Homeschool Update

Alex has shown a lot of improvement over the past week, at least in the amount of effort he's willing to put into his work. I know that he has a lot of trouble with studying. He just doesn't understand how to do it. I, personally, never had to put much effort into learning stuff at his age: things came kinda naturally. So, even though I can teach the 'stuff', I'm not great at teaching how to get the 'stuff' into the head. This past week, Vicki has been working with Alex to help him learn methods for doing this. I know I didn't do much of what she had to do, because she and Alex have been spending many hours together, going over material for Alex to learn. He has done much better on some of the re-tests I have given him, even the science test I had make up from scratch. I hope this trend continues. I'm going to help it along by limiting, even more, everyone's "electronics" time at home. I already try to limit their electronics, but hopefully less time in front of video games should give everyone more time in front of books.

On another note, Alex attended his first meeting at our volunteer fire department last night. As he submitted his application to become a Junior Volunteer, they asked him if he'd like to stay for their bimonthly (semimonthly? twice a month. I always get those two prefixes mixed up. so much for my learning stuff without studying...) fireman's meeting. Naturally, he stayed. I guess all went well, because when Vicki picked him up, he was in the middle of a crowd of volunteers, looking like he already belonged. Plus, they all said, "See ya next meeting", as he left. They still need to vote on his membership, but that seems to be only a minor formality. I still have no idea what a Junior Volunteer does, but I know he won't be going on any emergency calls. He's allowed to hang around the firehouse and, I guess, begin learning about what the volunteers do, and helping out around the station. The fire chief also told me Alex may be allowed to go on non-emergency calls (no clue what that would be: maybe a house fire, or brush fire, or something) where he could help the firemen in the background, getting them drinks and stuff.

I had my doubts about adding something else, like this, to his schedule, but, like with SSPP, it's something he's getting more and more excited about all the time. Maybe it'll be some motivation to get, and keep, his grades up. I also think it's the kind of thing where he can put in as much, or as little, time as he can manage. We also have another surprise for him coming up soon that I can't mention because he might read this. I'll bring it up later, and let you what it is and how it went.