Plans for Mr. Scarecrow...

I guess it's only fair, since I put out a huge long post yesterday about Ms. Artsy, that I post today about what we'll be doing with the boy for next year.  I'm hesitant to label him with a grade, just because technically, he'll be going into the 8th grade.  But I'm not really sure that after next year, he'll be ready for high school.  Especially with his writing.  I could be wrong; a lot of people do a lot of growing up in a short amount of time.  So, we're kind of playing it by ear.  He's sort of 7th sort of 8th grade, and depending on his abilities at the end of this year, we will "take a year" to sort of hone those abilities, or he'll be moving on to 9th grade.  So, with that in mind, here are my tentative plans for Mr. Scarecrow, somewhere around the 8th grade.

History -

We'll continue along using Story of the World.  He'll be in volume 4 next year, so he's perfectly lined up for 8th grade, to start over in 9th with Ancients.  (if we end up taking an additional year, it will be a more intensive American History/Texas History course than what we did this year).  We're still working on his writing, so basically, we do our best to follow TWTM suggestions with reading, outlining what we read, trying to rewrite in our own words from our own outline, etc.  Like I said, we're still working on all that.

I have a few links to websites that deal with this time period that will be useful for next year, as well.

Khan Academy 1700-1900
1900-present

Math -

Math will be prealgebra.  If there is one thing he's not falling behind in, it's math.  I guess he'll be my STEM kid, and we'll just spend our time making sure he can write.  Somewhat. 

Saxon prealgebra 1/2 with the videos
Life of Fred prealgebra 1 and 2 - just an added "fun" element, not a full curriculum, but a different approach than the "boring" textbook math
Khan Academy
Jousting Armadillos - This one seems to be the kind of quirky, out of the box thing that he needs to pick up learning.  He's not "learning", he's having fun reading a story!  I don't know, this kid... he's my struggle.  If I suggest it, he doesn't want to do it.  If it's obviously supposed to teach him something, he's not going to get it.  But if it's through his own devices and his own readings and meanderings, he'll figure it out and blow everyone out of the water with his wit and knowledge.  He kills me. 

English/Literature -

Sigh.  I don't even know.  I mean, I have ideas, but I don't know what will work with this child.  I've tried everything, all the way to starting from the beginning and working through progressively faster.  If it's too easy for him, he's bored.  But if it's too hard for him, he completely shuts down.  There's a fine line to finding what will grow his mind and challenge him without making him give up.  My plan for next year includes reading pertaining to the time period in history, literature evaluation of that reading, and then for grammar and writing, I"m trying something new. 

Analytical Grammar
Beyond the Book Report

We'll be using the Three Year scheduling, hopefully this is "slow" enough as not to bombard him with the trivial bits of learning the English language, but also will make him competent enough to pass any college English class that is so required for him to get that engineering degree. 

Life of Fred - This is new.  As far as I can tell, it just came out this year.  It *says* it's geared for high school, but from my understanding of the reviews, it is considered "remedial" high school by those who know more than I.  They say, it would be a good "refresher" that is fun and entertaining.  Sounds like right up Mr. Scarecrow's alley; a "fun" read that somehow sneaks in teaching?! I'm game.

Science -

So, I could be way off base here, but I have a feeling this is going to be his "thing" this next year.  He'll be doing physics; we usually use elemental science for our science, but 1) she's not going to have the logic stage physics ready in time and, 2) I've read some reviews (which I should know because we use it, but sometimes you can't see what's right in front of you) about how "dry" the curriculum is.  Read an excerpt.  Outline or summarize what you read.  Vocabulary, and a lab/experiment that may or may not correlate to what you read about this week.  Rinse, repeat.  It didn't seem that bad to me, but if others who are science inclined find it boring, then maybe I'm killing any spark in Mr. Scarecrow.  So, we're going to use this year to sort of go off the rails, do a little exploring while sticking with the same subject matter.  I found these Unit Studies from Intellego:

Physics
Electricity and Magnetism
Light and Sound

I also found other NUMEROUS links to sites with physics information, so we should have plenty to go on.

Berkeley Webcast
CK-12 physics book
The Happy Scientist (we just renewed our yearly subscription for $10!)
Khan Physics
MIT/K12 Physics via Khan
MIT Open Courseware Physics I
MIT Open Courseware Physics II
MIT Open Courseware Physics III
HippoCampus Physics
The Great Courses: Physics in your life
Physics for Superheros
Alice in Quantumland
The Wizard of Quarks
UofV Physics
Physics for Poets: thread with a helpful list of a way to do "living books" physics that might give me some insight to a few read alongs in science.

Obviously, I don't expect to be able to do all of this for science.  But, it's kind of like teaching a baby to talk; you don't speak in baby gibberish.  You speak like an adult, and as they get a little bit older and more fluent, you gently make corrections.  This is just exposing his "baby speak" to "adult speak", so to speak.  Most of this will be for "fun", a read or a video to watch.  Nothing that will be tested on; but maybe going over his head will somehow make the here and now stuff easier to get through.  I don't know if I'm making this all up or if it's actually a thing lol.

So, let's see, we've got History, Math, Science, and Language Arts.  We'll probably continue vocabulary with English from the Roots Up 2.  Latin will be Visual Latin 2.  I'm contemplating adding Greek, but I've learned with him to start slow and make sure he can do the basics before adding lots of extra fluff.  We have some ideas about extracurriculars that involve a very popular game by the name of Minecraft.  We're also seriously considering reentry into Kung Fu, like his sister, because there needs to be some kind of movement based time going on. 

I don't know, I guess that's it.  It doesn't feel like a lot when I write it out, but I know we're going to be spending a lot of time in English drilling those basics and getting him to the point of, as so eloquently stated in this thread on TWTM forums:

spend the entire 8th grade year struggling to begin to learn how to:

-Write a short well-organized expository paper
-Produce work that has a heading and date, is legible, has full sentences that actually answer the questions, and isn't half question marks
-Use an assignment book to keep track of one's assignments
-Make and use some sort of study guides
-Show one's work in math (math becomes complicated enough that one needs to show the work now)
-Type