First Day Fun!!!

We had a fantastic first day "Back to School" Kick-Off this year!  The boys were so excited (me too!) to start the year.  We took a traditional summer break and started the same day as our local public school.  We plan to do this every year.  It's so wonderful to have kids get so excited about starting school work again.

So for our big kick-off, I told the boys they could have breakfast any where they wanted, plus do another fun out-of-the-house activity before heading home and starting our school work.  We never, never, EVER eat breakfast out of the house when it's just the three of us.  In fact, we've only done so one other time in their whole lives.  Once, when we attended a baseball game, if one of the players hit a grand slam, then our section won free Grand Slam breakfast's from Denny's.  A player did (can't remember who, but it was cool), so the next morning, we loaded up and headed to Denny's.  Guess where they wanted to go for breakfast this time?  You guessed it...

Apparently, it's where you go for breakfast!  :)  And for their fun out-of-the-house-event, they chose a car wash.  Car washes are pretty big at our house.  The boys know all about the different types of car washes, the various manufacturers, the different styles, so forth and so on.  Seriously, they know everything.  Along with elevators, it's their latest obsession.  Strange, yeah, a little.  But so are we.

After that, we headed home and started our day!  I'll share what we did that first day, along with the rest of these first few weeks soon.  I've been planning all summer for a fun and exciting first two weeks back, and so far, it has been just exactly that.  My boys are routine kids.  They really enjoy the "flow" of school.  They are already a lot calmer and happier after the relatively chaotic-ness of summer.  They like summer, and really do need a break, but we are all glad to back into a predictable routine. 

One thing I am going to do better this year is to try and balance their personalities better with regards to social time.  My extrovert Andrew requires and desires so much more than my introvert Lucas.  Last year, Lucas was asked to do more way more than he wanted, and I think he payed the price.  He became easily overwhelmed, mad, and moody when we did too much.  To balance both of their needs, I am going to try and have more small playdates for Andrew with friends and neighbors (Lucas will attend these too, of course, but he doesn't mind occasional small playdates), and attend our homeschool groups weekly park day (again, Lucas will come along, but he enjoys the park, and can interact only if he wants, or he can play on his own).  For Lucas, I'm going to keep most field trips as outings with just the three of us as he likes and always requests (Andrew will end up talking to everyone on the field trip anyway, lol), and allow him plenty of alone time at the house.  Also, he's decided to only attend gymnastics once a week while Andrew will continue to take twice a week.  Hopefully, this will make both boys happy and balanced.

If this year goes like our first few days have gone, we're in for a GREAT year!  I look forward to keeping everyone updated!

3rd and 4th Grade Curriculum Choices for 2014-2015

I am so stinkin' excited to get back to school!  And I'm so happy I can still say that coming after the end of a not-so-satisfying (from a planning perspective) year!  I think I'm excited because I finally have the confidence to teach the way my kiddos learn.  Big box curriculum just doesn't work for my out of the box boys.  My boys are both visual, hands-on learners who hate writing (both have fine motor delays) and have auditory processing issues and short attention spans.  Bring it on, challenge excepted!  As we head into 3rd and 4th grade this year (the boys are 9 and 10.5), my goal is to allow true learning to happen by providing rich, hands-on experiences that are fun, engaging, and meaningful to them.  Lofty goals, but I think it's great to dream big!  As I did before, I'll list our choices then discuss the reasoning behind those choices.  So grab a cup of coffee or tea, this will be a long one! 

Math

 I decided to start with math because I like to get the bad stuff out of the way first.  Okay, I'm kidding...kind of.  I hate math.  My boys like it.  Oh, the homeschool irony.  Maybe it's my own dislike creeping in, but I've yet to find a math program that fits.  We've tried Singapore, Saxon, Horizons, a Charlotte Mason Style program, math using living books, Life of Fred, so on and so forth.  Yes, we've only been homeschooling 2 years.  Yes, I have math issues.  In spite of all this, the boys are doing well in math.  They enjoy it, for the most part.  They hate writing the answers, and get overwhelmed with a lot of worksheets and pages, but the actual math, they like and understand.  This year, I think I've finally found a good one.  We are going with Right Start Math.  Right Start Math is a hands-on math curriculum that uses visualization and games while limiting writing and worksheets.  In theory, it sounds like the perfect fit.  Let's hope!  I'd love to find a program and be able to stick with it. http://rightstartmath.com/home-school/

Writing, Spelling, Vocabulary, and Science

  I hope to utilize a unit study approach with monthly themes and tie these subjects together.  The boys love science, so hopefully it will pave the way to a love of Language Arts.  HA! HA! HA!  But one can dream.  I'm drawing most of my language arts ideas from The Teaching Oasis http://www.teachingoasis.com/  and that's also the spring board for our monthly themes.  For example, September will be apples, plants, and seeds.  We will read one picture book a week, introduce the vocabulary, use the vocab words as our spelling list, and do a writing prompt a day (after we take a few weeks at the beginning of the year to really study what makes a good writer) all based on the book.  We'll continue our book theme into science where we'll look at the theme through a scientific lens, as well as add in lots of hands-on experiments that relate.  I'm really excited about this approach.  It is similar to what we did with Five in a Row, which was a success.  While the boys need a bit more than FIAR this year, I still love the idea and hope to create as many memories as we did working through the Five in a Row books.

Reading

  This year we are going to celebrate Roald Dahl, and read as many of his books as possible.  We are going to start by having a Roald Dahl party, learn all about Mr. Dahl, and do some fun hands-on activities with each book.  I am finding so many great sites and ideas through Pinterest (oh Pinterest, how I love you). 

  The boys are still developing the focus to read chapter books to themselves, so they will read them aloud to me.  We'll take turns reading, and hopefully make it fun.  This worked well with previous books, so it should help smooth the transition into longer chapter books.  It will also serve as good speech and fluency practice, which they still struggle with, especially while reading.  We will read 3 days a week, and one day a week we will still continue to work through the Fluency in a Flash books I purchased at Lakeshore.

Geography

  I hadn't really planned on teaching geography this year.  We've already studied the US States and World Geography in years past.  I was planning on moving more into history.  But then Andrew asked if we could study the states again this year.  I really want to follow their interests, so here we go and I am thrilled!  I loved our previous state study, we had so much fun.  Obviously, we didn't learn everything we ever could about every state, so we're going to take a fun look at them again.  Instead of relying on a curriculum this time around, I ordered Little Passports, USA Edition.  They will send us goodies from two states a month, so we'll use the information they provide and expand.  We have tons of state books, and I plan on using Pinterest, the Web, and the library to find some fun, hands-on ideas, cooking projects, and anything else to round out our studies.  We will make a USA Scrapbook that will be filled with fun facts, recipes, pictures, and anything else we can find.  I will use this freebie http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/State-Notebook-164908 to act as an intro page to each state.  It has very little writing, so I think the boys will be on board.

Social Studies

  We are kicking it old school and heading back to re-visit a common preschool theme for social studies this year--Community Helpers!  I plan on doing an older kid version, because I think it is still important to know who makes up our communities, and my boys are still fascinated with chefs, police, fireman, etc.  Each month, we're going to look at one occupation in depth.  I'm going to beef it up, and tie in as many subjects as possible.  For example, when we study chefs and bakers, I'm planning on working in good restaurant manners, appropriate tipping, how to figure out a tip, what to do if you don't like a dish, and highlight the amount of work and long hours these chefs/bakers put in every week.  We'll look at what education or technical training they need for each occupation, and (of course) take some field trips to see them in action.  We're super lucky to live in a great city that has an abundance of field trip opportunities.  Some of the field trips I have in mind: doughnut shop or restaurant tours, Police museum and mounted patrol stable, fire museum and station tour, vet office, pet store, or humane society, law office and local courtroom, and many more.  Once again, I'll use Pinterest, the Web, and the library to round out our studies.  I'm going to spend 2 days a week, alternating with geography, on social studies.  It should be fun!

Spanish

  Last year, while we traveled the globe and looked at different world cultures and countries, we studied the language of the country.  The library had a great stock on language CD's, and it was fun getting a taste of each language.  This year, we're going back to Spanish.  We use The Fun Class, and really enjoy it.  My goal is to introduce a foreign language in a fun, engaging, hands-on way that makes the boys WANT to learn.  The Fun Class does just that.  We sing and move each lesson, as well as cook, make crafts, and learn about various Spanish speaking cultures.  We're going to repeat Level 1 again since we took a whole year off.  I'll go at the boys pace.  We may go quickly and move to Level 2, or we may take the year in Level 1.  I will plan on doing Spanish twice a week.  Once with the DVD lesson and once to cook or do the craft while listening to the practice CD.

Religion and Fine Arts

  We will once again use our church's material for religion.  They are workbook style, but since we are doing a home study instead of classroom CCE, I have the ability to do a lot orally, and add-in whatever hands-on activities I can find.  We will also continue to watch the Superbook DVD's my dad purchased for them.  They love those, and it introduces bible stories in a way they "get" and will remember.  This year, both boys will participate in their Rite of First Communion and other Rites, so it should be an exciting year. 

  I am using a slightly Charlotte Mason-inspired style for our Fine Arts.  I would love to showcase one Artist and Composer a month, and gain familiarity with their style and works.  I'm going to plan this month by month and use whatever free resources I can find from the library and internet.  We will round out our fine arts with monthly trips to the many art museums around our city, free children's performances at Miller Outdoor Theater, and the Children's Concert series through the Houston Symphony.  Houston is rich in The Arts, and offers a lot of free opportunity for kids, especially homeschoolers.  A lot of what we study will be based on what is offered and available.  Besides the artist/composer study, we have been utilizing this method since homeschooling, and it has produced two kids that love and appreciate various art forms.  I couldn't be happier!

Field Trips and Volunteering

  We are a field trip family.  My boys love getting out and getting hands-on with their learning.  We participate in homeschool classes at the zoo, and homeschool days at various museums and other places around town when they are offered.  We homeschool 4 days a week and leave 1 day to get out into the community.  We also volunteer throughout the year through our church.  Last year, we were on the plant team, and took care of the plant displays around the holidays.  We will probably continue this again, and might look for other opportunities to volunteer.  The boys have shown great empathy toward the homeless recently, so we may look for ways they can help both locally and city-wide.

Games

  We play a lot of games in our house.  We have board games, card games, action games, language games, math games, critical thinking games...you get the picture.  We will continue to play one game a day every single day.  Last year we started playing different "types" of games on the different days of the week.  This helped us play all our games instead of playing the same one over and over again.  We'll probably stick with the same cycle.  Monday-Math Game, Tuesday-Lang Arts, Wednesday-Science/Art/Geography, Thursday-Critical Thinking/Fun


Physical Education

  Both boys take gymnastics twice a week and play soccer during the fall and baseball in the spring.  We also attend our homeschool support group's park play date once a week in the afternoon.  This year, however, we're also going to add in physical education through Family Time Fitness. http://www.familytimefitness.com/fitness4homeschool/Fitness4HomeSchool.php

I purchased this curriculum several years ago and it's been sitting on my hard drive.  I hope to start our day with at least 30 minutes of PE based on the lessons they provide.  This is for the boys as well as myself.  We will all benefit, they focus so much better during the day when we start with activity, and it will get me moving as well, which is hard to work in when you have kids with special needs.

So that's it!  I look forward to sharing our weeks ahead with you and seeing how this list of goals translates into real life.  Thanks for following us on our journey! 


  

Our Crazy Pet Sitting Summer!

It started innocently enough.  A little comment to Andrew while we were watching a friend's pet.  Something along the lines of how this could be a job for them when they get older, and how a lot of people make money by pet sitting.  A few hours later, the boys came to me with a name, The Watch Dogs Pet Sitting, and a mission to make some spending money.  I love social media for times like this.  I made one post about the business starting up, and my wonderful friends responded in such a huge way.  As of this post, The Watch Dogs have watched pets every day we've been home this summer (we even had to turn down some jobs while we were on vacations or out of town!), and are fully booked through July with 3 different households.  They are currently watching 2 dogs, 4 cats, several fish, and 3 toads.  Every day around noon we make our pet sitting rounds.

I am so honored to have friends that trust my boys to take care of their pets while they are out of town.  And I'm so proud of my boys doing such a good job!  They really are, and that is a fun thing to watch.  They really enjoy it!  And, they REALLY enjoy making their own money.  :)

Lucas is still the animal lover.  He enjoys watching and spending time with them all, and feels pretty certain he would like to continue volunteering and working with animals in the future. Andrew  has decided that, while he likes pet sitting, he'd really like to start baby sitting.  Always the people person.  I had to break it to him that he's still a little young, only being 10, but I'm sure, in the future, he'll be a wonderful sitter.  He already volunteers with me in the church nursery once a month, and it's so fun to watch him interact with the littles.  He's stepped up as the spokesman for The Watch Dogs, and loves the interaction with the owners.

This has been a summer of growth for the boys as they've taken on some responsibility, and have stepped up to the plate.  I can see it shaping their future goals and helping them discover a little about themselves, their strengths, and what they like to do. While all parents worry and wonder about their child's future, those of us with special needs kiddos worry differently.  Will my child be self sufficient?  Will they need assistance throughout their life?  Will they find a niche and thrive?  I have 2 that I worry about.  Some people have more. I can't imagine.  As it is, the fear of when I'm gone, knowing they won't have a "typical" sibling to watch out for them, is terrifying.

Seeing them grow so much this summer, however, and watching people take a chance on them, has been a wonderful thing.  Balm for the soul and a little respite from the worry.

Fresh Year, New Start, Back to Blogging!

What a year we had last year!  It was good in so many ways, but also challenging.  Challenging enough that I felt the need to back off the blogging, and focus on my kiddos, our family, and our homeschooling journey.

I don't want to call it a bad homeschool year.  The boys learned a lot, we made many discoveries, and had a lot of fun.  We took some classes, went on awesome field trips, and continued making educational strides.  Despite the good, it was still a year of some soul-searching and homeschool growing pains. 

We started the year with things all planned out.  The school room was painted, decorated, curriculum ordered (My Father's World, Exploring Countries and Cultures), and everything very planned and scheduled.  I quickly discovered that MFW was NOT going to be a good fit for my kiddos now that they had advanced into the multi-year curriculum (3rd-8th grade), and after about the first week, my planned, organized, prayed over year was falling apart at the seams.  Not the best way to start a new year, to say the least.

We never really recovered, and the "bad fit" seemed to spread into every curriculum choice we had made.  We had a "wondering" year, where nothing really seemed to go as planned, and we spent the year meandering through different curricula and educational philosophies.  In the end, though, it all worked out for the best.  God, once again, knew what he was doing, and was guiding me in the direction I need to go.  I grew so much last year, as did the boys, and having a year like we did, allowed me the confidence to go out on my own a lot more.  We will probably never go back to the all-in-one curriculum, and I am much more able to recognize what my kiddos need, enjoy, and how they learn.

Another thing I realized is that I miss blogging our adventures!  I don't think I'm the best blogger in the world, I'm way too sporadic, I forget to proofread and edit on occasion, and I'm usually pretty far behind.  BUT, I really enjoy looking back and seeing the highlight reel!  So, here we go again!  My next post will be our plan for next year.  We are using so many different choices and pulling from many different places.  I am excited for September!  I'm going to sign off with some pictures from our last school year.  It really was a GREAT year in so many ways.

Bubbles!

Okay, okay, I'm sooo late on posting to the blog.  Time really does fly when you're having fun.  We are steadily rolling here towards the summer, but have been very busy in the meantime.  I will be catching the blog up to speed these next few days, and thought I'd start with our Bubble Week!  We did this late-Feb.  It was the first week of really great weather here in Texas, and while the rest of the U.S. was still bundled up, I thought we needed to take advantage and get outside!  So, we studied the science of bubbles.

We started out learning about the shape of bubbles by making our own bubble wands in circle, square, and triangle shapes.  Next, the boys recorded the shape of the bubbles with the wands.  They were both a little surprised that only round bubbles were blown.

The next day, we made our own bubble solution and decided to find out which was better: homemade bubble solution vs. 3 different store bought brands.  We set up the experiment by blowing one wand of bubbles and rating the size and approx. amount (it's really hard to count bubbles, by the way) and recording it in our science journal.  After that, we blew another round and timed how many seconds it took for the bubbles to pop.  The boys noted that the homemade solution made the largest bubbles, but Super Miracle Bubbles lasted MUCH longer and produced a lot more bubbles.  I didn't get any pics because I was too busy trying to help count all those darn bubbles!

Our third day of bubble-mania was spent looking at the "skin" of the bubble.  We reviewed surface tension and learned why the bubble always made a sphere when blown.  We also noticed the colors of the bubbles, and once we learned their patterns, had a fun time predicting when they would 'POP'!

We had a bubble party to celebrate our last bubbly day of our study.  We took our bubble machine, wands, our 4 types of solution, and everything else bubble outside to the park and had fun popping away. 

Andrew loved the bubble straw!

I learned that it is REALLY hard to photograph bubbles on a windy day!  Really, there were A LOT!  :)  Lucas was trying to pop them all from the slide as they flew past him.

We also read a lot about bubbles from many non-fiction books checked out from our beloved library (how would I homeschool without it!), and also found several fiction books about bubbles that worked great for read-alouds and during their daily reading time.  Their favorite--SpongeBob, of course!  We found a video about the Sponge, too, that featured the tale of the "Oldest Living Bubble" that made them laugh.  We also had some touchable bubbles in a science kit that we mixed up, and learned that the same chemical binder used in paint was used to make the bubble touchable.  Cool!

Thanks for joining us!  We had a lot fun during our bubble week, and it's really fun looking back and posting about it a few months later!  The boys are "ooohhhing" and "ahhhing" as I type this and wanting to pull out the bubbles again, so I think they had a good time learning as well!  :)

 

Recycling

Hello 2013!

What a great start to a new year!  We have been busy over at our house over the Holidays, but I took a little break from blogging our journey to enjoy some awesome family time.  Now that things have settled down, and we're back in our (somewhat) routine, I decided it would be a great time to pick back up documenting our adventures.

 I signed up to receive once a month science kits from The Young Scientist Club, and our first kit was all about recycling.  Great timing as our city is transitioning to a new trash pick-up service, which includes glass in our curbside recycling.  YAY!  What better way to celebrate than to have a unit study on recycling.  I was lucky enough to be able to book a tour to the City of Houston's WaterWorks education center during the week, which is all about conservation and recycling, so we included water conservation and education in our study as well.  I'd love to share the highlights of our fun week:

Day 1-- We learned the "why" of recycling and conserving.  The boys looked up the words, recycling, reduce, reuse, and conservation in their dictionaries.  Then, we read 'Spongebob to the Rescue' which followed The Sponge in his efforts to start a recycling plant in Bikini Bottom.  My guys love all things Spongebob, so the book was a hit, and started our unit study off on a good note.  We did two experiments today to cover the "why".  The first was included in our Young Scientist Kit.  We buried a little bit of plastic bag in one container of peat moss, and a little bit of broccoli in another.  We added some wildflower seeds, and at the end of the week (or two) we'll uncover our buried items and check out the differences.  The broccoli should start breaking down, while the plastic bag will stay the same.  The boys made their predictions, and wrote them down in their science book.  The next experiment dealt with water conservation.  I found this experiment on the Internet.  I started with having the boys take a drink of ordinary water from the tap.  Then, they added a level table spoon of sea salt.  We discussed that this salt was taken from the sea, where salt water, fresh water was located, etc and ended with why we couldn't drink salt water, or just take out the salt from ocean water.  The boys then tried to remove the sea salt from the water.  It was HARD!  And they only removed about 1/4 T.  Then I had them take a drink.  YUCK!  After that, we looked at a world map while I spread out colored noodles on it representing the water on the earth.  There were 97 blue noodles, which represented the salt water, 2 green noodles, which represented frozen water (both the blue and green represents water that is not available to drink), then I laid out the one red noodle, which represents all the drinking water the world must share.  We then broke up the one noodle, and spread out the pieces over the continents.   Great visual representation that really showed the "Why" it is important that we conserve.

 

Day 2 was all about the effects of recycling.  We read a story called Freddy the Fish, which is about a little fish Freddy, who leaves his protected nature area home and swims upstream.  He encounters many different pollutants and his water gets all murky and dirty.  Wonderful story, and the boys had a lot of "ewwwwww" moments while adding the various pollutants.  After that, we studied watershed's and learned about the effects of littering, polluting the land, etc.  The boys crumpled up a piece of paper to make a varied landscape.  Then, we talked about all the different pollutants we read about in Freddy, while we added drops of food coloring to represent each.  Then we sprayed our land with rain (water from a squirt bottle), and watched the effects as the rain ran down our mountains, valleys, rivers, and settled into the lakes.  We also read The Magic School Bus: A Trip to the Water Works, and watched The Magic School Bus episode on Recycling.

 

 



Our last day of our unit was spent at the WaterWorks education center.  What a great fun field trip to end a fun unit.  The people at the WaterWorks were great.  We started with a slide show presentation that really summed up everything we had learned throughout the week.  Then the kids got to transform into dirty water and travel through the water purification process while going on a scavenger hunt through the Education Center.  After that, we played a group game to show how everyone from every walk of life depends on water, and why we must conserve this precious resource.

 

Thanks for joining us on our fun week review.  I will gladly share my entire unit study with anyone interested, just let me know.  We also worked in several other books, and added in vocabulary, math, etc. along with a few other experiments like making paper, and setting up our recycling bins.

 

 

Thankful, Part II

I wanted to blog about our last couple of weeks.  Things have been going very well.  We have been blessed to find two fantastic support groups; one for Autism Support, and one for Homeschool Support.  We've been having so much fun with our new friends, and are finding our niche within the Autism and Homeschool community.  We've moved into the Southeast with our USA state study, started a new writing program because the boys are ready to be challenged, and are ahead of schedule in our math because they are picking it up quickly.  All that alone is worth a Thankful, Part II post!!  And check out this handwriting!!!  Not too shabby for Andrew.  Who, as of his last public school ARD was going to be excluded from all handwriting and given a touch pad.  I knew he could improve.  I wasn't ready to give up on him, and am so proud of his hard work.  We're still working on it, but the improvement from the very end of last year to now is mind blowing!  I decided to include the sample with Lucas' work on it, too, because he's also improved greatly, and he's been working hard.  He's right on track for a 1st grader!  Andrew's work is the sample on top.

 Last week:

 

Andrew's sample from the very end of last year:

 

I am so thankful that God has allowed Marcel and I to homeschool our kids.  I am thankful every single day for this honor and responsibility.  This is ARD-time in public schools, and my heart aches for parents going through this yearly (at the least) emotional-draining process.  ARD's are hard, even when you have a supportive district and team who listens to you.  I can't even begin to think how hard it would be to have to fight for services and support.  I've heard the stories, and have seen the tears, but I have never had to fight that battle. We had (still have) a great group of people on our side, and it was still hard to sit through back-to-back ARD's and discuss goals, objectives, placements and IEP's for the next year.  So, I pray for everyone involved in the process, teachers, administrators, parents, and students.  And I am thankful, so very thankful, that we homeschool!!