This is the first homeschool update of the 2009/2010 school year. We finished our first week on Tuesday and are off to a good start. There were big changes for both of the kids this year that are a continuation of some things we started last year. Those changes all have to do with the kids taking on more of the responsibility for planning their studies. I still direct the material they study, but they plan how and when they engage with the material. An example of that is the way we the kids are assigned books. In the past, I always assigned a specific number of pages or chapters to read on a given day. Last year, I assigned Kelly a book with only a completion date and the assignment of a way to show me that she had read the book usually in the form of a book report or a discussion of what was read. That worked well for Kelly and Christian has switched over to that very same method for this year. The kids are getting more adept at negotiating their studies so they can perform the work successful.
For instance, when I assigned Christian one book per week for the entire 36 week school year, he came back to me and said, “Dad, these are not all one week books. Some of these books are two or three week books and some of them are two or three day books. Why don’t you let me arrange my reading so that I am always reading two books at a time. That way I won’t be stuck reading way too little one week and way too much the next. The order that I write the book reports might change a little, but I should still be able to delivery on report per week and even out my reading load at the same time.”
That sounded like a very good idea to me, so that is what we are doing. We have upped the ante with Kelly quite a bit in hear reading. Since she will be in college full time next year (ala Ruthie’s Tisse), I am giving her a fixed reading schedule of scholarly books. She is actively working through methods to get through heavier material, Rodney Stark’s Victory of Reason being the first, than she has read in the past. She has looked through some of her “how to study” books trying to find better ways to do the reading. The material is interesting, but sometimes it gets more technical and uses vocabulary that makes comprehension a little more difficult.
The things that have not changed so much are the math, science, music, memorization, bible, and exercise. Both of the kids are more heavily engaged in CLEP preparation. The kind of work they have to do to prepare for those tests is the same, there is just more of it.