Homeschooling/math support?

[SolarYellow]

Over the last year, my household has expanded to include a junior high school student. His mom and I feel like the schools he has attended up to now and currently are really failing.

He's getting an A in math, but absolutely lacks what we consider grade-level capability and understanding. He hasn't had math homework once this year, so we have no ability to see what he's being asked to do in class, nor how he's doing it. Everything is done and turned in electronically, so there are no graded/corrected papers to bring home and show us. When we try to supplement with any additional work or testing/checking, it's a mess. There are a bunch of issues. Some seems to be his own mental laziness/inattention to detail, there is (clearly, to me) some degree of undiagnosed something like dyslexia, and it just seems like from what we can see of the curricula, the teaching methods/presentations are remarkably inadequate.

We don't see it as clearly, but we're also concerned that the "Language Arts" curriculum is similarly deficient. We at least know he's not being asked to write anything that we would consider to be "at grade level" based on what we were doing at that point.

I'm just wondering if anyone else here has or is homeschooling kiddos, or seriously supplementing their public education in key areas like math and writing.

Let's talk about it.

 

[dhbarr]

My kiddos love these books. They play math games with each other in the car until we have to tell them to knock it off. YMMV.

https://www.lifeoffred.uniquemath.com/

 

[NTP2]

Well I’m in HS (9th) and your description is pretty much standard now. I’d say that they should have a school laptop that they do the work on so you can ask to see what they are doing, if it’s below what you expect I’d recommend having them take honors classes or AP. If you really think they have some problem like that I’d schedule a appointment with a psychologist.

Ps do they have a phone?

 

[loopy]

Overall, there's been a push to reduce the amount of homework students are given in certain subjects. Back when my kids were in school, there were weeks when I never say my kids because they'd come home and go straight to their rooms, start homework, come eat dinner, then back to homework until around midnight when they passed out. It would also be incredibly frustrating when they'd have massive homework assignments that had large point totals attached to them, but the concepts were not reinforced adequately in the classroom, meaning kids that learn differently than others are getting poor homework grades simply because they are unable to complete the homework.

All that being said, you should be able to see the curriculum and assignments your student is being given. My kids schools were using Google Classroom, and the assignments/grades were all in there, and very simple to keep track of. I would also check the school website for things like ProgressBook that provide parents the ability to log in and check grades/assignments.

 

[NTP2]

Overall, there's been a push to reduce the amount of homework students are given in certain subjects. Back when my kids were in school, there were weeks when I never say my kids because they'd come home and go straight to their rooms, start homework, come eat dinner, then back to homework until around midnight when they passed out. It would also be incredibly frustrating when they'd have massive homework assignments that had large point totals attached to them, but the concepts were not reinforced adequately in the classroom, meaning kids that learn differently than others are getting poor homework grades simply because they are unable to complete the homework.

All that being said, you should be able to see the curriculum and assignments your student is being given. My kids schools were using Google Classroom, and the assignments/grades were all in there, and very simple to keep track of. I would also check the school website for things like ProgressBook that provide parents the ability to log in and check grades/assignments.

+1 it was like that when I was in kindergarten, I remember it quite clearly, 5 sheets of math problems due tomorrow! It almost killed me!

 

[Antares JS]

Homework is the top reason why you would have to pay me a lot to go back to school. Working is so much better. The work day is over at quitting time and you can forget it until tomorrow and enjoy your evening.

If elementary school kids have to go back and continue doing homework after dinner, it's too much homework. It's important to let kids be kids while they can.

 

[Azamiryou]

Our kiddo's school is a hybrid of in-class and homeschool, and part of the public school system here. It has some of the advantages and some of the disadvantages of each.

Relevant here is that there's close coordination between teachers and families. Although much of the homeschool portion is "assigned", you can use alternate approaches to best meet your own child's needs.

In your situation, I'd aim to start a rapport with the teachers. Find out what the curriculum actually is and how the student is really doing, and try to support it at home.

For math, real world projects that are actually interesting are the best. I remember helping my nephew, and they were working on figuring out the area of arbitrary shapes. The assignment was finding the floor area of a house based on rooms. Bo-ring! He had a much easier time with it when I changed it to figuring out how much lava you need to flood the entire floor of a secret base.

 

[tsmmiller]

My son now finishing 4th grade has had zero home work in his school curriculum. I asked about it and was told the school days are structured so all lessons can be completed in class.
I've attempted to get him to expand his studies some what, with little luck. He seems to be OK in math, but just.
I looked over "The Life of Fred" and ordered the first book, "The life of Fred - Apples" to see how that pans out. He loves puzzles and drawing so maybe this will peak some interest.

 

[CalebJ]

Our kiddo's school is a hybrid of in-class and homeschool, and part of the public school system here. It has some of the advantages and some of the disadvantages of each.

Relevant here is that there's close coordination between teachers and families. Although much of the homeschool portion is "assigned", you can use alternate approaches to best meet your own child's needs.

In your situation, I'd aim to start a rapport with the teachers. Find out what the curriculum actually is and how the student is really doing, and try to support it at home.

For math, real world projects that are actually interesting are the best. I remember helping my nephew, and they were working on figuring out the area of arbitrary shapes. The assignment was finding the floor area of a house based on rooms. Bo-ring! He had a much easier time with it when I changed it to figuring out how much lava you need to flood the entire floor of a secret base.

That's the same environment my son is in. It's been a great fit for him. Still a decent bit of homework, but we have some discretion as to how that's handled. Plus it means he's not in a classroom five days a week, so that's opened up the opportunity for a day a week at 'forest school' the last few years. I'm a little jealous of that.

 

[cls]

My kids went to an elementary school that didn't believe in homework, for most topics. Most teachers agreed, 3 things require practice: math (arithmetic in those grades), music, and sports.

Kids really need to be outside, developing social, emotional, and motor skills... And not developing myopia which comes from too much close work. Report a few days ago predicts 80% ov the world population will be severely myopic in 20 years. From a natural rate of about 5% 60 years ago!

 

[SolarYellow]

I had a weird childhood. Ran around in the woods, rode bikes, climbed cliffs, trees and anything else I could get away with, built things with my hands, powered through the interesting topics in the public library, and worked hard in accelerated classes with a fair amount of homework; language, social studies, and math, and participated in sports. Worked to earn money here and there, too. Learned a lot of stuff and was pretty healthy. I don't view an appropriate amount of homework as being fundamentally in conflict with a balanced, healthy life. In fact, I can't imagine how a kid would ever do the learning they need to do without it, at least in certain subjects. As mentioned, math is one of them. English is another. Kids should be reading stuff not on a screen a lot more than there is time for in school.

 

[cerving]

Some subjects absolutely require additional outside classwork... math and literature among them. Unfortunately the Internet has made of those subjects relatively easy to skate by, but there's a point in math where you have to do the work, and there's a point at which you have to actually read the book.

I had a customer of mine call me on Sunday from a student launch, he was wondering about the behavior of his students' altimeters. Turns out that none of the students had read the manuals, or even done any kind of ground testing, which he had entrusted to them. I had to explain to him exactly what it should be doing and what it meant if it was not doing as expected. Hopefully he got this drilled into his students. I see this over and over... HS and the majority of college students just don't want to be bothered with reading the manuals. Not everything can be Googled and answered in a single sentence...

 

[NTP2]

I had a customer of mine call me on Sunday from a student launch, he was wondering about the behavior of his students' altimeters. Turns out that none of the students had read the manuals, or even done any kind of ground testing, which he had entrusted to them. I had to explain to him exactly what it should be doing and what it meant if it was not doing as expected. Hopefully he got this drilled into his students. I see this over and over... HS and the majority of college students just don't want to be bothered with reading the manuals. Not everything can be Googled and answered in a single sentence...

If it makes you feel better I bring mine to every launch I go to.

 

[SolarYellow]

I see this over and over... HS and the majority of college students just don't want to be bothered with reading the manuals. Not everything can be Googled and answered in a single sentence...

It's even worse than that. They literally just ask Siri or Alexa.

 

[NTP2]

It's even worse than that. They literally just ask Siri or Alexa.

I saw a kid in the middle of English ask her phone who benvolio was!

Ps it was today, you can’t make this up…

 

[Bravo52]

We homeschooled our children through HS. At 15 yrs old, we gave them the option of continuing to Homeschool or go to public/private school. I thank the good Lord every day they both asked to keep homeschooling. They have since both graduated college (BS and MS) and the best part is I didn't have to pay for it! No loan moaning either.

Anyone can homeschool. Even with no college education or specific training. There are endless amounts of support and direction available just for the asking. You can start with something like the "Home School Legal Defense Association" website for some great information.

If you have a specific question, I'd be happy to answer anything you might think of.

 

[mh9162013]

And not developing myopia which comes from too much close work.

It's not just an issue of close work, but being inside a lot and not getting enough exposure to sunlight. Source

 

[DEmery]

Back in the day we homeschooled our oldest for a few years. We used some classes from Stanford online to help us. I am sure there is a lot more available now, especially since a lot of schools were closed for a long time after COVID.

 

[tsmmiller]

Last Saturday the copy of the first book "Life of Fred - Apples" arrived.
Sunday my son sat down with it, took a look at it and that was it. So I thought.
I came home yesterday and met him at the bus, on the way inside he brought out his copy of the book and was all excited about how no one at school
had heard of it before.
I just told him he needs to start working on it and then we will talk about it! " I am already on chapter six!"
Well, OK then!
Last night at bed time, I told him it was time for lights out. "Can I just finish chapter eight first?"
"Sure! Then lights out ok?" 30 minutes later I check on him and he is half way into chapter nine.
Thanks dhbarr! I finally found something that he enjoys enough to forgo the ipad and cell phone videos he spends his time with!
I will be ordering the remainder of the 1st set soon.