After much discussion, between us we have finalised his learning plans. First we looked at his own learning goals. He wants to study for his IGCSE in maths and physics early, followed by biology and chemistry. Right now he wants to study herbalism, but that is likely to change (last year was vet science, the year before he wanted to study medicine.) He is fairly consistent though in the subjects he wants to explore to a higher level. These have always been science, science and more science, oh and maths, but that’s a given.
Based on his goals we had a look at his options for the next few years. He has decided to continue with Saxon maths. He is currently on Saxon 87 and will aim to finish Saxon Algebra 1 before embarking on a one year distance learning college based course which will guide him through his IGCSE.
With regards to physics, we are hoping he will be able to learn alongside a friend and her dad, who he just adores being taught by. We are still trying to work out the practicalities of this. He has chosen to do Apologia General Science, which he has been through fairly casually once before. This time he will be going through it thoroughly. We have been given the Apologia General Science note-book, we have the text-book, tests and also the accompanying CD Rom and also the actual text downloaded on his Ipod. We also have the experiment set which will make doing the experiments that much easier. The aim is to finish this book, move onto Physical Science and then join up with the same long distance learning college to complete a one year IGCSE physics course.
Whilst T11’s writing has come on in leaps and bounds this year, because of a diagnosed word finding problem he is likely always to find it a challenge. His spelling is probably his weakest area, and this year we have taken the decision to go through All About Spelling from the beginning, working through it at his own pace. I am hoping this spelling rule approach will be beneficial. As T11 has decided to fill in the Apologia notebook (I have never required science notes from them), we have agreed to only one or two extra (history) writing assignments each term (5 week terms). I will expect more from his notebook writing, which he has readily agreed to. I think it will be very helpful for him to learn to write succinctly yet including all the information pertinent to the question.
It will be from breakfast time until 2ish that T11 will be responsible for himself. He will need to organise his time to include his morning chores, bible study, maths corrections, maths, general science, physics and spelling.
By around 2pm each day he anticipates having finished all these and he will, at this point, come and join his twin sisters in their history learning. History has been the back bone of our homeschool for as long as we remember and we all have a great deal of fun with it. T11 was very definite that he did not want to be missing any of the history, so we have scheduled it to coincide with his own schedule so he can join us. This year we will be studying the crusades and Dante.
Last but not least he has asked for some 1-2-1 time with his littlest sister. It is very important to him to be building up relationships with them whilst they are young. He did the same with A4. To that end we have slotted in a 40 minute slot where he will be doing a bit of cooking and playing with B2, whilst building a beautiful and lasting relationship with her.
In addition to his academics he will be involved in the children’s choir, run by one of our extremely talented friends, a youth café, possible physics lessons with his friend and her dad on a Tuesday, youth group on a Thursday and he also helps out with the audio-visual at church on the nights Gary leads worship.
It looks to be a full year for him and hopefully a happy one.