No School = Lots of Learning

This week has been one of those weeks when we did not get a lot of actual sit down school done. Just after coming off break with such a momentum going, this week life just stepped in our way. However, Tuesday we did have fun out at the barn, arriving there at 9:30 a.m. and not getting home until 1:00. Selena learned all about the different types of hay, as well as grains that are fed to horses and helped prepare the feed for the evening and next morning feedings. We also rode for over an hour which we both had a great time, leading the horses without a lead rope, to riding without reigns. We played a lot of games on the horses, and tried to ride around the arena holding hands, which might sound easy but believe me it is not, you really have to know which horse needs to slow down and which one needs to speed up as you go around corners. Great therapy as it promotes working with others.

Then came the rest of the week, our thermostat needed to be replaced, Selena had fun helping and watching as our Landlord changed the thermostat. She learned why we turn the power off, why we wire the thermostat a certain way, and the safety that is needed when working around electricity. She also got to watch as our toilet was replaced. She spent the entire trying to help, watch and ask 101 questions. We are so lucky that those who come into our home to do repairs are so good about allowing Selena these opportunities to learn. My favorite picture is of her watching the toilet go in.

During down times Selena discovered her Magnet Science kit again and had fun exploring about magnets. Sometimes these science kits sit for long periods of times in her science cupboard, never touched, then she will pull one out and spend hours each day just exploring, playing, and again asking 101 questions about how it works, why and what for.

 This weekend we drove out to Ocean Shores and visited with Laurie her horse instructor. We had a good visit and Selena loved playing with her dog and visiting with her bird. While it poured down rain here it was very pleasant at the beach and even sunny. Selena enjoyed seeing so many different birds on the water from ducks and many other species, watching them dive under the water to catch fish. Deer who came into feed, and just the beauty of the beach life. To be honest I would love to move to Ocean Shores.

Sometimes even when we do not get to sit down and do actual school work, we discover so much more to learn. Oh and before I forget, Selena even made mashed potatoes all by herself! I had just put the potatoes in the mixer when the electrician arrived to inspect something, I got busy helping him, and Selena took it upon herself to go in and finish the potatoes for me. She did an excellent job and was totally unsupervised!

Promoting Reading

Selena has been reading since before she turned 3 years old. Though she can read and understand what she is reading very well, she is quite a bit like myself and isn't often found with her nose buried in books. We do a lot of together reading and shared reading but don't expect to find Selena reading full chapter books just on her own, that just is not her thing.

In an attempt to incorporate more reading in our home I had to become quite creative. Selena has a great passion for music. She also loves to sing, and spends a lot of time listening to music on YouTube. She especially loves when she can find videos with the words. This gave me an idea to incorporate both in our homeschool days.

I pick several songs, from new music that Selena enjoys to all genres, and work hard to find songs she has never heard, which is becoming harder. Selena is expected to spend as much time as she can in karaoke time a week. I will pick slow beat songs to fast beat songs. The idea is that she has to read the words to the song while singing it.

This has increased the amount of time that I find her reading but it is also introducing her to all different types of music. She has fun with this activity and spends far more then the required time on this activity. One never knows what she will be singing anymore, of course we make sure of the language used and content, but if this is going to promote more reading along with grow her love for music then I am all for it.

She isn't as reluctant anymore to read from her school books anymore, which I know was that perfectionism side that drove her to worry about making mistakes. She is even willing to read more to us, such as at Christmas she read "A Visit From St Nicholas" to us, this was the first time she heard the poem as well as to read it.

I say what ever you can find that works to promote reading just go for it. If you find something that engages your child and promotes a healthy reading love then why worry about rather they are sitting with their nose buried in a book. Sure we love seeing the times she is reading her books but we also know that the time she spends combining with her true passion of music she is enjoying it more.   

Summer is Coming to an End

 

We have had one of the best summers this year, not only for the weather, so sunny and warm but also in growth. Selena has sprung her wings and is now so willing to be independent. I still and always will contribute this to the horse therapy. In the above picture was her first day at VBS. She went every single day through the week, and loved it! The feed back from everyone who worked with her was excellent, and those who have worked with her in the past couldn’t get over the changes in her.

Selena has found some special friends here close to home, that she has enjoyed going and playing with or having them over for play dates. She truly had a great summer. We couldn’t be happier for her!

 

She continues to love her horse riding lessons. Has enjoyed riding different horses and at times with partners. She is learning so much as am I, and even been helping with and learning about colts and the training process. It is so much fun for me to watch as she helps move these horses from one pasture to another pasture, with such ease, or bring them into the barn. She is now even able to saddle her horse, well, fasten the saddle, come on the horses are still quite a bit taller and saddles are heavy! She however, dismounts the horse without the mounting block, now that is huge!

We started school a couple weeks ago, Selena was so happy to get back to a regular routine. We are still making some adjustments but over all she is loving learning. This year she is enjoying learning to write in cursive, and doing much more in the kitchen, from making her own pancakes to banana bread. She is sure growing before our eyes.

She is in phase 1 now on her orthodontist work, the above picture was of us having lunch after she found out that she is getting her retainer to begin preparing for her braces. Wow time has flown by, she is growing to fast!

Our summer, as I said has been great, we took a trip to Spokane for a family reunion with her Mom, brothers, my son and his family. We all had so much fun, it was hot, but we had a great day in the park.

I am not sure the direction my blog will take. One part of me still wants to blog and the other just wants to let it lay. I don’t know, I guess time will tell. I might pop in from time to time with an update, but just know that I am not sure how much I want to share anymore. Life is so special now, we are loving every minute of it, and I am just not taking as much time on the computer these days.

Teaching Others About Homeschooling

We have been asked as many questions about homeschooling as the rest of you homeschoolers have. I know these who question just have concerns about Selena. I am OK with fielding questions I have no problem with answering them. However, I never felt my answers were enough. I finally invited a couple of them into my home to see a day in our life. This happened to take place in the evening and gave Selena a great time to learn how to give a presentation. Yes, I tackled many things by doing this.

First let me tell you about the two that I invited in. Two people who are very close to Selena, who try very hard to understand her, also who support very much in her curiosity.  One who is more hands on and allows her to ask questions and watch as work is being done when it is safe, and one who is the same way, but also worked for the Sheriff’s office and has seen what can come of homeschoolers when they are over protected and not given the opportunity to life skills. this can be a huge problem in any area when we shadow over our children, they can become unequipped to handle the world.

They were here for only a half hour, and Selena told them how she gets to go to the school to play with her friend as well as roam a small part of our town. Now she does go with an older child, and does meet up with this child’s friends. They have a cell phone and can be in in constant contact with me including GPS service.

She showed them as much of her school work as possible and what she is learning. She talked outside of the box about everything she knew about spiders, as well, as what she knows about life in general, asking one important question of them: “If we continue to see small businesses close in our town, what will be the impact on the economy?”

She also shared with them her Geography and History Scrapbooks, and Science Lapbooks. 

By the time they left, the realized that Selena is getting a very rounded education and probably much more then most public school children get. Have you ever considered inviting others for a field trip through your school? I know Selena learned a lot about giving a presentation, answering questions, and even posing many of her own.

Finally a Classroom

From the time we started homeschooling I so wanted a place to call a classroom. We first started out working at the dining room table, with all our supplies stored in plastic bins. It worked just fine, but I longed for something that just felt more like our area.

Selena was given a desk, and we quickly turned a corner of my office area into a small quaint place we did school work. As I am getting busier with more work, I longed for more office space and still wanted an area we would just consider our learning area.

Christmas came and Selena received some really cool science kits. She informed us that she wanted a science table, somewhere to work on her science kits without having them spread out all over the dining room table. She also received a new tablet for Christmas, so we offered her the opportunity to sell her Nabi. Within one day of listing it we were delivering the Nabi for $50.00. Selena was a little hesitant at first seeing that much money in her hand but she really wanted an area to work in and quickly gave me the money to buy a table. We settled on a nice table, and though she did not have enough money for it Papa and I helped her with the rest needed to purchase it.

While we were waiting for the table to come in Selena started making plans and said it would be nice if the table would be perfect for all her school. One of her greatest complaints about our other set up is that it does get chilly in that corner of our house. I didn’t see any reason we could not move our classroom. Sure it meant I had some work to do, I had to purge and move things around to empty two cupboards and two drawers for Selena.

As you can see her table offers plenty of room for any project she wants to do, and wow look at that view she has to look at everyday. She loves nature, so I think being able to just stop and watch the birds, or whatever other nature events will be refreshing for her.

Just another view of her table and our little classroom. With a few different changes we added a calendar to her desk, and a little drawer for pens,  pencils, and erasers.

Her two cupboards with games, art supplies, manipulates, science kits and still an empty shelf for new items.

Perfect counter space for books. Yes, I admit there is still a full counter here and I would love to fill it up with work boxes, and a filing system. It will come.

What will we do with the old area? Well that will become mostly my office space, which I badly need, but we will also still use the old desk and that area for a computer lab for Selena. We will set up our old computer and she will have the ability to enjoy educational games, and maybe even try her hand at some coding.

Selena woke first thing this morning and went straight to her table, wiped her hand across it and with a huge smile announced how much she liked the table and that it was perfect for school. When I pointed out that it was indeed her table, she paid for it, she was a little surprise, “You mean this table is mine and not yours?” That’s right it is all hers! She dreamed it, she did what she had to do to get the money, she picked it out, and now has a new sense of pride that she has just furnished her own little classroom.

A Big Step

Selena took a huge step today, she had her first guitar lesson. This wasn’t easy for her, she didn’t even want to talk about these lessons the first of the week, and begged me to teach her. While yes, I have played a little guitar a teacher I am not. Her fear I know came from all the rejection she has received from all the things she has tried, and the schools.

We got up this morning and Selena expressed her feelings, we gave it a name, “Nervousitement” If you can’t guess that is her term for feeling both nervous and excitement, a very normal feeling. We decided to just cancel school for the day and allow her to just relax.

An hour before we had to leave, Selena loaded her guitar in the car, you know it wouldn’t have been good to have forgotten it. When it was time to leave, she was very quiet all the way. We made arrangements for her instructor to meet us at a small church so we could follow him up their house for this first time, glad we did, not to say I wouldn’t have found it, but I was not expecting to go up the side of a mountain on a dirt road. It really isn’t far, we drive further for other things we do, it was more just not knowing where we were going.

Once there Selena was nervous and it took a few times to remind her what she was there for. Her instructor is great, it didn’t take him long to get her so engaged, that she was laughing, bopping her head and feeling like she was a pro as she played one single note to his three note tune. The lesson ended and she could proudly say “I did it!”

She couldn’t wait to pull her guitar out and practice after we got home. She is very excited to go back next week and is hoping that she can show her new teacher that she can do the one note he taught her today. We are very proud of her!

Building Upon A Rock

We had some extra time yesterday so I decided to introduce Selena to building our tower on different type of foundations. I first asked her what type of foundation she thought would be best to build her house on? She responded on rock. Now I didn't catch on at first and it wasn't until we were half way through our experiment before I realized what rock she was talking about:

Mathew 7: 24

Therefore everyone who hears these words

of mine and puts them into practice

is like a wise man who built his house on the rock

She taught me to listen more carefully and ask more questions before beginning our lesson. I will say though I was one proud Mama to know she had related God's Word to her daily science. 

We represented sand with dried beans, and layered them in the bottom of a wooden tray. We then began to build our tower. 

The first observation that Selena made was that the tower was leaning and didn't seem very stable. As we proceeded through the game it became more unstable. 

Selena decided to push more of the sand around the base of the tower in an attempt to make it more stable. But no matter how hard she tried, she just could not make it anymore stable. 

Instead of allowing the tower to fall over we carefully took it apart so that Selena could see how the sand had been shifting underneath. She then concluded that Sand was not the best place to build a house. 

We had a quick discussion on what most foundations are made of, concrete, hard rock. Using our legos we quickly made a foundation and began the process of building our tower on top of our foundation. 

The first observation Selena made was that now the tower appeared very straight and sturdy. We did continue the game and she discovered we could actually take the tower taller then before. 

After this we looked up the Bible verse and discussed what God meant by building our house on a rock. I know I learned a very valuable lesson while working with a Gifted child make sure you ask enough questions to know where exactly they are getting their hypothesis. It was a blessing to my ears to hear her use God's Word to explain the best foundation for our home, as well as for our lives.  

Balance and Gravitational Pull

One of our favorite games is Jenga. Every time we play this game Selena asks so many questions about what is happening, from "How can the tower continue to stand?" to "Why are some blocks loose and others are not?" I decided it was time to address some of these questions. We have already discussed balance and gravity, Selena understands the basic concepts of these two areas, so after a little recap we moved on.

To get started I asked Selena to balance herself on one leg. Of course her immediate action was to put her arms out to the side to help with the process of balancing herself.

I then hung the container from our Jenga game on her arm on the side that the leg was up, she immediately discovered that she became unbalanced. She asked me for an object of the same weight for her other arm to pull her back into balance. I complimented her on how she so quickly thought this situation through to come up with a simple solution to her perplexed situation.

 We then set up the Jenga game. Before any piece was removed we discussed weight distribution, and depending on how gravity is pulling on the tower, some blocks truly are not needed to hold it up, so that is why they are loose. I asked her to carefully examine the tower and determine without touching which blocks were loose. She realized just by looking that many of the loose blocks had air spaces around them.

With every move we stopped to examine the tower, how it was beginning to lean, to examining very closely all 4 sides to try to determine should the tower fall which direction was it more apt to fall in.

Selena examined the tower very closely, and determined that while the tower was leaning in one direction the opposite side had fewer support blocks, so the building would fall in the opposite direction on the lean.

I loved her concentration as she tried so very hard to figure out which block could safely be removed, of course at this point we really didn't have many loose blocks, so the tower did tip over, and yes, it tipped over in the direction she had thought it would.

Now for the fun part, she had to create a tower trying to think about where she needed support to hold the tower up, and where she could just leave blocks out.

She didn't make it very far before her little tower fell over. We will be doing more with these simple ideas and properties. We will add different mediums which to build our towers upon.

I can't encourage you enough that through what seems like such a simple toy, can actually be filled with many learning opportunities. Play and learn together.

Floating Egg

Yesterday I presented Selena with two jars of liquid, and two eggs. My goal was to teach her how to think like a scientist and to learn about density. She of course was intrigued over the egg in jar B floating and immediately went to work on figuring out why. We first defined the words, Dense and Density. Dense is defined as closely compact in substance and Density is defined as State or quality of being dense. We chose several objects such as a rock and a piece of wood, Selena easily determined the rock was more dense then the wood, due to to their make up, the rock would not have room for air pockets where as the wood be less solid and would have room for air pockets to help it float. Let me be clear here I had made sure she realized the weight of the object had no bearings on this experiment.

Now after examining the eggs she determined they were exactly the same in the fact that they were both chicken eggs. She determined it had to do with the liquid. Through yes and no questions she had to come to her conclusion.

Questions:

1. Is A only water? Yes
2. Is B only water? No

1. Does B contain something found in our kitchen? Yes
2. Is that substance a powder? No

1. Is that substance granulated? Yes
2. Is that substance sweet? No
3. Is that substance salt? Yes

Her conclusion then was written, "The egg in B floated because we changed the density of the water, by adding salt."

Why did this happen? She concluded that the salt added more density to the water in jar B, which held the egg up, where as the the water in jar A had less density and not able to hold the egg up. Of course this led to many discussions, such as the difference between the Ocean and a simple lake.

She then became curious over other liquids, so we took out the oil. She discovered that oil is less dense then even water. I know the least dense liquid is mercury, but of course I am not going to allow her to play with mercury.

This was a fun experiment, and even if you have a younger child, it is fun to see the amazement on their face. If you have an older child it is a cool way to introduce density and it's properties. It is simple and a fun way to help your child learn how a scientist think.

I want to leave you with one more fact, it is called the Universal Law of Density:

Less Dense

More Dense

The line represents water or liquid, if an object is less dense it will float, more dense it will sink. By changing the density of the water does not change this Universal Law but does change the results of some objects and their ability to stay afloat. The more Dense an object is will not be changed with the change in the density of the water. 

Hope you have fun sharing this with your kids. 

No Book Days

Sometimes I will announce a no book day. Selena realizes that does not mean there won't be a lot of learning through the day, just that we are putting the books aside and learning a little differently. Last Thursday was one of those days. We usually start these days with one concept that we play with on the whiteboard. This particular day we or I should say I chose to work with fractions. We started with a paper plate, Selena was asked to represent 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, and 1/16. She easily cut the paper plate into the appropriate fractions. We took this a step further in adding fractions. Using the pieces and writing the equations on the board Selena quickly learned how to add fractions step by step to make a whole.

We then talked a bit about time using fractions. Selena enjoyed piping in and reminding me that I say we will do something in a half hour, oh brother now she watches the clock to make sure that we do it in that half hour. No more fudging on my part.

I then took out the play money and we refreshed our memory on the denomination of the bills and how fractions play a huge part in counting change. I then told Selena to go get all her play food and we would play store. You can see above that Selena worked real hard to set up her store and priced each table. Later she added a toy section where the toys were worth $100.00.

I gave her a certain amount of money and she had to go shopping. The goal was to stay within the amount she had without going over. Her first attempt was pretty funny as she picked something off each table or chair. When I informed her she was over her $1.00, she put the $1.00 item back, it wasn't as healthy anyway as it was chocolate milk. I changed the amount of money she had several times and she went shopping realizing after the first attempt she had to pay more attention to the prices and not the "I wants." We left our store up through the day, I thought it would be fun for her and her friend to play store that evening.

We did a lot of other things with fractions, using different mediums, even triangle shaped chips. We looked for different things in the house that could be broke into fractions, or the different ways we use fractions, like in cooking, baking, and quickly Selena realized we even use fractions in telling how much gas we have in the car, (one of her quirks is to worry about how much gas we have in our car when ever we go somewhere, and no we have never ran out of gas.)

With her friend coming over that evening, Selena chose to make meatloaf with mashed potatoes and gravy. Now the picture above is a first for Selena. She has never touched raw meat before. It has only been within the past couple months that she will even eat meat. She had so much fun mixing the meatloaf and did a very good job of it too.

When we picked J up (who we do babysit) she had homework to do. I normally do not assign homework for Selena but J asked if Selena had some math to do too. I obliged by giving Selena a page of math to work on while J worked on her homework. I got my first good taste of common core math and believe me I am so glad that I homeschool. After reading the problem twice, I was still so confused as to what they were asking. I finally stopped reading the story problem and just looked at the basic math shown which then gave me an understanding of what they wanted. My word, a full paragraph of information that no child even knows anything about just to figure out if there is x amount of females in a town, and the total population is y, how many males live in the town? (Silent Scream)

Yes, the girls had fun playing store, and sat up a Walmart for Papa and I to shop in. It was unlike any Walmart I had ever shopped in, every item in the Deli cost $30.00 and there was nothing under $10.00. Once that game was over and picked up and put away we sat around the table and played Apple to Apple Junior.

That night Papa went out side to discover a tree frog clinging to our door. We found the only thing we could and captured it. We had to wake Selena up to take a look at it. She has been hearing a frog and trying to figure out where it was for the past week. How could we not let her finally see it?

She loved the opportunity to look at the frog up close and named it Sam. After a good look, Papa took it out and released it. As I walked by the back door, I discovered Sam had returned.

Now perched on the sill of the window looking inside. I do believe this little fellow really would have loved for us to let him in where it was warm.

This is a look at what "No Book Days" look like in our homeschool. Still lots of learning going on just a break from anything that resembles a book or workbook.

A Look Into The Day With A Twice Exceptional Child

What is a Twice Exceptional Child? If you caught my post here, you will quickly discover the definition, to put it in laymen terms, this is a child who is Gifted, but has a learning disability. In our home this means a Gifted child with Autism. The Autism brings a lot more then just anxieties, behavioral issues, but also deficits in her learning. I am sure Selena is dyslexic, which is the greatest struggle for her with her handwriting and lack of desire to color and do art.

I love asking Colleen from Raising Lifelong Learners questions, and chatting with her over the answers. She has a way of being informative, yet helping me to think outside the box as to how our school days can be just right for Selena. One of the latest questions I asked her was, "Does she struggle with a child who excels in a subject, yet struggles with the simple concepts?" She directed me to her post on Asynchronous Abilities. I read this post once before, but had forgot it's content. It was great to refresh my memory.

I thought I would share just what a day looks like in our home, homeschooling a Twice Exceptional Child.

 It is not unusual to find Selena in the mornings before school begins cuddled in blankets reading all my resource books. I keep science, and history reference or text books out and available for her to read anytime she desires. These are not children books, but most are my college text books, or reference books I have picked up at used curriculum sales. This is the best way I know to get her learning juices flowing, and spark questions for extra curriculum studies.

 By 9:00 is independent study. I am still working with her on Math and Penmanship, remember, I feel strongly that Selena is Dyslexic, so I kind of hover over these two areas, to try to train her to make her circles in the right direction, and to slow down and think about how she is forming her letters and numbers. Another reason I hover over math, is that while Selena can figure out a lot of hard math problems, and story problems, she has yet been able to memorize her math facts.

We have two sets of phonics, one that covers the basic phonics, because here again while she is a very advanced reader don't dare ask her to give you a rhyming word for CAT. Then we have our more grade leveled phonics where she is right at home in working with more complex phonics concepts. I loved the fact that she did not like the fact that the book called a raccoon just a coon, and had to write raccoon instead of coon. I know she missed a "c" in the word, but hey this was independent work, and she spelled it the way it sounded to her.

After all her independent work is finished, and we have done our together reading it is break time for lunch and for Selena a little nap. Yes, she still takes a nap, in part due to her medication, and also because she doesn't sleep well at night. At this point she is usually ready for an hour or hour and half nap, or a time to just shut off.

 I usually ask her to draw and dictate a story all on her own. I will write the dictation for her. She prefers to do this on the white board rather then on paper, which is perfectly fine with me. She puts a lot of imagination into this and it is fun. In the picture above she drew an alien with an alien duck that came to Earth from Saturn.

Remember this picture? 

Now it is time to research what she read from my reference books. On this day she chose to research the Monarch Butterfly. We do a journal page for her Science scrap book, among other fun coloring or what coloring I can get, and diagrams. We also use a lot of YouTube to reinforce the information she is learning. 

Sometimes we play games or do a lot of hands on learning. One of Selena's favorite games is Scrabble, we also like to use the letters just to practice making words, phonics, practice spelling besides always finishing up with a good game of Scrabble. 

Homeschool wouldn't be complete without life skills. Selena is a great helper when it comes to shopping. She will make the grocery list, help me find the items in the store, check prices, and also thinks it is fun when the clerk allows her to help scan the items at check out. She loves to help me in the kitchen, rather it be stirring, chopping, or cleaning. Some days she vacuums or dusts for me. We definitely have a full day, but of course we always make time for play. 

As you can see, I am challenged to meet two ends of her learning curve, the one that she has deficits in, as well as the one that she excels in. Is homeschooling tough at times, oh yes, you bet it is, but she definitely would not get this attention in a public school.