Update for week of 5/6/13

You can tell it is almost the end of the year in that I haven't been nearly as faithful with my blog.  We just finished week 34 of Rev to Rev which means next week is our last week!

Here are pictures of a few things he has done the past few weeks.

Here N. is reading his Wright Brothers book to his foster dog.  He has done some fantastic narrations after reading his selections in this book.  One of my favorite parts of this year has been the Inventor study.  He has learned so much about perseverance and not quitting just because things get difficult.  This is a very important lesson for him to take hold of since so many thing are hard for him.  The written narrations for these books have been more open ended.  It just says to do a written narration without giving him a number of sentences.  It is funny, when he does his history written narrations he focuses on the 10-14 sentence thing and often only puts down 10 or 11.  With these he often does at least 15-16 sentences.  In fact many times he has to fold the paper in half to make it fit in his inventor notebook 

He also finished his Singers of the Declaration Research cards.  He did very well with these this year.  This week he has had to organize them in different ways.  He organized them by colony they were from one day and another day by how old they were when they died.  He said this activity wore him out-such drama.

This week he learned about the Chicago World's Fair and he made Sweet Tea, Carmelized Popcorn and ate Ice Cream from a cone.  These were all things introduced at the World's Fair that year.  The Popcorn was amazing and I have a feeling it will become a favorite family snack.

In Science he has been experimenting with light and the solar fan he made.  We have had many dreary, rainy days so this has been a little tricky, but he finally go the experiments done. 

He has already said how sad he will be to see this year end.  That to me is a successful year.

Update week of 4/8/2013

The month of April is flying by.  Last week we had Spring Break and we went to Conner Prairie Farm. It tied in so well with Rev to Rev. It had a Lenape Indian Village complete with a man who is a Lenape Indian who told us all about his people and which years they were forced to move to which states.  After reading "Only Their Names Remain" this had quite an impact on N.

 There was an 1836 Prairietown where we were able to visit a fur trading post, several houses, a quilt being spun on a loom, candles being made, dinner being cooked and this man turning pottery to get it ready fire on the huge outdoor kiln.

We went up in a Hot Air Balloon.  N. wasn't too thrilled with this, but I think he did enjoy it.  S. loved it.  It was very cold!

There is a re-enactment of Colonel Morgan's Raid on Dupont Indiana.  It is pretty high tech and really gave us a feel for how it would be to have Confederate Raiders come in to your town.  This tied in well with "Gabriel's Horses".  There was also a telegraph station set up and they had the telegraph hooked up to a computer so he could see what letters he was tapping out.  He had just finished reading about Samuel Morse so this was perfect.

This week it was back to Rev to Rev.  We finished up week 30.  He has almost all of his components for his Composer Study lapbook done.  Here he is with his Orchestra.

We finished reading the book "Shipwrecked".  He really enjoyed this book.  He commented several times about how interesting it was.  For his history project he made a Japaneses fan.  The decorations were supposed to be Cherry blossoms, but they didn't quite turn out looking that way.

He did a fantastic narration in science this week.  It was his longest yet and required very little editing from me.  He really has improved in his writing skills through the practice of written narration.

The other exciting thing this week is that we brought home a foster dog for N. to take care of.  She was hit by a car and wasn't healing very fast at the animal shelter.  He has done a great job taking over responsibility for her.

Update for the week of March 11,2013

     N. and I had a good week this week.  The week started with him not giving full effort in a few things, but we talked and he really improved by the end of the week.  In fact I came down with a bad cold and so on Thursday he scheduled anything he needed me for in the morning and then in the afternoon he worked very hard at completing everything without any help at all from me.  I usually do things like draw the lines on his copywork paper just to make things quicker for him and to help reduce hand fatigue, but he did this on his own as well as a very complete written narration with just some corrections from me as far as 1st person vs 3rd person.  I could tell he felt really good about his day.  Again God reminded me I need to back off and let him struggle a little bit. 

    He also cooked his Civil War Soldier meal on Thursday.  He is called the baconator at church because he cooks all the bacon for the men's bible study.  So he was excited to show me his bacon cooking skills.  He also served baked beans and the shortnin bread he had made.

Science this week was a lot of fun because he was able to launch his rocket several times.  We did have some bad weather to work around but it was cool to see it actually blast off.

In Storytime we are reading Gabriel's Horses.  This is a very good book, the kind that has me trying to sneak and read ahead.  N. has enjoyed studying the Civil War and learning more about Abe Lincoln.  He wants to meet Jim Weiss at the homeschool convention so he can put a face to the voice he enjoys listening to so much. 

He wrote the rough draft for his creative story and I didn't want to look at it yet because I knew I would be tempted to start making revision suggestions and he isn't supposed to revise it yet.  His dad looked at it though and was amazed at what he could do as a rough draft.  He has come a long way in his writing skills.

I don't mention S. much since she is doing her own thing and not HOD, but she is finishing up her senior year and this week went to her first orientation at the college she will be attending.  She is excited, yet at the same time she says she doesn't want to leave.  I know that N. is going to really struggle not having her here next year during the school day. I know it will be a tough time for me also so I am glad we have the familiarity of HOD to help us through that time.

Update for the month of February

So I somehow managed to go all the way through February without posting a blog post.  In fact I have taken very few pictures.  Not sure how that happened.  I guess just because we are in a groove and I don't often remember to snap pics.

N. continues to enjoy the Rev to Rev. He has done more of the Draw and Write Through History drawings and those continue to be a hit.  I love this little Gold Prospector that he drew.

One of his history projects was to make a Carpenter's Wheel Quilt Square out of paper.  This had to be a project we did together.  We both traced and cut out the shapes.  Then I ended up gluing them down once he told me how they went.  He has very strong visual spatial skills and I do not, in fact mine are terrible.  He did a great job of telling me exactly how to position the pieces.  His tremor just wouldn't allow him to position the pieces.

He continues to enjoy the composer study.  I can't wait until he puts it together in a lapbook.  Here is one of the pieces he has done.

We are reading Florence Nightengale for storytime and I am learning as much as N. about the Crimean War and her role in getting the hospitals in shape.

Science has been a little frustrating this week.  He had several experiments that did not go well for one reason or another.  The scale continues to cause some struggles, but we talk about how that is real life and he knows it is after reading the Inventor Study books. His narrations for the inventor study have improved significantly.  He is still using his Ipod to take verbal notes, but then it is funny how little he listens back to it as he writes his narrations.  Now that his content has improved so much we have been able to focus more on using the editing checklist.  He is improving in his ability to self edit.

He finished "That Quail Robert" for DITHOR.  He says he enjoyed this book, but it wasn't his favorite.  My guess is that there wasn't enough action for him.  I see it as a great book to help him learn that literature doesn't always have lots of action and that you need to be able to glean things from books that are more descriptive. 

The other thing he has spent a  lot of time doing is making Lego Architecture sets.  The bricks in these are tiny and you would think it would frustrate him, but I think he enjoys them because he has read about so many of the buildings in HOD.  Here is a picture of his White House and The Brandenburg Gate.

It is hard to believe that we only have 2 1/2 months left of school.  I am already looking forward to N. doing MTMM next year.

Week in review for week of 1/28/13

I didn't take very many pictures this week.  It was a smooth uneventful week. N. continues to work hard during the school day. The big non-school news is that he got new glasses this week.  He got glasses back when he was 9, but he never wears them.  We had noticed that this was becoming more of an issue, especially when he was struggling to read his trombone music.  His prescription had changed some so he picked out glasses that he liked and that he thinks are styling.  It didn't hurt that they are Puma brand.  When he put them on he sat back and said "Yep I'm just as handsome as ever!"  Always the comedian.

 In Science this week he did some Chemistry type experiments.  The one that was the most fun was when he held an air filled balloon over a candle and it popped, causing every animal in the house to scatter.  He then held a balloon filled with water over the candle and it didn't pop.

He did another drawing for Draw and Write Through History.  This time it was a log cabin and once again he really took his time drawing it.

You can see just the edge of his history project in the picture above.  He wrote out a message in Morse Code and then tapped it out for his Dad to decipher.  He liked the tapping much more than the writing.

For story time we are now reading "The Voyage of Patience Goodspeed".  He is doing a great job with his oral narration and understanding of this book. 

He is still doing well with Rod and Staff Grammar.  I have to admit that we do almost all of it orally.  If I feel he just really needs to write something then I have him do that, but most of the time he just tells me.  He even is good at describing how to diagram a sentence as I write it on the white board. 

I still love the discussions we are having during the Biblical Worldview time.  It really gives me a chance to hear his thoughts on things and to share some of mine. 

In DITHOR he is reading "That Quail Robert".  I read it over the summer and it is a good book.  He likes it also.  The one challenge with DITHOR for him is that he just can't write all that needs to be written for his student pages.  It doesn't work great for him to type his answers either so he dictates them to me. This means he looks to me for some of the answers at times or doesn't give as complete of answers as I think he should.  I would like for him to be more independent with this, but it just doesn't work out.  Next year we will probably look at doing something else, but I am not sure what at this point. I love DITHOR and the book packs, but he has used it for 4 years so it is probably time to move on. He will have finished the 6/7/8 student book so it makes sense to try something different.

Update for the week of 1/21/13

Last week I posted that we had had 2 rough weeks, well this week was a complete turn around.  This week went really well.  So many things seemed to come together for N. this week.

Science went much better now that the scale is built and he is doing experiments with it.  He is in the Chemistry unit of the science and he hasn't done much of that in the past so he is excited.  He even was able to separate hydrogen and oxygen molecules from water using a battery and paper clips.  I was helping him with this one so no pictures.

His history project was to make a sign like the one used in stage coaches.  I modified this a bit for him.  He was supposed to write out the rules on his paper that he had made to look old.  I knew this would be way too challenging for him so I found an old west font that he could use and he typed out the rules instead and then glued them to the paper.

For Draw and Write through History he drew a stage coach.  He was so careful drawing this one.  He used a ruler when needed and found circular objects to trace around.  He took him awhile,but he was really happy with how it turned out.

Last week in the Exciting World of Creative Writing he was supposed to write a 200 word descriptive paragraph and he really struggled.  I had him do one of the suggested topics which was springtime at the zoo.  This week he had the same assignment and I told him to describe the animal shelter where we volunteer each week.  He sat down and typed out 350 words without a problem.  This showed me that it isn't the descriptive writing that is the problem it is more due to again his memory of details.  He can't recall details from the zoo, but he sure can from the shelter.  He loved doing this assignment also.

The other huge accomplishment this week was with his written narration.  He did his voice notes on his Ipad as he read again.  I could hear what he was recording and then I was able to hear how much he really listened to it as he wrote.  He actually listened to it very little.  He said he found he didn't need to that just the act of stopping every now and then and reflecting on what he read and vocalizing it made a huge difference.  He then sat down and wrote his longest narration ever.  It was on a reading from The Story of the Great Republic which is the type of book that usually causes huge struggles when it comes to written narration.  He didn't struggle at all this time.  He couldn't wait to show it to me and then kept asking me that night if I had shown it to his dad yet.

Teaching Textbooks Prealgebra continues to go well.  It does add probably 15 minutes to our day, but it is worth it to have a math he enjoys and gives him the spiral review that he needs.

We finished up Seaman as our storytime book and are reading "Only the Names Remain".  It is a different type of storytime book in that is non-fiction genre more than historical fiction.  This is a new topic for him and I like how it presents the Cherokee Indians and what happened to them.

Update for the week of 1/14/13

I haven't posted since we started back after Christmas because we have had sickness going through the house and some rough days.  I want to be real on this blog and I will say the past 2 weeks have been rough.  N. has seemed to have difficulty getting back in the grove and I have been frustrated with his lack of progress in things like written and oral narration this year.  I have had to take a step back and spend some time in prayer and try not to let him see my frustration.  I haven't always succeeded at that.

He is back to drawing with Draw and Write and that he continues to love.  He drew Sacajawea since he has been learning about Lewis and Clark.

His history project last week was making a drawing of a bird he would find in our area and he modeled it after the examples of Lewis and Clark journals that he saw.  He picked the Chickadee to draw since right now we have many of them at our bird feeders.

This week's history project was a Mola.  I am not sure that he did it right, but he was pleased with the end result.

In storytime we are almost at the end of the book about Seaman the dog that traveled with Lewis and Clark.  The readings in this are very long and at times he had trouble oral narrating due to his memory issues,  but overall he did ok, just not as much detail as I would like to see.

In Science things have been tough this week.  I usually  help him quite a bit when he has to build a new project.  His hand tremors just won't allow him to use a glue gun safely or to place very small objects on things.  This week he was to build a scale and it was very frustrating.  Many things went wrong and after tears of frustration on my part we ended up letting Dad figure out a different way to do things when he got home.  The next day we had similar frustrations, but finally were able to get the scale built.  This has been the only thing in the science that has caused a problem, so don't think I don't like the science because we do, but again I want to stay real with this blog.

As I mentioned his written narrations seem to have hit a plateau this year.  I look at examples of other dc's narrations and they are light years ahead of his.  I know I shouldn't compare, but it is tough at times to realize he isn't up to where he should be.  I have tried various things and this week we may have found the winner.  I am letting him use his Ipod to record audio notes as he reads.  He stops every so often and records what stood out to him of what he has read so far.  The idea is that he can then listen back and it will refresh his memory as to what he has read. This also helps because he has to stop every so often and think about what he just read it seems to help his comprehension and attention to detail.  The other thing we both realized is that just the act of him verbalizing what he has read seems to cement it in his brain.  He told me with his science narration that he really didn't need to listen back to the recording much at all.  He remembered it all. As I told my dh this we both realized that we both are like this. If I want to remember something I have to say it out loud.  My dh either does this or he takes notes after every few paragraphs or he says there is no way he can remember it.

I often feel pretty alone in this journey with ds since he doesn't fit into any learning challenges category and even the doctors don't know what to tell me.  Thankfully I have a God who knows my ds inside out so I just keep asking Him to guide me as I educate him.