Getting started

[Guest PD1021]

So I've read WTM...or the parts that currently apply to my child's age range. I admit that I'm totally overwhelmed. My son has autism (asperger's), ADHD, tics (probably full on Tourette syndrome), and major anxiety. He is SO very smart, and I feel like this method of education will really work well for him despite his challenges. I find that I am having a really hard time with the curriculum choices right now. I guess without being able to hold something in my hands...I'm hesitant to purchase it. We have homeschooled previously with a different approach, and it was awful. I DON'T want to make that mistake again. Nor do I want to keep wasting money on products that I'm going to be disappointed with.

So far I'm going to use Abeka for math (he is using that in his private school now and thriving on it. So, I'm sticking with it.)

Story of the World for history

 

That leaves basically everything else. He struggles with handwriting. He has poor fine motor skills.

We are christians, so I would like to use that worldview whenever possible. 

 

Thanks for any thoughts.

~Pam

[PeterPan]

How old is he?  And what did you use before for homeschooling him?  Is the school using straight abeka this year or a blend? How are those subjects going?  How far out of the box are you interested in going?  Does he have any passions you would like to embrace or that would help him connect to subjects better?  Any learning disabilities?  Does he type yet?  Are you considering OT?

 

Welcome to the boards!  I think the thing to remember is that SWB did not homeschool your child.  She has only her experience, and while the principles of WTM are good, we really want to be cautious about how we apply them and look at our kids and our situation.  What is it that you're being drawn to in WTM that is making you say it will work for him?  You like the structure and clear expectations?  Are there supports they're using for him in school that you intend to continue using at home?  What are the most important things you would like to accomplish this year?  Like not your grand, ethereal, overall goals, but 3 goals that are the wow, if we could get THESE THREE THINGS accomplished, I'd be happy.  And those three things might even be non-academic, like: renew his enthusiasm for learning, get him more comfortable with output (via typing, via dictation software, via whatever), and find some ways that click with him to work on social skills.  

 

I'm just making those up, but those might be really good goals.  You can write out some specific goals, searching your own soul and praying and thinking through his needs as a human, as a person of multi-dimensions, kwim?  Then you go hmm, history is important, but how can we use it to work on our GOALS?  Can we bring social skills into it? Can we sacrifice methodology and find methods he connects with to see if we can reinvigorate his love of learning?  Can we try to do output once or twice a week with it but explore our use of technologies (Dragon, Siri, keyboarding, whatever) to get him more comfortable?  

 

That way you're focus is on your goals, not the academics.  Is he gifted or very challenging to keep up with intellectually?  Do you plan to integrate those passions into your academic plans or keep them separate?  Everyone has their own theories on that, but it's something to think through.  Me, I'm sort of middle of the road.  I like bringing things his way and finding the aspects within them that connect with ds' passions.  But maybe you feel those should be separate or maybe you'd decide he'd learn a lot more xyz if it's approached from an angle he's passionate about.  Just something to think about.

 

Do you have a plan for structure?  I've got another thread going right now on morning routines and we're discussing visual schedules.  Might be timely for you?       Screen time in routines    

 

Welcome to the boards!  :)

[Crimson Wife]

I don't know how old your child is, but you might want to look at the new Special Needs bundles from Memoria Press. They are (ecumenically) Christian, classical, and adapted for children with SN's. They use Rod & Staff for math but I think it would be fairly easy to swap out Abeka if that's your preference.

[Princess Ariel]

I agree about looking at Memoria Press.  I used a few of their things this year and I did like their materials.  You don't necessarily need to use the special needs bundles.  My dc were too old for those  but you can nicely adjust some of the materials to where your child is at academically. We mostly used the literature guides and will continue to do so next fall.

[Guest PD1021]

Thanks for the welcome everyone. OhElizabeth: trying to answer some of your questions lol. He is 9. We started with Five in a Row. He bored with that VERY quickly despite doing lots and lots of extras. We then moved on to another unit study type curriculum that was made by Confessions of a Homeschooler's blog writer. It was a study of different countries of the world. We did lots with that, and he stayed focued on that. However it was lots of work for me becuase I had to add so much to keep his attention. It didn't challenge him enough. We then did a private school that stirctly used Abeka for the past two years. The school is closing at the end of this school year. There is no other option for school for him, so it's back to homeschool we go. He does well with Abeka...but I'm just not wild with the idea of bringing it home to do I guess? Not sure why.

I'm interested in anything that will help him. I think that with classical educations memory work and particularly SOTW's approach to chronolocigal learning will be a BIG success for him. HIs handwriting skills are severely lacking, and we do much of his work orally right now. Typing is something I plan to begin immediately to help him.

The academics aren't so much the issue for him...as keeping him challenged enough that he is focused without overwhelming both of us. lol

Goals are to find something that "works" for school at home, working hard on social skills both in the family and in the community, and helping him develop his own interests. Right now it's Legos all the time lol. So I see lots of projects involving them into our days.

Ugh it's so much to think about...and since I made poor choices curriculum wise for him before...I don't want to make that same mistake again.

How old is he?  And what did you use before for homeschooling him?  Is the school using straight abeka this year or a blend? How are those subjects going?  How far out of the box are you interested in going?  Does he have any passions you would like to embrace or that would help him connect to subjects better?  Any learning disabilities?  Does he type yet?  Are you considering OT?

 

Welcome to the boards!  I think the thing to remember is that SWB did not homeschool your child.  She has only her experience, and while the principles of WTM are good, we really want to be cautious about how we apply them and look at our kids and our situation.  What is it that you're being drawn to in WTM that is making you say it will work for him?  You like the structure and clear expectations?  Are there supports they're using for him in school that you intend to continue using at home?  What are the most important things you would like to accomplish this year?  Like not your grand, ethereal, overall goals, but 3 goals that are the wow, if we could get THESE THREE THINGS accomplished, I'd be happy.  And those three things might even be non-academic, like: renew his enthusiasm for learning, get him more comfortable with output (via typing, via dictation software, via whatever), and find some ways that click with him to work on social skills.  

 

I'm just making those up, but those might be really good goals.  You can write out some specific goals, searching your own soul and praying and thinking through his needs as a human, as a person of multi-dimensions, kwim?  Then you go hmm, history is important, but how can we use it to work on our GOALS?  Can we bring social skills into it? Can we sacrifice methodology and find methods he connects with to see if we can reinvigorate his love of learning?  Can we try to do output once or twice a week with it but explore our use of technologies (Dragon, Siri, keyboarding, whatever) to get him more comfortable?  

 

That way you're focus is on your goals, not the academics.  Is he gifted or very challenging to keep up with intellectually?  Do you plan to integrate those passions into your academic plans or keep them separate?  Everyone has their own theories on that, but it's something to think through.  Me, I'm sort of middle of the road.  I like bringing things his way and finding the aspects within them that connect with ds' passions.  But maybe you feel those should be separate or maybe you'd decide he'd learn a lot more xyz if it's approached from an angle he's passionate about.  Just something to think about.

 

Do you have a plan for structure?  I've got another thread going right now on morning routines and we're discussing visual schedules.  Might be timely for you?       Screen time in routines    

 

Welcome to the boards!   :)

 

[PeterPan]

Thanks for the welcome everyone. OhElizabeth: trying to answer some of your questions lol. He is 9. We started with Five in a Row. He bored with that VERY quickly despite doing lots and lots of extras. We then moved on to another unit study type curriculum that was made by Confessions of a Homeschooler's blog writer. It was a study of different countries of the world. We did lots with that, and he stayed focued on that. However it was lots of work for me becuase I had to add so much to keep his attention. It didn't challenge him enough. We then did a private school that stirctly used Abeka for the past two years. The school is closing at the end of this school year. There is no other option for school for him, so it's back to homeschool we go. He does well with Abeka...but I'm just not wild with the idea of bringing it home to do I guess? Not sure why.

I'm interested in anything that will help him. I think that with classical educations memory work and particularly SOTW's approach to chronolocigal learning will be a BIG success for him. HIs handwriting skills are severely lacking, and we do much of his work orally right now. Typing is something I plan to begin immediately to help him.

The academics aren't so much the issue for him...as keeping him challenged enough that he is focused without overwhelming both of us. lol

Goals are to find something that "works" for school at home, working hard on social skills both in the family and in the community, and helping him develop his own interests. Right now it's Legos all the time lol. So I see lots of projects involving them into our days.

Ugh it's so much to think about...and since I made poor choices curriculum wise for him before...I don't want to make that same mistake again.

Ok, I'll be a little bit nosey.  :)  Do you know his IQ?  I'm not saying you have to tell us, but do YOU know his IQ?  You said he's smart.  If he has had a psych eval for those labels (ASD, ADHD, etc.), then you have an IQ score.  And you consider him rising 4th or rising 5th?  

 

I'm asking, because honestly I think you're under-shooting again.  You ballpark us his IQ (if you're comfortable with that), and we'll see.  I'm just saying my dd, who is in the bright, not quite gifted range for her IQ, would have been bored stiff with what you're suggesting.  There ARE people who get SOTW to work with a bright 9 yo, but they might go through 2-4 of the books in a year, not just one.  There's a SL core I think that does that.  BookShark and SL are more or less the same, with BS just being secular.  Take a look and see http://www.bookshark.com/sixth-grade/reading-with-history/sixth-grade-reading-with-history/

That's the one I'm thinking of.  Don't look at the number on the box.  Look at what they DO with the books.

 

I don't know if you feel this way, but with my ASD, many SLDs, ADHD, etc. boy he is so young and so smart all in one body, you kind of feel like you need to teach to where he is socially/emotionally, even though intellectually he's actually much older!  So if you've got that contrast, you're really going to have to work to break yourself free of that.  It might fix the problem you felt you had.  Maybe have some things in your day that are emotionally young and fit him emotionally and some things that are really RIGHT WHERE HE IS intellectually.  I challenge you to do that and be honest about where his mind is.  Don't make it all one or the other.  Or put another way, I know someone whose teen plays with dolls AND is self-teaching calculus.  And that's OK.

 

With my ds, I try to get him exposure to thinks that are intellectually interesting that are not emotionally or socially where he's at.  So History Channel is that way for him.  The Teaching Company (Great Courses) lectures are that way.  They load up on his kindle automatically when I buy them for my hs age dd, but my 2E, many labels, K5er listens to them and LIKES them.  Find some ways to scratch his itch, kwim?  Don't make it all be one level.

 

I think it's also ok to feed an obsession through their school work.  So like say you wanted to use those SOTW 1 and 2 books for a year, and say they really inspired you when you saw that BK/SL core list.  And say you said hmm, his biggest interest in the whole wide world is CARS.  Then dude, you're going to look at the time periods covered and you're going to get some DK encyclopedias for those time periods and see how they handled transportation!  And you might get books or kits to do models of the transportation.  And documentaries on transportation in those times.  And you might go hmm, that squeezes out one or two or three or four of those BK/SL books, rats! And that's FINE!!  

 

That's owning it and customizing it.  That's taking some structure that makes you comfortable and then finding where HE intersects with the material.  Or maybe you get into it, and your pile of cool ideas for transportation during the time periods in SOTW1 and 2 is SO BIG that you realize you don't even NEED the cores and other books anymore!  So then you just relegate SOTW1 and 2 to audiobooks and every day enjoy that one angle your ds gets into, doing kits, reading those encyclopedias, watching documentaries, looking them up on the internet (ebay!), going to re-enactments, making costumes...  You're allowed to do that!!  :)

 

It takes time to get comfortable with stuff.  I tried to be chilled with my dd (only ADHD, no ASD), but it's only all these years later, the 2nd time around, that I'm cool with just throwing inhibition to the wind.  I know, having gone through it, that a lot of what we think matters doesn't.  You could go WAY out of the box and follow his passions and be fine.  You could even do it in a somewhat tidy or orderly way.  My main thing is, just reading what you're saying, that I *think* you may have undershot his abilities.  People talk about the flex of these materials so much, but really once you introduce gifted and maybe some stronger perseverative interests into the mix, it's easier just to acknowledge those and feed them and scratch the itch.  My ds gets really crazy when you don't scratch his itch.  Actually dd does too, and her IQ isn't quite as high.  So it's entirely possible that's what's going on.

 

Me, I guess someone can say I'm terrible, but I'd go up to him and ASK him what he wants to cover and if there's an angle he wants to focus on.  Lay him out 3 options/scenarios you think are good and then let him pick.  (Cover world history over two years, cover world history over even longer, or hang world history and cover a specific thing in-depth for a whole year, for instance)  Then I'd think up multiple ways he could accomplish those options and let him express methodology preferences within them.  If ALL of them work, ALL of them are acceptable to you, and ALL of them are good choices, then why does it matter if he's the one choosing?  Obviously it's not a problem.  

 

That's what I try to do with my dd.  I try to get the parameters of what she's wanting and then I try to find her materials to accomplish her goals.  And 9 is NOT too young to start facilitating that.  And it CAN help, because then it's not you randomly guessing what in the world he wants, kwim?  He can actually tell you.  He can't tell you precise books, but he can tell you what kind of set-up, modalities, depth, breadth, etc.  At least that's what we do.  :)

 

The Abeka4 history text is fine.  Is he rising 5th?  I haven't used their 5th.  I definitely would look at the BK/SL core though for SOTW if that's the direction you're wanting to go.  Then if he has a strong interest that can be found in the history, customize a bit.  :)

 

Maybe a start?  I'm sorry you had such a rough experience that left you unconfident.  But you can get to the other side.  Look for options and just talk it through with him.  Thing facilitate instead of teaching, kwim?  How can you facilitate him learning?  

 

Keep posting and asking more questions.  People will definitely try to help!  :)