As Jake was finishing some of the books he started the year with, I began to think about "what's next" for him. I have to say that I like having a change of materials the last 1/3 of the year. Since starting these new books, I've noticed a renewed excitement for learning in Jake also.
He finished Story of the World II in February. I had planned SOTW III next for him, but kept being pulled toward American History instead of world history. The History of US by Joy Hakim came off my shelf first for him to try, since Zach had enjoyed reading most of this series when he was 14/15yo.
Studying indept American history was what Jake wanted, but his enthusiasm was quickly lost shortly after beginning HofUS book 1. He wasn't complaining about the book, but I was hoping the excitement he had for learning more about American history would continue, but instead it seemed to fizzle rapidly.
Since Zach has been using Ambleside Online's House of Education year 11 lite this year with great success, I began to read over the lower AO years. After much research and reading at the AO site, I decided to have him try AO year 4.
Over the past couple of weeks, he's been slowly adding the AO year 4 books to his daily schedule. Honestly, this child has NEVER been this excited to do his schoolwork until now! I'm hoping his excitement continues. Even better than his excitement for learning again is the fact that he IS *learning* SO much! His detailed narrations have been amazing, although best of all, there is excitement in his voice when he narrates. Written narrations have also improved over the past two weeks.
He's doing a slightly modified Year 4 Term 1 for our last 12 weeks of school. I've modified it so he can read everything himself, which is what he prefers. Listed below is what he's reading...
-History: This Country of Ours (TCOO)
-History Tales and/or Bio: Poor Richard & Trial and Triumph
-Geography: Minn of the Mississippi
-Litertature: D'Aulaire's Greek Myths, Amos Fortune Free Man and The Incredible Journey
(This is where most of the modifying is coming into play. He is just NOT ready *at all* for the regular year 4 literature selections, so instead I choose one book from the regular list, one book from the free reading list-which is always a list of easier to read books compared to the regular literature selections-and then D'Aulaire's Greek Myths instead of Age of Fable).
-Science: It Couldn't Just Happen
I honestly cannot tell you which of these books he enjoys the most. This is my struggling reader who is enjoying his readings!
He is reading TCOO, D'Aulaire's Greek Myths & It Couldn't Just Happen daily, but the rest of the books are read 2-3 times per week. Trial and Triumph is read only one time a week in place of bible reading (The One Year Bible for Kids) for that day since T&T is a church history book.
In addtion to these readings, he does a written narration in one subject reading daily and oral narration for the other subject readings. Then he alternates doing Megawords 3 times a week with an online English program the other 2 days. Oh, and of course there's daily math lessons. ALEKS Online is the math he's been using for the past almost 3 months.
No comments:
Post a Comment