School's Out

Xavier had his last day of middle school on Friday. He's excited for high school but I have to wait for his math grades to arrive to see what we're doing for the summer. The schools here do not offer a summer school option so it will be a home school math class. My goal is to get him into the next level of math for his freshman year of school.
My dad suggested a math learning disability called Dyscalculia. We've looked at his test scores and they aren't bad - he stays in the acceptable range but his class performance has steadily decreased over the last 3 years with his final semester at 43%. This means something is happening in the classroom that makes math difficult for him. He has hopes that he aced his math final because it will bump him up to a passable grade but it doesn't solve the problem. He's had 2 different teachers so it's not the teachers or the teaching style since we addressed that last year.
He doesn't like the math classes but he's capable.
One solution I have come up with is the home schooling programs. Legally they should meet the requirements of his math classes and allow him to choose something else to fill that time slot in school. Because he has a special education class, he loses one of his electives. By home schooling math he could have an elective back. The problem is getting Xavier to co-operate. I don't mind arguing with the school or fighting for his right to be home schooled in math - it's getting Xavier on board with doing math at home.
Back to the Dyscalculia. One of the major symptoms of the disability is the inability to recognize groups of items and their numbers. Meaning that normally a person can tell there are 3 apples on the table without counting them, a person with Dyscalculia can not. We quizzed Xavier and he didn't have a problem. In fact he was very exact with his answers. We wanted something more ballpark and he gave us exact.
In testing him, I remembered that when he was little he loved to do math in the car while on trips. I would give him simple math problems and he would try to answer them as fast as he could. So his basic math skills are fine but that Algebra is kicking his butt.
Aside from math, Xavier has quite a few plans for the summer. If the weather ever improves there will be lots of swimming. Today got a little nice but not nearly warm enough for the outdoor pool. We'll take him to the indoor pool this evening while Rob and I go to the gym.
Xavier hopes to finish his requirements for his Eagle Scout rank. He zoomed through all the requirements to get to Life and then stalled on Eagle. The biggest part of the Eagle rank is a project. Xavier had a great project in mind but it was far larger than he could really manage (and kept getting bigger). His new scoutmaster has an easy project for him and if it all works out he will have it done by the 4th of July.
Xavier isn't really interested in doing the reading program at the library but we've come up with our own reading program for the summer. Xavier picked out 12 books that we own that have been made into movies. We both will read the books and then we will watch the movie. They are a mix of middle grade and young adult books. I have a list of them on my reading blog.
Rob is home with Xavier this summer so they have lots of cooking plans. Rob is working on a cookbook and helping out with a recipe website so there should be lots of experimenting going on in the house. Maybe we'll talk Xavier into making his own cookbook for Christmas gifts.

Visit with the doctor and summer planning

We took Xavier to the doctor on Monday to talk about treatment options and to see if the doctor would be supportive of alternate therapies. The doctor had a med student shadowing him so it was a packed house. Xavier was really cool with the med student and they talked about how she was a UW student (we are a WSU family). I have to say I really like Xavier's new doctor. He listened to all our plans and took notes so he could do some research on the therapies we wanted to look into. He's willing to talk with Xavier's Neurologist to get medication information. Xavier would really like to avoid medications. We have put him on a slew of supplements - multi-vitamin/mineral, lobelia, melatonin, probiotics and an omega blend. He was worried that the omega blend would have fish oils but it turned out to be all vegetarian so he takes his supplements without arguing. He understands that if this works then he won't have to take medication.
School gets out on Friday so we're starting to plan Xavier's summer. This summer Rob will be home, at least most of the time. Rob is trying to come up with a way to work from home so he can be around more and to do something that he loves. We don't know what will happen but it's a relief to have someone to watch over Xavier. Xavier can stay home by himself - he did it most of last summer but he spends his time snacking and watching tv because he can't really leave the house. We tried to set up some activities but without an adult to see he got to where he needed to go he ended up missing out. As I am writing this, Xavier is supposed to be coming up with a plan for his summer. I was going to enroll him in the library volunteer program but he swears he's too busy to do the library work. He wants to work on being more fit and to do cooking experiments with his Dad. He's, also, working towards his Eagle rank with the Scouts and has a few merit badges to work on. He may have an Eagle project in the works if he can put in the work to get the credit (it's designing and installing a flag pole in our apartment complex - his new scoutmaster is also the maintenance man for our complex). He has a lot of plans but I want him to come up with a way of completing the tasks he needs to. He has until the 25th to convince me that his plan is better than my plan (that's the last training for the library program). I think he'll have a good summer, I just don't want it wasted in front of the tv.