All about Sebastian

So last week was Sebastian's first solid week of being homeschooled and I just want to say I am so proud of him. He has proven himself to be a responsible hardworking student and I couldn't be more impressed.

The way the system works is that we get an email from our education coordinator that includes an Excel spreadsheet of the overall goals he must achieve for our current block (March 1st to 23rd right now) it defines the breakdown of time he should be spending on the current subjects he has. 45-60 minutes of Math everyday, 400 minutes of P.E. for every 10 school days. Then we also get a Word document that has the specific lessons for him to do each day. Monday - Lesson 7 on Minerals in Science. His two main "textbooks" are actually online. There is Odysseyware for Language Arts, Vocabulary, Science etc and Aleks for Math. Now Math is a little different. Aleks is a self-adjusting tutoring system. The first thing he ever did was take a placement test. Aleks knows the 263 (or somewhere around there) standards for California 7th Grade students and it tested Sebastian in the areas of math those standards fall into, Geometry, Algebra, Fractions, Decimals etc after he completed the placement test it showed us a pie chart that was the breakdown of each area and how many of the standards he already meets. Unfortunately, he only met like 8 of them. Very scary that the teachers at Kelley were giving him a passing grade in Math when it doesn't look like he had the most basic foundation in the standards. From there Sebastian logs in each school day and chooses an area on the pie chart that he wants to work on and it tutors him, it has audio, animation, quizes, and other very helpful tools so that he can learn his skills. Periodically it will test him in all areas again, even areas he completed some time ago to make sure he is retaining the information. If he doesn't pass then the pie chart will change and he will be required to go back to previous lessons before he can move on to new stuff. Pretty darn amazing.

Sebastian gets up every morning at 6:30 am and goes straight to the computer and begins work. It's very beneficial to him that he can set his own hours. Sebastian has always been a very early riser so for him being able to dive right into schoolwork in the morning is great. By the time I get home froms taking Keegan and Maddy to school he has usually completed more than half his schoolwork. So on M-W-F he and I go to the Gym and get in an hour of cardio and soon some weight training. As a bonus his school pays for $40 of our health club membership so that it qualifies as his P.E. That works out great for me as well, because now I have a responsibility that requires me to go to the Gym. When we get home from the Gym he takes a shower and for the next few hours he is free to do whatever he wants. I try to make sure to give him a few household chores to do, sorting laundry, cleaning up his bedroom or the game area, but he also get a chance to watch the shows he Tivo's (Good Eats, Scrubs, Attack of the Show, X-play, Ace of Cakes etc) and then in the afternoon when I leave to go get Keegan and Maddy he takes another couple hours to finish off any work he may have.

I was very concerned that he and I would be arguing a lot more because I would be forced to nag him all the time to keep him on track, but that has not been the case. If anything I have to tell him to take a break so I can get on the computer and do my stuff. Of course, most importantly he is so much happier knowing he doesn't have to go to school. One thing on our list now though, is that he really does need his own computer, him and sharing just gets in me frustrated.

Now as far as socialization goes. He has the opportunity to take all kinds of special classes at the actual school. We haven't started that yet, but he is looking at the list and trying to decide which classes he wants to attend they have things like Science Labs, Piano and Guitar lessons, Weather Club, and reading events.

Sebastian will be 13 on the 18th of this month. For his birthday we already got him a 2Gb iPod Nano. He not only needed it for the Gym, but he is at that age where music is starting to really become important to him. He paid me the best compliment Friday after we got home from getting the iPod. He told me that the reason he really loved music was because of me and most of the bands he likes are bands that I have exposed him to. NOTE - exposed him to, not necessarily bands I like. Right now outside of music from video games (he loves dance remixes of classic video game themes) he seems to have a pentient for emo rock type bands like Fall Out Boy and Panic! At the Disco, Good Charlotte all bands that I've like a couple songs from, but not really liked overall as artists. Then there is the stuff we share as a family like Barenaked Ladies, Green Day, Garbage, Coldplay, Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, Black Eyed Peas. To have him tell me that he started having an interest in music because he saw how much I love it means a lot to me. It's one of those things that before we had kids I use to say, I can't wait to expose my kids to all the music I love and hopefully they will see how much music can make life better. He also listens to a lot of podacasts, far more than I do. Almost all are about the video game industry.

Lastly, there are 2 new rewards he has earned by being such a great kid and reaching age 13. First off, he really wants to start playing City of Heroes so we are in discussions about how to start letting him play. My hope was that he would have his own computer so that I could play with him at first and make sure he is capable of the social nature of the MMORPG game. The second is that he now has his own blog and as part of his curriculum I'm going to require him to start making entries as a sort of journal. Pretty soon I'll add a link to the homepage so he can share it. He wants to share with everyone the things he likes so I hop you family and friends will read it and give him some positive feedback to encourage his writing. It is one of those areas he really has to develop.

Posted by John at March 11, 2007 12:02 AM