Just want to jot things down in a place where I’ll find them.

Sonlight schedule in a row-format instead of a column format-  tackle information in more subject-matter chunks each day, instead of little amts of everything.

Grammar:  We aren’t doing such a great job of using Sonlight’s built in grammar…  thinking of going back to adding the one I have… name… not… coming to me…

Oh- it’s Wilson?   Winston?  something like that.

Also thinking of returning to some of the Barton reading system… 

Need to nail down a plan for math.  How to teach math to a dyslexic student who may never remember math facts well.  I am certain we are far behind in this and I’m not sure how to catch up best…  where to begin.

How to engage the attention challenged manipulative liar in my 2nd grader, that makes me want to chuck him back on the first bus to a public school I  can find…

AH, well…

But yet I love the idea of homeschool, stilll.  Just not sure how to maximize it for us.  I love the freedom and the environment, even that I hate to see Christmas break end.  But who wants to go back to work? 
It is late, but this will help me recall what I don’t want to forget in my sleep.

more later.

Meanwhile, LOOKEE here-  Windows Live Writer makes it EASY to get into my blog!  SHOOT.  Who knew.

Speaking of school, I am looking forward to the next week without any.  Husband is off work…  I know we have so much to do, with school. But I am enjoying the lack of pressure.

More layta.  I have much more to check out concerning this Christmas gift of mine.  It is a powerhouse!

When I saw this offer to receive a free month in exchange for a blog review, I decided to give it another go.  We trialed the 4th grade and 2nd grade levels.  But you know, it’s just not the fit I was hoping for.  I had been wondering if a computer-based program might be some help to my multi-sensory-needs kids.  But I am not convinced of it.

I should say first off that Logan has really REALLY liked the video elements.  The lessons are fun, quirky videos, with fantastic story-telling to communicate the lesson’s critical information. We found the lessons and their connected quiz segments to be really engaging and also user-friendly.  Seems like the Language Arts element even offered a fair amount of student-paced review opportunities to hear and see the info as many times as necessary, and I think it offered an option to “hear” the texts read aloud to the user.  This feature was hugely beneficial to the dyslexic student who absolutely NEEDS that multi-sensory element to really overcome audio-visual memory deficits.

We did not find the math segments to be AS helpful.  There were still some videos, but also some lessons that were presented in kind of a slide-show format, with some animation linking the progression of the concept.  But there was information to be read, and it was not clearly available for “listening” like we noticed with the LA.  Some of the math quiz segments were broken up by a feedback window that popped up to display the word “correct”, and I think even had to be clicked on in order to proceed.  We found this distracting and tedious, and I often wished that there was an option to just hit “enter” to proceed through a lesson instead of clicking.

These are mostly navigational/logistical complaints, and I might have been able to resolve them satisfactorily if I had been willing to get on support with someone and figure it out.

They do offer a wide range of info to be learned, in a flexible structure for choosing the right level for your student.  But I think MANY students would benefit from increased useability, like more seamless operation with “enter” keys and audio-reading. ..  especially for the student who gets bogged down in decoding and needs to be able to comprehend the lesson.  But keep up the good work on those videos-  I think that style might even be well-suited to the lower grammar level subjects as well.

Not for us, right now, is what I think.  But there is a LOT of resource there, including a new art program that they have added, and I never did look into.  I think if I had not already spent considerable amts of money on other curriculum, their charge would be completely fair and reasonable.  I am just not willing right now to add the cost and the time to our schedule.

Thanks, T4L, for this opportunity, and I WILL consider you again at some time in the future if I think we have need of your services…  for now, best wishes, and happy homeschooling!!
Sherylee Dodge

Now, this was only 2 digit numbers.  We have yet to apply the concept to larger numbers with additional place-values… or decimals…  but what a relief, that it works at the most basic level.  The process went a little like this.

What number is that?  (32)

What numbers does 32 come between? What TENS? (30 and 40)

(I write the options on either side of the number, and then draw a vertical mark about halfway between them. )
This is the middle-  what’s the middle? (5)

So is 32 on this side of 5, or the other side of 5? So 32 can be rounded to:  (30)

Sometimes he runs through this pretty quickly, other times he has to work to make it make sense…  but he was consistently able to determine which way each number should go.

Now what they don’t know is that we’re going to keep at this workbook thing for most of the summer…  Surely not every day, or for long stretches of every day.  But I’m already hearing about “I’m bored”, so I am sure we’ll make good use of some of this summer down-time coming up.  My hope is that we can polish off the 4th grade workbook and be as ready as possible to pick up with 5th grade info in the fall.  If nothing else that’s a measure of progress for me, to see where we’ve been and where we’re at.

Looking forward to more mysteries to unravel…

We are spelling some sight words, like I’ve said before-  with the phonics training we have, comes work on “sight words” that can’t be sounded out in the conventional ways.  And now both the 10 yr old and the 7 yr old are learning to look “up” at the ceiling, and come up with the spellings of unusual words like “would” and “said” and “from”.  When I first ask them to spell it, they give me the shrug and the blank stare, or the long pause…  and then I remind them:  “look up and imagine it”  And it WORKS.

The math methods I stumbled on a week or two ago-  (when WAS that?) are WORKING too-  it’s so much easier for Logan to know that 10 is made in these 5 ways-  instead of knowing all the 1′s facts, 2′s facts, 3′s, etc.    9 is made in 4 ways.   For the first time I think he can think through and visualize the progression from 1+9 to 2+8, 3+7, and so on. And I have handed him a calculator, and reminded him that it doesn’t bother me that it’s hard to remember some math facts, as long as he knows how to find the answers in real life. 

In one of the workbooks we have, we are blowing through some stuff I know he knows, and skipping some stuff I know will not be productive in the framework of the phonics program we’re at so far.  On other things, I am just using some of the accomodations that the dyslexia people recommended in writing that he be given in public school.  When there’s large amounts of reading, and when reading itself is not the lesson-  I read out loud with him.  When there are questions to answer that require writing, but where writing itself is not the point-  I ask him and he answers verbally.  This way he can demonstrate what he knows – or doesn’t- without additional difficulty from the method.  And this way he feels much less-discouraged from the get-go, and is able to participate more thoroughly.

Meanwhile, RYAN is beginning to read.  Finally.  The phonics program has brought him to a fair understanding of “sounding out” new words-  though our language throws a large number of curves if we’re not careful about what we choose for him to decipher.  I think he will soon be finding the rewards of that, and I am hopeful that reading will not be as much of a hurdle as it’s been for Logan.  I bought Ryan a Level 1 Star Wars Reader at Target today that he’s not seen before.  And a Bargain Book called “Dogs” from Borders last week seems to spark his interest too. 

My goodness, how much farther along would we be if I had realized these things much much earlier?   I have to shake my head and remind myself this is our FIRST year at this.  We had some baggage to cut loose, and some exploring to do, and some creative problem solving.  And I think we’re nearing the end of this tunnel at just the right time.  I am confidently ready to do it again next year- and in fact I can honestly say we’ll have to keep up on certain things over the summer, to some degree.  So they don’t get rusty.

Will we do this for the rest of their school years?  I don’t know-  part of me hopes not!!    But while I”m feeling good about where we’re at, I know we are not yet where we should be in order to really put them back in school just yet.  Knowing what I know NOW, I think we can see a lot more progress before the year is “over” (whenever THAT may be) and certainly next year should see us putting a lot of ground behind us from the beginning.  Praise GOD for the right bits of info and encouragement at JUST the right time.  He seems to have a way of DOING that. 

PS- as for the challenge put forth to Ryan the last time I wrote, I think we are making progress there also.  When I am on my game, swift to respond to his challenges, it goes a LONG way.   Comparing notes with a neighbor about their child of similar temperament, we reasoned these kids need to listen to a little of the old John Cougar Mellencamp song…  “When I fight authority, authority ALWAYS  W I N S!! “

Real quick:
1.  it occurs to me that I can not stay in one place with my dyslexic son, waiting for him to “get” the basics.  There is an extent to which things such as the Spell Check and the Calculator will always be part of his life, and in the meantime we need to move on from basic addition facts and get into more complex processes.  He will gradually find and try various ways for himself to compensate for the failure of his dyslexic mind to cement certain info at his mental fingertips.  In the meantime, he continues to surprise me with his abstract observations and out-of-nowhere hypotheses.  We need to move on.

In the process of looking for a page in the math book that we could comfortably skip to, and begin to re-approach operations like multiplication and borrowing, etc., I stumbled on a page that discusses the learning of addition facts by “making 10″ and “making 9″…  and THIS seems to come way more readily for him than learning the 4′s facts, and the 3′s facts…  Knowing that there are 6 ways to make 10 seems to stick right away.  SO…  moving forward with that is encouraging.

And in todays phonics session, I saw again the staying power of the work we have done, and how this program really DOES train the brain differently than the learning-by-osmosis approach that sort of prevails at school…  I was taking him through the set of “sight word” flashcards-  the ones that you have to memorize because they don’t follow phonics rules.  And without fail-  each time that he hesitated or stumbled on a word, when I asked him to “look up” and imagine the word he was looking for, he could SPELL IT CORRECTLY.  Every time.  I am trying to recall which words they were.  There were 4 or 5, I think.    Because when you say “spell ‘were’”, or “said”, or “front”, they aren’t spelled WIR or SED, or FRUNT.  But he got them right, whenever he would look up at the ceiling to think about them.  WOW.

And lastly, I cranked down on the little one today-  beginning last night, I guess. After being fed up with feeling embarrassed to be with him at the grocery store,  I explained to him that I was declaring WAR-  I vowed to be his worst enemy whenever he decided to ignore my instructions and press my limits.  So he did fairly well today until he got mad at his math-  and I did my best first to encourage him.  But when encouragement turned him to silliness and mocking of his responsibilities to try his best…  I instructed him to go sit on the stairs until he would answer my instructions appropriately.  When he balked and teased at that, I got up, and when I got up, he shrank back smiling, saying, “Ok, I will…” and I took him by the ear and nearly dragged him to the stairs.  He refused to just get up and come with me.  Of course by this time he’s crying that his ear hurts…  and lays on the stairs in a dramatic heap of tears, still ignoring my attempts to talk to him.  So he stormed upstairs and slammed his door. 

After a while when it was quiet I went up and reminded him of our conversation the night before.  I told him how EASY it has always been to give him more chances, and keep on repeating myself to him, or raising my voice to him, and how I’m not going to do it anymore.  When you decide to do whatever YOU want, I said, LOOK OUT, because I’m coming for you.  (think “Night at the Museum”:  “There’s a STORM coming….”)  

After that episode late this morning, I had to remind him a couple other times to watch his behavior or his attitude, and it seemed to be enough.  I never had to come down on him again today.  But I wonder…  surely it will get worse before it gets better.  It won’t really be that easy, right?

WHEW-  and I’ve written longer than I meant to-  I need to go finish up things for the night.  But that is How School is Going at the present, and we’re beginning to think about what to do for next year’s curriculum!
SO until next time.  Hopefully not so long.

It worked.  When it was Logan’s turn, I asked him if he needed the Star Wars game, and he tipped his chin down & tried not to smile as he said No.  Which I figured was the case, but I had to make sure not to leave him out, if he thought it was intriguing.
OH- 

The liberal flow of skittles candy may also have had some credit for the success in general of school today.

Covered in clouds for a week.  Returning to the low 30′s and 20′s after a few days of 40′s.  Katie’s new baby on Saturday.  Robin’s impending chemo treatment on Wed.  Mom is stretched in both directions.  I am not stretched, but I helped today by having the 2 yr old big sister here at my house for a few hours.  It’s something I can do to help.  We skipped school because of it, but went off to gym class at 1:30 at the church…  Where I listened to a new friend tell about her first year-homeschool trials, and how similar I thought some of her son’s tendencies are to either of mine.   I talked with the gym teacher a little, about Ryan’s propensity for independance and how to navigate his claims of “being tired” vs just not wanting to participate.  We’re home now- and I know we should do something educationally productive.  But I feel worn out.  I don’t really want to do any of it.  I almost wish that school was an option.  But it’s not… 

We still have catching up to do, and there’s just no fast track to it.  And a day like this hardly even enables me to pick up my motivation and do what we could get done.  YES, I took my meds. . . 

I would like to go back to bed for a while.  No particular reason.  It just all seems like so much to ask.  I’m thankful not to be the one with cancer.  And thankful not to be the one with the new baby- even though he IS a treasure….    But at the same time I feel a little inadequate for the tasks that ARE mine. 

And yet I guess that is an ok place to be for a minute…  gives me a chance to recall- and let God remind me- that he IS adequate not just for Robin’s task and Katie’s task, but mine too.  He set us on this, and I know it is a good thing.  And tomorrow will be a new day for our regular routine.  For today maybe we’ll just do our two important things, and let the rest go.  Phonics and math are the areas where we have the biggest gap to close.

In the meantime, Legos upstairs are a wonderful thing…  hopefully the physical exercise from gym class has done them some good, on the energy level-front.  Even if the little one still tries to railroad his way into whatever way he would rather spend his hour at gym class…  He is part of my attitude right now, I am sure.  HE wears me out.  He is such a puzzle, and my brain is tired of figuring him out.  On the other hand if I let down my guard much he will walk all over me.  So if I can just hold my own until bedtime, then I can start fresh tomorrow. 
Enough for now.  I KNEW I just needed a minute to walk through what I was feeling like.  Just what I needed, and right when I needed it.  Til next time.

I have to acknowledge that it works even if we start later.  They get up so much earlier than I do-  frequently by 6:30, at least one of them is downstairs watching tv and foraging for granola bars and yogurt tubes.  By the time I come down between 7 & 8, they’ve had 2 or 3 granola bars, and they’re still hungry.  So I do a little “waking up” while I putz around the kitchen, drink some water, maybe a breakfast shake (ie Slimfast)…  I check my email…  and then they want real FOOD.  So out come the eggs and hashbrowns/tater tots, or leftover pancakes, or cereal…  And they watch a little MORE tv while they eat.  Then when they are done and I can rally them to bring dishes back to the kitchen sink in between the end of one show and the beginning of another, is when I can usually muster some action from them to 1) go upstairs & get dressed, 2) dirty clothes to the hamper, and 3) make their beds.  AND DON”T COME DOWN TIL YOU DO!!

That seems to make a good segway into some form of school structure.  But today in particular I’m trying to recall exactly in what order we did things.  It worked in such a way that they were nearly done at the same time, and I could work with one of them on the reading/phonics plan while the other one did some independent work.  So that would be worth trying to repeat in future days.  It was streamlined. 

Seems like Logan went up and did piano while I started Ryan on the Phonics…  when Logan came down saying he was done I had to deflect him some, which was distracting to Ryan (as if he could be more distracted)  But with some work and practice I would think Logan could come down from piano and deflect himself straight to the handwriting and math, which can both be worked on without  my involvement.  Then I can dismiss Ryan from Phonics, check Logan’s work, and help Ryan with his Awana…  Not sure what Logan was doing at that time, maybe he could also work on his Awana then, too.  Then I could move on to working Phonics with Logan while RYAN goes to do handwriting and math.  He does do it “independently” though he needs me to check in a little, just to keep things moving.  But we’re getting there.

And THAT is most of it.  Except History.  Which Logan clearly tunes in to better than Ryan does…  But it probably is a little over Ryan’s level.  It will be enough if he knows a little of it.
Thinking that I should also structure things in a way I’ve heard others describe as well-  that Monday (or whatever is the first day of the week) can be the day for the “teaching” to take place.  So the reading of the History material, and the teaching of new math concepts, and the intro to new concepts in the phonics plan… can all happen on Monday and have the real “work” begin on Tuesday. 

We’ll see.

Another common variation in the way things work righ tnow is that they don’t get lunch until they go up and get dressed and complete the big 3. 

And now… BLAH…. blank.  Smelling the banana bread nearing completion in the oven is distracting to me.  16 minutes left. Plus it’s nearly dinner time and I will be expected to do something about that, pretty soon. 

…  AND there this entry SAT, after I got up to answer the door for a friend who brought over a copy of a book for my sister and I each to read about the breast cancer battle of Brett Favre’s wife a few years ago.  I chatted with her for a while, and then took the bread out of the oven, and started dinner, and another friend came to pick up her son who’d been playing with my two, so I chatted with her for a while while dinner was cooking, and then the husband came home, and we ate and watched a movie and cleaned up and took apart the malfunctioning 2nd string computer upstairs and threw that away and got kids started with their bath routines and I came back down here to play a round of Tetris, and BEHOLD, here sat my blog entry all this time.

And I have nothing else to say.

So….  I’ll go play a little tetris, thankful for a successful school day, and thankful to be homeschooling my kids.