Mr. Blue and His 7th Grade Year

Mr. Blue is probably my most challenging child academically. He's incredibly bright, but also lacks concentration skills. I've discovered that I can't leave him to do his work independently. I used to think parents who said that had a lack of discipline in their homes. I'm learning differently. Isn't it great what homeschooling teaches us as parents? I'm hoping that if I can stay on top of him, he will gradually develop a slightly longer attention span. We'll see.

Math: We have done 2 things this year. I started with the Art of Problem Solving Pre-Algebra. I really like this curriculum. I like that its challenging, but the challenge is more in thinking about the math than actually doing a difficult problem. This is the kind of curriculum that would have been perfect for me as a kid and will probably be perfect for Mr. Yellow when he gets to that stage. However, it didn't quite cut it for Mr. Blue, so we switched to Teaching Textbooks Prealgebra. This is working perfectly for him. He especially loves getting graded on every lesson, go figure. He has quite the competitive streak and likes to find out how he did versus his sisters scores for the day.

Language Arts: He's doing Following the Plan with Miss Pink. It's going really, really well. Rod and Staff is quite challenging, so even though its 2 years behind where he is grade-wise, I don't feel too bad about it. The important thing to me is that he's learning new things. For spelling, I have him now doing Sequential Spelling on dvd. He really didn't learn anything the years he did Spelling Workout, and Sequential Spelling seems to be helping. I'm going to look at their apps next and see if they'll be a good match for him.

History: Story of the World Ancients as a spine, with added reading.

Science: This is my first time using Apologia's General Science. I have found that the audio CD is worth its weight in gold for Mr. Blue. Oddly enough, he's resisting doing the experiments. Since his retention seems fine, I'm not going to force the issue. I see they have a new notebook, which looks intriguing, but not for the $33 price tag. I have him taking the tests at our science co-op with another family doing the same curriculum. It helps him tremendously to have that accountability.

Latin: First Form Latin with Miss Pink and Miss Green

Art: Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain in our art co-op.