Educating M

M almost has his degree

2024-06-13T16:23:00.001-04:00

So it's been like 12 years since I posted here. M is 1 class and 1 internship away from having his AAS in Music Recording! He should be graduating in Dec '24.

I picked up a few books at Barnes and Noble...

2012-07-10T18:32:00.002-04:00

Not that I really had the money, but I decided to use a little of our savings to buy some books on Autism Spectrum Disorders. Specifically, I bought books on teaching kids on the Spectrum, which includes dealing with unwanted behaviors (of which my son has plenty!).

The first book I decided to look through is from a really good series of books entitled Topics in Autism. This particular book is called Visual Supports for People with Autism: A Guide for Parents and Professionals.I'm about 40 pages into it, and I have gotten some great ideas on implementing visual supports for things like doing chores, remembering to bring your dirty items down from your room, as well as school-related things like multiplication and labeling parts of a sentence, and using graphic organizers for various things outside of school (like scripting a phone call). It also talks about Video Self Modeling, Social Stories, Thinking Stories and Power Cards; all things that I think could definitely assist my child.

Once I get through the entire book, I will be able to see what will be workable in our school day and what will actually benefit him. I don't want to throw so much at him that I can't tell what's really working and what isn't.

I also got STOP That Seemingly Senseless Behavior! FBA Interventions for People with Autism. This is another in the same series. I've flipped through this one a bit, and I think I need to get the companion book (actually the first of these 2 books), called Functional Behavior Assessment for People with Autism: Making Sense of Seemingly Senseless Behavior. I am actually pretty familiar with Functional Behavior Analysis (or Assessment), but I think it would be an interesting read nonetheless. I may go ahead and purchase the book.

Other books I purchased:
Big Picture Thinking: Using Central Coherence Theory to Support Social Skills, A Book for Students

This looks like a really good book. It goes through things like Feelings and Emotions, Self-Control, Perspective Taking, Communication, Relationships, Interactions, etc

Putting on the Brakes: Activity Book for Kids with ADD or ADHD

I haven't gotten a chance to look through this one at length, but the premise seems straight forward. It seems to dovetail with the other books I've gotten

The Parents' Guide to Teaching Kids with Asperger Syndrom and Similar ASDs Real-Life SKILLS for Independence

Another book I'm not sure about, but it looked interesting on the shelf. This one may be a book for later in the school year.

The PRT Pocket Guide: Pivotal Response Treatment for Autism Spectrum Disorders

I chose this book because PRT has science behind it, and this book explains what PRT looks like and examples of how to use it. Specifically, this book was of interest because it explains the principles behind:

motivating children with natural reinforcers
reducing disruptive behavior
encouraging communication and social initiations
developing a challenging curriculum
assessing children meaningfully in natural environments
helping families weave interventions into everyday routines
ensuring that children generalize skills to other setting

The Survival Guide for Kids with Autism Spectrum Disorders (and Their Parents)

I chose this book because it looked very kid-friendly. At first glance, it looks like something that M will choose to read on his own...once we tell him about this newest diagnosis (no, we haven't told him yet...). I think it will be valuable for him to have a resource, other than a parent, that he can go to when he has questions and doesn't want to discuss things with us. What's nice about this book is that it has lots of sections on a variety of topics, including but not restricted to social skills. It goes into things like hygiene, sleeping, stims, eating, etc.

So I'm starting with the books that I think will help me with school the most. I will update as we get into the school year on what things seem to be working and what things seem to be a waste of time. I'm both looking forward to this and dreading it. On the one hand, if we come across something that works, then YAY! On the other hand, I want to get the most bang for my buck and my time. Gathering all this information is incredibly time consuming, and I haven't even started putting it together with the academic curriculum! I probably should have given myself more than a week....oh well. ADD here too. :P

Looking forward to the new school year

2012-07-08T14:03:00.001-04:00

Starting tomorrow, I'll be spending much of this coming week figuring out what we'll be studying for at least the first half of 6th grade. I know I want to do unit studies, and I have a list of subjects M is interested in. The challenge will be figuring out ways to use those interests across all subjects.

I also need to figure out how to include religion and science in school this year, as well as some exercises I want him to do, sensory activities and social skills. Some of those things will hinge on what services I can get him through the professionals I've contacted, so I don't want to put too much effort into that until I know who will be doing what. But it all still needs to be considered.

What makes all this more difficult is that I have to figure out ways to keep him engaged in what we are doing, or he won't work. That's the major challenge with him...and I don't know that I like what precedent making everything interesting for him sets. But like any other behavior, I think that slowly showing him that he can do something and then starting to lessen the rewards associated with it can work. I just have to figure out the correct timing.

It's all a challenge...even for people who don't have special needs kids. But I think I'm ready for it.

Interesting New-NEW Diagnosis

2012-06-29T21:23:00.001-04:00

Well this threw me for a bit of a loop this morning. Right after my work out session with my trainer, my cell phone rang. I NEVER bring my cell phone into the gym, so that I had it with me was strange to begin with.

Anyboob, it was the lady who had done the psychological testing for M, calling to tell me that the diagnosis was going to be different...not PDD-NOS, but Asperger Syndrome. She said that the rating scale I filled out when we saw her a couple weeks ago pretty much cemented the Aspergers diagnosis, but I guess at the time I talked to her last week and got the PDD-NOS dx, she hadn't factored that in.

I'm not mad that the diagnosis changed, just a little taken off guard. I did a lot of research this past week on PDD-NOS to see what therapies would be correct and also found a disorder that is not in the DSM, but seems to fit M very well. It's called MCDD - Multiple Complex Developmental Disorder. Pubmed and I are now besties...I can't tell you how many articles and abstracts I printed about it and related AS disorders.

So now I feel like I'm back in the same place I was last week...new diagnosis, different therapies (maybe...) and still needing to find a professional who deals with ASD kids.

The other thing is that though she doesn't think M has a thought disorder currently, she told me that we need to watch that as he ages. She thinks many of his elaborate stories that he comes up with are meant to help him deal with his anxiety, so they aren't a thought disorder per se.

I have a few things I want to research:

stimming vs tics
therapies for PDD-NOS vs Aspergers
look back at M's medical records and determine if he had any language or communication delays (or any other delays, for that matter)

I'm sure there are other things, but I'll write them down as I come to them.

Never a dull moment, huh? :D

It's been months...time for an update

2012-06-25T17:23:00.001-04:00

It's been a while since I've updated this blog, so I thought I'd take a few minutes today and tell you what's been going on.

Schooling a child with M's issues is...difficult.

We recently got a new, and not unexpected diagnosis of PDD-NOS (Pervasive Developmental Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified). In layman's terms, this is a sort of catch-all diagnosis that falls under the category in the DSM-IV of Pervasive Developmental Disorders, that includes Autism, Asperger's, Rett Syndrome, Childhood Disintegrative Disorder and...PDD-NOS. My understanding is that a child would receive this diagnosis when he doesn't meet the qualifications for either Autism or Asperger's, but shows significantly impaired social skills, rigid thinking, unexplained anxiety, and other symptoms of classic Autism or Asperger's.

How did we get to this new diagnosis? Well, we've wondered for a number of years why M didn't "look" like other medicated kids with ADHD. Even if you didn't know my kid and had never observed his class before, you'd be able to pick him out as a kid who is different from his peers, even if you didn't know his diagnosis. And this difference has only gotten worse as he's aged. A few weeks ago, we were at the psychiatrist's office for our regularly scheduled ADHD medication checkup, and M mentioned something to me that was way out of the ordinary, and which also clearly and undeniably outlined his level of anxiety in a way we had never seen it. I'm sure he'd mentioned similar things to what he talked about that day at the psychiatrist's office before, but it had never been in such a succinct way...it had never made me stop in my tracks and think "oh holy shit, this isn't good." I'd never gotten that from him before. I'm glad it happened while we were at the psychiatrist's office, because we ended up spending about an hour there, and he was the first to mention PDD-NOS as a possibility for M never looking like other medicated ADHD kids.

We'd had a large battery of psychological and educational testing done the year before, so I called the lady who did that testing and told her what the psychiatrist said. She immediately recognized that it was likely M would fit that diagnosis, even going to far as to tell me that it was not unusual for older kids, like M, to gain this diagnosis; nor was it unusual for it to include a high level of anxiety. A week or so after that conversation we went to see her for 1 additional rating scale and for her to speak with M. I called a week later and she said that he definitely fit the diagnosis for PDD-NOS with anxiety...so here we are.

Before we saw the lady who did the testing, thus still not sure of a diagnosis, I had filled out an application for M to be evaluated over at TEACCH in Chapel Hill. Autism and Autism Spectrum Disorders is their thing, so I figured having him evaluated there would be great...they are experts in the diagnosis of, research on ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorders). I think it takes at least a month to even get a call back, and I just couldn't wait that long, so we went ahead with the additional testing elsewhere. I still want TEACCH to evaluate him, but I'm going to call them and see what the procedure will be since we now have a PDD-NOS diagnosis.

At this point, with 4 days of the school year left and about 3 weeks until the new school year starts, I'm not too concerned with starting any new methods of teaching with him. I am still feeling my way around learning about PDD-NOS and how it actually applies to him, what behaviors are attributable to it and how to deal with them appropriately. I am certain we will be using Carol Gray's Social Stories as part of our curriculum for next year, as well as other methods of instilling in him those skills in which is he deficient (social skills are at the top of that list, but also things like organization, time management, etc). I will also continue to look for interesting and hands on approaches to teaching him, as that is what he likes and responds to with interest. I have a list of things he wants to study, which is wonderful because we will be going back to the Unit Study approach that we started our initial homeschooling year with. We got side-tracked with trying to do character education with him, and I got stuck in a rut with having him do worksheets and things that were not very hands on. It made for a tough time for me as a teacher, but more importantly, for him as a student.

He's going to a YMCA camp for 2 weeks (just during the day) for kids like him, and they will have lots of fun and learn about social skills (this will be his 3rd time doing something based on social skills...maybe this time some of it will stick!). I'm hoping to use that time to get my curriculum mapped out and put together, as well as catching up on making jewelry. I'm also going to be figuring out a reward program for my younger son (going into 3rd grade). It's tough for him because he has homework to do when he gets home and M doesn't, because M does all his schoolwork during school. So our therapist suggested doing something for him to show him that the work he does for school is recognized and just as important as what M does at home for his school. To show him that even though things may seem unequal, in reality they are different.

Ah...there's that word again. d i f f e r e n t

First school day of the new year!

2012-01-03T15:32:00.001-05:00

...and it hasn't been half bad!

Today I started my "No excuse for abuse" campaign with M. I don't know if I told you all, but a few months ago I ordered The Total Transformation, and that is one of, if not the, main ideas of the program. We talked about what abuse looks like and what it doesn't look like. He wasn't very interested, and at one point got up and half-erased the white board. But after that he started talking a bit more about it.

We've decided so far that abuse is yelling at each other, not being attentive to the other, and walking out of the room without asking or saying where you are going (being rude). What is not abusive is speaking nicely, using nice body language, acknowledging when another person has talked to you, asking to do things.

It's a work in progress.

We also put up the numbers for our timeline. He wrote the numbers on a piece of paper and I hung the pages up around the room. Every time we study something in history, we will make an index card up with details of that something and hang the card under the year. I thought this would be a good way to be more visual with him.

Over the break, I read some of The Out of Sync Child Has Fun again because I wanted to find ways that would work with our school for him to get some of the sensory input that he needs. So today was our day for making paint, glue/glitter bags. Basically, you take a ziploc bag, throw some glue and glitter or paint in it, zip it up and let the kid "paint" with it, squeeze it or whatever he can think to do with it. It's called "no mess painting" and can also be used with kids who don't like to get messy. M is NOT one of those kids. He loves to put glue on his hands, let it dry and pick it off (I like to too, if we are being honest).

For Math today, M had decided to do some worksheets in a workbook. But I cleaned out the hall closet while he was taking a break and found our tangrams. So instead of worksheets, he did hands on geometry. Today was easy stuff...using the pieces to duplicate shapes on the cards that came with the set. Tomorrow it will be something more difficult, like making a house of his own design.

Yesterday we went to Stone's Education Superstore and used our $60 worth of Groupon certificates. That was fun! I got a couple lesson books, a hangy-uppy thing for more visuals for him, glue, paint, glitter and a couple of teachers guides for books. I'm rather excited about those. In fact, right now I'm waiting for a shipment from gohastings.com of a book I ordered called from the mixed up files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I had gotten a teachers guide a while ago at The Homeschool Gathering Place for that book, and now I can't wait to use it.

Tomorrow I think we will start our Citizenship lesson (which will be about 4 weeks long), teach him how to clean a bathroom (he's become a whiz at doing laundry), do some daily 6 trait writing, and then Math of some sort. I'm pretty lenient on the math right now...we're still doing review work, then we'll start something new probably at the end of this week or beginning of next.

So we didn't do a huge amount of what most would call "school work," but we did enough that I am satisfied. I really need to get out of the mindset of thinking that only written work is school work. As long as he's learning, he's in school. Just because it isn't "school" like most think of school doesn't mean he's not learning. After all, isn't that the reason I decided to homeschool him? To get away from that whole "school" mentality? Conundrum. :)

Frustration

2011-12-13T13:44:00.002-05:00

I am really frustrated right now. I want to do this...I really really do. But M has to have some stake in this too. Something that makes him want to be homeschooled. The more I think about this, the more I think that I'm being wrong-headed in thinking that he should wantto be homeschooled. I want it, and that's that. He's 10, so is it really his responsibility to want to be schooled? No. He has to go to school, no matter the location. Do kids his age really want to go to school? Likely not.

Ok, so moving right along...

Part of the reason I didn't want to start HSing him until January is because of exactly what's happening. M's little brother is in public school and he's been tracked out for 3 weeks (went back 12/5) and then will be on holiday break on 12/21. So basically 12 school days between the 2 breaks. I don't teach M while J is tracked out or on holiday...it wouldn't work. So these 12 days, now 5 days, have been more about home learning than academic learning. The problem is that I still feel that push...guilt almost...to work on academic stuff. I just attempted to introduce a lesson on social skills and that went nowhere. M was unresponsive or quietly responsive when we were talking about emotions and feelings, and it left me really really frustrated with him and with the situation. I guess this is where I have to remind myself that homeschooling is not always going to fun or interesting to him, but there are things that he HAS to learn whether he wants to or not. And social skills is one of those things.

I feel explosive right now...like *something* must change or my head will explode. I get this way sometimes...when I am frustrated to the point of screaming. This frustration, though, comes a bit from the situation described above, but more so because my child didn't do his chores last week, one of which is keeping the cat litter clean. I told him to clean it and change the cat pad (we have one of those Breeze boxes where the cat pees, but it all goes through these little holes in the box down to a drawer that has an absorbent pad in it). He pulled the drawer out and the whole thing was pull of pee...and it got everywhere. By everywhere, I mean all over my carpet around where the cat litter box is, as well as wherever else he dripped it when moving the drawer into the bathroom to clean it. He DOESN'T PAY ATTENTION. If he had. much of this mess could have been avoided. But that's the nature of his disability, so I can't really be angry AT him. I'm really angry about the situation...and the cat. Actually, if he had done his chores last week, ALL of this could have been avoided. But that's partly my fault. I've gotten into the habit of reminding the kids to do their chores, and sometimes even paying them when they don't do them. :O No more. We are turning over a new leaf of following through. Chores will be done, playroom will be kept clean and they will pick up after themselves (food, dishes, clothes, toys, etc) or no chore money will be given. NONE. I'm tired of it and I feel like a broken record. So perhaps money is the currency to which they will listen. In other words, they may get NONE.

I know that I also feel angry or frustrated when I'm not prepared or organized, or I don't feel good about a lesson I'm going to do. So over the next couple of weeks, I need to take a hard look at what I want to teach and find interesting ways to teach it. I really need to get out of the mindset of him having to learn things in a certain amount of time, and just do what it takes to keep him interested in most of the lessons we do. That may mean more walks outside talking about social studies, more visual things like handouts or writing on the whiteboard (that hubs brought home for us last week!) or even silly stuff like dancing while we work. I know what doesn't work, now I need to find what does work.

And I have to balance all this with keeping my business afloat and items going out the door, as well as finding new business.

I can do it...I just have to figure out how. :)

Day 10 - moving right along

2011-11-08T12:51:00.000-05:00

This week the hubs is home, and to be honest, his presence here is throwing me off. At this point I'm still not super confident in my teaching methods, and we're still in the discovery phase of how to teach, so having him here makes me uncomfortable.

That being said, things are going pretty well. The stress level is much MUCH lower than it had been while M was in public school, both for him and me. While there's still stress, it's a different kind of stress.

The other thing that's happening this week is I'm trying to get ready for a 3-day show that I do twice yearly at the State Farmers Market here in Raleigh. I make chain maille jewelry with bicycle parts, and sell it at a few craft shows, online (click here, and in a few stores around the country. I think getting ready for the show is stressing me more than anything else. Well, that, and I have to get a ton of jewelry ready to send to one of my other stores.

Anywho, yesterday M and I tried something different. We started the morning off by going to the gym so I could do a short workout there while he hung out in the childcare center. When that was done, we came home and he decided to try making tipis out of paper clips and tape. It actually worked out pretty well.

Over the weekend I spent some time thinking about different ways of teaching him that don't involve him sitting on his butt at the kitchen table with me. Though that's my preferred method because I'm lazy :P, it's not the way he learns <b>and retains</b> information best. He needs to move and be taught at the same time.

So yesterday I decided to shake things up a bit. Once he was done with the tipis, I directed him to the living room where he could choose from a couple of positions in which to do his work: 1)sitting in a bean bag chair or 2)laying on the floor on his stomach with his elbows propping him up. He chose to sit in the bean bag chair and work. And he worked beautifully there, completely 4 writing worksheets on the Pueblo people. Once I went through his answers, though, things weren't so wonderful for a little while. Some of his answers were nonsensical and incomplete, so we had to find a good way to go through them and get them answered properly. I ended up scribing for him a bit, which was fine. But he was getting agitated and tired, so it was time for a break.

After his break, I was getting agitated with all the noise from hubs completing work on the bathroom, so I grabbed the book M was working in, and M too, and we went outside for a walk. My plan was to get better answers from him on the worksheets he'd been doing before, so while we were walking we also talked. It worked for the most part. There were still things that distracted him, but it was still fun, and he definitely enjoyed it. We probably walked about a mile.

When we got back it was lunch time, so he went and fixed his lunch, then did a few worksheets (who's/whose, their/there/they're). He finished his kachina and worked more on the tipis, then started on Khan Academy. He got really frustrated with it and refused to watch the videos on KA that will help him through the lessons. That's something we're going to have to work on...I'm not that great at some parts of Math, and I'd planned on him using KA for those things.

___________------------___________

Today has been better. I've had to run a couple of errands, and he did exactly what I asked him to do while he was here with hubs. He's also moving pretty fast today, which is nice, because he'll have lots of time to play and I'll have time to work on getting stuff ready for the show, in addition to the last appointment I have today.

I must say, when he's motivated, he can really knock out assignments. I think he's motivated by being done early today because he pushed right through a writing pre-planning assignment I'd given him, and he's now working on his last piece of Math for the day.

I wish I knew why some days he is so motivated and some days, no matter what is offered as motivation, he isn't. I guess everyone is like that, but it's more noticeable with him. His highs and lows are higher and lower than most...

Day 8 - Schedule Smedule

2011-11-04T17:49:00.001-04:00

Yesterday we had [appointments and] "life skills day." What does that mean? Basically learning how to feed the family, where the food comes from, how much it costs, how to use coupons...stuff like that. So yesterday was a bit of a break from the rigors of a regular school day.

Fast forward to today and it was really hard getting into the groove of school again. Of course, this morning we had to run a few errands, then at about 10:15a we got to work.

Since M really likes working with his hands, I let him work on the Iroquois longhouses for about 15 minutes. After that I started asking him questions about the unit on the Iroquois, only to find out that he didn't remember that much. I was kind of irritated about that because we'd spent time talking about it. So we discussed it again, with me asking him questions, trying to get him to remember the things we'd talked about. Later in the day, while he was doing another hands on assignment, I quizzed him on the Eastern Woodlands people (Iroquois) and on the things we'd learned earlier today about the Southwest Desert Indians (Pueblo). He did pretty well on the quiz, which was interesting to me, because he was doing something else while he was answering me. Sometimes he works better that way.

Around 2 he took another break (he seems to be taking a lot of breaks, so that's something I need to watch), then I told him to work on Khan Academy. Usually Math is something he'll work on for at least 30-40 minutes with no issues. Today he got REALLY frustrated, things escalated between us and we had some words. I explained to him that he is IN SCHOOL and isn't to get up whenever he wants and walk away. He and I need to work on that...I know that's a strategy he uses when he doesn't know how else to deal with a situation, but most people would get pissed if someone got up and walked off in the middle of a conversation or while they were trying to help.

This may sound strange, but I'm glad these things are happening and that I can take notes when they happen to see WHY they happen and WHEN they happen. It will allow me to help him in the future (once I get things sorted out) with the right way to handle uncomfortable situations.

At about 245p I gave him a sheet from a copy of the Math book they use at school (we got it at the Homeschool Gathering Place for FrEe!), and he started having an issue with that. He asked me for help, then got frustrated, at which time I told him we were stopping for the day. I was getting frustrated that he was so frustrated, so it was just time to stop.

_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

If you read the entry above the _-_-_-_-_ you may be able to understand why I called this entry "Schedule Smedule." I don't think we are cut out for staying on an exact, to the minute schedule. I know I'm not. I understand that M needs to know what's coming next, and I need to know too just for the sake of preparedness, but there's no way in hell I could stick to a half hour or hour schedule like I see some homeschool Moms have. And that may change in the future, but for right now a routine is about all we'll have. And I'm still working out when the best times to do certain things are. When you have a kid with special needs, I think being flexible is key; not sticking to some arbitrary schedule. In addition, a schedule would completely stress me out. Once I know the clock is ticking, my anxiety level goes up which would make his anxiety level go up, just knowing the time to finish is coming up. Not a good thing for us.

I realized, though, that perhaps writing down what I think should happen might be a good idea. So today, after he and I were done with school, that's exactly what I did. And here's what I came up with for Monday:

1. Pueblo writing worksheets
2. Pueblo social studies (show pics/talk about connection to Anasazi)
3. Activity//assignment on Kachina
4. Daily Language Review, week 1, Monday
5. Who's/Whose; Their/There/They're rules and worksheets
6. Main idea discussion and worksheets
7. Khan Academy (finish distributive property exercise and telling time exercise, then do 2 more lessons)
DONE! Unless we feel like doing more.

I would be curious to know if most homeschool Moms have very scheduled day or leave it loose in a routine like me.

Day 6 - today was better

2011-11-02T18:00:00.001-04:00

Today we did a lot of hands on work like coloring the longhouses for the Iroquois unit we're doing, coloring a canoe model and finishing up an exercise "facility" made completely of Legos for the crabs (we have 8 hermit crabs in case you didn't know). The crab exercise facility was fun for both of us because M got to build it then we both got to watch the crabs "exercise" (yeah...that basically means find a way out of the enclosure and climb all over the little obstacles he put in there).

After we finished our observations of the crabs, we dug into writing. This was at about 11am. He did the first 4 assignments in Lesson 2 (finding the main idea) in the Daily 6 Trait workbook without issue. While I was looking at his answers he started coloring the longhouses. I asked him to stop so that I could explain to him what he needed to fix and he wouldn't stop. It escalated, we both got irritated with the other and then he went upstairs (on his own, not because I told him to). About 5 minutes later he came back down and continued with his shitty attitude, playing with a pencil and eraser while I attempted to talk to him about his writing. I explained to him that I am making an effort to give him the 1 on 1 attention he wants, so he needs to make an effort to work, even on things that suck or are boring. We had another small argument a few minutes later and I realized that he was probably hungry. I told him to go make himself a turkey sandwich because I needed a few minutes to calm down.

After he ate he was fine. And I had the feeling he would be at the moment I told him to go make his lunch. As much as M needs to chill with the attitude, I should have read the cues and realized it was getting close to lunch and he was getting hungry. I know what happens to his ability to control himself when he's hungry, and I think that had I caught the cues prior to letting him get so hungry he got grumpy, we would have skipped the arguing and gotten back to the writing.

Once he settled back in to "school mind" he was able to finish the writing assignment and he did a GREAT job on it!

At about 1:30, while he was working on the canoe project again, he started getting silly and having a hard time focusing. He continued with the canoe project until about 2, when I told him he needed to do his math lessons until 2:30. He sat and did them just as I asked and then went out to get some exercise.

Overall it was a good day. I have to remember to read his cues and help him learn to read them too. I'm very laid back with school, so if he's hungry at any time he can get up and get something to eat, or if he needs a break he can take one. As long as he doesn't abuse these privileges they will stay.

One thing I want to figure out how to teach him is that making mistakes is OK! That's how we learn. But he's such a perfectionist that he gets really pissed when he has to do something over. We're going to work on it.

Day 5 - what do you do when your kid is exhausted?

2011-11-01T09:25:00.000-04:00

So this morning M tells me he woke up at 4am, went back to sleep and woke up for the day at 5am. This isn't unusual for him, but it is unfortunate. He NEEDS sleep, but he rarely gets good sleep. At least when he sleeps til 7am he's getting a couple of hours more sleep, even if it isn't great sleep.

I decided that today we'd start off with writing. Writing is hard for M...all the rules and planning that go into writing are difficult for him. He also has really weak working memory, so things that he thinks of may not be remembered long enough to get put into the writing. That's something we are going to work on. I need to find some strategies that will work to help him increase his working memory. One thing I will start having him do is jot down ideas on a scrap piece of paper.

Back to the writing for today...we're starting off with the Grade 3 Daily 6 Trait book. He flew through the first 4 assignments, but is now to the assignment where he has to write a short thing about a topic he came up with in one of the assignments and he has stalled. His resource teacher told me he could bang out 3 or 4 paragraphs, but he's having trouble now getting started on writing just one. I'm not sure what to do.

Ok...it looks like he's chosen something else to write about and now he's writing. :D

He's also annoyed that he can't color his Day of the Dead skull yet. I told him he'd have to wait until my Weight Watchers meeting to do it. That way he'll have something to do while we are there. I really need to get a handle on my weight. My original plan had been that he and I would go to the gym right after dropping J off at school so that I could exercise for a few minutes and he could hang out with other kids. That hasn't happened yet. Granted, we're only on Day 5, but still...I had ideas...

Days 1 - 4

2011-10-31T22:32:00.002-04:00

Just a short blurb about days 1 - 4.

Since I really don't know exactly where M is in most of the subjects taught at school, I decided to start at the beginning with Social Studies. Apparently, in public school they do either Science or Social Studies for a number of weeks at a time, but not both.

The beginning of this year's Social Studies is Early Peoples (basically from how North America was peopled to pre-Columbian natives). M and I did the majority of it last week and were supposed to finish it up today. Well, we did finish it up today, but much to my annoyance it did not go as I had planned in my head. I sat for an hour or so last night writing down bits of information about the Maya, Aztec and Inca thinking we would talk about that to close the lesson because I thought M was really into these civilizations and wanted to learn more about them. And I honestly think he did want to know more, but it turns out that the traditional year kids were out of school today because it was a teacher workday. One of them knocked on the door to see if M could play and that was the beginning of the end of our lessons for today. He'd already been having trouble focusing and was "bored" at times (I fell into the trap of reading from the workbook for a bit of the lesson today)...he seemed a bit off today. He had 2 unit-end tests I wanted him to do, plus some writing worksheets and a bit of math before we would be done for the day.

Argh...the tests were somewhat of a disaster. The first one was fill in the blank. He started out trying to do that test and the other (matching) test at the same time. I took the fill in the blank test from him and scribed for him to help him along. Some of the questions he absolutely couldn't answer, which kind of irked me, since I'm the one teaching him and I felt like he should be able to answer these things. I ended up letting him use the book for a couple of the answers. The other test was ridiculous, and no fault of his that it was so. I have no idea how the publishers thought a 5th grader could do this test...I had problems seeing the relationships between some of the things and I have a degree in history! :O So instead of marking all his answers wrong, I made my own test based on their test. He ended up with 90% correct on it; and would have gotten 100 had he not confused 2 of the answers. But hey - 90 is great!

So I learned a couple of things this first unit:
-he needs LOTS of hands on learning opportunities
-he needs time to review the unit before taking a test

-I need to chill out a little and not take things personally; there are ways to handle things with M and there are ways not to handle things. I think I didn't handle things correctly today, but tomorrow is a new day. I will put what I learned from this week into effect tomorrow and hopefully things will go more smoothly.

As for writing this past week, we've done some very short writing prompts and a few fill in the blank type worksheets. Nothing heavy or part of a unit as I wasn't sure exactly where to start. I think tomorrow we will start on the Daily 6 Trait Writing for Grade 3 (yes, 3) and see how quickly we can get through that book. I want to start on the easy side with him as writing tends to be a big issue, and I need to figure out how to handle it.

For Math on days 1-3, he did lots of Khan Academy, which he LOVES. Both the kids enjoy it, actually. I highly recommend it.

We haven't started any Science lessons. I think I will hold off on those for a while. I want to introduce the writing and see how he does with that, then we'll begin work on some other skills I'd like him to learn (stuff like organizing, time management, social skills, etc). Baby steps...that's my motto for now. Until both he and I are used to each other and homeschooling, I really don't see a reason to rush things.

I'm looking forward to the next unit - Native Americans in the US: Desert Southwest, Pacific Coast, Plains, and Eastern Woodlands. I've already got 2 parts ready; the Iroquois (Eastern Woodlands) and the Desert Southwest (Pueblo) Indians. Each has about 4 hands on assignments to do, plus our discussions. Oh! And we're doing a tiny lesson on the Day of the Dead since it's tomorrow!

What I wanted to do vs what I'm actually doing

2011-10-31T21:06:00.000-04:00

I'm a firm believer that learning should be fun. So when I first seriously considered removing M from public school in favor of homeschooling him, that was my number 1 goal. With fun and interesting in mind, I delved into the decision making process of educating at home.

I knew that I didn't want a pre-packaged curriculum. And I knew that I wanted to use real books to teach from. According to my research I was well-suited for either unschooling, unit study or using a Charlotte Mason approach.

I decided that unit study was a good fit because it would allow me to use the subjects in which M is interested to teach him. So I looked around on the internet and found a HUGE amount of information pertaining to those subjects. It was too much, so I narrowed my search to looking for unit studies of those subjects that other people had done. Still a lot out there, but not nearly as much as simply searching on a subject.

I took the time to look through a bunch of different unit studies I'd found just to see how other people approached them. Some people did 5 or 6 week unit studies, and some did 5 or 6 day unit studies. That's the beauty, in my opinion, of using this method. You can make them as short or as lengthy as you want.

So I got one unit study fully together, this one on Sharks, to show my husband. His thing was that if I was going to HS that he be involved with the subject matter being taught. He had a very clear idea in his head of how the education of a child should progress. I found out quickly that his ideas were much different than mine. Where I thought using one subject to hit on all the key areas (social studies/history, language arts, math, science) was a great way to teach, he felt that using the NC Standard Course of Study was the way to go. So one Saturday while the kids were outside playing, he and I sat and talked for three hours.

We both explained why we thought our way was better...though I'll be honest, I had a bit of trouble verbalizing my thoughts on this subject, though I knew that the way I wanted to teach would be fine...and after much discussion, I walked away for a few minutes and really thought about not what I wanted to do, but rather what would be best for my child.

When I came back, I expressed that I was willing to compromise. I would use the NCSCOS as a guide, as I think the fairly sequential building of knowledge benefits the type of child I have, but I would not follow it exactly, as I think having a whole understanding of a topic is better than just hitting on the high points so you can pass a test at the end of the year.

After further discussion, we came to the decision that instead of looking at 1 year of the NCSCOS, we would look at the next three years. Using this idea gives me more leeway on teaching M the things I want to teach, not necessarily in the order that it's presented in public school, and also lets me hit on the subjects that interest him.

I had also planned on homeschooling for pretty damn near free...and I suppose I still am, though I have bought about $100 worth of books to use throughout the next year or 2. The difficulty I face is that I have to keep the lessons on his level AND keep them interesting enough for him to get through. I could go on for days about the Maya, Aztec and Inca civilizations because from an historical point of view they are amazing (and sooo full of info!). But keeping a 10 year old interested in all the reasons that maize was important to these peoples is near impossible. So I am using the 5th grade social studies book as a guide (and because it's a differentiated lessons book, for tests as well) to keep me on track, but also doing a sort of unit study in order to get more in depth. We'll be doing crafts, posters, models...lots of hands on activities to keep him engaged.

I also have 5th grade workbooks (that all meet national standards) on Geography, English, Writing, Science. But I also have some great unit studies on things like elections, pioneer times, sharks and a few others that I will slip in when the time is right. I should also mention that M writes on about a beginning 4th grade level due to his disability and skill deficits, so I have quite a few books on writing and its component parts and pieces. That was something I was NOT willing to leave to "oh I know how to write, I'll just teach him my way." He has deficits in this area and needs specialized instruction. So I talked to his resource teacher to find out some good strategies and books to use with him, and I got them in the mail today (thank you ebay!).

Yes, I'm only on day 4 of homeschooling, but I've already learned that YOU HAVE TO BE FLEXIBLE when you have a kid with special needs. Otherwise you are setting both of you up for failure.

I'm really excited about being able to share this time with my child. I love to watch him learn...he's so amazing. I hope that by doing this, he will learn the skills he needs to succeed with friends, career, life and love.