so CC asked if i could share how i home school my kiddos
specifically, how i homeschool kids on differnt levels with different learning issues
david is 10 with asperger's syndrome
(very high functioning autism)
alex is 8 with dyslexia
(i also have dyslexia)
and max is 5
with so much enthusiasm....i'm not sure my house is going to make it
for years we tried to cram david into the pre-school mold
worked and worked on it
because he had to learn to handle preschool
so that he could one day handle kindergarten
so that he could handle elementry school
so he could handle middle and high school
because if you can't do that then you can't go to college
and if you go to college you can have a job
and be a productive member of society
and that works for so many people
worked for me
but not my kid
the schools, the teachers, the therapists were all about making him fit into this mold
and in a moment of clarity one day
i realized
there is more than one road to the "becoming a productive member of society"
so we started to homeschool
(there are some others times i have talked about this on the right, under catagories)
david didn't talk until he was 4...so i was ok with learning to read in second grade instead of kindergarten
i just looked at what i wanted him to learn each grade level and tried to focus on the most important things
i didn't try to re-create school and all the things david would have learned there
i tried to create an education just for him
the same goes for alex
they are both behind their peer group in reading
but not a lot
it stessed me out for a while
but i try to remember
it isn't a race
it is a quality of life
i did modify the following curriculum:
Susan Wise Bauer's The History of the World
Math You Can See
Bob Jones Science
Drawing on the right side of the brain for children (or is it left...i always forget)
i used Family Fun & Matha Stewart Kids mags to devolpe my own art/crafts ideas
Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons (not flasy but the best i have found)
and then anything the kiddos are into: robots, lizards, cartooning, computers...
david is currently reading the Calvin and Hobbes treasury to me....hey, as long as he is reading...
penmanship if really hard for david
so we work on it a little bit each day
but if i push it too much - then he gets frustrated and the day is shot
i make a list at the beginning of the week
kinda a chart
of what all we need to do on each day
each of the kids attend some homeschool "classes" with other kids
i factor those in along with orthodontists visits, etc.
on those days, we do lots less work because of the sensory stress on david
then i see what can overlap for each child
david and alex do the same history and math
they all do their math at the same time and i just move around the table helping them
reading is seperate
max is included in any science stuff he can understand
they all have a Bible verse to memorize
etc
etc
etc
i get asked all the time if we are going to keep homeschooling
i'd love to
the cool thing is
i don't have to figure it all out right now
i just need to figure out this year
and even that
i can re-vise
CC, i don't know if that was helpful at all
feel free to ask me specific questions
i'll try to blog in the next few days about how we handle the therapy side of things
oh
the picture
a twist tie mummy emerging from a sarcophigus
david really liked that egypt study we did 2 years ago:)
happy thurs!
kellicrowe
