JennifersLost
04-22-2009, 05:41 PM
First, a short whine. I sent my ds to public school for eighth grade and part of ninth. I'm still paying for it. He's finishing up 10th grade now.
I am letting him "specialize" in computer programming, to the extent I'm scheduling a lot of time for that and easing up on some other stuff. I'm also letting him use the work he does for his cooking around the world blog to count for part of his English and Social Studies grade.
Here's what's working:
Biology - he's going through Prentice Hall's Exploring Life book comprehensively
English grammar - we're using Rod and Staff grade 6
English writing - he's doing weekly blog posts on his world recipes blog
Social Studies - we're listening to the Teaching Company's Medieval series (all three) and he's doing short write ups of countries around the world for his blog.
Computer programming - he's doing web programming for me, and learning flash, etc. He's written games and simulations.
Music - he's practicing several instruments and in several bands and orchestras
PE - it's getting done
Here's what's not working:
Foreign language. We've done Latin for years...and he's still struggling with Oxford Latin 2. We won't finish it this year. He doesn't want to do any more. I'm thinking of letting him do an online distributed learning course in any modern foreign language he chooses. If he does this, he'll only have two years of it by the time he graduates. What else can I do?
Math. Basically this whole year was worthless. This was the one class I let him schedule on his own. He totally screwed up. He just took a test on the first half of the textbook and flunked. This was Canadian math 10. I'm ditching that book, and he's going to do a forced march through Life of Fred Geometry between now and summer. What do I do for the next two years?
I'm panicking. And I need to stop focusing so much on him, and give more attention to my younger kids. I need do-able solutions to these problems. What would you do????
I am letting him "specialize" in computer programming, to the extent I'm scheduling a lot of time for that and easing up on some other stuff. I'm also letting him use the work he does for his cooking around the world blog to count for part of his English and Social Studies grade.
Here's what's working:
Biology - he's going through Prentice Hall's Exploring Life book comprehensively
English grammar - we're using Rod and Staff grade 6
English writing - he's doing weekly blog posts on his world recipes blog
Social Studies - we're listening to the Teaching Company's Medieval series (all three) and he's doing short write ups of countries around the world for his blog.
Computer programming - he's doing web programming for me, and learning flash, etc. He's written games and simulations.
Music - he's practicing several instruments and in several bands and orchestras
PE - it's getting done
Here's what's not working:
Foreign language. We've done Latin for years...and he's still struggling with Oxford Latin 2. We won't finish it this year. He doesn't want to do any more. I'm thinking of letting him do an online distributed learning course in any modern foreign language he chooses. If he does this, he'll only have two years of it by the time he graduates. What else can I do?
Math. Basically this whole year was worthless. This was the one class I let him schedule on his own. He totally screwed up. He just took a test on the first half of the textbook and flunked. This was Canadian math 10. I'm ditching that book, and he's going to do a forced march through Life of Fred Geometry between now and summer. What do I do for the next two years?
I'm panicking. And I need to stop focusing so much on him, and give more attention to my younger kids. I need do-able solutions to these problems. What would you do????