Stars, sentences and Master Chief?

Knowing what to do next, is always proving itself to be a bit of a challenge to me. I am by no means an autonomous educator, simply allowing Ethan to direct himself, because if I did adopt that stance he would simply direct himself towards his bedroom, switch on the xbox and direct himself around the virtual world of Halo. Not an education as far as I am concerned. So to some extent, I have to plan out his education.

I try not to swamp him with textbooks and the like, because I think that is one step too far, and to be honest, is too much of a strain on me to keep up. However, I do try to make sure there is enough for him to chose from in various subjects which I believe is going to be beneficial to him.

Recently we did some English work.

He loves to write stories and create storyboards, but his approach is often haphazard and not always easy to read, so we worked on that for a while. Structure and presentation - basic stuff really, and probably way behind what he would be doing at school, but things which I think have been neglected thus far.

Schools seem intent on moving on from one thing to the next at a pace which not only on the outside but also very much on the underside, is too fast for anyone to possibly keep up with. Consequently, things are missed. Ethan had problems at primary, mainly behavioural in the beginning, but this obviously had a knock on effect with his academic progress. But the school pushed on and and applied the praise where it was needed most - usually at any piece of work which was actually 'worked' on and completed. The finished article was never foremost in their minds. Simply getting it done, was all that mattered.
As a result of this, Ethan pays very little attention to his spelling and presentation, and punctuation is very much an after thought.

Sentence structure came as a complete surprise to him, and the concept of paragraphs was met with equal astonishment.

So, anyway, now that we have worked on such things, he can produce a piece of written work which actually reads sensibly and coherently.

Whilst I appreciate all the work the primary school put in to making Ethan partially what he is today, I do wish they had worked a little harder on the finer points of his education, rather than simply wanting him to be able to sit down for five minutes and scrawl out a piece of work,which they then told him was perfect...when it quite clearly wasn't.

Ethan himself now realises that quite a large portion of what he should have been doing was missing from his education. This actually caused him some upset, and at one point I was close to having him shut down completely on me because of it.
I think the term 'all best intentions' comes into play here. A little less patting on the back, and a little more cracking the whip (so to speak) might have produced a more rounded education as a whole I think.

Anyway, we muddle on and tackle things head on with gusto.
As you may be able to tell from the change of appearance, we are moving onto subjects pertaining to the universe and such like. It's a full moon at the moment so we'll start with that, studying it's path etc. Trusty binoculars at the ready, graph paper and star charts at hand, and into the unknown we go!

(seriously, planetary studies are an absolute favourite of ours so neither of us can wait to get stuck in).


Loz