Grade 7 - This WAS the plan for Week 1

This is what I had planned for our first week, but Ham is unable to write and I think this is way too much work for him, after having been unstructured for a year. I didn't want to lose this so I am going to publish it.


Math

We are starting with Order of Operations. He is to watch the Introduction to Order of Operations video on YouTube and complete the Basic Order of Operations worksheets on Math Worksheets 4 Kids.

Yes, all 9 worksheets. 

The great thing about these worksheets - they come with an answer key. I'm going to try them before peeking.

Language Arts

In the beginning, I am going to focus a lot on taking notes on short written pieces. This week, he is evaluating three different methods of note taking:

• Cornell method
• T charts
• Two column (split page) - This is very similar to T charts but I love the extra detail it provides regarding what to actually put in your space

He has three short pieces to read and take notes on:

• Environmental Adaptations of the Desert Tortoise (linked in the Scholastic page for T charts above)
• New Dinosaur Found in Minnesota
• Major Flooding in Louisiana

I'm trying to use this as a way to expose him to current events and in the future I will look for articles related to his interests.

Social Studies

It's election year, so we are focusing on the U.S. Government. There are some great lesson plans on the iCivics website. This week, we are focusing on Foundations of Government. There are five lessons in the unit, with information and activities. 

Science

This is where things get sticky. We are both huge science geeks with short attention spans. Normally, we are all into earth science and astronomy. The plan right now is to do life science, but I have a feeling we are going to jump around a lot. The first thing we are doing is Cell Biology. I'm actually using the DiscoveryK12 curriculum as a guide, along with supplemental materials. I found a great lesson plan for cell biology from Bemidji State University just by Googling "grade 7 cell biology."

And that is pretty much all we are going to do for the first week. We are also going to re-watch Stranger Things on Netflix and I'm desperately trying to find a way to make a unit study out of it. I watched the show and fell in love with it. Ham isn't much of a tv show watcher but I convinced him to give it a try and I got a wonderful middle of the night text message:

And later that afternoon, I got another message. Beware, minor spoilers.

You've been warned. If you have not seen the awesomeness that is...

...turn back now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yes, we are totally make this show into a homeschooling unit.

Off to a rocky start

We were all set to start September 5. I had a wonderful first week planned. Then my son injured his dominant hand enough to require surgery and it will be out of commission for another month or so. I scrambled to find something he would do on the computer and through discussion with me. I found some interactive math here, so we could do a quick review of 6th grade stuff. He couldn't remember some of it so he only completed half of what I assigned the first week, and I ended up pushing the second half to our next week so I could review with him. I gave him some vocabulary words to define and put into sentences. Honestly, I didn't even care if he copied and pasted the definitions. He really struggled with the sentences, claiming not to know how to put stuff into sentences. I think he was just being lazy. We went through each word together, discussed the definitions, and I provided examples of how each would be used until he could put together a sentence. This was not fun for either of us. There has to be a better way to do vocabulary.

We are taking very small baby steps with his note taking. We are starting with a two-column method that I found. I can't remember where I found it, but here is the template I use for him:

I printed out some very short articles relevant to his interests and we are doing them together for a while, reading the articles and talking about each paragraph as he makes his notes. Again, he got through half of what I had planned. 

So Week 2 is just going to be completing the rest of Week 1. And we are going to add P.E. this week. We're going to start taking walks, because we both need to be more active.

This shit is hard, yo.

Grade 7 - Getting Organized

So we took a year off to unschool and it was blissful. Ham learned a lot (like how dogs are neutered) and mastered his YouTube channel. I was okay with no formal learning. He did take an end of year test, as required by our state, and did very well.

This space is more for me to keep track of what I'm doing, the resources I've found, and to pretty much talk to myself. Because I am much more creative when I have someone to talk to and no one else finds me interesting.

So we are kicking things off on Labor Day. Yes, I know it's a holiday but I am actually on vacation for the whole week (my first vacation since starting my new job 18 months ago) and I want to take advantage of that time to set the tone and lay out the expectations. Originally, I wanted everything to be done on the computer but I've realized, in my countless hours of piecing together curriculum, that it just isn't feasible. I don't want to buy packaged curriculum because I want to tailor the content to my son's strengths and interests. That's not to say we aren't going to work on areas that need improvement. Indeed we are, and right out of the gate.

This year, I've decided to dedicate one day per week to a subject:

Monday - Math
Tuesday - Language Arts
Wednesday - Specials (Art, Music, PE)
Thursday - Social Studies (History, Civics, whatever you want to call it)
Friday - Science & Technology (my day off every week so we can really have some fun!)
Weekends - Life Skills (Finance, Health, Housekeeping - all the miscellaneous things I want to make a conscious effort to teach him)

Since Ham has some organizational issues, I bought a 5-subject notebook and two folders - one for work he needs to do, one for completed work. I've stocked up on toner for my laser printer. As much as possible, I will have his readings available online (usually in Google Docs so he can easily print them out) or on his Kindle Fire. And I will print what I can, especially math worksheets and short stories or news articles, especially in the beginning. One thing I absolutely need to focus on with him is note taking and synthesizing information he reads, sees, or hears. It was always one of my weaknesses in school, and I struggled a lot in college when it came time to write papers and prepare presentations. I still kind of suck at it.