Oh, wow!  My special needs teenager, Jeff, has confiscated my digital camera... and he is shooting away at everything he sees.  I am impressed.  He's getting some good shots and learning how to improve his aim and focus.  This is a blessing from God for sure, as Jeff's verbal communicaton skills are so poor and his handwriting poor as well, although we keep working on both. 

What I am teaching him is to not only take the pictures but to download them onto the computer and really look at them with a critical eye -- noting what he can improve and what he did really well.  Then we delete the ones that he doesn't want to keep and edit some of the others. 

Being a Creative Memories consultant, we use "Memory Manager" software, which is pretty new, and since Jeff can keyboard a whole lot better than he can write, he is able to do a journaling box right on the screen in Memory Manager.  He can change the color of the font, the background, or the frame, and he can pick whatever font style he wants.  What an educational tool! 

Next we print out our "page" (pictures and journaling boxes) onto cardstock, and he can either adhere the sheet right onto his scrapbook page in his album or we can hole punch and put it into a notebook.  I want him to complete a "Photography Portfolio" for this school year, but we aren't certain yet whether it will be an album or a notebook. 

Either way, it will showcase a big part of his learning in all areas.  For example, he has a picture of "Granny" sitting at her kitchen table waiting for us to put her daily eyedrops in.  This is part of our "service."  Granny is 93 and has glaucoma and is pretty much not able to walk.  Grandad is 97 and blind.  Both of them are so important to Jeff, and he really helps care for them. 

This morning he tooks pictures of the goats and the donkey on the farm, which he helps feed every day, so that is another "facet" of his homeschool education. 

If you want more information on homeschoolin a special needs child, please do contact me, as I have so many ideas and techniques to share on this wonderful journey we're on.  I'm in the process of putting an e-book together of our curriculum and resources from the past 3 years of "formal" homeschooling and the past 17 years of teaching this awesome creature God bestowed on us.  Praise God; he knows exactly what He's doing!