Last week was rough, no doubt about it. So, I spent the weekend consulting with my husband and brainstorming and having a serious talk with my son. In a nutshell, here’s what we decided to try:
For this week, I will sit right with my son and help him try to find his feet in the online math course. I’ve been having him read the lesson materials aloud to me, work the practice problems in front of me and check his assignments with me before he submits the work. We’ve done two lessons so far this week, and he’s earned perfect scores (and booster shots of confidence) on both.
In addition, I’ve explained to him that, in general, there’s a new sheriff in town and that the kind of behavior we were seeing last week just won’t be tolerated. On Monday, I’m pretty sure he spent more time exiled to his bedroom than sitting at his desk. And, because his work for the day was not done when it was time to leave, he also had to stay home and miss his beloved drum lesson.
Since then, things have begun to improve. Yesterday was a long day, but it was productive, and he was sent to his room only once. Today, there’s been some dawdling, but no major incidents. And, by lunchtime, he was almost halfway done. So, not stellar, but a definite improvement. I’m trying to keep it in perspective.
So, let’s talk about something more cheerful.
Along with math, science seems to be one of those subjects that throws often homeschoolers for a loop. And I’ll admit we’ve had our ups and downs with both. I’m feeling pretty positive about our science plans for this year, though. Our focus for this year is on chemistry, although we won’t force ourselves to ignore any other interesting stuff that happens along.
My daughter is taking an online course through our state’s virtual high school. My son is using two DK Eyewitness books as his spine: Chemistry and Matter. He is reading and writing summaries of about four pages each week. My daughter’s online class includes both virtual labs and some hands-on activities. (They send students a kit.) However, the lab component looked a bit light for our science-enthusiast daughter. So, we invested in a nice, big chemistry set and are working our way through that with a few experiments each week. Needless to say, the chance to mix chemicals and flirt with danger has been a big hit. Both kids are telling everyone they meet about how I set things on fire during our first lab session.
And, of course, we can’t resist supplementing. So I have lots of fun videos and DVDs lined up. Both of my kids are big fans of the Standard Deviants and are looking forward to their Organic Chemistry series.
Other, non-science things that are going especially well so far include the map work and the History Scribe/History Scholar pages, both of which I was afraid might turn out to be tedious. As it has turned out, though, my daughter enjoys the map work so much that she actually asked me to “let her” do the whole set, even the ones I wasn’t planning to assign. We’re using the Middle Ages set of Blackline Maps of World History from Knowledge Quest, in case you want to check them out for yourself.
So, all in all, things are looking up this week, but I’m still collecting and considering fall-back options for my son’s math. I promise to keep you posted.
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