Thursday May 28

"I think today I'll finish my vocabulary book," Connor declared at 7am this morning. Self-directed, student-led learning. What a concept! "After my vocabulary book, I am going to finish The Hobbit, correct my Math pages and work on my story about pirates." Yes, he sets a plan for himself now, writes it down and gets down to business. I would never have envisioned homeschooling in this manner. I am a teacher, and I make the lesson plans--NOT.

Wed. May 27

Hey, this is Connor speaking. Is this thing on? Testing, testing. Mom wanted me to blog, and you know, what mom says goes. So here I am blogging. I recently started writing a story, and it is about pirates. What inspired me to write it, is that I just read Treasure Island and bought a new book about pirates. Then, I decided to write one. At the end of my blog I will include the first two paragraphs of the story. Email me at sandyanddavid@epals.com if you want to read more. Notice the email is different than my mom's email. Anyway, I am trying to write a chapter a day, but today, after I was finished writing, the computer didn't save right, so what I wrote today is lost.
Some builders are building a deck. I like watching what they have to do. Today, they ran into the problem. The hottub won't fit into the door. Now, they have to tear down a wall and start again. What a bummer. Well, that is really all I have to say. My story is below.

Chapter I
Pirate's Soul, Lost at Sea.
The ship's port side was carved to look like a cutlass slicing through the air. The poor craftsmanship made it look like a pointed stick falling from a tree. On the starboard side of the Viking ship the same thing happened. Yes, the Sharktooth was a Viking long ship. At least it was made to look like one. The Captain was a retired pirate named Black-Handed Bill. The crew, a sad sight to look at, were sailors and various types of Navy commanders. No pirates. Or so they thought.
"Ello, I am Terris Long-foot. I would like to join the crew." an elderly man in rags spoke to the Captain. By the looks of things, he was a killer.

Tues. May 26

Connor finished his Math curriculum today!! Whoo hoo! A whole year's worth of Math completed in 5 months, and a grade level higher than what he was doing at Geneseo Central. He's also half-way through the book The Hobbit, and he went to Chinese class too. Of course, some of our day was dedicated to the puppies!!!

Thurs and Friday

We did our usual school things, Math, Vocabulary, Reading and Writing, plus we took care of puppies all week. Wow, the puppies are gorgeous! Connor had a guitar lesson and a horseback riding lesson on Thursday, and Chess and Tae Kwon Do on Friday. He's almost done with the second Math workbook, and Xiao has been teaching Connor basic trigonometry. If I haven't mentioned it before, having Xiao here has been a huge blessing to this family. He plays Risk and Chess with the boys, and he teaches them Math and Chinese all the time. I will be sorry when he returns to China next month.

Connor's blog

This time of the year has been hard for me because I have to make a choice between going to school next year, or staying home-schooled. I do not want to disappoint my friends at school, but to be honest, I love home-schooling. I think I am going to stay home-schooled until seventh grade when I go to Mcquaid Jesuit. I think home-schooling is really good for me is because I want to go to church and learn about God. At public school I would not have a chance to do that. Also, I learn a lot more in a half a year, then two years at public school, and I feel good about that. The only bad thing about home-schooling is that even when I'm on vacation Mom still makes me do work, and that gets really annoying. When the puppies were born, all the kids were calling me lucky because I got to stay home with them. But I am doing as much work as they are, and you can't consider me "off" from school because I'm ALWAYS in school.
Mom is going to let me take an online course at MCC (Monroe Community College). I have not started yet, but I am pretty sure I am going to be able to take one this summer. I know I would not be able to do that at ten years old in public school. At first, I was browsing Google for free online courses on how to design video games. I came upon a free course at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Mom said that MIT is way not right for a ten year old. What I want to do is: (this sounds hard) is get an Associates degree at MCC,then go to Notre Dame for a Bachelors degree. Last, but certainly not least, I want to go to a seminary for however long that is, and get ordained as a Priest. I have high goals, but hey, my brother wants to go to Westpoint.

Wed. May 20

We didn't go to church this morning because Connor slept in until 8am. I was up 3 times with the puppies during the night, so I didn't feel overly motivated myself. The puppies are gorgeous and Maggie is simply amazing. She is the best mother!! While I showed off puppies to various friends, Connor completed his math pages. The lesson was about calculating the volume of a prism triangle, and it was confusing even to me. Eventually, I told Connor to skip that problem and wait for Xiao to get home. Xiao is brilliant at math, and he often helps the boys with their computations. After math, Connor created 20 flashcards and completed a unit in his vocabulary book. On Tuesday night I was driving Austin and his friend John to their Civil Air Patrol meeting, when John found Connor's vocabulary book. He thought it was Austin's (which it is in a way, since Austin is using the same book at McQuaid) and John commented that the vocabulary book is a grade level higher than the one he is using in the same series. John attends a private school in Lima and he's in the eighth grade, so I found that interesting. Anyway, after vocabulary Connor revised the essay he wrote on why he wants to be a priest. At 1p we went to Tae Kwon Do. I was extremely proud of how well Connor stayed on task during the class. He's never been that quiet and focused for 45 minutes. This is progress! After Tae Kwon Do, Connor had a guitar lesson. On the way home from guitar, I had to call the vet to find out the cost of the 1st and 2nd shots for the puppies. Connor was trying to figure out the economics of breeding. Of course, he found out that there isn't that much profit in the puppy selling business, although it's better than not being able to cover the costs. We got home from guitar and Xiao helped Connor with the rest of his math. Now they are playing Risk, a board game. The boys play Risk for hours.

Tues. May 19

Puppies, puppies and MORE puppies. Our dog had puppies Monday night (all night) and that is consuming our every waking moment right now. Of course, Connor did his math, vocab. and Chinese today, but primarily we took care of our dogs. Whew. I'm pooped.