More than Adrift

I have this particular Aesop fable on audio. We listen to it in the car while driving to gymnastics lessons, or to drop someone off at school, or to entertain them as I do another of the 20 errands on my list, my kids giggling away in the back seat as the overly confident rabbit dozes off in the afternoon sun... The very last line in this particular children's version is "And the moral is, slow and steady wins the race." Slow and Steady. This story first found it's way into a printed story book in the 1500's. More than 500 years ago, people needed a lesson, a fable to remind them the value of slowing down. I think "slow and steady" has a biblical name: perseverance. The dictionary defines perseverance as steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty and delay. The hare obviously was not steadfast.  Though certainly overly confident, I find the hare to be uncomfortable relatable. Every day, I have my to do list, I have the list of things...

There's only a few days left until we've finished 60 days of pretty intense nearly daily "homework" sessions with K.  We'll see if she lets me "quit" after these 60 days, she *loves* her one on one homework time. We've made a LOT of math progress this week, so I really want to focus on how we've revamped our math. As I've mentioned, we use a math kit, "Numicon" which we had ordered online.  It's a math curriculum designed for children who need a more visual way of learning math, and has been proven an effective way to teach kids with special needs.  This gives you a good idea of what it looks like.  Each shape represents a number, and kids learn to associate an image with each number.  So if you imagine a muffin tin with six muffin spots, that is the shape that is represented by six (two rows of three each, same as on a dice)  In this picture you can see the number 3 (which is yellow) 4 (green) 5 (which is red) and 6 (is...

I am a bit behind, so I'll post our activities that took place over the past 10 days, but several of the days were spent on vacation when I had a firm "no working" rule! Day 1: My explanation on this is probably not necessary, but we were just working on a pretty fundamental math concept: Which is more?  Which has least? And counting skills!  Day 2-Day 6: We were in Wisconsin! We had a wonderful trip spending time with friends and family out there :-) Day 7: Literacy based story telling.  K was retelling the story of the Three Little Pigs with felt pieces.  Lots of fun!  Day 8: Addition skills. I have some laminated numbers that I just place on the number sentence.  K would place that number of cookies in her pan, and then count the sum.  Day 9:  A boring math worksheet, but you can see from the picture that she doesn't mind it! Day 10: Another math game. This one we use the Numicon Math Kit that we have (which is s...

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...