More than Adrift

This week, I've perhaps deviated a bit from my original purpose just a bit.... I started thinking a little bigger than just how well she performs on an IQ test, although unfortunately this is my only measure of how effective all of this work was! We still did a lot of school work, but I also incorporated things that I know will never be tested, but I think are important skills nonetheless. I decided that the core purpose that I'm staying true to is being very intentional with my teaching skills to her.  The other two absorb so much from incidental learning. K has just never been that way, she requires much more concentrated teaching to learn a concept, while D and C will watch me measuring out ingredients and have a pretty solid understanding of how it all works! I figure that most intense reading/writing/math workshops only meet a few days a week anyways, so I don't feel that I'm shortchanging her in the experiment! Day 1: I did three reading lessons using the E...

This week my resolve was *slightly* weakened due to an exhausting busy schedule, and it is very clear to me why most parents are willing to pay $150/hour for specialized tutoring rather than doing it themselves... it's really not because the work is SO difficult... or that they don't have the time to do it, it's just that it is a lot of work, and requires a LOT of patience, and repetition! So on to our week 2 activities! Day 1 of week 2: We played a VERY simple new game that I learned at an early childhood class I took last week. I spy with letters. We had a free printable "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" Tree, a toilet paper tube that was decorated with construction paper and letter stickers, and a marker.  In school, K is working on using the correct sentence structure "I (want/like/have)..." instead of saying "Me (want/like/have/see/hear/etc)..."  so we played "I Spy the Letter __"  then once she found the letter, she would color it ...

In case you are at all interested in checking out some of the stuff we are doing, feel free to browse through, post comments, questions or new ideas!  Actually, I'd REALLY love it if you posted or emailed me with other fun game ideas to incorporate into our routine! Otherwise, these next 8 or so posts will mainly be a platform for my documentation of our activities to look back and reflect on after our 60 days are completed. K's special education teacher was very supportive and excited about the project, and is actually coming to our house after school tomorrow to teach me how to use the literacy program that they use at school (her idea!!) How fun! I am also keeping track of our activities in a spreadsheet along with time notations.  I've found that K's threshold seems to be about 20-30 minutes of engaged learning time, so I've adjusted my time expectations accordingly! We have been focusing a lot on math.  Since reading is her natural strength, she choos...

So much has happened during the last several years. Some warm joyful moments are etched into memories, some have been documented, and some gracefully forgiven and forgotten. I could write a 10,000 word blog just on the changes that have taken place during the last four months, but I won't :)  Instead, I am going to focus this writing on one small area that I'm working on now, and try to document what comes of it. Last week, we had K's IEP meeting where they presented the results of her IQ testing. They used two different tests, one that is a standard measure of IQ, and another that is developed specifically for children who are non-verbal compared to their typically developing peers. The results, though not unexpectedly low, still sadden me. I know it's just a number, and certainly a number is incapable of limiting my daughter, but I can't help but wonder what her number would be if I were able to spend more time teaching her myself.  If we could afford better...