PJ Home Schooling - Homeschool Blogger

So Busy

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:22:00 -0500

I have been so busy with my family and my own personal stuff going on that I haven't had any time of late to blog here. I don't have time tonight either, but tomorrow I will blog about Micah's new O.T.

Josiah has finished most of 2nd grade. We started a new Spelling program which is going much better then the other programs that we've tried. We just began Math-U-See and the boys are both enjoying it quite a bit.

I've been looking into helping the boys with cognitive development. We think this may help with some of the underlying problems we've been having with their development. I've also looked (just a little) into biofeedback. Which is something a friend of ours told me about. Our insurance won't cover cognitive training but it may cover biofeedback. So it's an option that for now is on the back burner.

We've see tremendous improvement in their sleep patterns and some improvement on their concentration since they've been taking fish oil. My health has been better since as well. We ran out of fish oil last week and so did our provider. I see the downward turn from just a few days off of it. It's been a difficult week in terms of concentration. But still much better on the whole.

Still Micah struggles a bit. We're praying for guidance. If you are a praying person he could use some prayer.

Zboy and I have decided that it's time for him to learn to read. Two to three days a week we spend 15 to 30 minutes (I plan for 15 and he begs for more lol) at www.starfall.com learning the letter sounds. Once I'm sure that he has a strong grasp on the sounds (he's almost there) we'll move on to the blends. For now he's enjoying our time together. He's eager to learn to read like his big brothers. Josiah wonders what's taking him so long. LOL

And now I'm off to get a few hours sleep before our way to early O.T appointment. Have a great day.

2007 Homeschool: Week Twenty

Fri, 25 Jan 2008 08:46:00 -0600

This week was somewhat productive.

In Language Arts Josiah did some grammar. He studied verb tenses and present participles. He will be financed with his grammar book soon. He read Canterbury Tales and several books of his own choosing. He studied Haiku and practiced his hand at it. He wrote his first real essay as apposed to his normal book reports or stories.

For math he practiced with some math flash cards that his Nana gave him. She used them when she was a little girl. He's getting it slowly.

In Science he read a couple books on Space and studied some Constellations in books. The weather is so cold and cloudy that he hasn't been able to use his new telescope yet. But he's looking forward to using it soon.

Fine Arts was free style this week so he traced and cut out 30 hands and built his very own roller coaster out of card stalk for art. He listened to themed songs from movies (the ones at the end of a movie) to see if he could find any commonality between them and Beethoven's work.

He has also been studying for the Bible Quiz meet that takes place at the 1st of the month. He has memorized all the 10 point questions (75 problems). He is now learning the 20 point questions.

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Micah also did Language Arts. He studied pronouns and has memorized the list of pronouns and is actively finding them peppered in everyones conversations. Read the I Can Read Section at www.starfall.com two Miss Bindergarten Books and 8 other Beginning 1st &2nd grade readers from the library. He's coming along slowly, but his tracking trouble really gets in the way at times. He is almost finished with Phonics Pathways and we are both looking forward to retiring it.

He practiced math with our Rainbow Rock CDRom.

He has also been studying for the Bible Quiz meet that takes place at the 1st of the month. He has memorized all the 10 point questions (75 problems) and 30 of the 20 point questions. He is working on mastery of the last 59 of the 20 point questions.

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Zboy has been too busy to do any school this week, but has tagged along on a shopping trip and helped with the calculations of the prices. He is also getting a few of the easy Bible Quiz questions.

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Selah has gone to her first Physical Therapy Session and we learned that her hips spread too far which is causing a lot of her problems. The Therapist gave us some exercises to strengthen her back, glute and leg muscles.

An update on life and school

Sun, 20 Jan 2008 22:20:00 -0600

School has been on the back burner for a while. We have been getting evaluations for Josiah and Micah. They were both diagnosed with ADHD.

Josiah has ADHD Non-Hyperactive and tested moderately gifted.

Micah has ADHD with Hyperactive. He also has SPD (sensory processing dysfunction) and possibly SSS (Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome) we haven't had him evaluated yet. He tested on the high end of average. They suggested that we test him again after having Occupational Therapy and and Vision Therapy or what ever he does need for the eye problem.

We are also looking at having to take Zechariah to Speech Therapy. Jason had speech problems as a child and took ST. He is working with Zechariah for now. If the problem persists past his 4th birthday we will get and evaluation for him.

We also have been having a lot of issues with Selah. She is not growing at a normal rate and was labeled Failure to Thrive at 6 months. She is now 8.5 months and has just reached 14 lbs. She has been to a Gastroenterologist and Neurologist.

The GI can't figure out the reason behind her slow growth. The Neurologist, found some muscle tone problems that may be helped by Physical Therapy so we are going to a PT for the next 3 months. If the PT doesn't help her she will need to have a MRI and more blood work to find out the problem. He was reluctant to do the MRI now because of her weight and age.

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Josiah's is almost finished with his 2nd grade year.

He has read through the NiRV, read the Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis Trilogy, Shakespeare for Kids, Series of Unfortunate Events and many other books, finished A Measuring Scale for Ability in Spelling, Dictionary Spelling Words first 720 words, memorized 36 Short Poems, read Stories of the Pilgrims, Various State Books, finished Drawing With Children Level 1, finished Challenging Word Problems 2, and finished Earth and Space Science.

He has 20 pages left in Grammar Skills 5th, 30 pages left in Words on the Vine, 5 chapters left of Prima Latina. and 15 chapters left in Story of the World 2: The Middle Ages.

We decided not to use Classical Reading and Writing Copybook or Writing Strands 3, and chose to wait on Singapore Math 3A - 3B and Challenging Word Problems 3.

For Government we're studying the presidential debates. He knows all the Democratic and Republican incumbents and their platforms (better then I do).

He's taking a brake from Swim lessons, but will resume lessons when they are next offered. Is enjoying Classics for Kids. and doing well in Good Stewardship.

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Micah is almost finished with Kindergarten.

He has read through the NiRV, read all of Eric Carle Books, finished Singapore Math 1A - 1B, Challenging Word Problems 1, finished Writing Strands 1, memorized 36 Short Poems, finished Drawing With Children Level 1, and studied Animals.

Has 36 lessons left in Year 1 of First Language Lessons, 41 pages left in Phonics Pathways, and 15 chapters in Story of the World 1.

He is enjoying Classics for Kids, is doing okay with Good Stewardship, is working on the Human Body, and will go on to Plants after that.

Update on our Homeschool

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 23:44:00 -0600

My serious neglect of this blog has not been intentional. There have been so many things taking place over the last few weeks that I just put it aside. Since I have devoted this blog to school and their hasn't been a lot of that going on lately it seemed a mute point.

But I will give an update here...

Josiah has gone to a Psychologist to see if we could figure out a better way of schooling him, among other reasons. A few things we learned are...

Josiah is a gifted underachiever. He has a high comprehension level and a low processing speed. He is not getting the nutrition he needs or the proper amount of sleep. The sleep that he is getting (8hrs) is not meeting his needs. It is as though he is functioning on 4 hours of sleep. This effects his ability to learn.

Some changes we've made...

We have a set bedtime of 8:00. We have a new bedtime routine which begins at 6:00. I insure he sleeps (not as easy as it sounds). He has gone from lying in bed for 5 hours waiting to fall asleep to 30 min.

We have changed school from six 30 min. sessions to six 10 min. sessions. We have accomplished more in our 10 min. sessions then we ever did in a 30-60 min. session.

We have (yet again) started over in math. He is now doing worksheets of 0+5, 1+3, 2+4, __+6 = 9, 9+5. Tomorrow he will be adding 8. On our first day of 10 min. math he did 7 pages with 25 problems each. Today he did 3 pages of adding 9.

This Friday the Psychologist will discuss a new "family" diet. I have no clue what this will entail so I have decided to let our food supply dwindle. I will be needing to shop on Saturday. My poor cupboards are looking pretty bare.

Micah is still having problems with writing, focusing sitting still for more the 4 seconds, putting everything in his mouth, rubbing, and his newest venture - wearing nothing but gloves and under ware. He has a raw face from rubbing things against his lips. He had a hard time at Thanksgiving because of all the noise. We will be taking him to an Occupational Therapist on the 13th of December for these developmental issues.

Zechariah has been enjoying all the extra time to play with his brothers. Tonight he tried to sleep with his big brother, because in his words, "He is so cool".

Selah is having some problems with growth. She is not growing as she should. She has had some blood test done to try and find the problem, as well as, a sweat test and a urine and stool test. So far the Dr. is not sure what is going on. She did say a new word this week... Power. She is now up to 5.

A Birthday Message

Fri, 2 Nov 2007 20:28:00 -0500

Today is Micah's Birthday. He is six today. Happy Birthday Micah.... today we went to Chuck E. Cheese. We had a lot of fun. He will have his party with the family in a couple of weeks. It's hard to get everyone out these days due to everyone's schedule. Here is a few Drawings we had made by Mr. Cheese himself.

2007 Homeschool: Week Thirteen

Fri, 2 Nov 2007 18:34:00 -0500

Josiah finished his math review I had for him so he's been busy spending time doing his Rainbow Rock CD Rom. He can now answer 9 addition problems in 60 seconds. I have come to the realization that he is not actually adding but counting (ie. 6+4= 7,8,9,10 or seveightnineten as he whispers it). We have decided to hold off on Singapore Math PM3 because he's just not ready for it. And because DH wants us to try Math-U-See Alpha. We will "see" how this program works for him.

He has been reading Nancy Drew all week. He got a 6 book set at the Salvation Army for $4.25 and he has been quite engrossed. He felt this was a real deal. He figured out that each book cost him $0.71, each page cost him less then a penny and that to buy that many hours worth of entertainment at the movie theater would cost him $63 not including popcorn or tax.

A little grammar and a little Latin got done. I'm in no real hurry to get finished with the little that is left in his daily workbooks anyway. We have finished all our Earth Science I had planned for this year and I really need to get to the experiments. He will start Space after Christmas. I'm hoping to purchase a good pair of binoculars or a half way decent telescope (maybe used) in January. He read a little for U.S. and State History.

*Concerning my informal evaluation in Reading... He finished the tests as in we ran out of test before he ran out of knowledge. So we've decided to have him evaluated by a professional. He has an appointment on the 8th of November. If we like the psychiatrist, we are going to see about some issues that are less academically related that Josiah has.

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Micah is doing really well with First Language Lessons and will be finished with 1st grade grammar by Christmas or maybe the end of January. He's not doing so well with writing. We are both very frustrated with this and I've decided to step back and reevaluate what we are doing (More about this later). He has finished Singapore Math PM1B (His favorite subject) this week we worked on learning to use the Mouse for his Rainbow Rock CD Rom. He has some trouble manipulating the mouse well enough to do this task on his own. He also did some U.S. and State History. We still have a few animals to cover in Biology (his second favorite subject) and then we will go into Anatomy.

We read "Flat Stanley" and talked about "What if there were a flat Micah?". Next week we are going to make a flat Micah. We will laminate it, fold it, write a letter, add a journal and send it to some friends of ours. We also joined the Flat Travelers and intend to do something with them.

*While we were looking into some concerns we have for Josiah we were directed to a book called "The Out of Sync Child" by Carol Stock Kranowitz. We found the descriptions in this book strikingly familiar... they were nearly parallel with Micah. Such things as his fine and gross motor skill issues, his lack of attention, and hyper-attention issues, sensitivity to noise and touch along with many, many other things we were hoping he would have grown out of by now.

We've spoken with our Ped. about this and she has referred us to a Developmental Ped. He will be evaluated on the 13th of December.

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Zechariah reviewed the Vowels and learned about a paradox. He used it in a sentence... I'm a sweet stinker Nana, and that's a paradox!

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Selah stayed cute. Worked on eating as much baby food as her little belly can hold and picked up her bottle (though she is not yet able to bring it to her mouth).

My Version of 20 Questions

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:07:00 -0500

Some questions I've been pondering about parenting the precocious child (or children). Not in any particular order of importance. These are very general (stereotypical) questions that are mostly tongue and cheek, but feel free to comment on or answer these questions.

1. Why is it that parents who talk about their little field goal kicking super star aren't bragging (just being proud parents)... but mentioning that your 4 year old can read is?

2. Why exactly do we (as a society) gives a poor playing major league baseball player more money then a cancer research specialist (who BTW was probably a precocious child)?

3. Why do the precocious children in school get teased and the athletic kids get scholarships to Noter Dame?

4. Why do the precocious children only get noticed after suffering years of ridicule... ie. after they've shoot their high school teacher?

5. Why do parents of "normal" kids always say, "You shouldn't complain, you have it good (or easy)"?

6. Why do other people think your precocious child should be perfect, even while their's is climbing up your cabinets?

7. Why does the precocious child think he/she has to be perfect?

8. Why do so many people focus on the importance of socialization when it's obvious that the only social interaction precocious children get in school is negative anyway? I know there are exceptions to this one... mostly in girls who hide their talents.

9. Why do some parents of precocious children push their kids to socially excel while secretly wishing they were "normal"?

10. Why do other parents feel threatened by any academic deviance from the norm? 11. Why do I always hear that they even out in X grade anyway? The magic grade seems to be a grade or two higher then the precocious child.

12. Why is it that if you homeschool your precocious child you are somehow cheating?

13. Can you really force your child to learn faster then the rate at which they are naturally wired? I think not!

14. Why is it that when you try to explain that your kid is a precocious child (insert here other words often used for these children) and you will be told that all children are precocious?

15. Using the logic of the previous question... do all children know how to put a car together or dunk a basketball?

16. Why does society seem to think its okay to belittle the abilities of the precocious child in favor of not hurting the feelings of the average child?

17. Why is stating the obvious, the average 5 yo can do this, which is what my precocious 2 yo is doing now considered an attack on the average 5 yo? Note that is not the likely way a parent of a precocious child would state this...but it is how the listener would hear it.

18. Why do they label text books with grade levels?

19. Why do children's literature reading labels have to be in such large print?

20. Why aren't there more books out on asynchronous development?

2007 Homeschool: Week Twelve

Mon, 29 Oct 2007 22:24:00 -0500

The Boys participated in a Leaf Exchange last week. They did the work over the weekend. I think it turned out pretty good. I did the writing for some of it. The boys have received their book and enjoyed getting a note from their new friend in South Carolina. Here is the Lap Book they made for him.

Here is Josiah's Story

Leaf Dream on the Second Page

And Here is Micah's Poem Leaf Dance

2007 Homeschool: Week Eleven

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 23:34:00 -0500

This week Josiah learned about, possessive pronouns, homophones, Latin chron/temp root words, and Math review. He read "The Journey to the River Sea, as well as, 5 hours of free reading. He's getting better at swimming. He did push-ups.

He did a few more placement tests this week.

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This week Micah worked some more on days of the week and months of the year, read about spiders and bees, and reviewed math. He read "Harriet and the Garden", as well as, 2 1/2 hours of free reading and did push-ups. He preformed his life skills without complaint.

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This week Zechariah learned about the letter "L", began working through Letter of the Week Activity Box. He listened to "Harriet and the Garden", as well as, 1 hours of read-alouds. He did push-ups and "played" baseball with a sward and a balloon. He also preformed his life skills.

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This week Selah pulled herself up from a reclined (not laying) position to a sitting position. She bit (gummed) her brother's finger and peed on her blanket.

2007 Homeschool: Week Ten

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 20:16:00 -0500

This week the boys have been very busy procrastinating, hem hawing and being stubborn. So while some learning did take place this week our plan didn't come together very well.

Josiah did manage to do his Latin roots, read a few books, and explore the ceiling tiles. He also co-wrote a poem about rainy days.

Micah figured out how to skip count to ten by 2's, read an abridged version of Wind in the Willows and found out that spiders make webs in the corner behind the kitchen door.(This is because he spent most of the week with his nose in that particular corner.)

Zechariah learned that if he yells loud enough it will get Daddy out of bed. He also learned that the letter K sounds a lot like the letter C and that cake does not start with a K.

Selah learned to say "mama" her first word. Awww my sweet baby girl said, "mama" and I wasn't the only one who herd her say it either. :o)