School update

Sep. 9th, 2012 at 8:33 PM

Well, the kids are back in school again. Sean is carrying a challenging course load. He's in the gifted program this year, which affects three classes: English, History, and Science, so he's in the advanced version of all of those. Plus he's in 8th-grade Geometry, and his electives are Orchestra and Japanese, so there's not an easy A in the bunch. He is quite capable of handling all this, so I'm happy to see him stepping up this year.

So far he has no locker! They were short 59 lockers this year, and they had 60 kids in the gifted program, so they decided the gifted kids wouldn't get lockers. I kid you not! (They will get them later, when they get more installed.) Why they didn't get this problem solved over the summer, I don't know.

Ethan is homeschooling again. We've got another ambitious program, including all the basic subjects (math, language arts, science, social studies, PE, art/music) plus Latin, Computer Programming, World History, and Geography. Latin and Computer Programming are my contributions.

Angie has added an ambitious reading program called Read for the Gold, where the kids have to read 10 Newbery-award-winning books and answer a challenging set of comprehension questions on each by a certain date, and then they get a gold medal. To make it easier on ourselves as far as coming up with the questions, we specified exactly which 10 books they had to read. If you're curious, they are:

Hatchet
When You Reach Me
My Side of the Mountain
Sarah, Plain and Tall
The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Shiloh
Dear Mr. Henshaw
The Giver

And, uh, one other that's slipping my mind right now. I think we kind of cheated in that the C. S. Lewis isn't a Newbery winner, but whatever. So the kids are doing this in addition to their monthly book reports, and we're also doing read-aloud books. Our first read-aloud is Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH.

I've cut back on extracurriculars to just Scouts (Sean and Ethan), dressage (me and Sean), and piano (Ethan). I plan to add swimming, and I'll sign Ethan up for winter basketball when it's time for that. And if Sean wants to take private lessons in viola, I'll try to squeeze that in. But no more soccer. Now that I have a part-time job, with that plus homeschooling there isn't time for so many activities anymore.

Comments

( 5 comments — Leave a comment )

jentley72

Sep. 10th, 2012 05:23 pm (UTC)

Thanks for the update on schooling for both boys. I have a friend who actually lived in Tokyo for almost 2 years working for Nokia. That was after she spent two years in Osaka on a Fulbright scholarship. She loves anything and everything Japanese. I actually went over to visit her when she lived in Osaka. Would love to hear how Sean likes it.

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amy34

Sep. 22nd, 2012 05:17 am (UTC)

Sean seems really interested in the Japanese class so far, although it is a hard class--very demanding for an elective. It may appeal to him that nobody in the family knows it but him. When it comes to writing, he's got me to compete with, and all of us are good at math, but unless Ethan takes the class later, he's going to be the only one who can read Japanese.

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clraby

Sep. 11th, 2012 08:57 pm (UTC)

I enjoyed the school update. These guys are really having a full plate, education-wise. I hope Sean decides to continue with the Viola lessons. It will help keep him progressing in Orchestra.

The reading programs (one a month and "Read for the Gold") are teaching the value of reading. Reading is the study resourse that makes a lot of difference in school achievement and language power, as well as for a lifetime of personal enjoyment.

Sean is a natural reader. I think Ethan has learned to be a reader with your encouragement.

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amy34

Sep. 22nd, 2012 05:20 am (UTC)

Yeah, Sean came naturally to reading, and Ethan needed a little more encouragement (fluency practice plus constant exposure to different books until we found the ones that fired his imagination). Ethan may never be a voracious reader because even now he is quite picky about what he picks up, whereas Sean will try a few pages of just about anything. But at the very least, I hope to send him off to college fluent enough to read his college texts without difficulty.

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