Homeschooling & Autism August 24, 2011

I’m so excited to finally be able to get this post out.  The primary reason we have decided to homeschool is because Jedi & Monkey both have significant special needs.  Jedi has autism and sensory processing disorder, and Monkey has other special needs that will likely be reassessed as being somewhere on the autism spectrum in the next couple weeks.  However, when we started our homeschooling journey, we made the mistake of setting up the room like we would for any typical child–tables & chairs, assignments that I knew were going on but that Jedi had no way to know what was coming up, lots of things that required handwriting, etc.  Needless to say, Jedi was having a very difficult time concentrating and being able to make it through an entire school day without becoming overstimulated.  So, with the help of Jedi’s occupational therapist and primary psychologist, we’ve come up some accommodations to hopefully help to make things a bit easier for Jedi.

One of the things we did right was make sure that every piece of curriculum was as hands on as possible.  Jedi is neither an auditory learner nor a learner who can comprehend just from reading.  However, if he can create something with his hands, or manipulate objects in a meaningful way during the lesson, he can usually remember and process the lesson.  Some of our curriculum choices are:

Math: Rightstart, level C

Spelling: All About Spelling

Science: REAL Science Odyssey (Life, Earth, & Chemistry)

History: History Odyssey & Hands on History

Geography: Expedition Earth

Art: Artistic Pursuits

Handwriting: We use Handwriting Without Tears.  We also use the book “730 Journal Prompts” for daily journaling, and the book “Veggie Soup: I’m a Writer and Didn’t Even Know It” for random handwriting.

Typing: Typing Instructor for Kids

For Monkey, we also stray slightly from Montessori for things she has more difficulty in.  Right now, for letters, we are using Confession of a Homeschooler’s “Letter of the Week”, and also using a workbook that has a different mini-book for each letter of the alphabet.

Because both of the kids need a lot of gross motor sensory input, we have transformed our entire finished basement into a 1000 sq ft learning space–a quarter of it is our main classroom, with another quarter being the office (with the computer).  The other half is split between a small art room, and a large indoor gymnastics area with a balance beam, mini trampoline, thick mats, and  a gymnastics bar.  Not only does it help get some gross motor “wiggle breaks” in, but gymnastics has been a form of therapy for Monkey since she was 11 months old.  It is her out, and when things aren’t going well for her, all it takes is some time on the mats to turn things around.  We also use FitDeck exercise cards randomly throughout the day to give the kids a brief wiggle break.  Frequent breaks for exercise often help to calm, focus, and ground the kids.

One of the things I've frequently posted about was Jedi's extreme difficulty with handwriting and spelling. One of the things that helps a lot with that is allowing Jedi to type all assignments that are more than a couple sentences in length. It makes it much easier for him to concentrate on the actual subject matter. It also makes it much easier for him to correct his spelling. With his auditory processing issues, he hears words differently than most people, and as such, phonetic spelling is extremely difficult for him. Without a way of even knowing what sounds are in the word, looking things up in the dictionary is impossible. But, when typing into a word processor, the program will notice misspelled words and give options for correct spellings--Jedi can, with 100% accuracy, pick out the correct word that he intended. We are currently working on fixing my old laptop for Jedi to use, but in the meantime, Jedi is doing his typing lessons and typing work on the family desktop computer.

 

We also noticed that Jedi always had to have something in his hands, especially during verbal lessons, or he just couldn't concentrate. So now, on the corner of his work table is a basket of various fidgets that he can keep in his hands. We made sure that each fidget had a different texture and size so that he can choose exactly what he needs at the time. We've also put pencil grips on all of his pencils to increase the sensory input he receives while writing.

 

We've noticed that Jedi has a *lot* of trouble sitting at chairs. His core muscle weakness makes it very difficult for him to maintain the upright position for long periods of time (if you've noticed, he's almost always holding his head while writing). I've noticed that instead of concentrating on the lesson, he's concentrating on his posture. So, we bought a huge beanbag, and filled it up 3/4 of the way with the foam beads. Not filling it up all the way makes him sink into it some, which gives him more sensory input. The beanbag can be used for any seated work he chooses, with the exception of art (since he should be seated at a table for painting, clay work, scissors, etc.)

 

Jedi also has the choice to use the indoor swing for working as well. We have the Rainy Day Indoor Playground. It has a sling swing, net swing, platform swing, and rope ladder. Jedi is allowed to use the net swing or platform swing for seated work (again, not the art stuff. LOL!)

 

We have started using a Workbox System as well. This helps Jedi know exactly what is coming up so that he does not have to spend energy and time worrying about how much left he has to do, or what subjects he will be doing for the day. For a normal day, we have 12 workboxes. For a half day (due to therapies), he has 6 workboxes.

 

One of the other things we’re working on is getting Ipod Touches for both Jedi & Monkey.  This should help a lot with social, behavior, emotional regulation, and academic subjects that they might be having more difficulty in.  Hopefully soon, we’ll have the money saved up for them and I can post my review of some autism-friendly apps. 🙂

For those of you homeschooling special needs kids, what things have you personally found helpful in your homeschooling journey?  As we know, it’s often different than the experience of homeschooling typical kids–not only are your work days often interrupted by daily therapy sessions, but there are often accommodations that need to be made to help learning be effective.

2nd Grade Week in Review August 23, 2011

We were camping this weekend, so I have a lot of posts to catch up on.  The first post is Jedi’s week in review for last week.

 

Art–In art last week, we built upon the lesson on shapes & forms, and began sketching without looking at the paper (and instead, looking at the object you are sketching).  This was a good exercise for Jedi…he is usually very perfectionist with his artwork, and this was a good exercise in letting go of that and just following what your eyes see.

Jedi trying to determine his sketching strategy

Life Science—in life science, we talked about genes.  The first lesson of the week was on dominant & recessive traits, and which traits he got from each of his parents.  Jedi learned that even though he looks like his daddy, he actually shares a lot of the individual traits with me!  In the second lesson, he learned that everyone has different fingerprints.  He played forensic detective and investigated fingerprints of family members to see who had the “mystery fingerprint” that was printed on his science paper.

 

Working on his genetics assignment--trying to figure out what genes he shares with each parent

 

Using the hand lens to classify each of his fingerprints

Chemistry—in Chemistry, we continued our work with atoms, this time determining whether temperature influences the speed an atom will move.  We dropped food coloring in each of three dishes of water (1 boiling hot, 1 room temperature, and 1 ice cold).  Jedi learned that food coloring atoms travel much faster through boiling hot water, dispersing evenly in under 2 minutes.

 

Watching the food coloring disperse throughout the water

Math–in math, we continued our work on multiples of 5, 10, and 15.  This week, we used coins to see how many ways we could make 10 cents, 15 cents, and 20 cents.  We finished the Rightstart transition book (that transitions between 1st grade and 2nd grade), and now we are beginning our actual year’s lessons.

Counting the coins, and trying to enter the same amount onto the abacus

 

Spelling/English/Handwriting–in Spelling, Jedi finished all of his short vowel sounds and CVC words, and began working in initial and final blends.  This was where Jedi finally started having some pretty big difficulties, as he has trouble hearing blends in words.  He did just fine with most of the CVC words, but beyond that, he is still having a lot of problems.  So, at least now, we know where to start with him (we know he’s at least a year behind in spelling…now we know where the dividing line was between what he knew and what he had fallen behind in).  Jedi also continued his journaling every day.  In English, he worked a lot on reading comprehension.  We’ve learned that he can read very very well, but he often loses the comprehension aspect.  He does seem to comprehend fiction far more than non-fiction.  Giving him the list of questions ahead of his reading the paragraph seemed to help a lot since it gave him something to focus on.

 

Typing–This is one of Jedi’s favorite activities.  He has now learned all of the asdf row, and is working on the row of letters right above it.  Almost all week, Jedi asked for extra typing time because he really enjoys the program he’s using!

Jedi, typing his writing assignment into the computer to edit

 

History–In Ancient History, we continued our work on Ancient Egypt.  Jedi learned about pharaohs and mummies, and began learning about Egyptian Mythology.  He really enjoyed the myth on why the Nile River floods yearly!  He also mapped Ancient Egypt, including the Nile River, Nile River Delta, & Upper/Lower Egypt.

 

Completing his map of ancient Egypt

Ohio History–This week’s Ohio History lesson was more like “Ohio Geography”.  Since the other neighboring midwest states play a big role in Ohio’s history, Jedi worked on  mapping all of the midwest states.

Mapping the midwestern states

Geography –In Geography, we completed our unit on South Africa.  Jedi learned to play mancala, a game played almost everywhere in Africa.  He also learned about South African animals.  At the end of the week, all of the kids helped to prepare a South African meal for dinner–bobotie, yellow rice, & mealiebrood!

 

Setting up the mancala game

Cutting the apples for the bobotie

 

Pouring the milk on the bread for the bobotie

 

All of the kids helping to make the meal

 

Bobotie, fresh from the oven

 

Yellow rice, bobotie, and mealiebrood

 

Doing a little extra work this week... He was practicing his woodworking skills to build a car.

2nd Grade Week in Review August 15, 2011

Life Science: This week’s life science theme was the 5 senses.  The first lab, Jedi studied touch and sight, while trying to determine if you can train your senses to respond more quickly to a stimulus.  To do this, I held a ruler about an inch above his hand.  As I dropped it, we recorded the number of inches the ruler fell before Jedi caught it.  Now, this was a bit tough for him because autism keeps him from having the quickest reflexes and a high level of eye hand coordination.  But after about 10 trials, he was able to improve slightly, from allowing the ruler to fall 10 cm to allowing the ruler to fall only 6 cm.

 

For the second lab, I set up a station for touch, smell, sight, taste, and hear.  With the exception of sight, all of the stations were closed in a container that couldn’t be peaked at, while Jedi was blindfolded.  At each station, he had to try to guess the object using only the sense being isolated.  The point of the lab was for Jedi to determine which sense he trusted the most, and which one was most reliable…for him, sight won on both accords.

Jedi testing out his five senses to find out which one was most accurate.

 

Earth Science: This week in earth science, we learned about the water cycle (how the water that is on the earth today is the same water that has been on the earth since the dinosaurs, and how the water goes from ground to air to cloud and back to the ground).  We also learned about the states of water (solid–ice, liquid–water, and gas–vapor or humidity).  To do this, Jedi observed ice, room temperature water, and then the steam that rose from boiling water.  To create condensation, he then cooled the steam (by putting a cookie sheet of ice on top of the boiling pot of water, and then again by filling a glass with ice water).

Jedi learning about the water cycle and solid/liquid/gas/condensation/evaporation by using ice cubes, water, and the stove.

 

Math: In math, Jedi was learning how add numbers to equal multiples of 5.  He was supposed to add mentally, but he had a lot of difficulty with that.  Using the abacus, he was able to do it a little more easily, but still needs to practice some more on that concept.

Using the corner cards (cards with 1 number on each side). He had to put cards together so that any numbers that touched equaled 5, 10, or 15.

 

What it looked like after Jedi finished his pile of cards.

 

Handwriting: This week, I pulled out two books on journal prompts for Jedi.  Since he has so much trouble with handwriting and spelling, I want him to have short bursts of writing to practice with so that he at least can practice getting ideas on paper, without having to worry about making it “publishing quality”.  One book he works with daily and each day gives two choices for journaling–I have him pick whichever one sounds most interesting to him.  The other book has a short sketch that he can do on a particular fantasy/fiction topic, and then a space for him to write one or two sentences describing his sketch.

Working on his journal prompt about a funny dream.

 

Computer: On the heels of the handwriting blurb, his therapists and I have decided to have Brandon learn to type so that he can use a word processor for assignments where he needs to write more than a couple words.  With the word processor, he will be better able to recognize when a word is spelled wrong, and then he can choose from the correct spelling when the spellcheck gives him a choice between several words.  Jedi learned the first 8 keys of the keyboard this week, and really did quite well.  When he started, he was getting 3 (non-sensical) words a minute, and by the end of his 30 minute lesson, he was up to 12 (non-sensical) words per minute with near perfect accuracy.  We’re hoping to get him typing well enough to have typing assignments be written into his IEP in October (yes, he’s homeschooled, and has an IEP as part of the Ohio Autism Scholarship program…otherwise, he wouldn’t still need an IEP.  Just thought I’d clear that up in case anyone was confused!)

Working on his first typing lesson

 

Art: This week in art, Jedi continued his lessons on an object’s shape and form.  With a charcoal pencil, he sketched the contours of his toy snake, filling in accents using only straight lines.  He also worked on color blending.  Using red, yellow, and blue watercolor crayons, I had him draw whatever he wanted to…the only rules were he could only use those three crayons, and for every other color, he needed to create it through blending two or more of the three crayons he had.

Using watercolor crayons to work on color blending. He was only allowed to use red, blue, or yellow crayons for this.

 

Using charcoal pencils to sketch the contours of his snake.

 

History: In history, we worked on Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and learned about the first writings from Ancient Sumer and Ancient Egypt.  He learned about papyrus (and then we were able to observe it’s relative, the nutsedge, in our own yard!).  He then learned to write and decode messages in hieroglyphics.

Creating a secret message using hieroglyphics

 

Geography: In Geography, we started on our 2 week unit on South Africa.  We learned about life in South Africa, including the form of government, main languages & religions, how to say ‘hello’ in one of the South African dialects, and what type of currency is common there.  We also started learning about the animals & musical instruments used in South Africa, and listened to a South African children’s nursery rhyme.

 

English & Spelling: In spelling, Jedi finished up learning about the short vowel sounds, and also started learning about ‘consonant teams’ (two consonants that are together and form a sound, such as ch, sh, and th).  In English, we learned about nouns & verbs, as well as putting the events of a story in order.

Working on his English workbook

2nd Grade Week in Review August 7, 2011

Jedi had another really busy week with homeschooling.  It was the 6th week completed for our school year (it looks like we’ll have 8 completed weeks before our local school districts start up for the year…not bad!)  But, it’s not all books and labs this summer…Jedi gets lots of free time for playing and having fun, too…see?

Jedi working with Magnetos on a day off.

 

Jedi building a robotic duck from a kit

 

Aaaand....the duck can walk!

 

Making patterns with the pattern board

 

Art: This week in art, Jedi learned about shapes, and then the 3-dimension manifestation of shapes–forms.  For shapes, he observed a scene outside, and then drew and cut out the shapes of the objects to make a collage.  For forms, he created a 3-d paper sculpture of a zoo animal of his choice (he picked giraffe)

Working on his shapes collage--he was supposed to go outside and observe something, and then create paper shapes to represent those objects. He chose the mailbox and posts outside.

 

His scene

 

Jedi making his giraffe

 

Math:  In math, we worked on place values up to 1000.  We also worked on trading 10 10’s for 100 and 10 100’s for 1000.  Jedi seems to be getting this fairly easily.  Finally, we worked on adding long series of single digit numbers on the abacus.

 

Using the math cards to add with the abacus, and learning to change 10 10's for 100, and 10 100's for 1000.

Life Science:  It was a busy science week for us.  We worked on the muscular, heart, & circulatory systems over the past few weeks.  We reviewed those systems again, and observed them with both the human torso model and with giblets from our dinner chicken.  Jedi also watched some Bill Nye videos on human organ systems that I found in the library.  We also began learning about the digestive system.

 

Working with the human torso model

 

After taking out all of the organs, this is what he found.

 

****WARNING….THE NEXT PICTURE HAS ORGANS OF A CHICKEN IN IT….SKIP IT IF YOU FIND THOSE TYPES OF THINGS GROSS OR DISTURBING***

 

 

 

We were also fortunate to have found the giblet pack inside a chicken that we rotisseried this week, so Jedi was able to observe a real heart (with it's chambers), liver, and gizzard.

 

We were talking about how long a human digestive track is by using a 21' long piece of yarn. On the yarn, we taped cards where he wrote his 5 favorite foods. Card 1 is at where the mouth is (3"), card 2 is the esophagus, card 3 is the stomach, card 4 is the small intestine, and card 5 is the large intestine.

 

Then, we counted how many times longer a digestive track is than Jedi...you can fit 5 Jedi's on the 21' long track, plus have a few additional inches left to go.

 

Watching Bill Nye videos

 

History: In history, we completed our unit on Ancient Mesopotamia.  Jedi took his first ever history test, and scored 16 correct out of 17!  He really enjoyed learning about Sargon and how Sargon conquered and unified Mesopotamia.

 

Writing: Jedi really really dislikes handwriting and spelling.  Both of those subjects are extremely challenging for him, to the point of them being frustrating for him.  This week, I came up with an assignment that made him excited to write, at least for awhile.  Homeschool Creations (http://www.homeschoolcreations?.com/StarWarspreschoolpack.htm?l) had a Star Wars preschool pack available, and in that preschool pack were Star Wars puppets.  I had Jedi cut them out, laminate them, and glue them onto popsicle sticks.  Then I had him write a script for a puppet show, and my only instructions were that he had to use every character he had puppets for, and every character had to have a minimum of two lines in the script.  Since I knew spelling would be a problem, I told him that after he wrote the script by hand, he could type it into the computer and we could work on editing in the computer (he’s still working on it…typing’s also a little difficult for him, but I’m pretty sure he hasn’t really learned typing yet).  After we’re done editing his script, he’s going to perform it for the family.

 

Cutting out his Star Wars puppets from http://www.homeschoolcreations?.com/StarWarspreschoolpack.htm?l

 

Spelling:  In Spelling, Jedi continued to work on alphabetizing the letters of the alphabet…he’s getting much faster with it now!  We also worked on the short a, short i, and short 0 sounds for three letter cvc words.

 

Working on making CVC words

 

English: In English, we worked on comprehension questions with both fiction and non-fiction short essays.  We discovered he has a very easy time comprehending fiction, but a very very difficult time comprehending non-fiction.  But he’s also a fantastic reader when it comes to fiction!  But it does show that he knows how to comprehend what he’s reading…he just needs more exposure to non-fiction!  We also worked on the “WH” question words (where, what, why, when)

 

English workbook

 

Health: In health, we talked about family rules and why families have rules (safety, health, and comfort).  I had Jedi choose one family rule, and then make a poster explaining the rule.  He chose “we can’t watch too much tv”–his poster had to show why we have the rule (for his health), and what happens if you break the rule (an unhealthy body, being too tired, etc.)

 

Music: In music, Jedi continued to work on his piano playing.  I haven’t showed him how to read music per say, but in his Alfred’s book, they start very simply by just reading the finger numbers.  He learned to play a couple more short songs this week.

 

Misc: Since we went creeking and found crawfish recently, I decided to do some tie-ins this week.  I found Jedi three worksheets.  One practiced graphing, as it was a story about three people using crawfish as fishing bait.  Jedi was supposed to graph the number of crawfish each person used.  The second sheet was one where he was supposed to write three facts about crawfish. The third sheet was one where he worked on a crawfish food chain and food web.

Working on his crawfish graph