Special Needs Homeschooling

Today we have a guest post.

photo courtesy of agastecheg

  Homeschooling is a wonderful opportunity for all of us to take back time with our family.  Our world has become so busy and the time spent as a family unit has declined rapidly over the past 50 years.  I am a mother of 6 amazing and unique children.  I currently have the opportunity to homeschool 3 of my children and I do it specifically because they have special needs.  My daughter Grace is my youngest child and she was born with Trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome), my son Ryan has a sensory disorder and my youngest boy Colin has a auditory sensory problem.  My experience homeschooling has been hard but so rewarding.

I received the diagnosis of Down Syndrome when I was 6 months pregnant with my daughter I was not sure what the future would hold for my daughter or my family.  I had no idea how I would handle therapy schedules and special ed programs, my head was spinning and I was scared.  It was not until I came across some literature supporting the homeschooling of special needs children that I ever even thought about it.  I then connected myself with other homeschooling groups specifically focused on special needs children and at that point I knew we were in the right place.

My goal for my children was not only to learn what was age appropriate for them.  I wanted to find a therapy program to help them progress and become the best they can be.  Through my research I was able to find a a therapy program through NACD - National Association for Child Development to provide me with a program to assist me with both of my goals.  Administering the homeschooling and therapy program myself with the guidance of NACD has been so beneficial to all 3 of my children.  My son who is at kindergarden age is reading at a 2nd grade level and doing math at the end of 3rd grade level.  My daughter is talking, can recognize over 100 picture cards and follows 2 step commands at 2 years old.  My son Colin has just started the program and already improved his speech and listening abilities.

Homeschooling gives you the opportunity to be the expert on how your child learns whether they learn typically or have a learning disability.  When you are aware of what is causing your child difficulty you can organize your plan to teach in a way they can retain and learn.  To be honest when planning the future for my family homeschooling was not a thought in my mind.  Since I have been participating in a homeschooling program for the past 2 years I am sold.  I truly enjoy the process of watching my children develop and learn.  I love being a part of their success and I would not change it for the world!

Katie Driscoll is a mom of 6 children and you can learn more about her family at 5boysand1girlmake6.com.

Good Bye House, Good Bye Texas, Good Bye Homeschool

Well, last month it became official that we are moving from Texas to California. My husband and I believe that the west coast is where the Lord is leading us. So, we are following. As with most things, life has not gone exactly as planned since we decided to move. But things are progressing none the less.

School is Out
I was wondering how I would manage packing up a house and homeschooling at the same time. But the principal (my husband) made it easy for me. School is out until....well....ummmm....... It may be out until next month or it may be out for a couple of months. Flexibility is the name of the game when you homeschool.

So, I have begun packing - getting the children's help whenever possible. And when they aren't helping they have been reading (our library books aren't due back for 2 weeks), watching something on Netflix, eating a meal, or drawing.

The Joys of Boxes
Thanks to my children I found out that if you put a white label on a box then you have an instant canvas. You can also take those same labels and make your own stickers; and then stick them where? Well, on a box of course! Boxes are also a great place to put a few rows of smiley face sticker, after smiley face sticker, after smiley face sticker....

And since life is school, I am having my 6 and 7 year olds label the boxes. Hey, you can't blame me for not wanting their handwriting to get rusty, right? And I must admit that I did consider having the children write out their additions tables on some of the boxes as well. But I know that would probably be pushing it since the principal declared that the official school year has ended.

Still Walking it Out
Despite the packing, we are still trying to meet our goal of exercise 3 times a week. That means that we walk to the park (that's 12 minutes), play for 30 - 45 minutes , and then walk back (another 12 minutes). Actually, the children play while I power walk around the park.

We got a poster from Subway Kids called "Let's Step It Up". It's part of the Random Acts of Fitness for Kids program that Subway had last year. We put up one sticker for each week that we meet our goal. It just so happens that we only have one star to go to meet our goal for this year. I thank God for the timing on that. This is the only poster that remains on the wall in our schoolroom.

It's OK to Let Go
Even though school is out, packing has turned out to be a great way to teach the children about purging. I explained that we will be donating items that: are in good condition that we never use anymore, we have outgrown, or that we just don't want any longer. I thought that the children would take it hard. But so far, everyone has been parting with items amicably.

I am not looking forward to leaving my church family. But I am excited about the next adventure that is our life.

Menu Plan Monday - 4/23

It has been years since I have participated in Menu Plan Monday. I have been planning menus all of this time. I just haven't seen the need to share them on my homeschooling blog. But today the thought occurred to me that pretty much everything that I do for the children is related to school. After all, life is school and school is life.

So with that said, here is my menu plan for the week.

Monday: b - egg, potato, ham, and cheese tortillas, biscuits (leftover) with jelly, bananas; l - leftovers; d - barbecued sausage over rice, Amish bread
Tuesday - b - egg, potato, sausage, and cheese casserole; l -pbj; d - oven barbecued chicken, cream style corn
Wednesday  b - apple scones, fruit; l - ham and cheese sandwiches, fruit; d- loaded baked potatoes
Thurday - b - french toast casserole, fruit; l - leftovers; d - spaghetti with whole wheat noodles
Friday- b - cereal, fruit; l - a to z muffins, fruit; d - hot dogs, homemade hotdog buns, home fries

a hotdog in our homemade bun

 Saturday - b - we usually sleep in ; l - Ramen noodles, green beans; d - chicken fajitas, homemade tortillas, corn

We are in the midst of packing to move out of state. So, meals are going to be as easy a possible during this time of transition. I will get back to well balanced meals as soon as we are settled. Also, I am sticking with tried and true recipes. There isn't much time for experimentation at the moment.

Teaching Children About Money

There is no shortage of free printable worksheets to teach children about coins and money. But since doing school in more of a Charlotte Mason style, I have been trying to stay away from worksheets and busy work.  CM believed that the best way to teach children money was to let them handle and count real coins and bills. 

Printable Coins for Kids

As I thought about this approach I realized that I rarely have cash on hand. I have been using my check card for most purchases for over a decade now. But I did find this realistic printable sheet of coins. There are several pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and one half dollar on the page. (This is not a free site but you can print out the first 5 printables for no charge.) 

I let the children color the coins themselves.

Then I cut them into strips like so.

And I folded the strips in half and pasted them, matching up the front and back of the coins as best I could.

 

I cut out the first penny and then realized that I was in for quite a task of cutting out all of those coins. Thankfully, my 6 year old daughter offered to  help. I knew that the coins wouldn't be as neat as if I did them myself but I didn't want to turn down her help and hurt her feelings (and create extra cutting for myself.) So, I showed her and my 7 year old how to cut right outside of the black line and to take their time. And you know, they did great!

The coins aren't perfect but the children had a great time cutting them out (I would not have) and they got very excited when I told them that I was going to laminate them with my handy dandy laminator so that we could have them for a long time. 

Printable Play Money

I also laminated the full size play money that I printed out. I was going to print out the different denominations on different colored sheets of paper, like Donna Young suggested. But instead, I decided to make the play money look as realistic as possible. I opted to use white construction paper (which is really off white) for all of the bills.

Money Board Games for Kids

What I was really hoping to find was a free printable board game about money, something similar to this one:

This game isn't that much at Amazon but I try to use as many free resources as possible. If I spent just a few bucks on every new unit or lesson, that would still add up to quite a bit over the course of the school year.

So I kept searching. I have yet to find a printable money game but I did find instructions on how to make a game myself. I plan on making and laminating one "board" for each child. And we'll use the paper coins for the game. It looks like it will only take a few minutes to put together.

An Online Game to Teach About Money

• Spending Spree 

     

Printable Money Games

These printable money flashcards  and money dominoes looked like they will  be very useful as well. Instead of laminating them I just printed them out on white card stock. They aren't as sturdy as the play money. But, I figure they'll last long enough for the children to master money.

Poems About Money for Children

Here is a poem about coins to help children remember them easier. 

Penny, penny,
Easily spent
Copper brown
and worth one cent.

Nickel, nickel,
Thick and fat,
You're worth five cents.
I know that.

Dime, dime,
Little and thin,
I remember,
You're worth ten.

Quarter, quarter
Big and bold,
You're worth twenty-five
I am told! 

Half dollar, Half dollar, 

giant size,
Worth 50 cents 

to buy some fries.

Dollar, Dollar, 

Green and long,
Worth 100 cents, 

You can't go wrong!!!


And my children always find educational rap songs fun to learn.


The Money Rap

Well, I know a song
It's really kind of funny
It's all about coins
And learning to count money.

Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters
Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters

Now a penny means one (hold out 1 finger)
And a nickel means five (hold out 5 fingers)
Dimes are worth ten (hold out 10 fingers)
And quarters twenty five (flash... 10 twice & then 5)

Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters
Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters

Five pennies in a nickel
(hold out 1 hand- fingers stretched)
Two nickels in a dime
(hold out 2 fingers)
Five nickels in a quarter
(hold out 1 hand - fingers stretched)
You'll know it every time!
(using both hands do a downward motion)

Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters
Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters
Yeah!!! 

Playing Store

We will definitely be using Donna Young's suggestions for playing store. I printed out a sheet of price tags. The children cut them out and put string through the holes that I punched out for them. They already own 2 cash registers; so, we are all set. 

Fun, Fun, Fun

The play money turned out better than I expected. The children are having a blast learning about money.

 

Blogging at the Homeschooling Blog

For the past few weeks I have been writing some posts for The Homeschooling Blog. I have been writing 1 to 2 articles a week there. And that has been working out great. So, if you have a chance make sure to stop past and give a look see.

Learning and Retaining More in Less Time - Or Why I Like the Charlotte Mason Approach

After only a few months of homeschool this year it became very obvious that what we were doing wasn't working. I had a reluctant writer who was frustrated to no end at the thought of having to practice his handwriting. I had a 4 year old who would wander off and get into things while I was working with his older siblings. And I had a child who seemed to be bored due to not being challenged enough.

Time for a Change
I have been familiar with Charlotte Mason's method of school for a few years. I even tried implementing it with my oldest but it didn't work for him because he was used to - and liked - the more traditional way of doing school. He was in public school for 2 years and he thrives off of learning from textbooks and having a school schedule and a set curriculum to follow. So by trying to switch to CM with him, I was attempting to fit a round peg into a square hole.

But given that the school year was not coming together for everyone else, I started revisiting the idea of giving a Charlotte Mason type homeschool a try. And I am so happy that I took the plunge.

What to Do?
I spent some time going over 3 free homeschool curriculum that seemed to like a good fit for us. They were:

• Old Fashioned Education, 
• Ambleside Online and
• Simply Charlotte Mason.

I decided on Ambleside Online because EVERYTHING was available for free and I was able to find all of the books in PDF format on either Google Books or Archive.org. I spent about a week printing out the books and setting up a 4 day school schedule. I got each child a 3 ring binder and away we went!

The Change is Phenomenal
We have been finishing each subject in just a few minutes. But a lot of times the children go on talking about it long after that or they'll bring the subject back up again throughout the day. My son is OK with handwriting now because he only has to write a few words a day. He has to write his letters correctly, but it's not that many letters so he isn't overwhelmed any longer. My youngest listens to the reading in all subjects and it holds his attention. As a matter of fact, everyone seems to be learning something at his or her level.

Also, I've been feeling much more laid back about school because I know that adhereing to a strict schedule does not guarantee that the children will learn all that they need to. But exposing them to living books and a love of nature in a relaxed setting is proving to be much more effective. Homeschool will never be perfect but it has been soooo much better since making this change.

Use Ray's Arithmetic and Math Worksheet Generators to Teach Homesschool Math for Free

The very first public domain math book that I ever heard of was Ray’s New Primary Arithmetic for Young Readers. And after skimming the book it quickly became evident that this is an excellent resource for teaching addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. I suspect that the book could be used as the sole means of teaching arithmetic. But I use it along with a few other free resources available online to help my kids become proficient in basic math.


Flash Cards are Your (and Your Kids) Friends
Flash cards are my favorite way to have children memorize math facts. I know it’s old school. But it worked way back when and it still works today. I printed off addition flash cards for numbers 1 - 9 from Apples4theTeacher.com. And I found 10 through 12 on another site, the name escapes me right now. But there are numerous free printable flash cards available online; they’re just a search away.

I printed them out, cut them all to roughly the same size, and laminated them. Yes, it was time consuming. But I invested some time and now I have cards that are already being used by 2 of my students and will be able to be passed down to my youngest when the time comes.

Once the children have their addition facts memorized then I will go through the same process for subtraction, multiplication, and division. I teach in the same order as Ray’s Arithemetic does. 


Math Worksheet Generator
To reinforce the math facts I print out math worksheets from Super Kids. You can customize the sheets to be exactly what you need. For example, if my daughter has half of the 3s addition facts memorized then I generate a worksheet with a minimum number of “0” and a maximum number of “6” and all of the numbers are added to 3. Take a look at the generator and you’ll see what I mean. 


What’s 3 + 5?
I also quiz the children randomly throughout the day to see if they are truly memorizing their work. It’s not unusual for me to ask them a few facts at the kitchen table or while they’re playing with toys or whatever. I also sometimes make a game out of the flash cards. I quiz the child and if she gets the answer right then she gets to keep the card, if not I keep the card. Whoever has the most cards at the end of the game wins. This was my husband’s idea and the children actually started learning their facts quite quickly once there was some competition involved.


As you can see, it’s not that difficult to use public domain books in combination with other free online resources and come up with a very effective way of teaching arithmetic in your homeschool.