Assessment 2024-25: Baymax

 It's hard to believe my "babies" are 10.  

When did 10 change from a big kid to a baby?

This baby of mine, though, is no baby any more.  He's an opinionated, stubborn, bright, and capable boy who alternately makes us laugh with delight and scream with frustration.

Math

Baymax completed Teaching Textbooks Math 5.  He does not love math, and he's frequently angry at his lessons, but he masters the material.

Morning Meeting

Baymax was an active participant in all of our Morning Meetings.  He read, sang, answered questions, memorized scriptures, and contributed spiritual insights to our daily lessons.  He also challenged our music conducting activities to the max!  He hates leading music, and he barely cooperates under duress with following my instructions.   At this time, he has not actually learned any music conducting skills, but at least he's been exposed to them!

What Baymax does do well is family and church history.  He is full of curiosity about history, and he applies it to our Morning Meeting discussions.  He reads family and church history book on his own, and I can turn to him for answers to questions the rest of us have.  

He loves facts.

He remembers facts.

Evening Reading

Baymax loves evening reading, but he thinks it would be even better if we just sat around reading our own books to ourselves each night.  

Initially, he hates every new book.

By the time we finish them, he's one of the most ardent defenders of why that book was one of the best we've ever read.

He remembers characters, plots, and general book facts.  He asks questions about history and science that we come across in our reading, requiring that I stop reading to look up answers to his questions.  He learns vocabulary quite well from our reading together.

He's good for us all.

American Rhythm

Baymax danced in my Stripes class.  He does not like American Rhythm, and he would like very much to stop dancing, but I require it because it is a) affordable for our family, b) good for his social development, and c) service to the community.  He grudgingly participates in rehearsals, but he really does put an effort into the shows.  

And the elderly people he talks with love him for his innocent face.

Everything Else

I based our Kid School time on The Peaceful Press Playful Pioneers 2.  

And we followed it beautifully for a month, then we simplified in the second month, then we simplified further for the rest of the year.  Ultimately, we followed the history reading with pretty good faith. 

We did quite a few written narrations to add some power to our daily oral narrations.

Then we added Shakespeare Stories for a little bit of fun.

     *King Lear

     *Twelfth Night

     *The Taming of the Shrew

I needed history to be less literature-based and more straight-forward for my crew so we made our way all the way through The Story of Science: Newton in the Middle.  In the spring semester, we added brief lessons from The Golden Book of Natural History. 

As with history, we did daily oral narrations and occasional written narrations.

As part of the Playful Pioneers 2 plan, we memorized all 50 states and capitals over the course of the school year.  Baymax is a good memorizer!  We also did a few mapping activities.

A few times we did Rod and Staff grammar lessons from the Level 2 book.

When we got adventurous, we turned to  Under the Home for enrichment. We explored 

     *Art Appreciation

     *Studio Art  (we did one or two Art for Kids Hub lessons, too)

     *Geography

     *Music Appreciation

For a couple of months, we did a great job heading out for weekly hikes. Then we shifted to working on Couch to5K training.  Baymax is a faithful little trainer!  At first he could barely keep up with me, but it was only a matter of 2-3 weeks before his strong little body could outpace me easily.  When I hurt my ankle and switched to walking, he walked with me for some time, then decided to return to running on his own.  I would watch him jog around the park from my own place on the trail, grateful for his dedication.

Back in the late summer, he participated in our 5 week homeschool soccer "league."  Baymax  mostly liked it because the kids are separated into age groups, and he can play with kids his own size.

On His Own

Baymax loves all weapons.  He loves to play with toy weapons, study real weapons, and draw weapons of past invention and of his own invention.  

He's my only boy to be so interested in weapons.

He can usually be found nose deep in a book.  I truly have to force him outside for "at least 30 minutes" or else he'd spend all day reading.  

It's a good problem to have. :)

He's also very interested in sports, but he wishes he had "someone closer to his own size to play with."  The other three boys have only 13 months separating all of them, and Baymax is a full two years younger.  They've all hit adolescent growth spurts, and he hasn't.  He's always included, but he has to work hard to keep up with the not-so-gentle-giants he plays with most of the time.

For a while this past year, Baymax wrote poetry.

Of his own volition.

And he's an avid journal-keeper.

Looking Forward

Baymax will complete the year ahead as his 5th grade year.  He's perfectly capable of the work . . . the question will be whether I am a good enough teacher to inspire him to do it!