Sunday, November 11, 2007

Various things

I did up some Reading Reflex-style activities for ds for this coming week. I thought I'd be able to share it here, but I can't seem to find anything other than inserting a picture or video. Hm... I guess I could take a picture later of a printed off copy.

What else have I done? Let's see... I've worked on a unit 2 math test for the oldest plus a unit 2 chem test. She has 3 tests this week, if she follows the schedule like she should. Social test tomorrow, but that's already done. Chem test probably on Thurs. Math test on Wed. (I hope!).

I've also done more thinking about the 13yo/Bob. It's not that I purposefully sit down and do it, just something pops into my head and I feel compelled to explore it. I'm actually feeling really great about this and am thinking more and more that I will have him switch boards next year to do the online program part-time. Here's how it would look with our current board, using teacher-directed courses:
  • home ec. (I chose that because it's super easy and he likes cooking and using the sewing machine)
  • math 9
  • phys.ed/health
  • French
  • religion if he needs another course
  • if he needs yet another course, some of the CTS courses, or if he must have another core course, science
  • everything else would be parent-directed (traditional homeschooling)

If we go with the other school board, his online courses would be:

  • math 9
  • French
  • health
  • Computers 1 and/or Food Studies

Offline APS courses would be:

  • phys. ed.

Everything else (English, science, social) would be traditional. The decided advantage of moving to the other board is that he'd get used to the online format (which is very different from what our current board does). He would, as well, have the possible chance of taking an in-school class if he wanted to. And the reason for only having math for both schools is that the social courses just aren't that good to start with, he'd rather explore his own thing for now for science, and he's just not ready for LA. I wanted to have one core course for sure so that he gets used to the quizzes and tests and exams and he'll have to take the provincial achievement test at the end of that year. For high school credits, regardless of where he does his schooling and how he goes about it, he HAS to take exams. One course will provide some sort of transition.

I'm also so weird that I've thought ahead to his high school courses. %-p Unless there are some major changes in the next two years, I'll make sure he takes Learning Strategies 15 and 25, his mark in Math 9 will determine if he needs to do Math 10 Prep or not, have him do the English _-2 route, switching either right after 10-2 or 20-2 to the -1 stream (I think if you switch in grade 12, you end up having to take BOTH diploma exams, and that'd just suck!) I suppose his interests and his parents' desires will determine whether or not he'll take a second language. He keeps saying he wants to go into dentistry, so he'll have to take all three sciences. That really fills up most of his schedule!

One last thought about all of this: another reason I feel the need to have him in the online program is I don't want there to be any question about him "hiding" from going to school because of some possible notion that school has too much work and he doesn't have to word as hard here. With this outside stuff set in stone, and it is a lot of work, he's less likely to hide from school for that reason. (It's funny--he was so set in Aug. on going to school so he could be with friends, but stuff going on at diving has had him change his mind because he doesn't want to be in that social environment!)

Let me come back to the present. :)

The 16yo has a full week this week.

MATH
She needs a good fractions review, which she'll do for math tomorrow (with dd and "Bob" being invited to join in). She then has to finish the work for the 2nd unit and do some review (Tues.), do her test ideally on Wed., and do 3 lessons from the 3rd unit on Thurs. and Fri. (Oh, I have to work on that, too, to see what she has to do and what corners we can cut.)

CHEM
She's starting ch. 4 tomorrow. I won't let her take more than 2 days to finish it. Do the unit review on Wed. Do the test on Thurs. Do unit 3 prep (and maybe start ch. 5) on Fri.

SOCIAL
Theme 2 test tomorrow. (Ack--she's supposed to be finishing theme 5--of 8 themes--this week.) Then spend the rest of the week doing Theme 3 work with the test next Monday. (She has no choice: she MUST do a theme per week now.)

FRENCH
Avoir, être and ERverbs in present, imperative and futur proche (sorry, don't know the English word), plus have her do just word reading (and maybe spelling!) from a simple list I found.

For Bob:

LA
Writing: 1 essay or page-length composition due on Friday
Reading: phonics drills, even if I have to bring him to the computer, enlarge them to 200% so that he can do them ;)
Spelling: based on the phonics drills with a focus on those words he messes up when he's reading

MATH
Keep him going with numeration, which means I have to prepare more stuff!

SOCIAL
He said he wanted to learn more about Egypt. I'll have to help him figure out what specifically he wants to explore and help him find resources.

SCIENCE
His chem kit, if he wants. Other than that, not sure!

FRENCH
Oral grammar with the oldest, plus just the regular talking!

For dd:

FRENCH
Daily reading with me. Writing assignment for the week (I have to come up with some topic choices--that's what she asked for when we discussed her actually doing some writing in French). She can also do the grammar with the others.

MATH
She says she still wants to keep going with the math sheets. So there we go.

SCIENCE
I'd like to introduce her to zoological classification. She really likes tigers and had wanted to do a project on them, a project that kind of got pushed to the side, so perhaps this is a way to still look at them. We have a chart that has the classification broken down, so we could work out together what the formal full classification for her specific tigers.

SOCIAL
Nothing special other than EVERYBODY will do stuff on learning the continents and oceans this week. I already have a large map printed off. :D Gotta love that poster feature for the printer!

I already discussed ds in a separate post.

And other than that, we are ALL waiting for my niece to be born!!!!! :D She's technically not due until the 18th, but my sil has been on medical/early maternity leave since the beginning of Oct. due to the high chance that she'd have the baby early. Her first was born 1.5 weeks early; the second 2.5 weeks early. Today is 2 weeks before the due date and she's had false labour on and off for 2 weeks. She is soooooooo ready to have this baby--as are we! :)))

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