Wednesday, October 26, 2011

My kids are Geeks--- and we LOVE it.

One of the things I love about homeschooling is that it is cool to be smart and it's okay to be a little geeky!  In the past week, I've watched my kids dancing and jamming to the Articles of Faith, laughing hysterically over an Oxygen video, playing math games for hours (drilling facts is much more fun when it's animated), and having a blast building a solar system. We've started putting together a blog with just the fun school stuff that they want to show off. You can link to it here.

Tonight Ryan decided that he wanted to learn about logrithams. So he did. Yeah, Khan Academy because I didn't have a clue! After he watched a couple videos, his response was, "Oh, these are easy. It's just exponents in reverse."   Okay, glad you think so. :)

The other day he was holding Cumorah and she was crying and I told him just to dance with her. His response was "I don't dance. I don't want to dance with a girl." I responded, "Someday dancing with girls will be cool." His response, "I'd rather stay home and do algebra."

So now, I'm going to do a bit of mom bragging, so feel free to skip this part. :)

Ryan is 11 and is taking Algebra for high school credit. He loves it and is flying through the course. He will probably finish the entire years worth by Christmas. (There is an online component that makes sure he has mastered every concept and he's finished 75% already.)  The virtual charter school just tested him and Jeanisha. Most of his scores were in the gifted range and math was off the charts. His "weak" areas were spelling and editing, but on his writing, when spelling didn't count against him, he scored grade level 13.  Spell check is his friend! We will be having him do "single subject acceleration" in most subjects to keep him challenged and engaged, but not graduating too early. The charter school will pay for college level classes when he reaches that point.

Jeanisha also tested really well scoring over a year ahead on almost everything and at 4th grade level for math. Over 130 is considered gifted and she scored 153 on the math part! She is convinced she will catch her older brothers! She is 6 and doing multiplication and division in her head. Her strongest area is story problems!

I love that each of the kids can move at their own pace and not have to waste time reviewing over and over. I also love the ton of free online resources that can pick up when they pass me by. :) I also love that when they do struggle with something, we can keep working until they "get" it,