summer plans

It's my fault for letting the afterschooling slide. Homework is disruptive to family life, even when it's work you assign to your kids. The Scientist can no longer do multiple-digit multiplication. Long division? All he remembers is that he hated it.

I can't say what he's learning there, but he sure does love the little democratic school he's in. He doesn't want to leave.

So we have made a deal. If he catches up to sixth grade level in math over the summer, he can attend sixth grade at the school.

My first step will be to give him the placement tests that are provided when you sign up for ALEKS. This will point out exactly what skills need remediating. He reads about math for fun, so he knows about higher math topics, but I can't say what he is able to do. I don't want to waste any of his time on skills he does not need to practice.

Then we'll gather resources. I'm not at all sure what sorts of things we'll be using. He doesn't need any math explained; conceptually, he has arithmetic down. He only needs to practice. Maybe the Scientist represents the highest calling of Spectrum workbooks. Maybe the application of the abstract will confuse him enough that the demonstrative logic of Math Mammoth's drilling methods will make more sense.

I also want him to work on music, foreign language, and writing, especially writing. Since he's stopped challenging himself to read more complicated literature, I'm going to assign some books, too. There are going to be some non-fiction works in there with the modern classics, too, so he gets some history education in for the bargain.

I suppose, at almost-eleven, he is probably ready to take on a schedule of one hour math, one hour reading, one hour music, and so on. I don't want to sit with him for a whole hour of math, though; I can't imagine he wants to sit with me for that either. Charlotte Mason would be appalled. We do, though, have a really good reason to do schoolwork for eight hours a day like it's a full-time job. Summer is short and we have a goal.

What I think will work is a loop schedule. We complete a single page or other small task in a subject, go on to the next subject in the list, and when done with the list, go back to the beginning. It could look like this.

five lines of copywork

one page of Math Mammoth

one lesson of Latin Prep

read a chapter of one of the current books

play current practice piece eight times

five lines of copywork

one page of Math Mammoth . . .

I feel hopeful about this plan.