Preparing for Preparing ;)

Bubba’s books should be here Thursday. 

Bubba with his school books!

We are using HOD as our main curricula. 

I have begun preparing for Preparing.   We have had these Trapper Keeper notebooks for about 3 years now.  We re-use them every year. 

I made a cover insert for his binder in Publisher.  I blacked out Bubba’s name.

We have also had these dividers for 3 years.  I found the printable inserts for the subjects online somewhere a few years ago.  I have kept our dividers simple.  History, Science, Math, Language Arts, and Electives.

Note booking Pages for Preparing (science on the left, history on the right…all printed on cardstock double-sided) from the Yahoo group.  I am so thankful for the person who took the time and used their talent to make these pages.

We will be using notebook paper from Calvert and his binder instead of composition books.  The extra wide lines and clear border help him to write neatly and legibly.  He has dyslexia and dysgraphia.

Why I used the note booking pages but not all the other extras I found….

There were so many resources on the Yahoo group and Facebook page.  A lot of time and effort has went into making all the extras available now.  I decided to only go with the note booking sets as our extras that deviate from Preparing as written.

Bubba is an 11 year old, 5th grader.  He has completed LHFHG, BLHFHG, and part of BHFHG before we switched to a charter that used k12 for the last year and a half.  He completed 4th grade and 1/2 of 5th grade in the charter.  This was a rigorous, academic program used by the charter.   However, after a year and a half in this charter, he placed exactly where we had left off in writing skills with HOD.  This curriculum had called for writing every day in every subject, but it was heavily laden with worksheets and busy work.  He did a lot of work but his writing skills had remained stagnant.

Bubba placed in CTC in everything except writing skills.  As I drooled over all the free files for Preparing, I tried to think if it would be replacing a skill he would need for CTC or to gain writing independence.  CTC is a much more independent guide than Preparing.  This knowledge helped me to evaluate the extra resources and decide whether it would help or hinder our goal of him being independent in CTC.