So every once in a while priorities need to be adjusted, which is why I haven't been 'around' much lately.

Sam has always been a good student. He still is. But it seems that he has had some difficulty with his math class from the beginning of the year. Now, I knew he didn't like the teacher's style. He said that the first week. But what I didn't know was that he was finding it difficult to follow him and was getting behind because he hadn't been doing the math homework. Apparently he felt overwhelmed and just didn't do it. I had asked him more than once about his math homework, but he told me he either didn't have any or he had done it in study hall. Didn't feel right to me, but Sam learns the hardway. So his mark in math (which is 8th grade math, he is in 7th grade) for the first half of the marking period was a D. so we figured out where is issues were and have been working on correcting them. That takes time and attention. With Sam, who has ADHD, it takes a lot of time and attention on my part.

So today he came home and told me he got a 92 on his math test. The next highest grade in the class was 62. Most of the grades were in the 40's. I am very proud of him. He took his D as a serious warning and has made extra effort to do better.

I'm also pleased that he has been willing to put a little more effort into his writing assignments for English While Sam may have inherited my imagination, he did not inherit my love of writing. To him, writing is a chore to be completed with as little effort as possible. If 5 sentences are required for a paragraph, he will count them. I have told him for years that he needs to stop focusing on things like that and just tell the story. I THINK he may be getting the idea. More or less.

He has recently had two writing assignments that he has actually worked hard on. *laughs* Ok, yes, I made sure he did. But despite what Scott tried to imply the other night, I did not tell him what to write. What I did was prod him into thinking about what he was writing and think about how words were used to convey meanings. I let him use my laptop and use Word because he really hates the physical act of writing and Word makes it easier for him to edit. Without Word, his first thoguht is what he keeps--since he is too lazy to erase and re-write. The end results were pretty good and really reflect his own style and his growing willingness to put a little more effort into his creataivity. So....i will play the good dad and post my little boy's (the little boy who is now 12 and outweighs me and is nearly as tall as I am) two stories here. Could be worse, I could be postinng pictures

This one was for one of those horrid assigments where you have to use all the vocabulary words. I always hated those:

My Cursed Story

 

I didn