Smithie
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Posts posted by Smithie
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"Yet I still feel like the OT is reaching to find problems with his schooling?"
It may simply be that she is "reaching" to define things in a way that will be covered under an IEP, so that the state will pick up the tab for his therapies.
My SS kindergartner is also thriving in the homeschool setting and working at or above grade level except for find motor (for which he receives OT). I think homeschooling is a great choice for many kids with SPD. The OT may not think so, but ultimately that's not your problem. Her job is to work on your ds' fine motor skills and help her learn to navigate his SA issues, and hopefully if you are responsive to her concerns, complete any "homework" she gives, etc., she will come to understand that what you are doing is working well for your child and your family.
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bump
C'mon, I know I can't be the first one to have a 6 y.o. who loves All Creatures Great And Small... :)
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My ds is obsessed with animals. Obsessed. For his first grade year, I want to spend the whole year studying different animals and filling in a large, impressive, beautiful chart of the Animal Kingdom.
So who knows of one?
:bigear:
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I'm going to start my ds with Lively Latin next year, and the big reason is the lack of prayers. I actually think that Latin prayers are beautiful, and completely appropriate for nonCatholics to study and learn from and even memorize, but at age 6 I just don't want to introduce potential theological confusion. Plus, I can just picture him reeling off the Nicene Creed to our rabbi and saying "this is what Mommy teaches me at home!" :blushing:
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"He does not believe in OT. He thinks it's a bunch of bologna. He gets this opinion directly from his dad."
:mad: I get this from the extended family from time to time. If I was hearing that ignorant bs from my husband, I think my head might actually explode. I'm sorry mama, but this is one of those times where you put your put down and overrule the other parent. Just make the appointment and go. Your first responsibility is to your child. When you son gets BETTER, I think your husband will probably be more than willing to forgive for pulling rank over this.
You've already gotten good suggestions for OT-like things to do at home, and you've already heard from other parents how much OT can help a child with SID to control their symptoms, so I won't go through all that again. My SID son has improved greatly over the past two years, and here's some things that have helped along the way:
1. The couch. Oh, the couch. For an entire year my son was not allowed to sit on or touch the living room couch or chairs. If I let him get anywhere near them, the next second he be standing behind on of us (or worse, a guest) grabbing onto them hard enough to hurt. I got him a child's upholstered chair and that's where he sat until the flinging on the couch obsession passed. And it did pass. I think it took about 2 years. (The first year, when he was three, we just stayed out of that room during that day. Then we moved and our furniture setup changed). Th couch is no problem at all these days.
2. The pushing, poking, squeezing (and close talking, and interrupting, and repeating) - this has also gotten better with time in our house, but there were months, MONTHS, when every physical interaction with my son ended in me saying "No! That hurts me! Stop hurting me!" Sometimes the pain was physical, sometimes it was emotional or mental, but he was so young that I stuck with "hurt" as the concept. He has a perfectly normal sense of empathy, and doesn't WANT to hurt me, so he would tend to be more receptive about redirection once he understood that what he was doing was causing me pain. It was an exhausting process, but I found I lost my temper much less often if I expressed my feelings strongly right in the moment and didn't try to endure ten minutes or so of extreme irritation before completely blowing a gasket. In our house, what has worked is to intervene and stop the behavior IMMEDIATELY.
3. For fidgeting and other stimming behaviors, what has worked best for us is to say "you may do that if you need to, but you will do it in another room because it makes us very uncomfortable to see it." Just like you might say if a child was examining their private parts in the middle of the living room. These days (at age 5.5), our son will generally just cease the fidgeting, disturbing vocalizations etc. when they are pointed out because he no longer seems to NEED to do it to organize himself, and he generally does not want to leave the room we're all in.
It's so hard. We spend a lot of time and energy celebrating our son's positive traits and focusing on the things he does well, to make sure that he doesn't internalize the idea that he is bad or defective in the face of all the correction and redirection he gets to help him conquer the SID.
And you know what? I raise my voice to him almost every day. But I can still see that things are sooooo much better after a year of OT. And I don't actually SCREAM every day anymore. Usually it's more like hollering. :tongue_smilie:What I'm trying to say is, the tension level around here has plummeted, and I hope the same miracle happens for you!
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My son is in K and we're planning to start our version of LCC in grade 1, and it seems to me that he'll be done with English phonics and totally ready to start Latin at age 6. So I don't plan to worry about English grammar at all, until and unless he gets to be 9 or so and tells me that the CW series is boring and he doesn't want to work through it. Then I'll worry. Or maybe I'll just tell him to suck it up and climb Parnassus via the CW. :)
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Well, the SLP administered the receptive language test until she got a full year beyond his chronological age in the questions. Then she administered the expressive language test, same result. Now she wants to do a pragmatics test next week, which is what she should have done in the first place. Why do they always think you're in denial when you say "my kid has X and Y problems, but is gifted in the area of Z?" Oh well, at least we'll have a slew on information for the IEP committee.
"One thing I wish I had done differently would have been to start my son in cursive rather than print."
I'm going to give him a beginning cursive sheet today, and see how he reacts. It really seems wrong to me on some fundamental level to have a kid who can read but not write at all (I know reading often develops FASTER, but I feel like writing should be emerging as part of the process) - and as a PP said, the danger of teaching him to type is that he'll decide that the entire enterprise of writing longhand is a waste of time!
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Thanks for all the good advice! He's going back today for the Speech Eval - hopefully that therapist won't advise me to have him stop talking for a year or so :D
Next week we'll be in to see the OT who has been working with James weekly for eight months, and I'll run this new delaying-writing idea by her...
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Soooo... as part of the saga of getting my son his first IEP, I took him to a new OT for an evaluation. She said his has dysgraphia and is not ready to learn to write. She wants to back off and works on gross motor skills.
I think my son has a relatively mild sensory processing disorder - he's clumsy, has a poor sense of spatial relationships, gets all freaked out in high-input situations, etc. I have been taking him to doctors and therapists since he was 20 months old, trying to get some sort of dx and a comprehensive action plan (oh, and to help him get better, too!). We signed up with K12 for kindergarten, largely so we could finally get an IEP in place and have his therapy covered under IDEA.
It looks like this is finally going to happen, and that's great - but do I actually want to implement a handwriting accommodation? His writing is awful, but he's 5.5 and willing to practice it every day - there's no resistance, and no negative reaction as long as I remain positive and encouraging (and I'm getting better at that every day). Those parents who have BTDT - what would you do? Is there anybody who stopped teaching handwriting to a five year old, took it up again when they were six, and is happy that they did so?
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I think that OT has helped my son. I wouldn't go broke to pay for it completely out of pocket, but chasing down state coverage is definitely worth the time and energy. Homeschoolers are entitled to IEPs, too!
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Thanks, that was deeply helpful!
James is chugging away through the K12 phonics program, but it seems to be mostly review for him (beneficial review, I hope!). Hopefully when we get to the digraphs he'll have something new to learn. I didn't actually realize how well he could read until we started with K12. So maybe I'll give Lively Latin a try this year and see if he's ready. Otherwise, I'm going to spend the whole year talking about dinosaurs, since prehistory is our only current "additional" subject and the K12 curriculum is just really, really basic at this point and takes us a very small amount of time to complete.
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My copy of LCC came yesterday and I am really enjoying it!
One of my biggest worries about ds' current kindy curriculum (K12 through a VA) and my memories of my own schooling is how very, very inefficient the standard LA approach is. I went on to get a master's degree in English Lit, so obviously I like books and can put together a decent sentence, but my appreciation for literature (and whatever knowledge of grammar I possess) came from free-reading the good stuff all through childhood. The idea of eliminating "children's literature" as a formal academic subject is tremendously freeing to me. And let's not even talk about the worksheets, the endless interminable worthless worksheets, which taught me nothing about how to write and speak correctly. I'm sure FLL is more inspiring than the "writing prompts" of my youth, but really, I'd like to skip the whole **** thing. I'd like to teach Latin, Hebrew, Mathematics, History, Writing, Science and Music in the early grammar years, and have the kids pick up what they need of other subjects through those.
So here's a question for others with young kids: did you start Latin in the first grade? Or even in kindy? Are you happy with that choice? What curriculum did you use? (Prima Latina and Latina Christiana look to contain a lot of Greek Testament material which I don't think I need to affix in my Jewish children's minds at such a young age, so I'd rather use a secular Latin program, and let them pick up the Hebrew Scriptures through study of the Hebrew language). However, I really DO want a text/program that is centered around the grammar - else how can I expect the kids to internalize the grammatical knowledge they require to use English well? LCC doesn't seem to have anything to recommend for this - have any of you found the perfect curriculum to meet these needs?
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Great info! Thanks so much. I think Charlie's Playhouse just got themselves another customer over here... and I didn't realize that the Usborne Encyclopedia had so much prehistory content. Great news all around!
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My ds(4) cried whenever I pulled out the OPG. We are now using Hooked on Phonics with great success (tons of enthusiasm, rapid progress - "reading unreadiness" was not the problem with the OPG, it was just a bad fit for ds).
That said, he's getting older and I'm getting better at teaching, so I plan to pull out the OPG again after we've finished the first level of Hooked On Phonics, and present it using a big whiteboard. I would really like to work through Jessie's sequence, because I think it's excellent.
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I love OPG, but my ds (just about to turn 5) does NOT. He wanted pictures! Since he was starting out with a solid understanding of the prereading concepts (know all the letters and all the sounds, etc.), I got the Hooked on Phonics kindergarten set. He loooooooves it, and he is most definitely learning to read.
Once we're done with that, though, I'm hoping to go back to some version of OPG. I have a lot of confidence in the scope and sequence of the primer. Writing out the lesson on a whiteboard is probably what we'll try. Reading comfortably without pictorial clues is a really important skill for young kids IMO.
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I want to start with the formation of the universe 15-20 billion years ago. That won't be too much for my 5 y.o. to grasp, right? :D
Seriously though - I am planning a pretty traditional 12-year classical curriculum, I respect the heck out of the Wise/Bauer women and I plan to use SOTW and a lot of their ideas - but we are not conservative Christians, most emphatically NOT creationists, and I really want my ds to start his study of history with all the cool stuff the paleontologists have, um, dug up. Way before we ever talk about nomads and cuneiform writing, I want to talk about the universe before Earth, the formation of our planet, early life, the evolution of human beings from tree primates, etc. etc. The whole scientific secular shebang. The stuff that gave Rev. Dr. Bob Jones nightmares. :p
I am thinking of doing this in the K year, as an add-on the to K12 curriculum ds will be doing through the public charter school. Does anybody have any recommendations for books/curricula/videos/activities to teach "prehistory"?
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Nope, this is the right direction! My vision of the typical end user is somebody who has a basic idea about the major curricula they'd like to use and is mostly looking to save their time and energy and reduce the household chaos by letting the software make their weekly schedules for the year. However, you are right, there is absolutely no reason not to ask for far more detail about their preferences and worldview. Even if we can't make a lot of use of that data in the first year or so, eventually we'll be able to!
And yes, I was hoping to make the list of possible subject areas almost infinitely long. :D I will add your suggestions to the list!
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OK, so I've bend the ear of my software architect DH about classical homeschoolers, our many curriculum choices, our endless finicky tinkering with plans, schedules, pacing etc., our need to keep concrete records of material covered... and he suggested that we create a software program that help parents to design and customize a schedule for the year. He's got grand plans of a wiki where people contribute infornmation about the various curricula they are expert in and we end up with a massive database and tons of supporting materials available for use and modification under a creative commons license.
Sounds nice, huh?
The first step is for me to create a workflow explaining what a homeschooling parent would come to the site hoping to get, and what data we would have to gather from this person (the "end user") in order to generate the desired output. I'd really appreciate knowing what is missing from this first draft of the workflow.
TIA!
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End User Workflow
1.Explore website, read FAQ, register, receive confirmation email, log in.
2.What subject areas would you like to schedule?
a.English Literature
b.Language Arts/Grammar
c.History
d.Math
e.Biology
f.Chemistry
g.Physics
h.Art
i.Music
j.Latin
k.Greek
l.Hebrew
m.Spanish
n.French
o.Computer Science
i.For each subject area selected:
1.Overall priority
2.# of times/week to study?
3.Speed of student
4.Interest/proficiency level of student
ii.Additional general questions:
1.Number of school days per week
2.Number of school weeks/year (select on a popup calendar)
3.Based on this info, software generates a list of all possible curriculum choices for each subject, with
recommended choices bolded. Summary description of curriculum and overall user rating. Parent makes
selections.
4.Software produces proposed schedule for the year. User can click and drag to switch dates, delete specific lessons, add floating holidays etc. etc. – every customization option possible, with dynamic updating. User clicks “Generate” when customization is complete.
5.Software produces following output:
a.Page of weekly lesson plans with links to relevant resources
b.Printer friendly version with option to print any/all relevant resources
c..pdf emailed to address on record, plans plus relevant resources
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If my DH even sees a TOG book lying around, he will quite literally build a bonfire in the backyard and toss it on. So the sane, reasonable, sensible path of adapting TOG to a liberal Jewish worldview is not going to work for us. It was enough of a battle to convince him that you can't study the history of Western civilization without going into church history to the extent that SOTW does! :D (I mean, he does realize that church history needs to be taught if we want to raise socially literate human beings, it just gets him really emotionally worked up when he things of the heartbreak and bloodshed that occurred as part of the development of a worldview that he totally can't relate to. He's pretty much an atheist.)
I think I'd better start working on my own version. It's good to know there's interest out there - I'm sure I'd get tons of insanely useful feedback from these forums!
I'm very excited to get my new copy of WTM - hopefully the updated curriculum suggestions will have some more secular recommendations in the grammar area!
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OK, my ds will be doing kindergarten with the South Carolina Virtual Charter School, which contracts with K12 for the curriculum. I am fine with that choice. I feel the format is a good fit with his abilities and preferences, and I'm not really a big believer in kindergarten anyway. The main purpose of doing this is to give his sister another year to get old enough to follow along with SOTW and to give me another year to get my act together with our classical curriculum.
Having looked around at the various options, I have major, major Tapestry of Grace envy. Having a scope and sequence mapped out by a person who had BTDT would be so useful!
However, we are secular homeschoolers (well, Jewish, but we teach evolution etc. so the resources we draw from are mainly secular. The kids have a totally separate Religious School with its own curriculum). Has anybody run across anything like TOG that is secular? Or is this something I'd have to CREATE if I want it to exist? (Now there's a project for the next decade of my life!)
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We are doing kindergarten through a K12 public charter school, and man oh man, I am glad to hear about this! I have been walking around telling people with doubts about our public kindergarten's crazy schedule to look in trying K12 at home, little knowing there was an imitator out there!
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Our elementary school runs 7:45-2:30 for all grades. I think this is nuts, and while I was planning to let my son give kindy a try I am in the process of talking myself out of it.
I went to kindy 9-12, and I remember loving it. I didn't learn to read or anything like that, just social skills. Things have changed a lot in 25 years!
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Dude. Scrabble! I wonder if I could talk my MIL into lending me her Scrabble set. I don't think it's ever been used...
Anyhow, we tried the whiteboard today and the spelling approach ("How do you spell cat?" and then I'd write the answer he gives). I think there's some real potential there. But we are still on OPG Lesson 29. It's the blending hump, I think. The key now is to avoid frustrating him.
The whiteboard is in my bedroom, so it sure would be handy to teach reading in there while I'm recovering from the next birth! Magnetic letters are also a great idea - I will see if that board is magnetic. We have Leapfrog letters on the downstairs fridge, but not enough to be useful.
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Awesome suggestions - thank you all!
I am also cheap/frugal, so I'd like to find a way to make OPG work so I can spend my $$$ on all the great materials that literate students need! We have a big whiteboard and he loves to write on it, so I will give that a try tomorrow.
Medication for ADHD
in The Learning Challenges Board
Posted
"... And to know my problems were simply a matter of correctable chemistry rather then intelligence or character..."
:iagree:
We started ds (5.5 yo) on Ritalin last week. The biggest reason was that he was starting to see himself as "bad" and unliked by his peers (and he IS, off meds and in crowds - he ruins everything remotely structured for all the other kids participating). The response has been pretty amazing. He's not the type that can't focus during homeschool hours, so we plan to save drugs for group activities.
I really thought he had SPD rather than ADHD, but the dev ped we saw is strongly of the opinion that it is ADHD. We are meeting with him next month to discuss the tests in more detail.