Wrapping up 2013

They say time flies when you're having fun. Somehow, it's suddenly the end of December and while I'm not sure I'd categorize the fall of 2013 as "fun" it has definitely been busy! Adjusting to a new routine, new work schedule and a new middle schooler attitude has kept both of us on our toes and encouraged me to revisit and revise all of my plans on a weekly basis.

This is also the time of the year that I look over what my son has accomplished, the hits and misses of curriculum and what needs to happen over the spring to be a successful year.

Hits

1) Dumping literature curriculum for The Book Whisperer style homeschooling.
My son has complained about being told what to read, when to read it and doing all sorts of assignments along with it. But as a teacher, how would I know he was reading? How would I prove he understood it? This year, I listened to him and Donalyn Miller and decided to set him free with one small exception. If you want to see the movie, you have to read the book first. Since July, he's finished 26 fiction books, countless non-fiction articles and small books and read more than 4,000 pages. He polished off Ender's Game and Catching Fire in time for the movies. He takes a book with him everywhere, all the time. I probably should have listened to him last year. Donalyn Miller was right. Be brave, let the kids read!

2) Finding ways to make Minecraft into our homeschool lessons.
Minecraft is the pervasive conversation topic, the mode of communication and the entire social foundation of my son's life right now. It's all Minecraft all the time. So I found myself walking the fine line between allowing him to be obsessed and ruining all his fun. It got easier as we balanced when and how Minecraft is learning vs. social. If your kids aren't playing Minecraft, you're really missing out on an amazing learning tool. But that's not to say that it isn't also the most annoying, frustrating and time-sucking hobby! Using Minecraft for lessons in literature, science and history helped me justify the volume of hours he spends playing. The biggest, most successful find however, is the Minecraft Homeschool classes. Now he has his history lessons, quizzes and Minecraft builds all wrapped into one!

3) NaNoWriMo
We LOVE November. Love it. I can't say enough about how every student, of any age, should be able to participate wholeheartedly in NaNoWriMo. Take a crazy idea and write a novel, in a month, with no editing or self-critiquing allowed. It's a perfect experiment for perfectionists. It encourages each author to really push into the hard parts of writer's block and work through it. More than 10,000 words written in November and the kid has completed his fourth NaNo novel. Completion means December and January are all about editing and turning that long ramble of creativity into a well-written, creatively woven plot.

4) Other Curriculum Success
A few other successes this year so far:


And the Intellego Unit Study Ancient Civilizations  was also a big hit. I've used Intellego products before and while sometimes the links are broken or redirected, it's definitely worth the inexpensive price to not have to make up your own curriculum. The kid loves the online components and they find fantastic resources to use!

Misses

1) A regular Algebra 1 class

Since the kid is far accelerated beyond his grade level in math, we had high hopes that integrating into a standard high school Algebra class would be a success. I wasn't concerned about the math, but was hoping he'd bond with a teacher and we'd have a path to higher level math without any advocacy on my part. Unfortunately, the class turned out to be moving at a tortuously slow pace, with tons of work and no learning. He finished the semester, having lost one entire point the whole semester and not yet hitting any work he hadn't seen before. Back to the drawing board!

2) Bravewriter's Writer's Jungle

Poetry Tea was awesome! I learned a lot about writing styles and coaching writing while reading Writer's Jungle. But what I didn't learn was how to get a reluctant, dysgraphic, extremely creative writer to somehow take on the challenge of any sort of academic writing. He'd happily write stories (see NaNoWriMo above) but the minute you ask him to analyze, report or discuss, it all goes out the window. I've decided to outsource our writing with a class from Athena's Advanced Academy for spring semester instead.   

3) Too much or not enough scheduling

This is always the balance isn't it? Academic homeschooling is a very narrow line between too much and too little. There were too many days where it was 11am and I couldn't imagine how we had possibly finished our work for the day. In turn, there were too many days where it was 4pm and he still hadn't come close to finishing. In my perfect homeschooling world, we'd have great ideas together and they would magically balance out with the perfect amount of too much and too little. They'd appear on the lesson plan already designed and sketched out in a way that made both of us happy. I'm still researching how to make this magical world actually happen!