How Planning Gave Me Insight Into My Son's Head

I know you are wondering how the two are related. We have decided to use Khan Academy plus occasional worksheet and real life. My son does most of the math in his head, and it drives me crazy. I'm continuously telling him use your scratch pad/scratch paper. When he does write things down, it is the bare minimum. If he is having problems, missed an answer, etc. I'm always wanting to see step by step or what he did. I tell him, "How can I help you if I don't what you steps you took?". We have never had a show down. It has been close though.

Now for the Connection. The school year, for some of us homeschoolers, starts August/September-ish. I kept seeing planning related things on my Pinterest board, my Facebook wall, and on Twitter. I was actually getting kind of annoyed. Couldn't these be seen in the parents mind? How could they not know what they were going to do? Note: For those of you who have to do it as a state requirement, you were excused from this annoyance.

Then it hit me! This is how Mini Him does his math. Talk about a major ah-ha moment. Then I thought, what if I was doing my work wrong? Then I sat down and wrote out my plans. I switched a few units around.  I feel like I have this year's and a primarily of next year's pretty much figured out.
I have a path to high school in mind. I'm also giving us lots of room to chase "rabbit trails."

Mini Him has been working on his own this week in math. I have been busy helping Mini Her get over some big math hurdles for her. I'm sitting down with him this week and seeing what he needs to master for moving up the next level. I plan to start with a discussion about how I can see what he feels/sees in his mind. Hopefully, that will help both us not be see us getting so irritated at each other.


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