I get asked all the time by strangers, family, friends and our doctors what it looks like to homeschool four children when three have special needs. Well, the truth is every day looks different, just as it does for most of us who are on this remarkable journey. I thought I would try to record one of our days. 7:15 am ~ Got up. This is late for me to get up. Tom Sawyer usually wakes me up at 6:30 and my husband rises at 6 am.
8:30 am ~ Everyone is up, dressed, fed (mini-bagels with cream cheese and applesauce), and finishing up their chores.8:30-9:30 am ~ The little ones do their copy work (thank you notes, spelling words, plus her full name for the youngest). They also did a math sheet, calendar skills, and phonics songs. The big teen checked on his biology experiments and recorded the needed data. He also checked and responded to his email (creative writing).
9:30 am ~ Off to Tomatis/OT. The Tomatis method of auditory stimulation is designed to reawaken the ear's natural ability to listen and thus ultimately stimulate the brain's desire to communicate. My special needs children each have a one-on-one occupational therapist while they are listening to the music and sounds coming from the headphones. They do many activities besides what are mentioned below, and the kids really enjoy going there. This program is helpful for autism, sensory integration dysfunction disorders, pervasive developmental disorder , and learning disabilities. My three oldest have one or more of these labels. We have seen dramatic improvement in two of them and some mild improvement in the third. We are so blessed to have this program within driving distance; there are only about seven such programs in the whole country! It is also a reality check for me. Yes, I have plenty on my plate (my children have 19 diagnoses between them), but seeing some of the other kids reminds me that it could be so much harder. I am very blessed to have a supportive family, loving husband, great special children, and a strong faith. There are days when I am completely overwhelmed trying to meet their special needs, but it is all worth it.
10:00-12:00 ~ We are fortunate that all three children got appointments for this loop (which lasts 10 days, every day except Sundays) at the same time. Yippee!!!
Photos depict: Tom Sawyer and Goldilocks playing in rice and bean buckets, shaving cream on a mirror, microphone work with Tom Sawyer repeating the sounds that come through the headset, the big teen doing swing and balance work, and Little Red Ridinghood getting to play in one of the empty OT rooms. She sometimes feels left out of the fun and says it's hard to be the normal one!
The big teen did about an hour of creative writing while at Tomatis today, too. I consider all of Tomatis as school, but it is great when they get the big teen to do his course work with them!
12:00 pm ~ Lunch on the way home (Goldfish crackers, cranberry juice, and organic ham sandwiches).
1:00-2:00 pm ~ We made brownies and watched a Veggie Tales DVD. Lots of hands-on math and life skills for the little ones. The big teen read in his room.
2:00-2:30 pm ~ The little ones played outside, while the big teen played Oregon Trail on the computer.
2:30-4:00 pm ~ Everyone in their own room doing their own thing. I took one child out at a time to do reading lessons with the little ones and math with my big teen (we are reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad for consumer math course at the moment). I also talked to my Mom on the phone. The big teen also read several articles for his current affairs course.
Well that about does it for us today. The kids are now watching "Cheaper by the Dozen" and I am off to make dinner. Later tonight, the big teen and I will watch a biology video, and we plan on looking at some pond scum under the microscope that we collected yesterday. That will be all for today.
I left out the two loads of laundry, the boy who wanted to make his own fish net and all of the trial around that, tending the strawberry garden and teaching a few kiddos how to roller skate a little bit better, not to mention kissing boo boos and all those other mothering things. Sheesh! No wonder I am tired by 5 pm!Blessings, Dawn
My little Tom Sawyer is 6 years old! Where do the years go?! As many of you know, my little guy loves anything artsy. When it came to planning his party, there was no doubt that we were going to have an art-themed party. The question was how to please the little guy and keep the cost reasonable. He thought a fun event would be to paint the Sistine Chapel on our ceiling and make a cake with a Monet painted on it. WHAT?! He was serious, but that was a bit beyond my ability. Luckily, he had a blast with what we came up with, and it was a fun party. We made a pinata and it took the kids longer to break it than I thought it would. Then they decorated cookies, made their own party hats, and painted pictures. They also played outside a lot. My little guy really likes some modern artists and agreed to let me make a Mondrian cake. This artist is much closer to my ability. LOL!
Blessings, Dawn
We did the starfish the other day. As usual this dissection was really to benefit the big teen since it is his course work, but everyone got in on the action. I probably should have done the starfish first since it has such a simple system but, alas, I did not. Photos depict (1) before we started the dissection, (2) studying the digestive system ... the mouth is for taking in food as well as removing waste, and (3) examining the reproductive system under the microscope to determine if we had a male or female (it was male).
Everyone loves the microscope. This brings us to the end of our dissections. We were able to do a cow's heart, cow's eye, frog, and a starfish. I wanted to do a fetal pig, but time and funds didn't allow this time around. The big teen is more than happy to watch a pig dissection on the Internet anyway. My little ones will do all of these and more in about 8 more years, so we will get to do this all again.
Blessings, Dawn
Computer games you ask? No! Do your children play board and card games? Is this becoming a lost pastime in our modern world? Should games be included in our academic time? I have noticed among some of my friends that their children do not know how to play any non-computer games. In some cases, they don't even own any board games in their homes. However, I know many others that do have games and play them often. I personally think that games have a valuable place in our homes. They provide turn taking, cooperation skills, thinking skills, and dealing with being the winner or the loser, just to name a few. I love games and taught my kids early to play them. Favorites around here for the younger set are War, Go Fish, Candy Land, and Teddies on Tour. The older of us never get tired of Apples to Apples, Scrabble, and Worst Case Scenario. Today was a game day around here. The little kids played lots of games after they had made it through reading and math and, yes, I counted it as school. Here is a look at them in action.
Also, for my Mother's birthday we played Scrabble. I just had to take a photo of this, because I managed to get rid of a Q and a Z on the same word! I thought that was a super good feat. LOL!
So here's the question ~ Do you play board games and which are your favorites? I am always looking for new games to add to the shelves.
Blessings, Dawn
I thought only cats were known to bring little "gifts" to their owners. However, our dog, Lady, brought us a "gift" today. The kids were very pleased with the "gift" but -- me -- not so much! She brought the snake to my youngest son, who promptly put it into a bug jar. The kids then researched it on the Internet to decide what kind of snake it was. A few years ago, my oldest son kept a nest of baby snakes in his room for an entire week BEFORE he figured out that they were Copperheads! I have no desire for that to happen again! (The Copperheads moved to our regional nature center.) The kids couldn't figure out what kind of snake it was. I know some of you are thinking, your son is an intern in the reptile section of the nature center ~ How does he not know what kind of snake it is? That is a good question that I posed to him. He says it is hard to tell when they are babies, but he was pretty sure it was a corn snake. Pretty sure is just not good enough for me! Bye-bye, Mr. or Ms. Snake. The kids did enjoy drawing pictures of him/her, so I guess we at least got in a nature study.
The little snake was released to a vacant lot up the street from our house. So do any of you let unknown critters live in your home, or do they have to go bye-bye?
Blessings, Dawn
My big teen got a GPS reciever for his birthday, and he is having a lot of fun learning how to use it. This weekend we decided to go on a geocaching hunt. We had so much fun that it will probably become a fun family hobby. Basically, you go to the web site in the link mentioned above and become a member for free. You then find a geocache in your area that you want to find. Then you lock in the coordinates and off you go on a quest. The coordinates take you very close to the geocache (a box with little knick knacks in it) and then you have to search for it. Some are easier to find than others.
We found two on Saturday and stuck to easy ones, since we were wandering around with the little kids. The first box was a tiny plastic container that we never would have found without the GPS and clues, even though it was right on a major road. The second was on a park trail and was in plain view with the coordinates. It was an ammo-box and had lots of little toys in it. The kids traded in marbles and magnets for a Matchbox car and My Little Pony brush. I forgot to take a picture of the second one.
This was a fun activity for everyone but for different reasons. My big teen loved wandering around in the woods and playing with the GPS. My dh loved the new gadget, and the littles loved trading in old trinkets for new ones. Of course, I loved seeing my family have fun, but now I have a new secret desire! These geocaches are like my new Goodwill. I can get rid of all kinds of little things (like McDonald toys) in these boxes! My kids won't even notice if we put more in the boxes than we take out. So, actually, geocaching can be another way of getting rid of stuff!! Yippee! The last box even had kid videos and CDs in it. Now I know where to put those videos I don't want anymore. LOL!!
What's more, they have Flat Stanley boxes in our area, and a friend told me that her family's Flat Stanley made it all the way to a geocache in Canada. How cool is that? We plan on doing a Flat Stanley next school year, and I was wondering how to make him travel. Anyway, if you don't know what I am talking about, go check out www.geocaching.com -- it really is fun.
Here are some photos. I have no idea why Tom Sawyer looks so grouchy, because he really did have fun.
Blessings, Dawn
