So Far in week 2

The week began with an apology for Friday, a sincere one. "I'm really hard to wake up," he said. Really? I must have rang that doorbell 110 times, knocked endlessly, and called 20 times. More like freakin' impossible.

We moved on the the spelling quiz that we should have taken Friday. Not too long into the quiz, it was obvious that he hadn't studied all of it, but some of it. He did improve: he went from getting 25 of 106 correct to getting 60 of 106 correct. And on some of the ones he got incorrect, he still improved the spelling from the previous quiz, if that makes any sense. While this one's unfortunately for a daily grade (which there will be plenty of to even it out), I decided to give him a second chance and we'll retest on Friday.

I also began his vocabulary for the SAT; We'll start with 15 words a week, then move up to 20 once he starts getting used it. I'll give him the words on Monday, a few minutes to make the flash cards, then a quiz the following Friday.

About at this point, I realized how focused he was. He took the quiz very seriously, listened through my plans for the week, and quickly made his flash cards. It's almost like he was trying to make up for Friday. Feeling good about things, I decided to move on to the next task we should have done Friday: a writing assignment. For this, we changed scenery and went to a nearby Starbucks, where everyone goes to write (I made a reference to the Family Guy joke here, he got a good laugh out of it). We ordered our drinks and chose a seat outside. I began going over chapter 2 of the St. Martin's Guide, a college book of mine I'm using as our writing guide. As chapter 2 is over remembering events, we started talking about which event to choose. He finally landed on writing about a place we'll call "Youth Home." He began telling me these terrible stories about all of the things he went through there; how he was sedated, transported in handcuffs, and basically locked in a padded room for the majority of the time. Every once in a while he would just get a blank look on his face.

"What are you thinking?" I asked him.

"I just haven't thought about this stuff in a long time. I'm gonna get flashbacks tonight."

"Write about it. It will help you get it out." So he did. We worked on some of the storyline, how to begin and end, and how to paint a picture with his words. He wrote a couple of pages before it was time to go.

Of course, I asked him to work on it a little that night, and of course, when I came in the next day nothing had been done. No worries, we had other things to accomplish. We did a quick fractions review, which he paid attention to and learned quickly. He did the problems in one sitting. We moved on to Food and Nutrition, which took forever because of the nature of the subject matter. I lectured a bit on the balcony about general nutrition facts, we went through some questions, and came to an exercise where we had to analyze food commercials for their content. I thought, perhaps incorrectly, that if we found food commercials on the internet, this would go faster. Hah. We ended up watching TV for the commercials, but not before we found these gems on the internet and died laughing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDAr48u3BB0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjt5qUcWGUI

We had more Nutrition we could work on, but he was burnt out on it. I gave him the option of doing more math... and he took it! So we did more fraction review and more problems. It was already time to go. I asked him if he would "pretty please" work on his writing assignment, which I would like to be complete by Thursday.

Lo and behold, I come in on Wednesday, and he is sitting at the table writing. He hadn't done much, but it was something. Turns out "pretty please" might work? I was so glad, because I had some plans for the day he would love. This day, we would start a new lesson in the nutrition workbook: hands-on cooking. We went through the lesson, made a plan, made a list, and went shopping at Central Market. He loved it. By the end of the day, we had learned new fruits, how to choose them, how to cut them up, how to measure, the food pyramid, how to plan a meal, and so much more. We ended up with homemade cheeseburgers, chocolate chip cookies, and asparagus and broccolini for dinner, served as a surprise to his sweet grandmother. We then got to chat over our hard work about all sorts of things; it was lovely.

So far, this week is looking fabulous. Thursday and Friday? We'll see.