Opinions on plans for next year for 14yo...

[Greta Lea]

Next fall, my son will be in 8th grade, although he will be 14yo. He has Asperger syndrome, math LD and dysgraphia (although he does VERY well with typing everything). He reads and comprehends well above grade level, but his extremely short attention span sometimes gets in the way of reading longer passage.

Here's some plans for next year (some are just tentative plans:)...

Math: Teaching Textbooks...We just started this earlier this year and it's going great for him. He is using the Grade 6, but we will do math all through the summer, so he will hopefully be in the Grade 7 book before Christmas of next year.

He takes 1-2 hours to do his Teaching Textbook math (although he is getting 95-100 on every lesson!)

Although math is still a very tough subject for him, the lightbulbs are finally going off *and* he's got more of an attention span to be able to tackle more math in a day. SO, I'm wanting to really focus on math next year and not bog him down or burn him out with a heavy load in the other subjects.


-Literature: just LOTS of reading from the book list I'm compiling for him

-Bible: The Life of Christ (CLP 8th grade bible) - thinking of just allowing him to read and not do the end of chapter questions and test

-Science: Apologia General Science (Since I'm wanting to keep his other subjects a bit "light" while he puts his main focus on math, I'm wondering if I should have him do the reading, the On Your Own questions and then at the end of the module do the study questions for review *and* then the next day do the test, but open book for more review. I'm thinking this would have science covered, but not be so stressful. Opinions?

-Writing: IEW SWI B (possibly in a small group setting)

-Grammar: Finish Easy Grammar & begin using IEW's Fix It Grammar book

-Typing: He LOVES Spongebob Typing and is doing well with that, so he'll continue this.

-History: He *loves* history. He is currently finishing SOTW book 4, so we are gonna do ancient history next year. I'm thinking of having him just read a lot for history and maybe a written summary of his weeks reading each week. I just don't know what to use for him at this level. He likes the "story" tone of SOTW, so I'd like to keep on that path instead of using Kingfisher (although he does like to refer to encyclopedia type books).

-Language: He's been taking a Spanish class for 5 years. He is a natural with learning another language. He won't be taking this class next year. I can't decide if I should continue with spanish using Rosetta Stone (he would LOVE it being on the computer with no writing) or begin latin.

If we begin latin, I need something that doesn't have a lot of writing.

Opinions?? Ideas??

Thanks,
Greta Lea

[FloridaLisa]

Hi Greta Lea,

Looks on the whole like you have a good handle on 8th grade plans. I think it's wise to have an emphasis (you've chosen math) when you see an area that needs more work, and consequently to scale back in others to make room for that emphasis. Okay, on to your curriculum choices. :o)

Your Apologia General plans looks good. The newer editions actually have the study questions and a module summary (in the appendix) that can be worked before the test. You might find the tests waaaay too easy to be done open book (copying vocabulary definitions). If you don't want to stress memorization, you might want to take the year to work on outlining a text. Apologia's texts lend themselves very well to outlining and I find the middle grades a good time to begin teaching this skill. Just a thought.

IEW SWI B: We're new to IEW, but I've liked it this year. Pudewa is an excellent teacher and so encouraging to the kids, which comes across even on the DVDs. My dc have loved their IEW writing classes. If you don't have one organized already, you might think about an *all boys* writing club. My middle grade boys loved their all-boy (by chance) writing class.

History: If your son is a strong reader and has enjoyed the narrative thread of SOTW, I would strongly suggest SWB's History of the Ancient World. I'm really enjoying it and will probably assign it as summmer reading for my middle-aged dc.

Hope you'll get comments on the other curricula choices.
HTH!
Lisa