St Gabriel Windows

St Gabriel Windows
Photocopy c. 2013 Jamie Laubacher

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

More wonderful curriculum…

I have a “wish-list” of curriculum finds for the upcoming year.  While we've utilized Mother of Divine Grace, and have two graduates from Modg, what I have always liked about this home study program is their flexibility and that all the religion and history and literature is integrated.  So, I am able to adapt some areas to fit my child.  Children with disorders and challenges seem to do better with some areas adjusted, one such area is oftentimes the simple adjustment of a work-text, rather than than using a separate notebook and a textbook they have to keep going back and forth to.  While this method works fine for most average children, it can be a total frustration to those with special circumstances.  For this reason, I have kept my oldest son in the Abeka math program (7th grade for him now) as it is not only excellent math and accelerated which is perfect for him, it is a workbook form and helps him move swiftly through his lesson with no fuss of a separate notebook to write in – he can write right in the book.
So having a friend give me a tip on this little gem, was wonderful….Emma Serl’s Primary Language Lessons, a reprint of old – good old fashioned grammar lessons.  This version is the same only put in workbook format for children who do better just writing into the source.  This will be great for Mark who has that motor coordination delay …but whom I wish to have a quality standard of work…this is perfect because it does not dumb-down the content, it just makes it more physically comfortable for children who need it.
So far these two boys have done excellent work considering their disorders (OCD/anxiety, and Autism Spectrum, respectively).  But treating their difficulties was the biggest step to doing well in school. Both have scored in the upper 90ieth percentile on their standardized testing, so I’m pleased they have followed the brother and sister before them who on college board tests scored perfect scores in a couple different categories.  Ok, our daughter scored one point off of perfect in the English/grammar section of the ACT, getting a 35 instead of 36.  lol!  Yes, she said she knew exactly what question it was and that it was an eraser mess up!  so it left a smudge and misread her answer....but she isn’t so much of a perfectionist she needed to do a re-take  :)

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