Mt. Pleasant Classical Academy

Mark’s new skates came in, the new ones from a different company then the ones we waited and waited and waited and waited for.  This company, WeberSports Inline Skates  went out of their way to take parts from several other skates to make the skate just the way Mark wanted them made.  Great customer service, great guy to talk to.

Mark was quite happy with the boot fit, it showed.  He asked Michael to go skate around the neighborhood with him a few times.  He looks good on them and really didn’t need adjustment time.  The wheels are 110mm verses the 84mm he’s been on so he looks taller, they roll faster and I’m told the skate is more difficult to turn.  OK, if you tell me that.

Michael is feeling that he lacks time management skills and it is hurting him.   I agree.  We visited a few time management websites and he quickly answered NO to all their—do you track what you have done? do you list your tasks?  do you use short time periods, 50 - 90 min, for your work?….. He isn’t interested yet in working on these though.    What’s the saying, half of conquering a problem is realizing it is a problem.  We’ve made lots of progress then.   His AP English & Composition workload is heavy and he’s having trouble deciding what to say and then writing it quickly.  Tonight he finished his 1200 word essay.  I’m glad he’s taking this course from someone who knows the subject, can give him appropriate assignments, and advise him on how to improve.    He’s enjoying the course though and getting a wide variety of essays to write.  His other three AP courses are demanding quite allot of his time too so he feels he is in a constant balancing act.   History and Great Books will probably be the focus of Thanksgiving Break and Christmas Break.

For math this week Mark and I worked on adding and subtracting, multiplying and dividing mixed fractions.  Details.   By week’s end he was tracking the negative signs most of the time, remembering to convert a mixed fraction to an improper fraction before multiplying or dividing, remembering to ‘flip’ the fraction when dividing so that he could now multiply, but was still forgetting/avoiding to simplify that improper fraction by crossing-out common divisors before multiplying.   We’re getting there though.  Whatever it takes, one-on-one,  we’ll get there someday.   For the third week in a row he wrote a history report!  This week it was on Magellan, last week was Christopher Columbus and the week before Amerigo.  He’s also enjoying the Singapore ‘O’ Chemistry textbook.  That’s their high school level chemistry book but the writing is simple and my non-science kid is enjoying it.