Special Needs Child
Art of Chess Combination
Art of Sacrifice in Chess
Turning Advantage into Victory in Chess
Storming the Barricades
The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played

Time for an update on T.J.’s studies. We had some breaks for the Christmas holidays, and also took about two weeks off in early March due to the birth of T.J.’s newest cousin. Otther than that things have largely been uneventful.

Mathematics: Deductive logic and lengthy forays into applied statistical analysis.
English: Moving through American Literature sparked a real passion for hard-boiled detective fiction. Our exploration of what I term ‘Gumshoe Lit 101′ is focused on the works of Robert Parker, John D. MacDonald and Ed McBain. Parker is the most heavily represented as T.J. and I have both read over 20 of his books in the past 4 months.
Humanities: T.J. continues to play guitar and feels comfortable with acoustic and electric versions of same. We have also made a brief survey of world religions and may return to that study at a later date.
Social Studies: We have completed our Economics unit and had a series of shorter topics since then. Among them are:

• discussion of American social mores and their changes over time, including same-sex marriage, the rise of divorce, etc
• the drug war and the rise of methamphetamine abuse
• the problem of global warming and what would be most effective to slow it

General Science: Several of our Social Studies topics above were so enmeshed with scientific study as to render a distinction between the two basically meaningless. All other science study has remained learner-led.

Of note: After scoring a 31 on the English portion of the ACT (97th percentile), practice has continued. T.J. plans to take the Science and Reading portions next.

Future Plans: Continued ACT preparation, summer employment, possible community college enrollment (part-time) in the fall.