I clearly have not been on here in awhile. But I want to share how our homeschooling journey is going.
We completed one semester of school from Jan.-Jun this year and it went well. We started off with a very light load of just Language Arts and Math. I did this for a couple reasons. 1) To help us develop some routines and not feel completely overwhelmed and 2) Didn't want to spend the excess money to buy History, Science, Health and Bible curriculum that we would only use for 1/2 the year. Starting in mid-August we began our first full school year. Shana is now in 8th grade and Hunter is in 5th grade. Both kids are now completing Languagee Arts, Math (Shana is in Pre-Algebra and Hunter is completing 6th grade math), History, Science, and Bible. Hunter will have Health in the second semester.
Shana is doing particularly well and has found she likes being able to work and not be interrupted by other students. She prefers to just read the text and complete the assignments. She does ask questions as needed and is doing very well. Shana started 8th grade this fall and she is progressing nicely. She really enjoys her History course and is making inferences of how past history relates to current events. She is a very bright girl and I know has an amazing future ahead of her.
Hunter has been a bit more of an adjustment. Actually, it has been many adjustments. He has a hard time focusing on his work and we struggle through the entire day while he sits at the desk and doodles, rocks, hums, yells and kicks. We had a major meltdown yesterday, which required restraining him. I hate having to restrain him, it really doesn't help him to calm down and typically will escalate the meltdown, but I have to keep him, me and Shana safe. We had a lot of catch up work to do today and it was going badly. Until, I thought to try something. We've been trying all week with having him complete a certain number of lessons and then taking a break. The problem with this is that I would say to finish two math sheets and he could take a 10 minute break. But the two math sheets that should take about 10-20 minutes total, end up taking 2 hours of goofing off and me getting frustrated and then him getting frustrated.
Today I decided to try something new. I looked at the lessons and decided how long I think he needs to finish them. There were 6 LA's lessons and I thought each should take about 5 minutes. I set a timer for 30 minutes. Normally, having a timer will cause stress and anxiety, but I had a plan. I told him if the timer went off and he was very close to done (1-2 problems) then he would still get a 10 minute break, if he did the last two quickly. But if he finished before the timer went off he would get the 10 minute break, plus the time remaining for the lesson. He really liked this and did the first 6 lessons, that I had allotted 30 minutes for, in an amazing 8 minutes and 16 seconds. So, he was able to take a break for 31 min. 44 seconds. I simply restarted the timer (for the remaining 21m. 44s) and when it went off, I set it for another 10 minutes and told him he had ten more minutes of break time. He actually decided to come back from the break 30 seconds early and started on the next 4 lessons.
This is what homeschooling is for us. The ability to modify the way we do things to work best for the kids. Shana prefers to work hard from the start of school until she is done (maybe taking a break for lunch if needed). She would rather finish before or shortly after lunch and have the rest of the day to enjoy herself. This doesn't work for Hunter. I love having the ability to customize their routines for their individual needs. This is how an IEP should work, but when you have a class of 20+ kids the schools can't customize this way.
Friday, October 11, 2013
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Homeschool Day 1
Today was our first official day of homeschooling. I was very worried at how today would go and it didn't start off great with our puppy being up all night and then waking up with a headache. But things improved. The kids woke up at 7am and started getting ready. We decided that an 8:30am start time was best. The school they went to previously was 8am and we were late everyday and rushing around the house. Being able to sleep that extra half-hour allowed them to wake up at a more reasonable pace and they got ready much quicker than usual.
At 8:15am both kids were sitting at the table ready to go, reading books and playing on their iPods. At 8:30am I asked them to put their things away and we got started. We talked about rules and what they are looking forward to in homeschooling. We also discussed how it will work with a 4th grader and a 7th grader and how that can help both of them. I described this as a "new adventure" for our family and asked them if adventures always go the way we plan. They both said no and we talked about how we will work together when there are bumps in the road.
When we got started on lessons they took to them very quickly and it was easier for me to manage the two different grades than I expected. I got Shana started on a reading assignment while working on an oral assignment with Hunter. I asked Shana if working with Hunter would distract her and she said "No, it's so much quieter even with you two talking than it was in school."
Hunter started to get frustrated and upset when he had some writing work to do. But when I explained it was only four questions and that was all he had to do for Language Arts he was shocked and quickly completed the work. He also breezed through his math in a matter of minutes. I be shortening the amount of math work per lesson and start doing multiple lessons per day to get him to more challenging work.
Shana had a spelling pretest and I decided to have Hunter try out the words too. Shana is very understanding that they are each unique and have strong and weak areas. Well, Hunter is strong in spelling and got 19/20 correct. Shana is not good in spelling and got 3/20 correct. Shana was fine because we quickly saw the pattern in her mistakes (i.e. bookkeeping/bookeeping, glowworm/gloworm) and she will easily do well on her spelling test next week. She was very proud of Hunter and made him feel really good doing so well on 7th grade spelling words.
Today we did start with a very basic schedule of just math and language arts, we will be adding science next week and we will add history later in the year. But we started their lessons at 8:30am and we finished by about 10:30. We actually spent less time completing their work for the day then we typically spent doing homework each night at their old school.
I'm sure there will be many ups and downs on this adventure, but I know now more than ever that we have made the right decision and are doing the very best for our kids.
At 8:15am both kids were sitting at the table ready to go, reading books and playing on their iPods. At 8:30am I asked them to put their things away and we got started. We talked about rules and what they are looking forward to in homeschooling. We also discussed how it will work with a 4th grader and a 7th grader and how that can help both of them. I described this as a "new adventure" for our family and asked them if adventures always go the way we plan. They both said no and we talked about how we will work together when there are bumps in the road.
When we got started on lessons they took to them very quickly and it was easier for me to manage the two different grades than I expected. I got Shana started on a reading assignment while working on an oral assignment with Hunter. I asked Shana if working with Hunter would distract her and she said "No, it's so much quieter even with you two talking than it was in school."
Hunter started to get frustrated and upset when he had some writing work to do. But when I explained it was only four questions and that was all he had to do for Language Arts he was shocked and quickly completed the work. He also breezed through his math in a matter of minutes. I be shortening the amount of math work per lesson and start doing multiple lessons per day to get him to more challenging work.
Shana had a spelling pretest and I decided to have Hunter try out the words too. Shana is very understanding that they are each unique and have strong and weak areas. Well, Hunter is strong in spelling and got 19/20 correct. Shana is not good in spelling and got 3/20 correct. Shana was fine because we quickly saw the pattern in her mistakes (i.e. bookkeeping/bookeeping, glowworm/gloworm) and she will easily do well on her spelling test next week. She was very proud of Hunter and made him feel really good doing so well on 7th grade spelling words.
Today we did start with a very basic schedule of just math and language arts, we will be adding science next week and we will add history later in the year. But we started their lessons at 8:30am and we finished by about 10:30. We actually spent less time completing their work for the day then we typically spent doing homework each night at their old school.
I'm sure there will be many ups and downs on this adventure, but I know now more than ever that we have made the right decision and are doing the very best for our kids.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
A Year of Changes!
It's been over a year since I was able to post to this blog. I want to change that as the blog really helps me in figuring some things out while sharing with others the challenges and joys of raising twice exceptional kids. I thought now was a good time to get recharged as we will be starting homeschooling with both of the kids starting this week. This has been something we have thought about for a long time, but really never had the means to do and thought the kids needed to have peer interaction in a school environment. I will cover this more later. Today I want to talk about what has happened in the last year to bring us to this decision.
Pat retired from the military and got a new job in NM. We had never planned to leave CO, I had lived there my entire life and had no desire to live anywhere else. His job requires a good amount of travel and when he is home we wanted to be able to see him some. He started looking at places and found a small town (population about 900) and a property with 44 acres off a river. It is what we have always dreamed about since the day we met. We put in an offer and I packed up and moved the kids and I while Pat was overseas.
At first things were going okay, until the kids got into school. Hunter did well with the smaller class sizes but Shana struggled with trying to fit into a school where everyone knows everyone and she was not doing well. The schools were trying to do what is best for the kids but they have very limited resources and have not ever worked with kids like them before. The schools are also very, very focused on sports and testing. This was hard as neither play sports and Shana felt pressured to join (she finally said she didn't want to) and is constantly asked why she isn't on the team. Shana was also devastated when they cut art and music for the middle school kids because the schools standardized test scores were so low that they are doing more "test prep" classes.
This is when we realized that our kids need something different. They are both bright, creative, inquisitive, and really excited to learn. However, we have seen for the last few years that the schools are trying to squish our unique shaped polygons into a square hole. They can't expand on topics or skip sections that they have already learned. There was no support in helping Shana with executive functioning to be able to remember to turn in homework, or prioritize work. Hunter struggled with being in the class when they were singing songs that he felt were for preschoolers. We also had struggles with make-up work when we took our family vacation. We take it during the time that Pat is home from trips and these don't always coincide with school breaks.
It just wasn't working.
In early October I decided that starting in January we would begin homeschooling the kids. I have mixed feelings about this. I am excited and looking forward to seeing the spark in their eyes as they begin to enjoy learning again for the love of learning, not the test. I'm nervous that I don't know enough or won't be good enough to teach them well. I am looking forward to the Biblical curriculum that spans all subjects (even the math word problems are a Christian perspective). I'm dreading not ever having a break from them and worried that will cause too much stress. I'm happy to get to spend such a wonderful time of their lives learning and growing with them.
I don't know exactly where this path will lead us, but I know in my heart that we are making the best decision for our kids.
Next post I will talk about how the school is working with us to provide wonderful resources for the kids and I while homeschooling.
Pat retired from the military and got a new job in NM. We had never planned to leave CO, I had lived there my entire life and had no desire to live anywhere else. His job requires a good amount of travel and when he is home we wanted to be able to see him some. He started looking at places and found a small town (population about 900) and a property with 44 acres off a river. It is what we have always dreamed about since the day we met. We put in an offer and I packed up and moved the kids and I while Pat was overseas.
At first things were going okay, until the kids got into school. Hunter did well with the smaller class sizes but Shana struggled with trying to fit into a school where everyone knows everyone and she was not doing well. The schools were trying to do what is best for the kids but they have very limited resources and have not ever worked with kids like them before. The schools are also very, very focused on sports and testing. This was hard as neither play sports and Shana felt pressured to join (she finally said she didn't want to) and is constantly asked why she isn't on the team. Shana was also devastated when they cut art and music for the middle school kids because the schools standardized test scores were so low that they are doing more "test prep" classes.
This is when we realized that our kids need something different. They are both bright, creative, inquisitive, and really excited to learn. However, we have seen for the last few years that the schools are trying to squish our unique shaped polygons into a square hole. They can't expand on topics or skip sections that they have already learned. There was no support in helping Shana with executive functioning to be able to remember to turn in homework, or prioritize work. Hunter struggled with being in the class when they were singing songs that he felt were for preschoolers. We also had struggles with make-up work when we took our family vacation. We take it during the time that Pat is home from trips and these don't always coincide with school breaks.
It just wasn't working.
In early October I decided that starting in January we would begin homeschooling the kids. I have mixed feelings about this. I am excited and looking forward to seeing the spark in their eyes as they begin to enjoy learning again for the love of learning, not the test. I'm nervous that I don't know enough or won't be good enough to teach them well. I am looking forward to the Biblical curriculum that spans all subjects (even the math word problems are a Christian perspective). I'm dreading not ever having a break from them and worried that will cause too much stress. I'm happy to get to spend such a wonderful time of their lives learning and growing with them.
I don't know exactly where this path will lead us, but I know in my heart that we are making the best decision for our kids.
Next post I will talk about how the school is working with us to provide wonderful resources for the kids and I while homeschooling.
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