Versatile Style by Tracey

I finally completed the year end testing and mailed it in and am keeping my fingers crossed they get the results back to me quckly to make the August 1st deadline to send to my School Board… 

After doing so I can’t help, but thinking what a wonderful year of discovery this has been in learning more about my son and his individual needs as a learner…

This completes my week of Orange Crush …

It has always bugged me that before going to school this young man was a sponge, always learning and spouting off to us all that he learned,but the longer he was in school the more this had disappeared.

He was never a child that was interested in cartoons or ones geared towards prechoolers , he sought ones that gave him knowledge. He would get up earlier than the rest of us just to have command of the tv. 

One show in particular that I remember  was” Crashbox“, and then of course two channels he couldn’t get enough of  :  Discovery and Animal Planet… He also continues to love the ” How it’ s Made ” series and “Myth Busters” 

The change in him was very scary as a mother because it was so fast and so drastic… A few things in school sparked him-  like learning about the Egyptians and the phases of the moon… but more and more he seemed to lose the desire and his conversations became less and less about these facts he had  always  been so proud to share…

I bought him an Iphone for his birthday in April and who knew that would be the catylst for getting my son back! He is using YouTube and signing up to channels that interest him and feed him with lots of interesting facts in the news regarding science..

I could litterally cry and shout for joy all at once, as I am so overwhelmed with emotions… I thought school had ruined this wonderful child and that his love of learning was lost forever…   The tears are flowing as I type this… The love of a mother is so deep , so all knowing and we truly see our children in a way that noone else can.. I know my mother did that for me!  

Now that I’ve shared my Joy-Time to move  on to the things I learned about how our homeschooling was working for him and how to move forward in a better way for the specific needs of this individual child… I love that I am blessed to be directing this and tailor make his education!

Such a wonderful twist for a mother who chose to homeschool because she was forced to when the school couldn’t get the job done… It’s no longer, “I have to do this for him” , but, ” I am blessed to have this choice! ”

 A huge distinction!  

For the past 3 years we have used Time 4 Learning and I liked that it was easy for me to just be a guide and I learned a lot right along with him…I also saw what my other children were telling me that their programs were more advanced than public schools.  A perfect thing for my very bright child… I also liked that we were able to even chose a year above or below if we so wanted… We started high school this year, a year early and that was a good decision… 

Now for the problem… This is based very much on Common Core and a year long program that seemed to drag on and on in lessons. My son started off each year enthusistically  and really gung-ho… by January he was bored and frustrated and it was a fight to keep him motivated…  

After exploring choices for what program to chose for homeschooling through high school.  I am happy that Ihave found the perfect program called Universal Class...I think that he is super excited about being able to finish a class in one semester and move onto all new classes in January…. He actually told me I got this right and seems amazed that I figured this out and found a solution… 

He is excited about the number of choices for classes and even said he has to get reading and setting goals for a hundred pages a day… Of course that is what his college graduate sister keeps telling him is ahead of him… I think if he sees that he can move quickly through these courses that he will do so… The fact that he said he wanted to reach 100 pages a day is huge as he resists reading  unless I force the issue… Although he was very proud of himself for reading books his brother read at this age in his Advanced English class and seeing he really had fixed what that dumb school had labeled as a disability… That success really boosted his confidence and I am so glad I insisted on him taking that on..

After dreading homeschooling him through high school andthe upcoming fight I thought I was going to have, I feel very encouraged by his enthusiasm and his looking at me like I finally got him… I feel like I’ve won the lottery!!!!! I truly feel like a super hero to my child.. hmmm… what would my costume look like??? 

Dear Readers, If you read all of this Thank you for letting me share my journey and my joy of this most important part of my life.

 I think a huge turning point for me was recently when I saw a Facebook post on Affording the Homeschool Life  where someone used the term Autodidact to describe an individual driven to self learn – that it really hit me what was going on with my son and what he needed.. I can see why some homeschooling mothers are drawn to unschooling whereas before that made no sense to me for a mother trying to get her child ready for college.. I however have no intention of going the unschooling route for  high school , perhaps for a younger child…

Gratitude

I am grateful for dear friends who support me!

I am grateful for my husband’s support in homeschooling, as I hear that so many fathers are against it…

I am grateful for a movie night to escape reality and a tough situatin with my husbands job…

I am grateful that my electric bill didn’t go sky high with all the AC we’ve been using..

I am grateful the great sleep I got last night, the sleep app said I got 100% sleep quality…