Help

We’ve always had a CM style school. But this year, I decide to do workbooks. I went to the graduation of a friend’s child and he had been homeschooled all the way through. This child is amazing and his dad talked about how during the boy’s senior year, dad would get up at 5 in the morning to pray and find his son already up. He asked the boy, “What time do you get up?” He said, “4:30am.” His dad asked him why and the boy said that’s what he had to do to get his math done.

I thought, wow, I’m not preparing my kids for that. (My oldest DS is 10.)

So, I decided to do some ‘harder’ things.

My oldest is very smart and has always done well in math. But struggles with LA. No spelling program has worked (we’ve just started phonics zoo and that seems to help.) His handwriting is atrocious.

We did part of Simply Grammar and then I did a placement test to do ACE LA this year. He tested at 5th grade level.

So, I got him ACE workbooks for math, English, SS (what a ridiculous subect!!), science, composition/Lit. and Bible. We also have spelling and art and a coloring book for geography. Once I got all the material home, I realized it was a LOT for a 10 year old.

Last week, we dropped SS and Science because we are covering history and nature study in family read alouds. I’ve started having him narrate to me some of the other subjects versus filling in all the blanks in the workbooks.

But he just HATES his math this year.  We switched from MUS to ACE because ACE is also mastery and has a similar scope and sequence. But ACE often gives 30 or more problems on a page and they are supposed to do 3 pages a day (I did ACE in school and this wasn’t too much for me…..but he’s obviously a different child!) With my 7 year old, it seems to be working to cross out half of the problems but my 10 year old is just hating it. He complains that they are asking him to do things he already knows.

His behavior in other areas is really testing me. He’s acting silly and overall pushing all my buttons. He has a lot of signs of dyslexia but is finally taking off with reading. To me, he’s doing the traditional “smart kid who is bored with school” symptoms and I don’t know what to do.  But he also has some symptoms of ADD/ADHD.

I have 4 children and I thought CM was demanding too much of me. (I have anxiety and when they all are asking for help at once, I might have a panic attack.) I just don’t know what to do. I wanted something less teacher intensive, but I hate that he hates school!

Help!