Portfolios

This week my goal is to finish the speech therapy evaluations, put together a list of supplies, and figure out which curricula I'll be using this year. I only have a couple of textbooks that are "must have". The rest I either already have or can get through the library.

One thing I'm looking into is finding a way of organizing the kids records so that I can show they do indeed work on schoolwork without taking up a lot of space in the house. One book I've read talks about using portfolios of the kids' work. The idea is to only keep the stuff that highlights the year, kind of like an artist or writer's portfolio. I'm not sure how involved Rachel would be in the process (probably very with the way she's been lately)... I know Sarah would love the idea. :) Not to mention my other children.

And, of course, the reason I'm looking deeper into organization is because I will have four children in homeschool this year. One is starting to transition into doing this herself but she won't really be at that point for another couple of years. The other three need quite a bit of supervision and I need a system that practically runs itself. I understand portfolios (I was building one for myself for a while there) so I'm hoping this works out.

The most difficult part of schooling right now is space. All records and textbooks are kept in my room due to a certain little child's love of ripping paper, especially books. Until we train him otherwise, I've kept the really important stuff in my room. However, this means I don't have the luxury of a stand-alone workspace. Instead, I've dedicated some of the shelves in our room to homeschool storage. Once I get it organized, I may post some pics.

So, IEP's and evals today and curriculum stuff the rest of the week. Wish me luck!

School begins!

Today is our first day of school. I cannot begin to tell y'all how nice this change of focus is for all the kids and me. I won't do this every day, but just to give you a glimpse of how things have changed, I'll give a quick run down of my day so far:

• Did the morning chores, including feeding and walking the dog.
• Mowed one fifth of the lawn.
• Took care of various sundries around the house.
• Made sure Rachel and Sarah did their Morning Routine (this is part of their IEPs).
  
• Read "Where the Wild Things Are" (language arts and social skills).
• Printed out the math and language arts worksheets for the day (Sarah and Becky's language arts is a journal entry and will be done in the late afternoon).
• Started cooking lunch.
• Had Sarah and Becky's math lesson while lunch cooked, modified from the way Saxon does their lessons.

This afternoon I'm going to do a little bit of academics with Rachel and the next daughter in line for school (let's call her Deb for the sake of my fingers) which means some work on the alphabet and really basic math, then a little speech therapy followed by the Afternoon Routine and some finger knitting (fine motor skills).

In the past, I would have been very upset by this point because we would probably still be having math right now. Why? Because I would be "having school". I'm learning that the most important thing I can teach these kids is how everything they're learning in school applies to the rest of the world. Now, not every curriculum is going to be like that and I really don't think it should be like that. For example, math is always going to have a linear chronology and this is very good for that particular subject. Saxon also does a great job of building incrementally and uses a lot of manipulatives (the majority of which are found around the home) that build a really great foundation for the more abstract ideas later. But that doesn't mean I have to use the intense amount of drill all the time that Saxon uses or that I have to devote one and a half hours (which was our average last year) when I can break it up into smaller portions throughout the day.

And that's math... the other subjects are even easier to integrate into the day, either by reading to the kids for a few minutes at a time, or using every day objects/events to the teach the concept. Because of this, I feel less rushed and when I feel less rushed the kids get more involved and interested. As you can see from the list earlier, we read Sendak's classic book. Because I wasn't feeling rushed, each of the kids got a chance to hear the story and then look at the book themselves while I worked on other things. Becky read it to Deb, and Sarah read it to herself.

And later in the day, when we do our language arts lesson, writing in their journals are going to not only fill the language arts requirement but also social skills and get Sarah used to the idea of going back over the events of the day... strengthening the concept of The Past (time is a very difficult concept for kids in the spectrum to understand).

Lastly, I'm very glad this is how things are working out for therapy. Integrating their therapy into the rest of the day with a brief "session" is working out much, much, much better than I had ever hoped. We're doing therapy more often and we're accomplishing more.

I'm hoping the rest of the school year goes just as happily as today has so far.

(I've edited this to take out some stuff about a person who would probably rather remain anonymous.)

Mad Libs the card game

I bought Mad Libs, the card game version, a long time ago as a possible "date night" idea for my husband and I. (You know, the kind of "date" where you put the kids to bed early and just talk or goof off for an hour or two before you finally crash from exhaustion.)

Well, in our church we have a family event that occurs (mostly) every Monday night called Family Home Evening. When the kids were younger, I planned most of the activities and often that meant coloring something. Now that the kids are older we've been using games more often, so our activities have been more like a game night kind of thing. The favorite -- and easiest to set up, play, regulate, and dismantle -- is a memory/matching game that, unlike the trademarked game put out by a popular manufacturer, uses photographs. But there's only so many times we can play that game before the kids and the parents want something more. So, we tried Mad Libs last Monday night.

Since most of our kids are either early readers or don't read at all, the large words in the deck were a little intimidating. However, our two readers (Sarah and Becky) loved the challenge, and the others thought the cards were very pretty and loved to just hold them.

About that, the cards are color-coded so that grammar can easily become a matter of finding the right color pattern. Blue noun cards are preceded by orange adjective cards and green verb cards come after the blue cards unless you're asking a question, etc., etc., etc. I can easily see this turning into a great way to have fun with grammar this school year. However, "true" play will be next to impossible until the kids are older and/or acquire longer attention spans. Last night, for the sake of speed, we allowed trading so that people with five nouns could get a verb or two instead of taking several rounds to get the card they needed.

Point? It's a fun game and I highly recommend it, especially if you have older kids (7 and up) who already have a decent grasp of grammar basics.

Curriculum

Well, I've finished with the curriculum/IEPs for my kids: lots of life skills stuff, not as much academic right now. We'll see where we are in December.

I'm a bit torn right now. Half of my books are going to come directly from the publisher, but another half can be found much, MUCH cheaper on a particular homeschool discount site.

Here's the problem: when people order things through a discount site (like Amazon), the authors/publishers take a pretty stiff hit in their paycheck (they may see 10-20% of the book price at most). For larger publishers, this really isn't that big a deal. But for small publishers who know they aren't going to see a lot of sales in the first place, this becomes a terrible business model. Unfortunately, a lot of homeschool books fall into the small publisher category. Since I know people in the writing industry, and I know a bit of how publishing works and what's involved, I don't like seeing authors lose their ability to support themselves in a system that should be able to support them. Already it's clear that a writer can't really support him/herself without becoming huge and those involved in small presses have an even worse time because of all the money/time spent promoting the product.

On the other hand, I have a budget. And the amount I spend needs to be as small as possible.

I'm pretty sure I already know what I'm going to do, but any and all comments would be appreciated.

Homeschooling in California and Update

First, the update... yesterday, for the first time ever, Rachel gave one of her sisters a piggyback ride. In fact, she gave several. :) I'm thinking it's an herbal formula we've been using the past two months called (this is just something we've found works for us and may not work for others) Complete Bone and Tissue Formula (syrup form). It's from the Christophers. We've liked it so much that we're thinking of using another product of theirs called Kid-e-Trac. That, combined with the nutritional supplements we've been using for years now (we use Dr. Schulze's Superfood recipe and cayenne now and then) should really help Rachel.

(BTW, we believe that herbs should only be taken until the body has healed itself. That means a clear focus on foods and general wellness instead of popping herbs like they're a cure-all.)

Sarah has been having some behavioral issues lately. Mostly talking back and hitting. I think it's the white flour. We don't have her on the GF/CF diet anymore since we found that as long as we kept dairy out, she seems to do better. However, I'm now convinced that white flour is a big no-no. Each time she has it, even in a small quantity, her behavior the next day gets worse. Whole wheat flour doesn't seem to have the same effect. She also seems to do better when we limit the amount of bread (whole wheat soaked and cooked seems to do her the best so far).

As for babysitters, no luck so far. Will widen my advertising this week.

Now, for homeschooling and California's recent ruling.

It's pretty disheartening. In countries like Germany, homeschooling has been banned entirely. And now, in California, the most recent ruling indicates that only a parent with teaching credentials can teach their child at home.

I'm no lawyer, but I do have some thoughts on the scope of this ruling. If only parents with valid teaching credentials can teach their child at home, what about parents of special needs children? It's conceivable that a state could also demand a specialization in teaching special needs children if you want to teach them at home yourself. This is a pretty big, panicky, slippery slope because I'm taking one ruling in one state and applying it to the nation. Actually, I'm taking more than one ruling in the state of California (I'll have to look for it since it was by the Ninth Circuit and had to do with parental rights v. the state) as well as the Nate ruling the other day. It's just I live in one of the best states to homeschool, law-wise, and I don't want anything to change.

It doesn't hurt that I'm a confirmed cynic.

I'm also glad that the CA superintendent has issued a statement (see the first relevant article linked above... fifth para.) that seems to say he won't enforce this ruling because the current system works well.

Update: found this article with this beautiful quote:

But Croskey, without hearing arguments from the school, opined that the situation was a "ruse of enrolling [children] in a private school and then letting them stay home and be taught by a non-credentialed parent."

I was taught from K-6th grade through a correspondence course. Looking back after my time spent in two public school systems (one in Texas and one in CA), I realize I learned far more than others my age and didn't suffer in the slightest when it came to friendships and socialization. Or, I should say, no more than any average pre-teen does. ;) And the primary teaching was by... my parents! It's just the way things work out with a correspondence course when kids are young.

So, yes, this ruling does seem to not only affect homeschooling parents but also those who use distance learning and correspondence courses sponsored by private schools, public charter schools, and universities.

This is bigger than I thought.

Another Update: this article from Albert Mohler found through another site adds yet another gem of a quote. This time, the article quotes the actual text of the ruling (found here in pdf format if you want to look at the original). This is the text from the original... not Mohler's thoughts.

The trial court's reason for declining to order public or private schooling for the

children was its belief that parents have a constitutional right to school their children in their own home. However, California courts have held that under provisions in the Education Code, parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children. Thus, while the petition for extraordinary writ asserts that the trial court's refusal to order attendance in a public or private school was an abuse of discretion, we find the refusal was actually an error of law. [emphasis cavamil's]

I haven't finished reading the ruling, and I'm not a lawyer, so I can't bring any expertise on this matter, but it sounds like this is the way things have been in California for a long time. It's just that a "truce" of sorts has been in place between the homeschoolers and the public school system there. However, what disturbs me the most is that bolded phrase in the above quote. This, of course, goes back to the argument of who takes care of the child and I've run out of blogging time for the day. More tomorrow if I can.

apple seeds and language

We've been using Saxon Math 1 for our math curriculum this year. So far, I'm highly impressed with the approach and the teaching materials. Each and every lesson builds on what's come before, even more than most public school texts. For example, in Math 1, they teach the idea of "balance" inside an equation through apple seeds. It's done almost as a side note to the main lesson... at first. The main lesson is about graphing. However, in the illustration within the graph, you're always dividing the apple down the middle, recording the amount of seeds you found in each side. It's a great introduction to addition and has really helped more than I would have imagined.

Just today, Sarah, for the first time without my assistance or prodding, used different approaches to the same answer.

One of the things about autism is the intense need for structure. This is found in things always being a certain way, or events always following a certain path. One of the things Saxon Math 1 has been stressing in our math lessons is the idea that there are different ways to get to the same answer. There are rules you have to follow, of course, but the idea that there is more than one way to look at things is something we've had a hard time learning in this house. I'm so thrilled that Sarah has joyfully (and without any prodding from me) learned that concept when it comes to numbers sentences.

I'm so impressed by Saxon Math for our kids that I think I'm going to invest in the Kindergarten program and switch Rachel to that.

More tomorrow.