grades, schmades

poo

There won't be an actual promotion to the 4th grade for Little Dude, but he will be doing the 4th grade curriculum, just as he did the 3rd grade work without being a 3rd grader.

Paperwork, deadlines, requirements we were not aware of etc

Makes no matter - we will keep working & he will keep doing his thing on his pace & when he gets to public school it will be just fine one way or the other.

Crunch Time

When Rile goes to his father's, I create lesson plans they can complete offline & still stay on track. Since it's Boy & Dad time, I save all the Science experiments for them to enjoy together. Since Dad isn't as sharp with the math facts, I juggle around units sometimes so they can have math to do without needing to both be scratching their heads or calling me to teach over the phone. The last time Rile was at his dad's was for over 3 weeks due to last minute schedule changes. When he came home, we were trying to get the routine back, I was sloughing through correcting the work done away from me and getting it all marked off on his On Line School (OLS). Throw in a sudden need to move & I am a little behind. Toss on that he has to have as much logged in the OLS as possible by Monday because we are putting in for a mid-year promotion. So what I had put on the back burner to do over the long Winter Break needs doing today & over the weekend.

The good news is he has done much of the work - just not the handful of math problems in each lesson which need to be done on-line to pass the lesson with Mastery. And since he wrote a NANO novel again, most of the composition was done in different forms. It's just a matter of time - time for him to do the on-line math problems & time for me to assess which elements & hence lessons he did in his novel or other writing to mark off.

Hard Work in a Difficult Year

We have had another difficult year - we have "lived" in Wisconsin for a week, a hotel for a week, a time share for a month, a vacation rental for two months, the Morning Glory Cottage since late April & we are moving again at the end of the year.

Thankfully, our home school program is flexible & portable so we can continue working no matter what our living situation is. And Rile hasn't just worked; he has worked hard. He finished the 2nd grade curriculum last January, a semester ahead even with our having moved about 5 or 6 times since the start of the school year. Now, almost a year later, he has completed the 3rd grade curriculum at the end of the Fall semester. While it took him a full school year, he is still ahead by a semester. This time I have requested his teacher put in for him to be advanced to the next grade level not just to the next year's curriculum.

He & I have discussed that we are going to make a renewed commitment to this blog. A plan in place had been that he would return to public school next year for the 5th grade. I am not too sure about the school district in the part of San Diego where we are moving to temporarily. Just because we had said public school next year doesn't mean I will send him if the school district isn't up to the level he has achieved. I know the few districts I will happily send him to; if I can relocate us to one of those before the beginning of the next school year then I will stick to my "plan" for his re-integration.

My main reasons for sending him back into the fray are; socialization before the scary preteen years are in full force, so I could either go back to school or work and because I am finished with home school. It has been a rewarding & fulfilling experience. But I am tired. I know we could do another year; even continue into middle school. I just don't think it's fair to all of us. He needs friends, I need something else besides staying focused on my son.