Wordless Wednesday

On Christmas Eve in their Christmas pajamas

End of the Year Thoughts

My mom and the kids

I am trying to prepare myself for the change in my life that is about to come. In February I will begin my student teaching. This will last until June, so I will not be directly involved in the kids homeschooling for the rest of the year. In fact I will be away from the kids longer than I ever have since they have been born. This thought scares me a little, for I am not sure how the kids will react. The twins will be fine, it is Decca I worry about.

My mom will be with them during the day, and she will be homeschooling the boys. Autry will be at school, so it will be a little easier for my mom. I am so happy and grateful that she is so supportive of me and of homeschooling. I don’t know what I would do without her help,and because of her, I am not as worried about the change in our routine. I do know that I will miss them terribly, and I am hoping I will be able to juggle all the demands on my time.

Thinking about homeschooling, I have decided to make some changes in the curriculum. In math both boys are working through Singapore, and we are going to stick with this. It is working for the boys, so I don’t want to change. For Tru I just got Life of Fred, so he will work through that too. In addition he is still doing Timez Attackz and Time4Learning Math. That may seem like a good deal of math, but he doesn’t do all of it everyday. For Language Arts Tru is working through his WP LA4 Worktext, and he is doing MCT Grammar Island. Decca has a few books he works on (including Explode the Code, Handwriting without Tears, and Queens Language Lessons), and we aren’t making any changes there. For science Decca is doing Little Lab Kits and watching videos on Science Castle. Tru will stay with Singapore Science. I added in Higher Order Thinking Skills workbook, so I think that will add to his lessons. Both boys have started back up with Latin. Decca is using Song School Latin, and Tru is using Latin for Children.

Our big change for the rest of the year is in History. I have slowly been changing my opinion about the Winter Promise curriculum, and I have decided we will no longer be using it as our main program. I enjoyed AS1 when we did it, and I thought I would love AS2. I did like it until we got through our study of the West (although I wasn’t crazy about it), but now I just am not as excited about it and either are the kids. I think the program lost its steam for us after the West. For me it was the book Gold Rush Fever. Although the kids and I loved the book, I  just didn’t think the Klondike Gold Rush was that important of an event in American History. I felt a need to redo several weeks in the schedule and to supplement several of the books. During this time my son got out The Story of the World Volume 4 and asked to read this. He loves SOTW, and he was eager to hear about the time period we were studying. We had just finished Dragon’s Gate , and the twins wanted more information on the history of China. We found several chapters in SOTW that dealt with this, and thus we began reading SOTW again. Then we all decided we enjoyed Story of the World so much that we didn’t want to give it up. Now we will be reading Story of the World and using several of the books from Winter Promise to use as a supplement. In addition we will continue reading The American Story as we all enjoy the stories, and I think this is a great age-appropriate spine book for Decca. As he is only six I feel much of modern history is too old for him. He is just not ready for the mature themes found in Story of the World, but he does enjoy the stories in The American Story.

I have also got the kids some other extras for the remaining year. They were looking for a new series on audio, so I got them all the The Mysterious Benedict Society audio books. They started listening to them yesterday, and they love the story so far. In addition I also got the kids Creativity Express Online. I don’t know if this will be a winner or not, but the kids are doing so little art right now that I thought I would give it a try. Since my mom will be working with them, and she is an artist, I hope the kids will get more art for the rest of the year. Hopefully that will make up for the severe lack of art in their home instruction over the years.

Overall I am nervous about the coming year, but I am excited too. I know the kids will be fine at home with my mom, and I am eager to finish my program and have my credential. I keep thinking about June, and how everything will be over in June. It may be a crazy few months, but by June I will have my credential! I can hardly wait!

"Pause"

I am fascinated by the lingo my kids use. One of there favorite phrases is O.M.G. which means Oh My Gosh. I am not sure where they picked it up, but they use it all the time. Another favorite – “Pause”. “Pause” means stop, hold, or wait. The twins started using this word a few years ago, and now everyone uses it. Tru used it the other day when we had a science lesson.

The kids are using My Pals are Here for science this year, and it goes into reproduction, human reproduction. I wasn’t really ready for this particular lesson and talk, but I guess it was time. Anyway Tru is fascinated with learning about the human body, and he knew he was missing something, he just didn’t know what.

So I was reading the lesson to Tru (Autry was sick that day), and everything was going fine. No questions being asked, which I was happy about. I got to the part of the sperm meeting the egg and making a baby. Still good, and I was staring to think that I was worrying about nothing. The lesson was almost over, and I was about to close the book. Tru then interrupted me and asked “how does the sperm get to the egg?” So I told him, and he looked at me in shock. Then he yelled “PAUSE!”.

“PAUSE” in this instance meant stop right now, my brain is having trouble understanding what it is being told, I can’t take it all in. Anyway after explaining it a few times he came to understand just what I was saying.

Later I went over the lesson with Autry. Somehow she didn’t understand it, although I didn’t know. She asked Tru about it later, and he refused to explain it to her. “It’s too disgusting, I just can’t tell you.” Finally it was explained to her. No “pause” from her, just a look of pure disgust.

Decca and selective mutism

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Selective Mutism

Decca struggles with selective mutism. SM is an anxiety disorder that causes a person to physically shut down, and because of this, they are unable to talk. People with selective mutism usually suffer in social situations, especially in the school setting. Others, like Decca, have a more severe case and struggle even with people they know. Decca’s selective mutism was brought on by a traumatic event (I went away for a night, and he thought I had died), and for the first 6 months he stopped talking to everyone but the twins. That was an extremely hard time for us all. The twins were young (7 going on 8), and they didn’t understand why he had stopped talking. They were also a little unsure about the added responsibility suddenly given to them. Autry especially resented it, and she was terribly upset with him for not talking to anyone else. I didn’t know what was going on with him, and I just kept waiting for him to talk again. After a few months, when I realized he wasn’t going to talk again, I finally took him to the doctors. They recommended a wonderful therapist who immediately diagnosed him, worked with him, primarily through play therapy, and got him to open up to her and tell her what was going on in his mind. Within a few months he had progressed to the point of being able to talk to me and some members of the family. In the two years since this time he has made great progress and now talks to almost everyone in the family, to his close friends, and to my great surprise, to waitresses and librarians.

Yet there are still many situations that he can’t talk in, and because he is homeschooled, sometimes I forget this. Group settings terrify him, classes are hard, and he struggles when people approach him unexpectedly. When I took him to Disneyland for Halloween, he dressed up as Luigi. People kept saying hi to him and asking him where Mario was. Little kids dressed as Mario would try to talk to him. Decca didn’t smile or say hi to any of them. The whole thing took him by surprise, and he was terrified.

But he is making progress all the time. A year ago we took a field trip to a pumpkin patch with a homeschool group. We were new to the group, and he was overwhelmed with the situation. He didn’t talk, and he didn’t open his eyes.

At the pumpkin patch 2008

I forgot that he use to do that because he doesn’t anymore. I found that picture today and felt so happy that he is doing so great. Disneyland may have scared him, but he kept his eyes open and kept walking. That is true progress, and I couldn’t be more proud of him.

Decca at disneyland with his eyes open.

For more information on selective mutism check out this book at amazon -

Helping Your Child With Selective Mutism: Steps to Overcome a Fear of Speaking

Zoobs and Math

My youngest son is a funny guy when it comes to school work. Sometimes he will sit with a workbook and do ten pages in a row. Other times he will go days without showing any interest in doing any academic work. I have learned to think of school work as many other things besides workbook type activities. Math is one area I have come to embrace as a subject that can be taught in many different ways.  Decca has two math books he work through. Math-U-See Alpha and Singapore Math. He loves the Math-U-See blocks, and some days he enjoys doing the workbook. He sometimes likes Singapore, and he is making steady progress through both. However, he hasn’t done any work in either for a week now. He still practices many math concepts though, and today he did that with his Zoobs.

 

First he sorted them by color. Then he put each color into groups. Here the yellow are grouped b 5s.

 

 

The reds he grouped by 2s.

 

 

And the greens he sorted into groups of four and turned them into frogs. Frogs are his favorite animal, and he never misses a chance to create them.

 

He then tried to count the total number in each color by skip counting. Counting by 2s and 5s were review, and he did great with that. Counting by 3s and 4s is hard for him as he is still learning this. He had a great time practicing it with his zoobs, and the best part is it was fun for him. I didn’t tell him it was preparing him for more advanced math. I thought that might just take the fun out of it!

ZOOB 250-Piece Set

American Story 2 Changes

I love WinterPromise, and I am enjoying AS2 this year. I wasn’t sure if this program would be challenging enough for the twins when I ordered it, but I figured I could add to it if I needed too. I do not like to change much in a program because if I do I tend to drift too far away from the original schedule. We have  hardly changed anything in this program, but I have added a good deal to it to hold the interest of the kids.

When we were studying the Civil War era I added a few books because the twins were so interested in the history. You can read about two of our favorites here. I also added the Children’s Encyclopedia of American History
that we used in AS1 back into this program as I felt the program needed a strong spine.I added Into the West to the readings this week, and I think this is one of my favorite books. It does a great job teaching about the time period following the Civil War, and it has great pictures and illustrations. We also decided to listen to On the Banks of Plum Creek We had read this before, and I thought about dropping it, but I found it on audio and thought the kids would enjoy it. They did, and it helped Tru when he had to write about sod houses for an assignment from his language arts book.  The only book I have dropped from the program is Going West! This book does a wonderful job of mixing history and crafts, but the kids don’t seem to click with it. I am not sure if it is too young for them, or if they simply just don’t like it, but we have dropped it from the program. This is the only book we have dropped, and I think that is a nice reflection of how great this program is.

We are also enjoying the documentary Ken Burns Presents: The West. This documentary is often criticized because it has Ken Burns’ name in the title, but it is not actually written or directed by him. I found it to be a fairly well-done documentary, and it holds both the kids interest and my own. We have been watching it over the last two weeks, and it really adds a nice element to the program.

Time 4 Learning

I signed my kids up with Time4Learning a few years ago just to give it a try. The kids like working on the computer, so I thought they might like this. I had no idea how much they would like it though, and three years later we are still using it. We use it to supplement their work and to prepare them for the state testing they have to take every year through our charter school. I have the kids work through the language arts and math lessons. We do not use it for anything else as the science and social studies are severely lacking in both content and fun. If you are looking for something to supplement your curriculum I would highly recommend Time4Learning. Check it out here if you are interested.

Sensory Processing Disorder and swings

My twins have sensory processing disorder, and one thing they both need is a great deal of movement. To this end I have acquired various items for them to use throughout the day. We have a trampoline in the living room, a huge ball to bounce on in our hallway, a balance board in the homeschool room, and weights spread all over the house. In addition I have three chin up bars in the house. They love these bars because I have transformed them into swings. To do this I tied an old sheet to the bar, and then tied it at the bottom to make a seat. I did this a few years back, and they love them. The  kids swing in them throughout the day. They also read in the swings, and sometimes my daughter takes her kitty for a swing. I never imagined how much use I would have gotten out of them when on a whim I tied a sheet up to them.

If you want any information on Sensory Integration please check out this website.

Summer Fun

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prescription goggles

We have spent a great deal of our summer at the pool this year. We live in a warm climate, so actually we spend most of the year in the pool, but the pool this summer has brought all of us a great deal of pleasure. The reason being, that prior to this summer, my oldest son never enjoyed it. He wouldn’t get his hair wet, he refused to swim much, and he got mad if anyone splashed him. In short he was miserable!

Someone told  me I should really think about getting him prescription goggles. I thought they would be very expensive, but I was surprised when I found this website:

http://www.swimoutlet.com/product_p/1777.htm

I ordered some goggles, and in a week he had them. I thought he would put them on and jump in the pool! I was very wrong. He wouldn’t put them on, and he wouldn’t go in the pool. I was very frustrated, so the next thing I did was sign him up for private swim lessons. My son complained and told me he would not go in the pool. Well he was truly blessed with an amazing teacher and within five minutes of his first lesson he was in the pool and under the water. He has been swimming ever since, and he now loves the pool!  We have all enjoyed seeing the wonderful transformation in him, and he has a great deal more confidence.

Dress-Up Fun

This summer the kids have been spending a great amount of time dressing up. I am happy the twins still find this an enjoyable way to pass the time. My youngest also loves dressing up and creating different characters. Today they wore quite a few different costumes for there games.

 

From Drop Box

From Drop Box