Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Writing

We all know that writing is important, right? Try explaining that to my 6th grader! Because of her ADHD, her brain moves faster and more chaotically than her hand does. This means that it is difficult for her to get the thoughts out of her head and onto paper.
Even though she is sixth grade in most subjects, and seventh grade in science, she is somewhere below level on writing. If I ask her to tell me about something such as the difference between plant and animal cells I get a wonderful lesson, including pictures. If I ask her to write about the same subjects I get something goofy like animals have animal cells, and plants have plant cells. Really?!
So one of the things we have to work on is her written expression. In the past we had tried journaling but were unsuccessful. Recently she picked up one of the blank books that we have so many of around here, and she began entering two to three sentence “logs” of each day. Is it great writing…no. However, it is practice and where writing is concerned practice makes perfect!

Sunday, June 3, 2012

A Choice for summer Curriculum

Well, you have probably made the decision as to whether to continue educating your 6th grader through the summer by now. If not, don’t worry. It is not to late to make plans for the summer.
As I mentioned before, we will school through the summer. Because we go all year long, we can make some adjustments in the schedule to allow for time at the beach, or swimming, or time with friends who are not home schooled.
Some parents do what you could call “school lite” over the summer. It is enough school work to keep their child’s brain functioning but not so much school that the child misses out on the days of summer and the fun that those days can provide.
We use Time4Learning as our core curriculum, supplementing where we want to or need to. Because it is our core curriculum, we use it all year long. However, if your need something to keep your child’s brain nimble, consider Time4Learning as bridge work, or review over the summer.
Your child will probably enjoy it, and will learn even if they don’t think they are learning. The work is fun, and interesting. Time4Learning is easy to use, low cost, and based on national standards. Consider it for your summer work, or as your core curriculum. Oh, and did I mention that the record keeping is a great perk!