it.

spunk in action:
he was starting on the right side, running, jumping onto the couch and doing rolls across to the other side
he asked for action photos; this is the best one, The Adventurer, mid roll. 

Tomorrow: why we had him evaluated, and our reaction to his diagnosis; the day after, his therapies & day-to-day routine. If you or anyone you know has a child with any kind of learning challenge, not just dyslexia, please share this post and this series of posts. 

The Artist (6th grade) Writes....

As promised, here is The Artist's hero paper; the assignment was to give 500 words about who is a hero to him, what characteristics or actions make that person a hero, and how do those actions benefit the student.

We started out with "My dad, because he's good at Resident Evil, is very nice, and makes great apple pie." and spent two hours turning that into almost 500 words. I just kept reading what he wrote, then asking follow up questions that would pull a bit more information from him, and he'd tell me the answers, then write them in sentence format in the paper. We just kept doing that until he reached the correct number of words.

This paper has not yet been graded by his teacher.  UPDATE: As of Monday, Jan 15, it was graded. She gave him a 100 and wrote "You are very lucky to have such a loving dad."  How sweet is that?!  In case you are just joining this blog and this is your first post, he has an outside teacher for this class; grading and course requirements are identical to public schools in Texas.

My Dad, My Hero

My dad is a hero to me; when I grow up I want to be just like him. My dad is a fun-loving guy, who spends time with me doing things that he knows I like to do. I can always tell that my dad loves me because of the way he acts towards me. 

One of the things I like about my dad is that he’s good at video games, and whenever he plays he lets me look up the walkthrough for him. When he plays I watch him to learn the best ways to get through the part of the game that he is playing.  The game that my dad plays is Resident Evil (4); it is all about shooting bad guys and trying to stop the main bad guy. I need his help because it is a hard game for me, and it is kind of scary, but when my dad plays, it is less scary because my dad has got bigger and stronger guns on his file than I do on my file.  Also, with my dad sitting next to me, I don’t get as worried because I know he will always protect me. 

Another thing that I like about my dad is he is kind, and he is nice to me. And he helps me with my school work. Just the other day he helped me with my science by bringing the right things for it, such as a beaker, a scale, some magnets, and some rocks. Then, he did the experiment with me and made it more fun than if I would have done it by myself. 

Probably my favorite thing is that my dad is a very good cook, and he makes delicious apple pies. And his apple pies are very good desserts! Also, sometimes my dad lets me help cook too. A long time ago, we (my whole family) made family soup! The most delicious food in the world, we all work together to choose ingredients, chop them up, and then, after the cooking, we all work together to eat it! Now “Family Soup” is one of our favorite meals to make! 

Sometimes my dad lets me lead, and he helps me. One night, he helped me cook dinner! I decided to make a stir fry, but we forgot to take the meat out so it was frozen. Then my dad decided to marinate it so that it would thaw out faster, so we put it into a bowl with some seasonings and a secret ingredient: beer! It tasted good in the end and we had a great dinner.  

When I grow up, I want to be just like my dad: very good at video games, a good cook, and very loving towards my children. I chose to write about my dad, one of my heroes, because I really like him. 

I'm curious to see how he does on this one. It is not his best writing sample; he has some difficulty getting from a general topic to a fully developed paper. His summaries for class have been very good, as he is able to highlight the key points in what he's read, then put that information into his own words. He has turned in two so far; the first of those he received a 90, the second, a 100. I hope his essay is up to par; we'll see what his teacher thinks! I'll update or post follow-up when we receive his grade.

Tomorrow, a glimpse at quotable moments, good and bad, from The Adventurer's week, and then Monday I will begin the posts about his diagnosis, suggested course of therapy, how that plays out in real life, etc.

A Day in the Life.....of a Middle-School Boy

I'm writing this Thursday night, so will just talk about it as "today" even though by the time you read this, it will be yesterday, 'kay? 'Kay.

The Artist, sipping some hot tea, and reading. Of course.

Today, The Artist.  Newly-turned age 12, he is in his 2nd semester of 6th grade. He is enrolled in Science & English via the same TTUISD that we use for The Writer; Science is a print-based course, meaning they sent us a PDF of the course syllabus & assignments and we type his answers and email them back (or, if we were in the US, we would mail them in). English is on-line and is done the same way as The Writer's courses; reading assignments are posted, he reads in a textbook and completes quizzes and worksheets on-line, and submits written assignments by typing them, saving them, then uploading them to the website.

The Artist also does Teaching Textbooks Math 6 and reads assorted history books; he is supposed to be doing World Geography, but I have seriously let that slide. The therapy stuff for The Adventurer really threw me for a loop, and most of my planning time from September to now has been used up with sorting out what all of the Psychologist's suggestions mean. I have not had time to be in charge of directing The Artist through a research based geography course, so instead have been handing him biographies to read and historical fiction about different time periods and parts of the world; thank goodness for all the leftover Sonlight books!

I've decided to save The Adventurer's routine for next week, so today, just a quick look at a day in the life of a middle school boy.  Today his day involved a LOT of computer time. The boys rediscovered Civilization III last night, so he's been playing it basically every time he can convince me to let him on the computer. As I was fighting a sore throat and general blah feeling, and it was raining so outside activity was a definite no-go, he got let on the computer a lot.

Between Civ III sessions, though, he attempted to do research for a paper on volcanoes (for English, not Science) and despite 45 minutes of faithful effort, could not find the answers he needed. I decided I did not have enough brain power to direct his research, so told him I'd help him later. That no due date thing is a blessing. Or a curse. Whichever.

Instead of working on the paper, then, he had to write a 500 word essay on a hero in his life. I typed up the questions that his teacher wanted him to answer and left space between each so he could fill in a chart and organize his thoughts. Then I spent two hours helping him develop his thoughts into well-written, well-developed paragraphs. We managed to get from "My hero is my dad. He is good at Resident Evil, is very nice, and makes great apple pie" to a fairly good essay, though we did stop at 479 words because I just could not see how on earth to add those last 21 words to what we had. And after two hours, I was ready to quit. I uploaded the file, clicked submit, and crossed my fingers. Here's hoping the teacher likes it.

Aside from that, The Artist had one math lesson and read half a chapter of Science. Or, as he puts it, "two entire sections....."  He did learn a lot about types of energy, though, and spent the rest of the afternoon telling me what types of energy exist in all the objects in our house. And which civilization he was going to conquer next. But I don't think that was from Science.

Oh, and he read. A lot. As he is never without a book (or his kindle), I forget to count that as school. He reads while he eats breakfast, reads while he eats lunch, reads between school assignments, reads out in the hammock in the afternoons, reads at night after going to bed......he is always reading. Right now he's reading through the original Boxcar Children series, as a 12-book set was recently free for Kindle. Right now he's advising his older brother on the best strategy for Civilization III......

Over the weekend (you don't have to stop by, but I'd love it if you do) I'll post up The Artist's essay, and hopefully his grade, so you can see what an average 6th grade boy writes and how it gets graded by an average school teacher; I will also share some quips and quotes from The Adventurer's past week just to give you a glimpse of who he is before I really get into his therapy needs. Monday (and probably a lot of next week) will be all about how a veteran home school mom can be totally caught off guard by something like a dyslexia diagnosis, what all therapies were suggested, what all we're doing, and how that fits into our day. In a country where every aspect of his therapy and remediation rests solely on me, because there simply are no options available to us in English otherwise.

So, how does that on-line high school stuff work, anyway?

As I've mentioned, this year we enrolled The Writer in an on-line high school program. We chose TTUISD because it offers a certain flexibility that not all programs offer. This flexibility is both the best and the worst thing about the program. Best in that he has no due dates for anything, so we are free to take off when & why we want, no questions asked. The Chemist travels for work pretty often, and we sometimes go with him, so this was a big deal to us -- not to have our lives disrupted and heavily altered by having to follow a traditional school schedule.

But, worst, in that he has no due dates. The only due date is that each course expires 6 months after he enrolled, which means he must submit his final exam prior that date. That gives a lot of leeway, which we love, but it also means that it is far too easy to skip over harder projects and save them for later. If they have no due date, they can not be late; since they are never late, the only penalty he will suffer for this is that one day, it will be "later" and he'll have a stack of hard projects waiting for him.

Even with that, he's learning some excellent lessons in time management; already he had to work over Christmas break to catch up on some of those "saved for later" projects, and will have to work on a few of them over our upcoming trip with The Chemist, as well.

Beyond that, though, how does his course work? Well, his particular course has been described by others as a directed study course; he does not have any live on-line lectures, nor video lectures, at all. He has assigned reading, sometimes slide shows & videos (not of lectures), and assigned quizzes and worksheets that serve as measuring sticks to see how he's doing, as well as reinforcements to help him retain the information. He also has the aforementioned harder projects.

The Writer, working on a Geography quiz
the blue folder (open) in front has his weekly assignments,
separated by day

He is enrolled in 6 courses: Biology, Art, English, Health, World Geography, and Geometry; this is a full 9th grade schedule.  Yesterday's schedule held the following:

Biology -- do workbook page 77 (20-odd questions over chapter 15)
Art -- do the self-evaluation questions about the prior Studio project
English -- take the quiz over Romeo & Juliet, Act II Quotes; read Act III in the modern text
Health -- do the chapter 22 vocabulary quiz
World Geography -- watch a video on Great Britain & the Industrial Revolution; do the accompanying quiz
Geometry -- do Chapter 3, section 7 (read section and complete assigned problems)

Now, this doesn't look like too much; that's because he spends Monday and Tuesday reading chapters, copying vocabulary, etc. and then usually has a lighter day on Wednesday, with Thursday & Friday holding more reading & vocabulary for the next chapter.

Now for the nitty gritty, how did that schedule play out....

10:00 -- wake up, eat breakfast, get dressed, etc.
10:30 -- start school; do Biology workbook page and Health quiz
11:30 -- tell Mom I'm ready for one of the hard subjects, either Geometry, Art or English; Mom prints the Self-Evaluation form for Art, I fill it out.
12:00 -- start Geometry with mom
1:15 -- take a break to eat lunch (left over homemade steak fingers)
1:45 -- get back to Geometry. This slope of the line stuff is so not fun.
3:00 -- we have worked through the section and done 3 of the 12 assigned problems. Mom has to do school with The Adventurer and The Artist, so she makes me take a break and do my other work. I hate Geometry.
3:15 -- do the Romeo & Juliet quiz.
4:00-ish -- take a break to play with the dogs; it is pouring down rain, so can't take them for a walk; play with the squeaky toy instead.
4:15 or 4:30 -- watch the Geography video and try the quiz. Doesn't make sense; ask Mom for help. Find in the chapter where it talks about this stuff; now it makes sense. Finish quiz.
5:30 -- done with the quiz. Find mom; time to finish Geometry. Work through the remaining 9 problems.
6:50 -- finally done. Copy the Geometry problems that were done in pencil into the electronic notepad (that requires an electronic pen) that I have to use so I can submit my work.
7:30 -- done tracing/copying the problems. Finally. No more school for the day. Except I either have to read Act III tonight, or tomorrow......

...and working on Geometry, despite The Adventurer's toys all over the kitchen table...

I feel for him, I really do. Geometry is kicking our behinds. Like I mentioned yesterday, I'm good at math; he's good at math; we are not good at math together. I am wide open to suggestions there. We will finish this semester and next using this same program, but next year is Algebra II and then Trigonometry or PreCalculus. I need, desperately, to find something that has someone else as the teacher. Any suggestions?

UPDATE: I'm a dork. Turns out, the textbook that TTUISD assigned for Geometry actually has, right there in the margins of every single section of every single chapter, notes to Go Online for help. I've ignored those until now. I just discovered that the publisher has linked video tutorials, practice (interactive) activities, homework help, and basically everything I've spent the last 2 days looking for in an outside source, free (if you own their textbooks). We will begin utilizing this wonderful resource first thing Monday; I look forward to stress-reduced Geometry from now on. Even if it took me three entire chapters (and 12 weeks) to pay attention and discover this. 

As for the rest....time consuming; yes. Partly because he is a perfectionist and gives his absolute best, 100% of the time. Always. Most days do not take quite this long, but just as I had an easy day the day before, he had a hard day on this day. Luckily the other courses were light so that the 4 hours of geometry was not a huge hindrance.

The awesome, amazing, makes me so very proud thing is, he never complains. Even during the geometry marathon, he keeps a good attitude and if he does get frustrated, he gets up, walks the dogs, grabs a snack, whatever. He doesn't take it out on me or on his brothers, and he has not once complained about the work load, at all. In fact, he has admitted he likes the heavier load; he finally feels he's being stretched and challenged, and this has been so very good for him.

Outside accountability, someone else grading his papers and affirming what I've always said, that he's very smart, has been wonderful as well. It's one thing to hear Mom say what a good writer you are; it's another thing to consistently earn grades of 100 on every writing assignment and project you turn in.

Will an on-line program like this be the right fit for every kid? No, of course not. But it has definitely been a perfect fit for The Writer. Except maybe the Geometry......

What the Mom Does....

Yesterday I shared a Semester Check-Up; today I'd like to share what things look like from the Mom side of things.

With three boys -- one in high school, one in middle school/jr. high, and one in elementary school but with learning challenges -- my job is primarily to remain flexible.

Like any stay-at-home mom I have the obvious jobs of running the household; cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. As a home school mom as well, I have the added job of educating my boys.  Some days are easier than others, and honestly the last two days I've been blessed with rather easy days.

So how does that work, juggling household chores, supervising high school, supervising and helping with middle school, doing intense therapy/remedial school work with the youngest, and still have time for hobbies like reading and quilting?  Yesterday looked something like this.....

I got up at the usual time, about 7, to spend a little time with The Chemist before he headed off to work. He gets up and lets the dogs out, I get up and feed them and start the coffee. Then we chat while he irons his shirt for the day (I do not iron. He is fine with this, because he is better at it than I am. Thank goodness.), have coffee together, and just enjoy a quiet half-hour when we can pretend to be just the same in love couple we've been since high school, and for that little moment, focus on each other as people instead of mom, dad, etc. Have to admit, it's my favorite half hour of the day, chatting over coffee with my husband.

By 7:45 or so, he's out the door, The Adventurer is up and asking for a movie, and I am able to start my morning routine.  I settle The Adventurer on the couch for a movie while the older boys are still asleep, then I settle in to my computer chair, coffee in hand, and surf the 'net for a while. I check email, write any replies to things that have come in over night (time zones and all that...), check Facebook, browse a forum or two and read blogs, then stop by and update my own blogs. Usually I'm interrupted a time or two, and yesterday was no different -- once to fix cereal for The Adventurer, once to kill a wasp that had gotten in the house, once for water to cure his hiccups, and 2 or 3 times to quiet the dogs, busy barking at the gardener next door.

By 10:00, The Adventurer's movie is long over and his patience and ability to keep playing, ALONE, is long gone. As we're still recovering from too many late nights during Christmas break, I went and woke up the older boys (Monday they slept past 11!) and then headed to my sewing room to do some organizing. Quite a pile of scraps had accumulated there over the break, so I organized things, folded the larger pieces, tossed the odds & ends into my scrap bucket, found the next pattern I needed to start and cut the fabric for that, went through my blues, purples & aquas to select fabrics for the next next thing, etc.  A few interruptions here, too, as I broke up an argument between The Artist and The Adventurer, opened the door now that the gardener was done both next door and had come and gone from our yard, too, and put more juice in the fridge so we'd have some cold in time for lunch.

While I was doing this, The Writer was started on school work and the other boys were playing together.  I allow them play time in the mornings as they do not work well first thing; none of us is morning people, and all of us need time to come fully awake before doing things that take brain power, so until such time as school no longer fits in that time slot, they are allowed to wait and start after lunch.

For lunch yesterday I heated up frozen chicken patties. I really need to find a healthier alternative to these, but they are quick, easy, and everyone likes them; I cut mine up into a salad, but the boys eat them plain. They cook slowly which gives me time to sneak a chapter or three of whatever book I'm reading, too, and still not burn them, which is nice.

After lunch is when my day begins to get hectic. The Writer is almost 100% independent, so I just sort of keep tabs on what subject he's on and make sure he is, in fact, progressing through his day; The Artist requires a bit of direction and of course The Adventurer receives the lion's share of my time and attention as far as school goes.

So, after lunch I directed The Artist to do his English first, not his math. Reason being, we were in the midst of a thunder storm and power could go out at any moment; if it did, the internet would go down and may or may not come back up. Better to get the internet-dependent school over & done with first, while he still could, just in case. He balked a little at this change in routine (he prefers to do math first, as he enjoys it far less), but agreed and got started. In the little time that elapsed during this discussion, The Adventurer had fallen asleep on the couch.  I took advantage of this unexpected free time to start the sewing project, but it was much interrupted.

"Mom, I need your help answering these questions. You might have to read the story first."
"What's the story?"  
"Pecos Bill."
"Oh, no, I've read it before; let's look at the questions....."
"You mean it's an old story...?"
(did he just imply I'm old???)  "Yep; been around even longer than me....."  

And we tackled the questions, me explaining both how to pronounce hyperbole (no, it's not hyper-bowl) and what they are; him finding examples on the given pages and then writing a short paragraph on why authors of tall tales use them.

That done, I went back to sewing. Until "Mom......I'm done...."  Nope, son, sorry, you still have to do math. Yes, really. Yes, just the evens, now get going.

Back to sewing. Oh, except, then The Adventurer was awake, but very grumpy, so I went to take care of him.

The Adventurer has a pretty intense amount of school, most of it in the form of various therapies. Because these are therapies, they are not always easy and comfortable for him. Like a lot of kids, he gets frustrated when work is too hard, so starting with an already grumpy boy makes things difficult. I cannot complete his therapy and school work if he does not cooperate. Yesterday looked like it might be one of those days, but I opened his first activity, a directed coloring book, to a random page and got lucky.  This coloring page asked him to "save the little fish" and showed a drawing of a small fish with a very angry looking shark nearby; his job was to draw something that would keep the little fish from being eaten.  This appealed to his boyhood sense of being a hero, cheered him right up and we were able to have a pretty good session. Until....

"Mom, I don't understand this math problem...." came from the school room; I left The Adventurer playing with pick-up-sticks and went to check on The Artist.  I drew him a visual of what it might look like to start with a 34 foot log and then break off first a 9 foot section, leaving behind a log of what length? and then cut off a 12 foot section from that, and with the drawing he was able to find the answers to how long the 3rd and final piece was. Whew. Back to The Adventurer.....

A few more interruptions due to dogs, The Artist looking for a book to read (after math, he really was done), The Writer asking could he take the dogs for their walk (and that is quite the ordeal, because our oldest dog is very particular about how she gets leashed up and such, or she won't go....), The Adventurer needed a snack and a drink, etc. Up and down, up and down, and finally we got through all the interruptions and all the school/therapy stuff we needed to do for the day.

By this time it was close to 4:30, and The Writer had not yet asked for help on Geometry. Hmmm. Oh, wait, he decided on Monday that he'd try reading the chapter alone, then come to me only if he needed help; okay.  Done then with my Artist and Adventurer school duties, I washed up the dishes and then went back to sew some more. I was only working on one single 12" quilt square, and not even half way done due to all the school stuff; I was hopeful I'd be able to finish (I didn't). About this time, The Chemist called to say he was heading home (well, it was 5-ish by then..), The Writer came out to say he needed some help with Geometry, so I sat with him and went over that. I showed him an example of how to work each of the first four problems, made sure he understood what to do (he said he did), and sent him back to his room to do them, then I'd check them, read the 2nd half of the chapter and help with the last problems as needed.

With The  hemist on the way home I figured I'd better do a little straightening up, just after I finished this one little part on the sewing project.......if you sew, you know what happened; I kept sewing, and just like that, The Chemist was home. Oops. It was also at this point that The Writer came out of his room, still not done with Geometry (folks, by now it was after 6 p.m.) and asked what he had to do today for Art and English. What??? He hadn't done either one yet??? (nope). -sigh-

I walked with him to his assignment folder, where everything for every day of the next six weeks is clearly laid out, day by day. I looked at what was listed for English, and what had and had not been checked off on Monday; discovered he had a quiz to do. Six o'clock in the evening is not a good time for him to try and work through a quiz analyzing quotes from Romeo & Juliet, and his Wednesday list was pretty brief, so I allowed him to shift the quiz to Wednesday, to be done along with the regular Wednesday stuff.

Flipped back to last week's art, where he'd stalled out; found the Art Criticism assignment, printed it for him, handed him the sheet of questions and the book and out he went to the back patio while I chatted with The Chemist about how our days went, allowed the younger boys some Nintendo time, did the straightening up I'd neglected while sewing, etc.

By 6:45 I found The Writer still sitting on the patio, one of four answers done. Sigh. I took the book from him and asked the questions out loud; he answered, I wrote. I "translated" some of the questions into plain English instead of Art-ese, which helped. Handed him back the book so he could "think about it in an emotional way" and answer the remaining questions about the emotional response to the drawing, then went inside to help The Chemist start dinner. At which point The Writer confessed to still not having finished Geometry, so he brought that into the kitchen, I walked him through the assignment and The Chemist cooked dinner.

That part would have been comical if not so frustrating. The Writer had 12 problems to do, so I worked an odd problem as an example (his were all evens) and had him follow along, then had him do the even that corresponded. In between, The Chemist was asking advice on how to do the mashed potatoes, I was doing more dishes, The Writer kept getting tripped up (slope intercept and such, y'all; not fun). This half hour/forty-five minutes was probably my least favorite of the day -- I am not the best multi-tasker, so Geometry, dishes and dinner prep all at once was just a smidge overwhelming for me. The main problem being the Geometry.

I understand math and am relatively good at it; The Writer understands math and is pretty talented at it. We do not, however, learn math the same way, so the way I teach math is not the way he best learns math. This is why I keep trying to outsource it. His on-line program though does not have live lectures (or even recorded ones), so I am still teaching Geometry, even though someone else is grading it. We are thinking that next year, we need to find something with an actual outside teacher for math, for The Writer's sake and mine.

Finally at 8:00 we were done cooking, done Geometry'ing, and could sit down, eat dinner, watch a little TV, do a little more sewing, and just enjoy the evening. Whew! Notice that yesterday did not include any laundry or deep cleaning; I should have done a load of laundry but did not, and we do our deep cleaning on Fridays, period. The other days I only sweep as needed and do things like dishes and clean up spills.

Come back tomorrow for a look at what The Writer's day looks like, a freshman in high school using an on-line program. Friday will be The Artist's day & The Adventurer's day (I'll combine those, as neither of them takes a full day), and next week I'll share what it's like to take school on the road when Dad has a business trip.

Semester Check-Up (Day in the Life, Day One)

First, welcome! If you are joining me thanks to Mindy's Link-Up from Grateful for Grace, thank you! Today I'll be sharing our Semester Check-Up, and then for the remaining 9 days of the 10, I'll share a "Day in the Life" of our home school. You can read a little about us in the About page, see pics of my students on the right side bar, and feel free to read the "Our Homeschool" tab that will explain all about how long I've been doing this, and what brought me from where we started to where we are now.

If you've popped over from my primary blog, you know all of that already ;) I am moving the home school posts over here, though, to provide a little bit more of necessary anonymity due to the restrictions surrounding home schooling in our current country; I hope you all understand (and thus the reason for no real names, too). 

Now, on to the post!  Semester Check-Up --- we're finishing up our 1st Semester of the 2012/2013 School year.  It's the first time in a very long time that we've done a US schedule, September to May. Well, ours will be more September to June or something, because we started near the end of September, but you get the idea. The plan is that we'll finish our 2nd semester in time to start next school year in early September and then stay on track from then on.

The Writer -- my oldest son, aged 15, is currently a freshman (9th grade) in high school, enrolled in an on-line program via TTUISD. He's taking a full course load, and doing really well. He is making solid As and Bs in all of his classes, he's learning study skills, time management skills, coping skills for when he's frustrated, how to juggle fun course work with not so fun course work, what time of day is best for doing the hard stuff, etc. The only thing I would change for him about this year is that if I could, I would switch out Art for Drama. His perfectionist tendencies are proving to be a serious hindrance to him as he works on art projects and his progress in that class is S.L.O.W. Very. My hope is that by the end of the year he'll learn how to adjust time spent on a project to match the weight the project carries in his grade; that a project worth 10% of his grade is not worth the time spent on one worth 50% of his grade. He struggles with the same issue every time he encounters a writing assignment for English; it's the one aspect of his schooling this year that tries my patience. Other than this one thing, though, I am very pleased with our choice this year to use an on-line school; it's really freed me up to work with my youngest, who really needs my time and attention. More on that in a bit....



The Artist -- my second son, aged 12, is currently in 6th grade. He is enrolled in two classes from TTUISD -- English and Science; he does math at home with Teaching Textbooks, reads everything he can get his hands on, and started (but we've let slide) a geography program that's research based.  He's doing amazingly well. Luckily my husband is a Chemist by trade, so he helps with the science experiments (including bringing home random equipment from work so we can do the experiments to begin with); funny story -- I was "fired" by my husband on the very first week of trying to teach Kindergarten Science to my oldest son. As I tried to make my then 5 yr old understand the water cycle, and poor boy was bored to tears and not understanding anything, my husband came to the rescue, took the boy to the kitchen and a pot of boiling water later, the water cycle was explained, understood, and I didn't teach science again from then on. When the chance came to outsource Science I jumped for joy; my husband had long ago taken over, but lately work required too much time so Science became that poor neglected subject, as it does for so many. My boy is happy to have it in the schedule again, as he loves science. I am happy he can have it and I don't have to teach it. Win-win.

The Adventurer -- my youngest, he will turn 8 in February, and he is working towards literacy.  Yes, I mean to say he can't read. Not one little bit. At all. In fact, he cannot remember that the last letter in his name is called "aych" and not "jay" (H, not J). He knows what it looks like; he can write his name, but when he spells it out loud for you he says "jay" instead. Even when reminded. Even when reminded 5 times in a row, as he goes to every member of the family proudly displaying the drawing he made of various stick figures, each one holding a letter of his name, and at each person, though just corrected moments before, still proudly calls that last letter a "jay" and not an "aych."

The Adventurer is the reason, mostly, that we switched to on-line school for the older boys; that, plus the current restrictions on home schooling where we live. Mostly though it was so I could dedicate as much time as possible to helping The Adventurer become literate. I have hope that maybe we'll get there.

I'll go into the background on this in an upcoming post but for today, Semester Check-Up. This past semester has been very different. In August we had him evaluated by an Educational Psychologist, who diagnosed moderate dysphoneidetic dyslexia, among other things. Moderate means not quite severe. Dysphoneidetic means that his dyslexia is both auditory and visual in nature, so that things he sees and things he hear get processed....wrong. Which means that it's not my fault he can't read, and that it won't be easy to teach him.

Since getting his report in September, I've been implementing all sorts of at-home language therapy, occupational therapy, and intensely remedial phonemic awareness activities. School has meant doing "random access naming" drills --- for 2 minutes, I show him flashcards and see how many he can name. Last week, he got 53 things named in 120 seconds. This is monstrous improvement from the beginning, when he could barely do 17 in 60 seconds. He now has instead of a language arts drawer, a therapy drawer, and instead of a math drawer, a handwriting drawer. The math manipulatives are still in use, but moved to accommodate the other stuff. He has a slew of software we've just started using, one that asks him to identify if a pair of sounds are both the same (/a/ and /a/) or are different (/a/ and /o/); he doesn't always get it right.

So, how has this semester gone for him? Well, I don't feel like I know yet. I'm still coming to grips with his diagnosis, what it means, what his chances are for success, and wondering how long it will take and if he'll be reading at all before he's 10, or maybe not until he's 12, or ??? I have no idea. He turns 8 in February and still doesn't remember letter sounds we've been working on since he was six. And he still can't remember all the teens between 10 and 20, though he mostly can remember what order the tens go (10, 20, 30, etc...). Usually. The Adventurer and I are just now settling into a routine, as the last of his new curriculum has just finally arrived to us here in S. America, and I have hope that now we can really begin.

So. That's been our semester. Over all, I'm pleased. The on-line school was a brilliant idea and just what we needed; with all that The Adventurer needs, there is no way I could give him all of that and give my oldest a quality high school education, preparing him for college, at the same time. Nevermind also a middle school student in the mix. The on-line school has wildly exceeded my expectations, moving from this thing we were doing, grudgingly, out of necessity, to a thing that has been a Godsend and a blessing and actually really GOOD for all of us. Huh. Who knew?

Tomorrow, I'll focus on my role in our homeschool day; then I'll go through a day focused on each boy, and we'll see what next week brings. If you have any questions, about any of this, please ask! My email can be found in the Contact Me button at the top of the home page if you need to contact me for a private conversation, or I welcome comments and do moderate so can keep things private if you would like. Thanks for stopping by, and I look forward to getting to know each of you!

Welcome! Who we are, and how we got here....

So, who are we, and how do we home school?

If you've clicked over from our family blog, this is all old news to you. But if you've clicked over from somewhere else, let me introduce us.  You can read through the blogs labeled "Home School Routine" and that will give you an idea of who we've been over the years, but as our home school has changed a great deal in the last 12 or so months, what you'll read there is more history and not so much current events.  So who are we today? And how did we get here?

Well, it all started when my oldest son was only 3.5 years old. He wanted to learn to spell, and didn't understand why the letter A could say different things, such as in apple vs. able. Not knowing what else to do, I called my aunt who home schooled and she suggested we start phonics work.  I bought Explode the Code pre-Code books (Get Ready, Get Set, and Go for the Code) and he dove in, happy to have something telling him the rules for letters, sounds, spelling and reading. Before that year was out, I'd bought our first full curriculum (Sonlight's then K level Core, which used to be called Basic....) and he had typed a story. I'll have to dig it up and post it sometime....

By the time he was Kindergarten aged (nearly 6, because of cut-off dates and a fall birthday), he was reading at a 3rd grade level, doing math at a 2nd grade level, knew a ton of science stuff and history and I knew that a traditional Kindergarten classroom would bore him.  So we kept doing what we'd been doing and entered the official world of home schoolers.

A few years later his younger brother was ready for school, so I just added him in, passing down the books we'd used with my oldest.  He didn't quite take off with reading in the same way and was almost 7 before he moved from leveled readers to beginner books like Frog and Toad. Once he started, though, he never looked back.

That year, and the 2 or 3 years after, was hectic. Our youngest son was born nine weeks early and spent seven weeks in a NICU several hours from our home. Once he was finally home, he had various therapists who came to the house every other week to work with him. And he never napped. At all. And he didn't understand boundaries. At all. He climbed things (like bookshelves and tables) before he could even walk. So for about three years, we did as little formal school as possible, scraping by with the bare minimum, the most necessary of necessities.

Then we moved. To a different country. Where home schooling wasn't really heard of, at all, and was almost kind of sort of not really okay. Luckily, by this time, the youngest was calming down some and so we could do more than the bare minimum. More luckily, when we informally tested our boys just to check, they scored around the 85th percentile on standardized tests for their grade levels, even after nearly three years of bare minimum schooling. For the first four-ish years then we scooted along, still doing what we'd always done, only alone.

Then "kind of sort of not really okay" became "definitely not okay" and we had to change things. As of this past year, we enrolled the oldest in an on-line private school for his first year of high school.  We enrolled the middle son into 2 classes at the same on-line school, for his first year of middle school (and will increase that each year until he has a full course load as well).  And we had the youngest evaluated for dyslexia as, at 7.5 yrs old he still couldn't always remember what sounds each letter made, let alone put them together into words.

So here we are now. The boys are now 15, 12 and nearly 8.  I oversee the work of the oldest, just making sure he stays on schedule with things. He is earning As and high Bs in all his courses.  I oversee the middle boy's work -- two on-line classes (English and Science), one at home computer course (math), and do minimal teaching (history/geography) but he's mostly self-directed.  He is earning As in all of his computer based courses and I don't grade geography.  And I've just started a very intense program with the youngest to help move him towards literacy, per the suggestions of the Educational Psychologist who evaluated him. She helped me work up a curriculum plan, and we all have high hopes that he will, in fact, learn to read one day.

My/our home school today looks vastly different than I ever imagined it would, but it keeps with my philosophy of meeting each child where he needs. Each boy is thriving in his own way and getting exactly what he needs right now, to the best of our ability to provide it. Even if it's coming mostly from textbooks now instead of Sonlight books, which is not something I ever thought would happen.

So, that's us. Who we are, what our school looks like now, and how we got here. Follow along and watch where we're going next.......