Assessment 2024--Mister Man

 This picture.

This picture shows a great deal about both brothers.  

This is Beowulf's enthusiasm and love pouring out on his brother.  

This is also Mister Man as the oldest brother in the family, offering love, standing guard, and desiring deeply to care for his younger brothers and sisters.

He's a care-giver.

Like his dad.

This year I'm seeing more and more effects of the trauma he's endured as a member of our family.  He's expressing more anxiety and stress than I've ever seen in him before. 

I do understand that anxiety can also be the result of adolescence, but my mother-gut is telling me this is more than typical adolescent struggles.

I've started him on a supplement that he says is helping him to feel more calm and able to sleep better.  In addition to that, Sir Walter Scott and I are working hard to help him process big feelings and understand that he is loved.

As far as academics go, Mister Man has a very easy time learning.  He's been blessed with a brain that accepts and processes information quickly.  He has moments when he acts superior to his siblings, but even as we express our love for him, we are quick to remind him that people have different strengths, and no one is better than anyone else.

He is learning compassion and patience by reading aloud to his siblings, helping them with math, and accepting help from them in areas where their strengths outweigh his.

He completed Math 6 this year and is 75% of the way through Math 7.  (Teaching Textbooks)

He has always been a voracious reader.  He still is.  He reads everything from picture books to hefty novels, from fiction to non-fiction, from light and fluffy to deeply thoughtful.

And his reading comprehension is above and beyond anything to be expected at 12 years old.

He has always liked writing, but this year, he's really taken off with writing well-organized, enjoyable narrations.  As well, he's a prolific journal-writer.

He's passionate about Pokemon.  As a result of this passion, he's developed his drawing skills far beyond where they were a year ago.  He's also exercised his memory by memorizing an astonishing number of Pokemon facts, and he's stretched his imagination by inventing new Pokemon characters.  He's spent countless hours in Pokemon battles with his siblings which has developed their critical thinking skills as they assess character strengths and weaknesses and determine the resulting wins and losses.

Mister Man is tall and gangly.  It will be very fun to see how he grows into his long limbs and big hands and feet.  Sports are not his greatest strength, but he is willing to try, and he's good-natured about wins and losses.

As with all of my younger 6 kids, the majority of our learning has come through family read-alouds. We've covered history, literature, science, social-emotional skills, and so much more.  Mister Man has participated in all of the reading with us, and he has responded with strong enthusiasm that lets me know he is successfully learning through it all.

Other family learning experiences this year have included American Rhythm, Morning Meeting, cooking lessons, and church activities.  Mister Man is an active, capable participant in all of them.

He's responsible and trustworthy . . . even if he is somewhat of an absent-minded professor.

I am proud of my oldest man-child.