Monday March 9, 2009

I didn't have time to post yesterday, so this will be a catch-up post. We went to Mass (learned about St. Frances) at 8am. Connor then worked on his mystery story for Impact, completed his Math pages, did Shepard Software, practiced guitar, read The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, practiced Chinese and at 12p we left to go to the Dr. appointment. The appointment at Encompass Learning Center took from 1p until 4p. Since Connor was exhausted after the testing, we called it a day. The Dr. began the consult with me, after evaluating the results of the tests, by saying, "When I come across kids who test like Connor, I generally begin by asking if there is any way the parents would consider home-schooling the child." Well, that was a shocker, to say the least. Bottom line is that Connor is highly gifted, but also ADHD (no great surprise there). The problem is that sometimes he tests just average on a subject, and then later on similar types of material he scores in the 99.9% . His results were all over the place. He scored 99.9% on reading comprehension at a 10th grade level,only 50% on word comprehension at a 5th grade level, and then 99.99% on spelling. He scored only 60% on mathematical reasoning on one test, and then completed 9th grade algebraic equations and scored 99.9%. The Dr. said his results were just all over the place, depending on his attention at the minute. He fidgeted constantly and often tried to get the test done as quickly as possible (rather than trying to be accurate). Again, no surprise really. Because I would rather not have to homeschool for another two years (I liked my job!) we spoke at great length about what school might be an appropriate fit for Connor. The only school the Dr. thought might work would be Allendale-Columbia (which is $18,000 a year!!!)or maybe Cobblestone (again too expensive). The Dr. said really Connor should be in a self-contained classroom with other highly gifted kids---but NY does not have that as an option of course. So, all in all, it was interesting and the consult confirmed what I suspected. Now, I just have to plod along and do my best.

Weekend

Before I launch myself into our Monday routine, I thought I'd take a moment to blog about our weekend. For years I have been doing what home-schoolers call "afer-schooling." This means that I go out of my way to provide enrichment and lessons after school and on the weekends. Because we do not have TV. (literally not a single station, although we do watch carefully selected DVDs), and our weekends are full of educational opportunities. For instance, this weekend we skied, read books, went to a friend's house to tap Maple Trees and learn about syrup making, played Scrabble,played Chess, went Beagling, went horseback riding, and created comic books on the computer. Connor also corresponded with his pen-pal, practiced guitar, and brainstormed for his mystery story. We learn and grow almost every minute of the weekend, and our school day is not just Monday to Friday 9-3p. I just thought I should mention this aspect of homeschooling too.

Friday March 6, 2009

First thing Friday morning, 7am, Connor began working on his math pages. He missed a few days of math (because of the boat building and then the educational assessment) and he now has to "catch up." Actually, Connor only has 20 pages left in his first math workbook. In an entire year at public school he has never finished the entire workbook, and he is almost done after 6 weeks of homeschooling. And no, I don't spend too much time on math. We spend less than an hour a day. The boat building class applies the math lessons,and that is probably where most of the real learning takes place. After math, we went to Mass at St. Matthew. From there, we went to Rochester for Chess. On the way, we listened to our Chinese Cd. We are both getting a whole lot better, I'm happy to say. Connor had a private chess lesson with Ken McBride. What an amazing teacher. Then he played games for an hour with a homeschooling group comprised of 10 boys. After chess, Connor began reading his new book, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle, a historical fiction set in the 1800's. When we got home, Connor responded to a writing prompt on the book My Brother Sam is Dead, practiced guitar, practiced Latin, wrote a reader response on a short story, The Chicken Coop Monster, filled out a character chart, brainstormed about conflicts for his mystery story, Shepard software (for geography) and completed another unit in his vocabulary book. A whole lot of work today!

Thurs. March 5th

This morning I went upstairs to wake up Connor because it was 6:30am and he wasn't downstairs yet. In his room I found him finishing up the last page of the book I bought him just YESTERDAY, A Kid's Guide to Creating Web Pages for Home and School, by Benjamin and Peter Selfridge. Connor must have been "sneak" reading during the night again. We left for Mass at 7:30am, and then we stopped to pick up the two toddlers I babysit on Thursdays. From there we went to Rochester for a Dr. appointment with Dr. Schworm of Encompass Learning Center. Dr. Schworm is an educational consultant who specializes in assessing the special needs of children. I took the two toddlers to Jump Club in Winton Place and left Connor with the Dr. for testing. When I picked him up, the Dr. requested we return on Monday for another hour or so. He needs to find some "more difficult" things to use for the academic portions of the test. He didn't find Connor's frustration level yet. At 2p, we finally arrived home. Immediately, Connor began his new web page on the computer. He wrote out all his ideas in the car on the way to Rochester. At 3p Connor had a horseback riding lesson. When we got home Connor played outside for awhile, made paper origami animals from a book we have, worked on his website, and wrote his scientific observations for his sugar crystal experiment. Another busy day!

Wednesday March 4, 2008

Before Mass this morning, Connor read The Secret Garden. He finished the book this morning. Then we went to Mass, and I dropped Connor off at his Boat Building class at the YMCA again. We listened to Chinese in the car for the 45 minute car ride. After boat building (which Connor will write about below) Connor took a guitar lesson. When he arrived home, at 5p, he read his new computer programming book, and took two tests that I devised earlier in the day on his books. One test was on the historical novel My Brother Sam is Dead, and another one was about The Secret Garden. Here's Connor's post about the YMCA class today.

Hi people! It is Connor! Today was really cool at Camp Arrowhead boat building class. We started to build the actual boat. It was easier than I thought. All we really needed was some good blueprints (of course, we needed to have the plywood and saws too). We had to take the blueprint measurements and print them on the plywood. After that we just cut the wood on the pencil marks. My class is going to make one rowboat and two canoes. We cut the first canoe today, but it still needs a bottom. The rowboat is coming along. A 13 year old boy, named Kevin, helped me convert the bottom of the rowboat to a 4by8 piece of plywood. We finished and cut it with a circular saw. Then we put the plywood pieces away and played outside for about 45 minutes. I learned cutting and measuring, and how to convert a small blueprint from a piece of paper to a huge piece of plywood. It was fun!

Tuesday March 3, 2009

This morning Connor bounded downstairs at 6:30am with his latest book, The Secret Garden in hand. Before we headed out to morning mass (at 8:30a), Connor read a chapter in his book, wrote another letter to his penpal, and completed 5 pages in his math workbook. At Mass, an elderly parishioner asked me if I home-school Connor. She said that she can always tell because she was a teacher for 35 years in Livonia and the home-schooled children are always so much more polite than public school kids. No lie. Of course, I didn't take the time to tell her we have only been homeschooling a short time; I just took it as a compliment and let it go. After Mass, I immediately drove Connor to Impact HS Academy. I will let Connor write about his day there (below). After Impact, we had our Chinese lesson, and we finally arrived home from our school day at 5:30pm. Tuesdays are our longest day; we school from 7am until 5:30pm, plus we generally read for an hour before bed. Connor's post below:
Hi everyone! My mom wants me to write.Well, my first class in Impact Home Academy is drama. Drama is probably my favorite subject. In the beginning, we played a game called hitch hiker. Hitch hiker is a game when there are four seats placed two next to each other and two behind. The first three people go into the chairs (an imaginary car) and decide an emotion. The people start to act the emotion in until the next person comes. The next person puts there thumb up and gets in the car. The hitch hiker has a whole different emotion. The hitch hiker starts acting his/her emotion. The other people have to catch on. Whenever you decide to move,the driver gets in line and they all move up a seat. That is all for drama, now on to the next subject!
The next subject is Chemistry. In chemistry we first practiced some chromatography. Chromatography is when we put four different inks in a beaker with rubbing alcohol. Then we cut up some coffee filters into some strips. We then tied the strips to some string and dipped them in the ink. We waited in till the colors crept up the filters. And that is chromatography! While we waited, my classmates and I took a test. I aced the test no problem.
Writing: in writing today we are studying mysteries. We handed in the homework and then played a game. There was three teams. One was the A team, B team, and the C team. I was in the A team. We were given six cards. We put clues on the cards to find the next card. Then we hid all the cards. The last card gives you a clue to where the candy is that you hide. Then we go and search for the other teams candy. I got some chocolate. I traded two for a candy necklace.
Social studies: In social studies we had a guy come in and talk to us about the civil rights movement. It was very interesting. He told us about the dates when different colored people became free. It ended in 1965, I believe. He also talked about people should have civil rights no matter what.Then I went to Chinese class. Well that is all folks!

Monday March 2nd

If I were in a better mood, I'd wax poetic about Connor's wonderful interview with John yesterday. He spent over an hour examining John's handmade boat and asking him questions. He took notes etc. and it was all very educational. But I'm grumpy today, so I'll be brief. The downstairs computer is not working yet again, causing me an entire day's worth of headaches. We went to morning Mass,read for an hour, did a science experiment that will result in the eventual formation of rock crystals, spent an hour on Math, mastered the geographical locations of the countries in Central America and South America, practiced Latin, practice guitar, practiced Chinese, wrote a letter to a pen pal, and made flash cards for vocabulary. I am tired and miserable so I sent Connor up to bed to read at 7p. He will probably finish The Secret Garden tonight, although he just started it on Sunday. We probably did more, but I'm too frustrated to write it down right now.