A Little More Real for Honor

    After the conference Honor and I had in the last post, his planner was rearranged so he could see the top priorities were writing, math, and Adventures in the Sea and Sky. Everything else was fairly short. We changed up writing to something that would get him back in the habit of writing something daily, added Alcumus for review as needed, decided spelling would be over for this year when he finishes the 5th grade spelling book, and grammar when he finishes the current set of worksheets. Languages were reduced to small daily bites to keep vocab fresh, but not require a  lot of time.

    Yesterday Honor and I stayed up late chatting about how school is going. I shared Christopher Perrin's blog post, Classical Education-- The Best Preparation for STEM, with him, to encourage him in an uncomfortable transition in his writing curricula. (Or, having to adapt to writing daily, after a stretch of trying to tailor a "fun" writing curriculum for him, which spread it out and let him get out of the daily habit.)  Honor wasn't quite satisfied with the changes we made, and that didn't come out until we'd been chatting for some time. I nearly swoon over heart to hearts with this boy. We didn't get to bed until past 11, but it was completely worth it. <3

    Details?

• He wants to pause Spanish until 7th grade starts. He is excited about the language, and truly does want to work at it, but not right now. He's not very far into Spanish For Children A, so it wouldn't be a big deal to start all over in the fall. He'll still jump in when we work out fables and short stories on the whiteboard as a family, and occasionally play with the Standard Deviants DVDs, but nothing formal for now. Since a few family members are actively working on Spanish he'll still be around it. Green light.
• Latin is slowing way down, 10-15 minutes a day. I'd like to see him finish the book he's in, which that pace would accomplish by fall, but I get the feeling he will want to drop it entirely when Spanish returns. I'm not too certain he won't ask for this to find the chopping block sooner rather than later. I want him to get as much Latin as he can in before high school... but it's not a hill I'm willing to die on. Wait and see.
• He needed to make sure he could really be done with spelling for the year after he finishes the 5th grade book, which will be this week. Absolutely, son. Everybody has something they're "behind" in, and that's okay. We'll tackle that 6 book in seventh grade. Green light.
• And grammar too? Yes, son. That was the plan, though that was assuming he was also getting some in his language studies, which just got knocked down. Go for it. Grammar can wait. I think I'll surprise him and pull it when he finishes spelling 5. Green light.

     When spelling and grammar end, that leaves him Bible, bite-size Latin, daily writing with School Composition (vintage text by Maxwell), Adventures in the Sea and Sky (with the Older Learner guide and extra literature), and Art of Problem Solving prealgebra for the last quarter of 6th grade and into the summer. He wants to double up on Adventures, and/or go deeper into the topics on his own. That math book could certainly handle having more time to spend in it. This will give him more time to add the Civil Air Patrol materials he wants to work through too.  He's happier with the outlook. Here we go!