Acquara Independent School

I have updated the “Summary Pages” for each kid. And I added the post below that explains what happened with Aaron and Public. So, a summary of where we are now, a couple of months post public.

Aaron

• I enrolled Aaron in Hillsboro Online Academy for Social Studies and Science. It was kind of an experiment. It has both success and failure, I guess. The good things are that it is much more interactive than I thought, he likes the science, he likes the face-to-face classes and activities. It’s free, it offers a lot of resources. It keeps him on his toes. The bad is that it is a LOT of work, the Social Studies is lame, it has a lot of stupid MC tests where there are only 3 questions so it is really easy to get a 66%, and it is an overlord, but the overlords are generally pretty nice. For now, I have tentative plans to put them both in next year, but we will see.
• He is doing a pretty intense grammar and writing curriculum out of Loyola Press (i.e., the Jesuits). I had to pull teeth at the beginning to get him to do it, but now he is doing much better and complaining less. His writing still has a ways to go, but he is writing more every day than he probably did in a month last semester.
• I took him back to 3rd grade math as per his request. But I let him pretest out of chapters so we have skipped a few. He is really good in math, just doesn’t like to do the work and thus got behind. We are moving pretty quickly through the A term of 3rd grade and will be in B term next couple of weeks. I did not think he really needed to go back, but his comfort and confidence in his math skills since public has increased dramatically. The jump to 4th grade with no help just completely made him feel stupid. He likes having the control back.
• Those are the areas we are concentrating on. His “school day” usually goes like:
  • Morning meeting where we go over tasks
  • Life of Fred Math
  • some kind of arithmetic drills (flashcards, iPad app, etc.)
  • Math in Focus (both the book and workbook on the same day most days)
  • Voyages in English (grammar)
  • Raz kids (a reading program online
  • Voyages in English (composition)
  • Alternating SS and Science
  • Chores
  • Go outside and play with friends
• He is not enrolled in anything else since he missed all the enrollment deadlines. He goes to HOA one day a week for class and PE.
• We are slowly getting the old Aaron back. Still working on some of the emotional stuff, but I see slow maturity there.

Naim

• Naim and I had a nice holiday when it was only him and I. We have had to work to integrate Aaron back in. It has been kind of frustrating at first, but improving. I have been giving them task lists and having them do more and more on their own without me babysitting them every second.
• Naim continues to do Reading Horizons and Hooked on Phonics. The biggest thing you notice with him is that he gets along so much better out in the world in regards to reading. He can read menus, signs, scripts, etc and is not so dependent on us to help him. He is a “reader” but it has been an arduous process.
• He wanted to double speed in math, so we are doing both book and workbook on same day as well. One thing that is starting to help math so much is that now he is better at reading instructions and word problems by himself. It is still frustrating when he completely screws up an instruction when you know he knows the math, but it is getting more independent. We are also (especially Nik) incorporating expecting them to do more math in day-to-day life like cooking, figuring out dates, distances etc. We may give hints but really expect them to do the math themselves.
• He bugged and bugged me for weeks to learn about puberty, so I looked for an OWL (Our Whole Lives Sexuality Education) program for him. I could not find one, so I bought the books myself and we did it ourselves with some participation from Aaron and Nik. That was our science curriculum after we were done with Chemistry.
• For Social Studies, he worked on an essay for an essay contest. We have not heard back yet about winners.We will soon go back to continuing with world history.
• His day goes like:
  • Morning meeting
  • Life of Fred
  • arithmetic practice
  • Math in focus
  • Reading Horizons
  • Voyages in English/Handrwriting/Journal
  • Touch, Type, Read and Spell (keyboarding)
  • CNN student news for current events
  • Either Ss or Science, sometimes Music or art
  • chores and then outside with friends.
• He also takes swimming once a week and a whole day of Village, where he has explorers (the block class) drawing/painting/ music/chorus and destination imagination.

In light of what I wrote in the previous post about isolation (which I just reread and remembered) I should add that we have had a very positive development there. This, also was probably helped by Aaron’s PS experience. The kids have been playing outside with the neighborhood kids nearly every single day for hours. These are kids that Aaron met from the bus stop, although we had seen a lot of them around for years anyway, so I don’t know that this would have never happened without the bus stop, but it certainly helped. Anyway, with some encouragement by several of the parents, we have been working with them to seek each other out (actually go knock on doors old school style…no play date planning for me!) and go just hang out outside on bikes or with balls or whatever. Its great! It is sometimes bumpy for them. As I listen to them outside sometimes, I hear the chaotic and disorganized way they try to build consensus. Its painful to listen to. But I don’t think any of the kids have these social skills (all others in this group are PS kids.) I suspect it is because their time together at school to just be social is so limited compared to when we were kids, and then they started this playing outside together later than when we were kids. But they will figure it out. This is kind of the only way TO figure it out. So, I think it is very good and has helped the feeling of isolation a lot.

Avery

• This year Avery has been in school for four hours four days a week. It got pretty academic there this year, which he has a love/hate relationship with. He talks a lot about school this year. There is Ms. Jenn and Ms. Kaley and “my kids.” He has been doing numbers and letters and can write his name (well, he writes Arvey.) He picks things up very fast. I think he is going to be more like Aaron and not really have Naim’s issues. His will also be a motivation issue, in that he wants to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it. It is a balance to keep that spirit but still have high academic expectations for them.
• I am going to visit his class and then have a conference with his teacher in the next couple of weeks to plan for curriculum for him for Kinder. I need to get a better idea whether we should do letter names/sounds and numbers/sorting type of thing again (that is what they did this year) or if I can go on to more straight up reading and math. I will get a better idea if I see what he is already doing there and what the teacher thinks. I thought about keeping him in Goddard for Kinder, which would be fine except I can’t afford it. I thought about going to Quatama kinder orientaion just to see how they are going to do 60ish kids per classroom for a whole day, but I decided I couldn’t stomach the walk up to Quatama to see the counselor again, who is kind of a douchebag. If Nik wants to go, he can go. I’ve been there, done it.
• He also has been swimming in beginning swimming class with Naim (different class/same time.) But other than that, we have left him be for school since he has so much through Goddard.

That’s pretty much it. We are making summer camp decisions now. Stay tuned! Maybe I will update before the end of summer!

Filed under: Aaron, Avery, Homeschool Issues, Naim |