{I have been woefully inconsistent when it has come to keeping up with my blogs.  My husband has been after me to do more writing, so if I begin to put aside some daily time for writing, I should be able to keep up with my blogs more consistently.  (Have I said this before?  I think I'm having a Déjà vu!)}

The school year has pretty much wound down.  We made it.  Barely.

This was not a productive year for the twins.  JP only ended up getting 1 credit for English grammar, the planned ½ credit for Biology,  an unplanned  ½ credit for World History, 1 credit for P.E. and if we can finish by August, 1 credit for Algebra II.  SJ managed 1 credit for English grammar, the same unplanned ½ credit for World History, 1 credit for General Math, no science, 1 credit for P.E., ½ credit for Improvisation and ½ credit for Chorus.  That means that JP only earned 4 credits in 9^th grade.  SJ was able to earn 4-1/2 only because of her two electives she took with our umbrella school.

JP has had a major struggle with Algebra 2.  VideoText Algebra has NOT been a good fit for him.   There is not enough review, the practice problems quickly get more complicated than the sample problems and when he does get it he quickly finds it boring.  We ended up working out an arrangement with a college friend who is a math major at U of Md. Andrew is tutoring JP 3 days a week.  We are only on Module E. (As I write this Andrew is away at a camp as a camp counselor and JP is on a youth group boys' camping trip.)  When Andrew comes over they do 3 lessons at a time.  Andrew seems to be able to explain things to JP in a way that he understands.  He also challenges JP to race him in completing a problem and my son is always very satisfied with himself on the rare occasion that he beats his tutor.  Still I usually end up having to give JP a unit test three times before he gets it.  I'm really afraid he won't finish by our vacation  time in August.  Not only that, Andrew has informed us that beginning mid-July he may not be able to continue with JP because he will be taking an intense Physics summer course.  If he doesn't finish by then I guess he'll only be able to count  half of the Algebra 2 credit and finish it up the first month or two of 10^th grade and get the other ½ credit that year.  Then we'll be able to move on to Geometry with Teaching Textbooks.  I hope that goes better!

SJ, as you may have noticed, gets no biology credit for this year.  Apologia was just too difficult for her.  The poor child just felt lost most of the year. Fortunately, she did get something out of the co-op lectures and labs, but not enough to count for credit.  Our umbrella school has suggested a curriculum for biology that was developed for high school students with dyslexia, ADHD and other learning differences.  This company has a whole series of textbooks designed for students like my daughter who are bright and intelligent but process information differently.  We were able to borrow a copy of this text for a few weeks from our umbrella.  Both SJ and I really liked the looks of it.  It is not overly wordy.  It gets right to the point and has lots of helpful illustrations.   My friend, who teaches our co-op's biology and will be doing the second half of Apologia next year with our students, is going to go through the book for me and tell me what order to have SJ do the chapters so that her reading will better line up with what they are doing in class. Next year they get to do the fun dissections! 

When it came to the World History, we just lost too much time at the beginning of the year.  It was just too much to make up.  We could have possibly pushed ourselves to get it done by mid July, but to me, it wasn't worth pushing through and retaining very little just to say we did it.  We will try to pick up the second half of world history in 11^th or 12^th grade.

If we can work consistently right off the bat in the fall, the way we did this past winter and spring, we can have a good year.

I think all of us would really like a good productive year for 2007/2008.

Posted by PumpkinsMomma

hugs, I'm sorry that it was a rough year for you! I hope that next year is better!
marie