For Home Education Week, Dana has some wonderful writing prompts for each day.  If you'd like to read more or share some of your own experiences, check it out!  ;)  Dana has also included some fascinating surprise activities for us, unveiled at the beginning of each day!

Because of an early diagnosis of Sensory Integration Disorder and excellent training from our occupational therapist, our homeschool has looked different from most, and began early.  When Sensory Integration was first explained to me, the OT said that the way our brains (and nervous system and bodies) develop is like a pyramid. 

At the base of the pyramid are three parts:  proprioceptive (messages from joints during movement), kinesthetic/ vestibular (knowing your body's position in space while moving) and tactile (feeling things).  Each of these areas target a specific skill.  So in the past, therapists have honed in on therapies in one area, such as our OT had been doing for my son.  But because we were not making any success, we had been sent to a large hospital for medical testing which proved he was perfectly healthy! That's when the hospital's OT came to me with this news.  He said they were not having success in their own OT clinic, working with SI clients targeting one area.  So they decided to try the entire program, working on all three areas, and found success!  I called our OT back home and she was ecstatic to hear this news.  She revamped her entire OT program for all of her SI children and immersed all of us in the entirety of SI.  She gave me lots of literature to read and I asked lots of questions.  Most military OT's only work with hands.  But she adored children and knew many struggled with SI issues.  So at our little USAF base, she told the pediatricians to send her babies. When my 9 month old son presented a need for help, we were referred to her.  The OT knew immediately my dd also required SI and encouraged us to do all the therapies as a family.  That way we wouldn't label or make the weaker vessel feel awkward. This would build team spirit.  Besides, it's all fun and good for anyone to do. 

Anyway, back to the chart, and how it fits in to our homeschool.  Most babies normally progress with the propioceptive, vestibular, and tactile senses well, developing at a normal rate.  As they reach toddler hood, they move on to developing auditory and visual skills, the next level on the pyramid.  As they continue to develop, they reach the next level, audio visual perception, usually honed in preschool and kindergarten programs.  After that is developed, the child is ready to learn to read, write and do math, the next level of the pyramid.  By teenage years, they enter the highest point of the pyramid, abstract thinking skills.

Here is a copy that I had drawn up at the hospital.

When children have a glitch in one of these areas developmentally, the top can not be easily reached unless intervention is done.  This explanation gave me a big picture of how "to train my children in the way they should go."  Proverbs 22:6

I thought this might be enough verbosity from me.  ;)  I went through some old photos (no scanner) and found pictures of how we used to do school.  I will follow with how we do school now, which does look rejoicingly different!  

Over the years I've shed more than a few tears, wondering what their future would hold.  Would they be able to learn to read and write and compute numbers?  These skills came slowly.  We struggled. We persevered.  We looked to God.  I have a philosophy of education of helping a child to reach for the stars.  The Lord has helped us to reach the stars He put in place for each of my children.  Praise the Lord! 

Here is our photo show of school over the years...  

Physical therapy for dd, while I was pregnant with ds.  This was before we ever heard of SI, yet here she is doing some SI!

This is at PT.  I found a bunch of these balls for a few bucks at a yard sale, bought them and used them at home.

This begins our OT days at the base hospital.  We were done with PT and speech therapy off base at this point.  Here is Luke, the beloved therapy dog.

We had learned that we were already doing lots of SI things.  Whew!  But we learned more new things to do.  After awhile, I noticed that doing the same SI activity got old after awhile. My dc always benefitted from new input!  Here is dh pulling them around the house on a beach towel.

One of the best SI activities involve playgrounds.  But when the weather is bad, what to do?  Gather all the soft items, pile them up unevenly, and have them walk, tumble and crawl over the uneven surfaces, working on balance.

Another great indoor activity, get a huge container full of beans. They'd sit inside, fill and empty containers, learn about volume, sound, weight, etc.  This activity always had a calming effect. But supervise.  My son stuck a bean up his nose.  That ended up in a field trip to the emergency room.  The doc got some pretty residents to observe how to dig these things out, and ds flirted with them.  To the doc's dismay, there was nothing up the nose anymore!  He was looking forward to the extraction process!  We found the bean in the backseat of the car!

  At OT doing something I could not do at home.  This was one of the best activities for them to do.  Dd was usually scared of everything, but these activities tending to help her organize her world to accept input. DS on the other hand ran and climbed and kept me busy.  He rarely sat.  These activities helped him to organize his nervous system to calm down and relax!

Our OT tried to find grant money for me to buy this wonderful apparatus for our home.  You interchange different types of swings. There will be more photos of different seats throughout.  My children never wanted to stay on these for long.

Our OT called the base horse and saddle club to see if they'd like to volunteer their services to allow her SI clients to ride horses for SI therapy for free!  Here's dd and I.

Here is dh and ds.

Back at OT taking Luke for a walk, a highly proprioceptive activity.  I have other photos of ds pushing Luke from behind-I guess he liked adding texture to his activity!

Afterwards Luke got a treat.  A texture activity for sure...wet tongue!

 We gave up on doing museums.  A few experiences had turned out poorly, like a roaring dinosaur scaring the whits out of 1yod.  We've gone occasionaly, but my dc are usually bored by them, even now in their teen/preteen years.  With all I had been learning about SI, I proposed a novel idea (for us) to dh.  Let's go on vacation to the beach!

Here we are at South Padre Island, TX.  This is the best sand box in the world!  We'd take morning walks along the beach then get back to the hotel (with a window view of the beach) for lunch and naps.  The dc were usually difficult to put down for naps, but here they were so worn out they slept.  Then after naps we played on the beach for a few hours, then found a restaurant for dinner.  We'd spend 2-3 nights here a few different years.  It was great.  When they were older, we took a walk at a nearby marsh to look for birds,etc.  We didn't do any museums. Well, when they were older we did climb to the top of a lighthouse, but I didn't push the museum part.  We also went to a fish market to see some of the catch.      

Other trips would be to the woods.  This is Lost Maples, TX in the autumn, a day trip.

Back at OT.  She had a great activity.  Finger painting in chocolate pudding.  DS had trouble gaining weight, he just never wanted to eat.  But he did enjoy licking his fingers.  I missed a photo moment though of Luke longingly wanting to lick Chocolate Boy's face!

After that, the OT thought the children should dress up Luke!  He's such a good and patient therapy dog!

After that the good and patient Luke got his hair brushed.

At base housing, dh built an SI playground delight on our budget.  In the blue box underneath I had various SI activities for outdoors.  I had one of those green turtles for a sand box.  And there is a ball pit under the walkway on the ground.

We'd make ice cream the old fashioned way...good SI!

 According to SI philosophy, these activities helped prepare my dc for school.  As we continued SI, we began kindergarten with dd.

We took our field trips (we've never co-oped).  We just found this available in October during Fire Prevention Week on base. 

Amazingly, dd got on the fire truck and pulled the horn, while ds stayed in my arms. Today that would be reversed!

Making one's birthday cake is good SI!

Opening presents from Grandma is also good SI.  No one ties packages as tightly as she does!

Here's one of the other OT swings, my dc's least favorite.

Getting into seatwork!  The OT was really impressed with how dd did with kindergarten! Being an OT, she also gave me lots of OT and SI tips for teaching handwriting!

Helping me husk corn...great SI!  Maybe it will motivate him to eat some of it too!

Making Aunt Wendy read a million books in her few short days to visit!  The grandmas were always made to do this too!  They won the most books read for the public library that year!  Aunt Wendy was made to read "The Magic School bus at the Water Works" so many times, that she had a dream the night before she left.  She could not board the plane until she passed a test correctly giving, in sequence, the process for cleaning water.  A few years later, her mom had a similar dream the night before going to the airport!  She couldn't board the plane until she had passed a test on all the books she read.

    Making patterns...3yods had to do everything 6yod did!

  Playing baseball (very SI) with Missy, who likes to steal the ball!

We went to a museum (gasp) to see the Columbus Ships at Corpus Christi, TX.  I'm not a huge museum fan myself, but I had fun at this one!  And the dc had good SI experiences...climbing into the crow's nest...

  p-u-l-l-i-n-g...

and r-o-w-i-n-g...

SI art...paper mache and paint the world...

Our beach unit study presentation with poetry on the walls, a map of South Padre on the floor, the paper mache world in the corner, and a diagram of what's under the ocean on the wall...

Getting SI while washing the car while Dad washes his...

 Homeschooling looks very different now than it did from when we first started. We went from struggling at the base of the developmental pyramid to being successful at the abstract thinking skills at the top!  It took a few years of head banging on my part and lots of tears, again on my part.  I was on my knees in prayer.  We were struggling with the boxed curriculum.  Merely SI activities was no longer cutting it.  But I have found that a blend of SI, understanding how the brain develops and classical education has been a great fit for us.  We started this new adventure a couple of years ago and it's been an answer to prayer!  Does that mean that school is now super easy?  No. We still have our struggles.  The children still have SI issues in their own areas of learning how to cope, learn, manage their time, etc.  But we are learning and moving forward and having a little bit of fun! ;) 

I will share some of my favorite resources that helped me to understand SI and brain development, as well as learning styles on Wednesday.  ;)

Here is a sample of our science activities from this year.   Here is a sample of how we do history and literature.  My children are successfully reading, holding Socratic Discussions, and writing about what they've read.

They had their names publised in Institute for Excellence in Writing's Magnum Opus literary magazine.  Their papers have yet to be put online yet.  ;)  They have a lot of learning to enhance their writing skills, so they weren't actually published in Magnum Opus.  They are finishing up a major term paper this week and will work it into a power point presentation for their unit celebration this coming Sunday.

As I type this, here are photos of the children today.  Here is ds studying animal tracks for science.  He plans to make a project about it for the unit celebration this weekend.  

Here is dd working on her Apologia Physical Science.

Now that we have made it to the "abstract thinking skills" at the top of the pyramid, do we still do SI?  You bet!  I'll share what we do now that my children are older on Thursday!  Stay tuned!