Woo Hoo, Yes and Oh My, No.

It was a Woo Hoo YES and an Oh My NO

type of day

Do you know what this?  It is a huge step forward.  Eight weeks in and this is the first story organizer he wrote on his own, actually the first story organizer he has done.  I might have to frame this and put it on the wall.   It helps when he enjoys the story and this was laid out in a way where it was easier to follow the sequencing of the story.  He understood the organizer, Woo Hoo!

And then we have our big fail of the day.  I had a feeling he was not completely understanding grammar and this quick review proves it.  The rules are not sticking with him, which again is part of his apraxic issue but since we are tackling this home adventure I can rework the rest of the week to include some extra practice and review as we move forward.  The funny argument we have going on is about spoken words used compared to written words.   Take the word fish, its plural is fish.  Question number five has fishies as a choice and LT choose that as the answer (he did choose the wrong rule spelling as fishys) and he has tons of spoken examples to prove his point about using fishy and fishies in our language.  This is the struggles of someone with a processing disorder.  Grammar will be an interesting struggle for the rest of the year and probably the rest of his life.

Our Failures are also our Greatest Achievements

Major Pat on the Back 

and those moments on how did he get through the last two years not knowing how to do these things.  

We are rolling into our 7th week and we are 2 weeks away from our first Quarter being completed.  We have had some amazing accomplishments but still have some major fails that need adjusting. 

The math program is running smoothly and Lawrence is doing very well with it.  It is a common core curriculum and the program I went with does make one think outside the box but it lacks review, repetition and memorization of math facts which I think is what is really lacking in the common core curriculum as a whole.  So I have supplemented the program with math review and we are currently working on developing our multiplication lapbooks to strengthen math facts.   He has done very well with the 100 addition facts but his time to complete is from 18 minutes to 25 minutes for the 5 minute drills.  We do need to work on time but I am more concerned with  the idea that he know the facts rather than the time it takes to complete them.  

In the past he has done horribly on spelling words but I could never understand how they presented them in the school setting.  They seemed to be random not linked to reading or grammar they were working on.  Lawrence never liked the activities in school linked to the spelling word reviews.  My girls had worked with McGraw Hill where the reading, grammar and spelling and vocab all worked together, I decided to give that a try.  I removed sorts and spelling sentences, the sentences especially since he was going to see them through out our readings for the week.  He works through the workbook over 4 days and I added flashcards for ABC order and 2 times each on the paper through Handwriting without tears.  This paper has been a huge help in ending some of the writing frustrations associated with the small lined papers.  After 5 weeks we have success.  He learns spelling patterns and sees them in sentences.  He is very proud of his accomplishments and has noticed he is accomplishing things he had not accomplished or mastered in the past.

He is enjoying the non ending mold experiement.  He is loving the daily geography lessons because it is all about maps and pirates use maps.  He enjoys getting up and doing a 15 minute non-school related activity between lessons and he loves it even more when the break turns out to be a little longer because Mom has something else she needs to complete.  There are days I can not figure out why he gets so upset over doing the work and then there are days where he does everything on his own without prompting him to do it.  Our biggest accomplishment is just starting and finishing a lesson, even if it means the lesson has been put off till tomorrow.  We do not move forward until I know he has a basic understanding of what we are working on.  Which brings us to my next paragraph.  

We have some major obstacles that we will classify as our failures right now.  ELA is our worst subject .  He hates writing or sequencing thoughts to put into a sentence.  Sequencing is one of his major problems with his apraxia.  He will not write past a sentence, he can not add to prompts or come up with ideas to write about.  He doesn't understand sentence structures when it comes to actually writing them and he is so hit or miss with grammar: nouns, pronouns and verbs.  He is enjoying the trips to the library, he is reading Chapter books, he is doing well with the A to Z reading program and really enjoys the RAZ kid app especially where you record your voice reading and then listen to what you read.  His comprehension of what he read is really good.  So we have doubled up on reading, writing and grammar in an effort to give Lawrence more experience and build confidence.    I am also still adjusting the curriculum in hopes of the finding the items that "clicks" with him.  

So based on my title "Our failures are also our greatest achievements"  I have experienced a very different aspect of teaching and inspiring someone to learn.  Lawrence was playing around with a learning app and he was intentionally and unintentionally getting problems wrong.  He was enjoying the wrong answers and listening to way the chosen answer was wrong.  He actually was learning from the mistakes without getting frustrated because he got it wrong.   It made me realize while seeing the smile on his face with his accomplishments with doing well with math and spelling, if his failures are presented in a way that he learns something new from them, then the failures are just as important.  We as a society try to protect our children from failures forgetting that these children had to fall several times before they were able to walk.  That failure to move forward or stand was the driving force that made them want to try harder to reach the goal of walking even though at that point they didn't realize that was the goal.  Lawrence over these last couple of weeks has taught me a lot.  He has a lot of obstacles to over come but because the pressure has been removed he is able to explore at his pace.  We are making a positive advancement forward, even though some is coming at a snails pace.  

Weeks One and Two

Well we have made it through our first two weeks.  I have definately learned a lot about my son and still have a lot of tweaking of curriculum layouts.  Our Moto is to start and complete an activity.  I allow for a break between activities and he can do whatever he wants:  Video game, TV time or Computer time.  We also cover some fresh air and stretch time.  Gives him something to work for and allows me time to set up for the next activity.  We have had a couple melts downs and a day where we stopped everything and had to take a nice walk before continuing with our work but we have seen a huge difference in his frustration level at home.  The idea is to get through an activity and then work on getting it done in a more reasonable time.  We have lots of review to cover through out the month of September because he definately is missing some key understandings of main educational topics.  He has continued with speech and I can now work his speech issues into review on a daily basis with "school" work.  I figure I will update the blog over the weekend cover our topics of the week.  By October I will have the science curriculum started and should have some additional resources added.  What is also nice is when something needs reviewing, I can get the review completely set up by the following day and when questions come up I can work it into our schedule to cover at that time or before the end of the day.  Our science project was not planned this week but after a trip to the library and one of the books Lawrence picked out we covered what Amoebas are (covered simply for a 3rd grade understanding) and now have a two week science lab in the works.  I also believe the library will become one of my best friends for resources on topics we would like to cover.  I put in my first request for books for an activity we plan on covering next week, our first social studies/history project.  Other than me being a little under the weather, so far things are going as smoothly as expected.  Over the weekend I will print out my next week units from his e-curriculum's along with writing up review sheets on his new paper from his handwriting program.  Prep and using proper timing and paper makes his life a lot less stressful.   Another thing that is nice I have more time to spend with my daughters since Lawrence covers everything he needs to cover during the day we have nights with no homework and time to spend as a family.  A surprise has also happened and it is my son is reading on his own.  His choose to read, he brought a book to bed and read before he went to bed and he also has started but time aside to read a chapter of his book during his free time.  Looking forward to enjoying the weekend because Mondays come to visit quickly.  

Math program http://www.mathmammoth.com/

 Language Arts program   http://activities.macmillanmh.com/reading/treasures/

Handwriting http://www.hwtears.com/hwt 

and review sheets

We spent some time outside on our field trips:  

Apples and Raspberries

What we did for our art time

Tissue paper and Water colors

We worked on review and

started our first Science project

He was able to cover gym activities during our first week in the pool

He did the log roll and climbing obstacle course for another gym activity

We also plan on visiting the local library at least once a week

Best part is being able to relocate our classroom 

Overall a good start and he has been up to the task

Our First Day

First Day

The two oldest headed back to school today and we started some review in our home school adventure.  First learning experience is to start home school once the two oldest are in school full day.  It is a crazy two days of running them back and forth and trying to get review in without interruptions.  Even with the craziness we had a good start to this new experience.

Wonder Wall:  

I saw this on Pinterest and loved the idea.  http://nurturestore.co.uk/wonder-wall   It is perfect to keep track of teachable moments that otherwise we might not remember to go back and research.

This was a fun activity to start with.  This allowed Lawrence to be hands on with his learning choices.  This also was good for his gross and fine motor skills.  It was big whole body movements while laying/painting our bricks in a pattern on our wall.

We added our first note to our wall.  It is to research Birch trees and the woods and forests.

Lawrence has a couple fine motor skill issues so I am making sure our activities are hands on and fun as we build up his strength in these areas.  

Overall it was a pretty good day of review and starting some of our regular curriculum work.  We started our Handwriting without Tears program, http://www.hwtears.com/hwt    We reviewed our math facts, started our reading log and book reports.   Nightly reading has also made its way back into our routine.  

Day 1 down and only 179 more to go ... LOL.   I will continue to blog our experience over the next couple of days and weeks.  Friday our math programs makes its first appearance and our reading/language arts program starts on Monday.  We will be building and transition into our home school days through out the month of September.  

Curriculum: Language Arts

Reading and Language Arts

Last year Lawrence's spelling words were separate from his reading which was separate from grammar.  This is an area he really struggles with because of his apraxia.  I had read and decided to search for a program that linked all components of Language Arts together.  This way the spelling, vocabulary and grammar are all in the reading passages associating everything together and hopefully helping Lawrence see the connection between reading, grammar and spelling and how it plays a role in becoming a strong reader.  The program I decided to use is the program my girls had used when they were in elementary school.  

Macmillan/McGraw-Hill has a reading program called Treasures,  http://activities.macmillanmh.com/reading/treasures/

Online the workbooks are free:  We have spelling, grammar and on-level practice associated with the reading passage for the week.  http://www.mhschool.com/reading/treasure_workbooks/national.html

I was able to order the student book on-line used and it is in great condition.  I am fortunate to have two printers, laser jet and color, which makes printing the on-line workbooks easier for us.  

The Macmillian website has a parent, teacher and student site so we can add some on-line activities to the program, mixing up the learning materials for better comprehension.  

Through out the book we have stop points for strategy skills, comprehension checks and on-line sources that help reinforce what is being taught through the reading passage.  

We will be starting this program the week of September 8th.  Since this is an area that Lawrence struggles with, in October we are adding two more programs as reinforcement programs for reading and language comprehension.  Those programs are made up of several different approaches so once those programs arrive at the house I will share on the blog.  

Curriculum: Math

We are about to begin our adventure in home schooling.  It was not an easy decision to make but I know it is a decision that is best for everyone.  Over the month of September I plan on reviewing topics and subjects that were covered last year.  I am looking into an art program outside of the house to make sure we have interaction with other children while tackling core subjects in an environment with little distractions.  All the curriculums will be established over the month of September.  

MATH

Lawrence did fairly well with math and didn't have any issues with the Singapore approach.  I was weighing towards staying with the same program but decided to go with a different program that was more teacher/student home school study friendly.  Plus all the materials are sent over in a digital download, which I prefer.

The curriculum we went with is Mammoth Math  http://www.mathmammoth.com/

I am in the planning phase.  I have 180 days and 3 hours per week that I have to get into my log.  This is a complete program with 2 work books.  The program is nice because each chapter has links to on-line math games and lessons plus links for additional review and worksheets so the entire program is just not work book based but it is also visual through the on-line options that are available.  

I'll continue to share as we progress through the program.

Lapbooking

Lapbooking

I have been going back and forth with homeschooling since last year and have been doing a lot of research on which approach would be best to start with.  One item I kept coming across was lapbooks, http://www.rosettastone.com/homeschool/articles/what-is-lapbooking .  At first I wasn't sure about these but the more I researched the more I came to like them.  We are currently "playing" around with three different lapbooks.  Two are Olympic themed and one is a multiplication reference.  Lawrence really likes the idea.  He is having fun while learning Olympic facts.  He likes all the foldables they have, its like a surprise behind each fact.  They have gotten him talking about what he is learning which is something he rarely does when he gets home from school.  I think because we slow down the process and spend time putting together the book this is staying with him, sticking in his brain.  We have not completely built our own lapbook, we have been working off templates that I have come across.  Once I get this under my belt, we should be able to make and design our own based on the subject we are trying to tackle.  They also make a great resource to go back to.  With the Olympic ones we are researching sports, athletes, Russia and how the Olympics got it's start.  I am building on his interests and he gets to do it at his pace.  Learning should be fun and he is really having fun putting these together.

These are our three lapbooks

This is the multiplication lapbook.  We found the layout for this one here:  http://theresasmultiplication.weebly.com/multiplication-lapbook.html

What is nice about this one was it was a free template. 

This is one of the Olympics lapbooks.  I found the layout here:  http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Winter-Games-Lapbook-Sochi-2014-1037760

This one is designed by a teacher and the layout I had to purchase but it was perfect for starting out with these ideas. 

This is our other Olympic lapbook.  I found the layout here:  http://www.ajourneythroughlearning.net/wiol20lawist1.html

This lapbook goes into more details about the Olympic games.  

First order of Business is tackling writing (fine motor skills) and setting up the curriculum around it.  

Lawrence was evaluated for fine motor skills and started receiving OT in first grade and is still receiving it today.  The problem is OT has him writing on special paper with guidelines, his processing disorder has an impact on his fine motor skills, but OT guidelines are not brought over to the class room or to his class work.  I am finding that if OT and class room activities are not working together  Lawrence is not getting the practice he needs to make progress with his fine motor skill issues.  He is typically still on bigger lined paper but as the grades progress he is expected to write on smaller lines in a smaller space.  He hasn't mastered writing but is expected to move on because that is the pace of the classroom.   

'

This is Lawrence's hand writing in Kindergarten

This is Lawrence's hand writing in Second Grade

I have found this great writing program Handwriting Without Tears, http://www.hwtears.com/hwt .  

It is a different approach to writing and lined paper.  I am ordering the Second grade workbook for Lawrence to do at home and I will be using the paper layout and writing workbook for all of Lawrence's writing assignments for our home school 3rd grade setting.  I am setting up the curriculum so his therapies carry over to his school setting so everything is working together.  Hoping that having everything working together and being able to provide him with more one-on-one interaction we can start to make some positive changes in his life.  Keep following as the curriculum comes together for our adventure into education at Lawrence's pace.  

When you have several children but you have one child who challenges you and struggles with the simple stuff in school and life you as a parent try to get to the bottom of what is going on.  This is the start of a new chapter on finding out how my son ticks.  This is about having a gut feeling, which hasn't failed me in the past, and doing a lot of research into the process disorder that my son has.  With the changing of school policies, new common core standards and therapy differences, I believe my son is getting lost in the mix.  This will be a journey, an adventure and a challenge with bumps in the road but I know a smaller setting will allow him to focus on the tougher subjects and work at a slower pace while moving forward with the subject he masters easily. Also, his therapies will not interfere with learning time and we can start to address some social issues in a smaller setting so that a larger setting will no longer be a problem.  There is a lot of research to still be done, curriculum's to be set up and schedules to be laid out.  I am starting the blog out as I tackle his reading level (which is below grade level), math level (which he is amazing at) and what is expected of Third Grade.  Let the research begin.