Time for School!

Tomorrow is the first day of school!  DH will be teaching 4th grade again at Neighborhood Christian School where J1 will be in 6th grade and J3 will be in 1st grade.  J2 and I will persevere at home.

J2 will be in 4th grade – with the exception of the subjects that are directly affected by learning disabilities.  Here is what we are planning to do for our school this year:

Bible - we will be listening to an audiobook format of the Bible and then J2 will narrate (ala Charlotte Mason) daily.

Math - at recommendation of our consultant Sharon we are not proceeding with Saxon math this year.  J2 loves math – and likes to do it independently – but Saxon math requires more and more reading.  Which means that he would need me to read it to him.  So, we are going to use Modern Curriculum Press’s mathematics this year.

Science - Elementary Apologia’s “Exploring Creationg with Astronomy”

History – California History with Beautiful Feet and field trips with Daddy’s class.  Beautiful feet is a literature-based approach to history.
Language Arts – This is where J2’s learning disabilities hit us the hardest.  We are using some older curriculum and going as slowly as necessary.  We are going to create games using flashcards of our hardest words and steadily work our way through it.  J2 is still writing a book about pirates and he’s eager to get back to it.  When I say ‘writing’ I mean that he tells me what happens and we develop those ideas into complete sentences and thoughts on our whiteboard.  He copies it down into his notebook and illustrates the section.

That’s pretty much the bones of our education this next year.  I look forward to it and dread it at the same time.

Neglected

This poor blog has been neglected and it probably will continue to be for awhile!  But I’m posting on my personal blog – come visit friends!!

Technological Fun!

My sweet hubby came home from the store with a gift to support my new workout schedule – well, the out of water part of it!    A small MP3 player!  I want to download a book or two at http://www.audible.com but all of a sudden, I'm not sure what I want to listen to!  I'm thinking a classic – but I'm more of a cozy mystery or historical romance type of gal.  So, tell me what you'd download if you were in my shoes!!  Help! I need ideas!

This can be considered homeschooling if it's educating myself – right? lol

Cleaning House

After today, I'm going to try and keep my homeschooling blog and my personal blog seprarate.  I thought to move all posts not schooling related (knitting, grief, etc) to my other blog:  Journaling Back to Joy at http://www.osbornz.net/amy but that task is a little daunting! lol 

But from this day forward – I hope you will come read about the other parts of our life there. 

Also, check out http://cornerstoneacademy.osbornz.net for more of our favorite homeschool links.

Special Education: Writing

I’ve been meaning to tell you all about the meeting
I went to last month in San Jose.  It’s a monthly meeting for parents who are
homeschooling kids who have been diagnosed with special education needs.  The director of the group is Sharon Hensley
who wrote “Home Schooling Children With Special Needs”. 

Last month our meeting was about writing.  We spent most of the evening talking about
handwriting and a bit about composition.

First she challenged us to consider why we teach
handwriting.  In fact, she asked “Why are
homeschoolers so worried about handwriting?” 
There was much discussion…and it boiled down for many of us that we
recognize that our children (and thus us) are judged by their handwriting.  But in this technological age – is it
dying?  What is more important?  Getting ideas out in a reasonable manner or
have it be nice looking?

For many students this isn’t an either/or
matter.  But for children with special
needs, it can be.  Many moms shared that they
are only teaching cursive in order for their children to (1) be able to read it
themselves and (2) to be able to sign their names.  Other moms shared that they had success moving
to typing.

After an exercise meant to show us how many of our
children felt when we ask them to write and then hover over them, we came up with
the following actions to help us:

1)      
Provide time (without nagging, but not to waste of
course)

2)     
Find something to praise (every day/assignment)

3)     
Balance (to be honest – I can’t remember what this
meant lol)

4)     
Move towards typing as he gets older

5)     
Flexible – fit your student, not the curriculum

6)     
Coloring is good practice for manual strengthening

Then we moved to composition – my biggest
concern.  Sharon explained that our students learn what
a sentence is by copying, then dictation before they can compose a sentence of
their own.  And she suggested we ask them
to compose less than a sentence to start. 
**Remember if you are not dealing with a child with special needs, your
child might do this in a matter of minutes as opposed to days/months/etc**

After they can write a good sentence, then you can
go to paragraphs then more complex paragraphs and then essays.

A few products she recommended to help us:

Apple Tree – I’ve started to use this with
J2.  His disabilities are all in the
language arena.  He loves it and I do
too!  It’s taking the steps of creating a
sentence and breaking them into smaller steps. 
First he’s adding the correct word, then phrase and finally he’s doing
the sentence.  Here is a link:  http://www.proedinc.com/Scripts/prodView.asp?idProduct=1559

When it’s time to move onto paragaphs, she
recommends a product called FourSquare.(I think this link is it: http://www.teachinglearning.com/foursquare/writing_method.php)
 As my student isn’t that far along – I didn’t
take many notes on it.

Hope this helps someone!