Our homeschool situation is very laid-back, because he enjoys most of the work so much. The only thing that is a little like pulling teeth is to get him to physically write. He can write, but it’s not enjoyable for him and he gets bored with it quickly. I think I’m going to try focussing more on typing until he feels more comfortable spelling words. Maybe after he’s more comfortable spelling, writing won’t seem so daunting. He’s a total perfectionist and won’t dare attempt a word he doesn’t know for fear of being wrong.
His brain is so math-centric anyway. He’ll play Yahtzee for hours if he has someone to play with. I usually make him tally my scores as well as his own. He has free reign of the refrigerator door with his dry-erase markers, and fills them up with math problems. He’s cracked the code of high-number addition, so it’s not uncommon to see “35,947 + 55,830 = 91777” in Kindergarten scrawl.
And, anything hands-on, he’s all over. We’ll lay on the hood of my car with Google SkyMap and figure out the names of all the planets, and find constellations, and then come inside and draw what we saw. If I can ever figure out this telescope thing (I seem to be having issues with condensation) we’ll start getting closer views. He loves watching the ants in the ant farm, and mixing colours with food colouring and water, and adding up coins to see how much money is in his hand.
I’m a little bit blessed with a kid that actually likes to think.
My school board requires only that I keep a portfolio of our activities, samples of his work showing his progress, and have that portfolio reviewed by a certified teacher once a year. So, I keep a journal and a folder of his stuff, and he has a two journals – one for daily whatever, and one astronomy-specific.