First month down...

Well, we are officially into our second month of homeschooling. I am not going to go into great detail because....well...we would be here all night! Faith has 21 days in so we are on track (we have to log 180 days by June 1, 2011). My goal is to have at least 40 by the time regular school starts which is Aug 16, so I think we are good. I have been doing a lot of trial and error things, trying to figure out the best way to present things to her. Of course, the simpler the better with her. I have been kind of making unit studies on the letter A with different A letter words each week...Apple, Alligator, Ants...you get the point. We will spend the week reading books about each object, watching some educational movies and working with the real things doing counting or exploration (except the alligator, you know!) We have been playing a game with each object where I cut out a paper version of the object with the letter A on it and color it then go around the house and hide it. Then I ask Faith to find it. She has so much fun with this game and has become pretty darn good at finding it even when I try to hide it well. When she finds it I say the objects name and the sound A makes, then ask her to say the sound. We often play it for an hour or more!
I figure if I can get her to be able to identify (by pointing) the first three letters of the alphabet by Christmas that's a reasonable goal. I have been learning a lot myself about time management. I have always been pretty good at it, actually prided myself on it as a manager for years! But this is a different ballgame...therapy, doctors, driving, researching and preparing lessons, caring for her, getting her fed, dressed and medicated, cleaning, making dinner, record keeping. Shew...is that all? I have learned that we will not be able to do our school year following a typical school year schedule there are just too many commitments (for Faith) that we can't give up. So I have learned to get up early and spend an hour or two first thing, then off to therapy then book it home and spend as much time as we can before dinner. The majority of Faith's education is still daily living and self help so we get to count therapy and also when we work on standing, eating and dressing...all that counts for parts of our school day.
So this is really just a recap of things we have both been learning in the last month. My real big issue is in SC we have to teach writing. Now Faith is just barely where she can hold a large crayon and scribble some marks on a page, so that is giving me a real fit. I know we have to start with the basics like lines and circles but she isn't even near that. I feel very unprepared...wait unsure how to do this right. I need to talk to our Association leader about what counts to see if working on her Ipad may count or what I need to do.
Faith seems to be enjoying most everything we do, mostly I think she thrives on focused attention by me...always has. She has passed 160 books in our first month and we are working on compiling a review of our A words in a "A book" with pages she colors of each of her topics.

Tie Dye Fun...

Last Thursday, our local library had Tie Dye Day. The kids were invited to bring a t shirt or something white that they could dye....er....destroy!
Faith took a pillow case to color. First they made book marks out of foam stickers and glue...Faith was all about the glue and made a BIG mess all over her wheelchair and lap! I purposely dressed her in clothes that wouldn't be destroyed by dye but wasn't prepared for a glue war. She chose pink and teal to use and we were very conservative with the colors. Some of the other kids made a HUGE mess that dripped down onto the floor where the plastic had been moved under the table by all the kid feet. I felt so bad for the poor librarian. When we got home I put out the pillow case on the back porch to dry and it was totally dry in one hour! That's how hot it is here! Faith dragged her artwork all over the house for the rest of the night, she was so proud of it. This Thursday a bee keeper is bringing some of his bees and doing a presentation. Hey, I can't complain about the library doing some of my homeschooling work for me, can I?

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Not enough hours in the week...

Since we started homeschooling with Faith at the beginning of the month, I have had so little time to sit down and blog. I have been trying to keep up with everyone out in bloggie land but that's about all I can do, lately! I have been going from about 7 am til around 9 or 10 at night. Good news is we have 14 days under our belt, now. My goal is to have at least 40 days by the time public schools go back to school, so I can keep ahead. Faith is having lots of fun with "school" although it's just an amped up version of what we have done for years. We have spent HOURS reading. HOURS, people! Like over an hour almost every day! We have already read 115 books since the first of the month! I think we have logged about 10 hours of reading time since two Fridays ago. I have found out that my evenings are now my only time to get all the housework done. Well, at least most of the housework done! HE HE HE! If anyone has some extra prayer space could you remember me and pray for strength and fortitude?

School....

Tomorrow we embark on an exciting journey! Really just an extension of what we already do with some record keeping and lots of research thrown in. Tomorrow it the first day that we can begin home school for the year! I have to say, I am truly excited. I have been researching and reading for about three years now trying to prepare myself as much as possible and now here we are! After all that reading and a lot of good suggestions and some examples given by families here on the web and friends I have met...I think we are leaning into the Delight Driven or Ecletic Style of schooling, at least for the next couple of years. My new friend who home schools her s.n. son showed me a lot of what she did with him the first few years when the major focus was still on life skills, functional abilities and self help. The first years they did lots of field trips to community service places like the post office, police dept, fire dept etc. She also did a different approach to help him learn to read...she began with sight words showing him lots of words by labeling everything (in their home, on pictures, in therapy) she used post its on everything! And you know, her son can read really well! So, I am stealing that one, too, since Faith doesn't even understand ABC's yet, I figured at least she could begin to learn to recognize simple words, eh? She also picked from anything that he was interested in and focused on finding things related and made them into math projects or simple science experiments. So I have been collecting LOTS of horse related items...my favorite find, Monday's trip to the Goodwill, a 360 page illustrated horse encyclopedia, in perfect condition for..... $.49! Near where we live there is a store called the Education Shack that has all kinds of random educational supplies and therapeutic equipment on the SUPER CHEAP! And you all KNOW how I love a good deal! So Saturday, we ventured out, here are some of my great deals...pretty proud of these finds, especially the last one!

One cartridge of my kind of printer ink in magenta...(I just saw this at Staples for $20) my price
$1.00! And it's not expired!~

Record book with attendance and other needed items, I plan to disassemble this and use different pieces of it ( saw a newer version of this at the education store, around $10.00) my price $1.00!

Thought about you, Katy, with this one! A dirt worm cup dessert kit (made with pudding and gummies) my price $3.00! This one is going into my first science set, exploring plants, that goes hand in hand with my next find of the millennium!

Found this science curriculum kit for K-2cd grade, with hands on materials like seeds and cups for growing, teacher resource book, flip chart with diagrams an d charts of plants and animals in pretty simple terms, beans to soak in water, journals, soil and the like. I know Faith isn't ready for a lot of this stuff but she would like to plant some flowers in some dirt! So I spotted this kit in the window and asked about it. It was the only one, no price on it and the box was a little sun worn from sitting in the window. I asked the girl how much and she says..."how much do you want to pay for it?" Hmmmm...I was gonna go for a cheap toss out of $15 but since she asked...."How about $8?" SOLD! Yes folks, I snagged this $75 science kit for eight dollars! I checked it out on Amazon just out of curiosity! I walked out of the store with two walmart bags and this kit for $20! Got tape dispensers, highlighters, huge flip books, ink, planners, paint, misc. office supplies, pudding kit...all for a measly $20!
My home school planner is pretty much all set up and ready to go, and we can officially begin on June 1st. My plan is to try to get a jump by starting early so we can be sure to get our 180 days in. I found out that we can count a lot of Faith's activities toward our days, so I am happy about that. Of course, a lot of our work is going to continue to be on life skills but I want to get her out into her community more. So I plan to start out next week at the library and get her own library card. Big step, huh? I called the library the other day to ask how old a child had to be to get one (stupid question, BTW) and was informed that we could get one for a newborn, that kid's just link back to a parent's card! But another important milestone, none the less!
So here we are on the cusp of a huge new experience for Faith and for me. As of tomorrow, our little girl is in first grade! WOW....
Freaky!
HERE WE GO....

Decisions...

Well, I thought my entire week would be carefree and lazy, last week. It didn't quite end like that but HEY, a few days is better than NO days, right? I have been doing lots and lots of end research preparing for our first year of homeschooling so I haven't had much time to lay down a post in several days. In S.C., we have three options to h.s.: 1)School district approved prgm oversight by school district 2) Use an option two h.s. association approved by the state that requires testing of kids, very involved curriculum approval process' and VERY expensive membership dues 3) Option three....the only option that makes any sense if you are going to all this trouble...Join an Opt. 3 H.S. association, with no less than fifty members and follow their group rules, which are required by the state.

1. Keep a plan book or diary
2. Keep attendance, must be at least 180 days
3. Do a bi annual review/progress report
4. Attend a twice yearly check off where other group members review your records
5. Include reading, writing, math and science

This is a very brief explanation but of course, we chose to go with an option three group. We had three groups we were looking at. Two state wide groups and one local group, here in our county. Saturday we went to a check off meeting to meet the group in our county. They were all very nice and VERY helpful. The leader gave me lots of great ideas to work with Faith and another parent there showed me her plan books and how she prepared them. Great stuff! They were very accepting of Faith and told me that they had several special needs families in their group. They gave me tons of good field trip ideas for her for this year and made great suggestions of what I should work on with her. (Let me say, I know a LOT of this stuff in theory but how to do it and follow state law and requirements for the group was a little different story) They also gave me a phone number for a wonderful mom whose son has cerebral palsy and told me that she would be happy to talk to me. So I feel a LOT more confident and at peace with our decisions and very happy that we have a local group, to get advice and help in our first year and some families with kids like Faith. VERY RELIEVED! I started work on my plan book and after setting it up...I have 16 categories! I might need to pare this down a little...LOL!

BTW: I did call that mom and yesterday, we got together. She was so nice and her son was the most like Faith of any kid I ever met, even though he is much older than her. He still gets around his house walking on his knees or crawling like Faith does! You should have seen her face, watching another kid do that! She was right on his heels! He was incredibly smart and could tell me anything about the space program that I could ever imagine! They even gave Faith this cool piece of equipment called a wagon walker by Kaye products. It's this little push cart style walker for bigger kids and it has a wooden basket for toys on the front. You never saw a kid so happy! She has been pushing that thing around ever since! They had it waiting at the front door for her when we arrived! SO NICE! She showed me lots of stuff she did with her son when he was little and gave me a lot of confidence. We spent about 4 hours together and were instantly friends. She told me to call her anytime.

So all in all, our decisions are pretty much all made, I feel SO much better and we even made some new friends!

Horse stickers courtesy of Faith, she helped by choosing stickers and placement...

Hotlanta, I mean Atlanta!

YEAH! Today we made it to our first homeschooling convention in Atlanta! We just found out about it yesterday, so I asked Hubby and he was like "Heck Yeah, let's go!". So we went! We got up at the crack of dawn and hit good ole I-85 down to Hotlanta! Now I will say that I hold few fond memories of Atl., after spending 2 months down there in 2007. Faith and I spent 8 wks at the Marcus Inst. for feeding school. I was miserable and lonely the entire time. Anyway, we made it there and spent the day. It was our first one, as I said, and we were totally unprepared for the chaos and people. It was shoulder to shoulder the entire time, (which isn't good for wheelchairs!). We did get to see alot of cool stuff, sat in on a great seminar about H.S.ing special needs children and met a really neat guy who started a therapy play center for special needs children. His daughter has sensory processing disorder and he wanted a place where children could come and just play on safe stuff that also provided therapy for them! He said it was the only one of it's kind in the U.S.! Very cool, we even got a free pass to visit! Can't wait to go. The seminar that we went to was great, this woman who put it on did work with h.s.ing families and w/ the schools to identify how to help s.n. children learn different concepts like reading, for instance. She was also a h.sing mom of 3, one with dislexia. She had alot of good resources and programs. She also pointed out some great things that I had been thinking in my head about Faith but wasn't sure about. Like about the importance of instilling lifeskills as primary learning and not making the academics the biggest focus. She talked about teaching your children to be functional adults who are pleasant to be around and can do things for themselves. I know I am rabbling but I was very excited. Anyhow, we are off to our second convention, in Charlotte, next weekend. Hopefully, we can be more prepared and not so scatterbrained.

Side Note: I just got word that Faith's wheelchair was approved by TEFRA and has ACTUALLY beenn ordered! After MONTHS of waiting and fighting and trying to get things through the system, we did! Her PT said that the mobility co. ordered it last Fri. and they said it should be in by the end of Aug.!!!!! I can't believe it! She said that "everything" was approved, which I hope means that they approved a tray for her chair, too. SOOOO HAPPY!

Congnitive Testing

Today, was Faith's first round of actual testing at the Dev. Behavioral Peds. She was working with a young lady, who is finishing up her residency, next month. The girl was very good with Faith, I was worried that Faith wouldn't do well b/c it was a new person and all. Faith played appropriately with the toys given to her. She responded, in her own way, to requests, questions and even showed off some of her ASL w/o being asked to. The girl was VERY impressed with Faith, commenting that the biggest worry we are going to have with Faith is underestimating what she can do! We were extatic! She said that Faith demonstrated high levels of curiosity, high threshold for frustration and an easy going nature! She made alot of observations that even I hadn't noticed before. She said that she was clearly more cognitively developed than we had thought. She also said that she was very patient and was trying very hard to do things "just" right. Like, she had a bear and a spoon and a cup. The girl "stirred" the spoon in the cup and pretended to feed the bear, then gave the spoon to Faith. Faith got the bear in her lap, then she tried to put the spoon in the cup but it fell over, so she dropped the spoon and spent several minutes trying to get the cup back upright and in the same spot. Finally, she got it right and "fed" the bear. She told us that it was a very good sign that she is observant and persistant! Carl and I were on cloud 9! We walked out of there with the biggest smiles you have ever seen! It was such an uplifting visit, compared to our usual "bad news" visits! She said that Faith was very facinating and she though she could come up with alot of good suggestions for us with homeschooling! SOOOOOO HAPPY!!:)