Speech and Reading

Gavyn is very smart but struggles with speech. Sadly people tend to think speech means intelligence. Gavyn has speech apraxia. We work with a speech therapist every week, and he has speech therapy at his preschool.
We finally discovered that Gavyn is very very motivated to at least try sounds by pressing the "easy" button.

You can see in this first video he is working on putting his hands on his mouth to help cue him to make his sounds.

 In this video Gavyn shows off his reading skills.


When Gavyn does not feel pressured to say a word he is more willing to try to say them. We still have a long way to go with his speech but it is videos like this that let us know that while he can not say all the things he is learning, he is certainly learning!

Just another day homeschooling!

Here are a few of our homeschooling tools. We have:
 Bob Books
Teach your child to read in 100 Easy Lessons
Tons of flash cards
Alphabet Cards
Pattern blocks
Puzzles for everything from math, opposites, sequencing, silly sentence building, etc
We have many manipulitives
Art supplies
Books on History
Reading comprehension books
Therapy Puddy for building hand strength
And much more!!

Gavyn works on putting the puzzle together and then putting it away when he is finished. While he did not put all the pieces in correctly, he was careful handling his work, taking it out, and putting it away while he was finished.

Veronika works on sorting by color

Veronika sorts by which animals fly and which ones walk

Veronika works on Sorting by color While Alina works on her handwriting

Ellie works on putting the blocks in from 1-12 by counting the dots on the blocks

Veronika works on putting the bears in the bag after she is finished using them

Gavyn works on fine motor skills by putting all the ribbons and bead necklaces in the bottle

Everyone  busy working

 

Veronika works on pouring

Smarty Pants

Veronika age 4

Gavyn age 4

Fun School

Sometimes school is sitting down and just working on things like

handwriting

Ellie working on her Handwriting Without Tears book

or the computer

Alina working on math and language arts in a program called IXL

or coloring

Veronika works on her fine motor skills with coloring

 BUT

Sometimes school looks like this....

sorting apples by color, checking which has more/less, adding green+red

Tasting different apples to see which kind was our favorite: Fuji was Alina's, Ellie liked the Granny Smith the best

Peeling an apple - We did hand over hand

Trying to peel the apples, We did hand over hand

Ellie was able to peel two apples on her own!

Alina peeled two apples on her own!

Veronika and Gavyn helped put the apple slices in the crock pot

Apples with some cinnamon added ready for cooking!

Turning into applesauce

Ellie also helped cook dinner by peeling the carrots! 

So, sometimes we just have to sit and get things done, but we also get to have Fun at school too!

Falling into Homeschooling

So we gave public schools a good try. We fought for things in their IEP, we called extra meetings, we emailed teachers on a regular basis, but honestly, they are not use to the situation our older girls present.
They enrolled one of our girls into a remedial math program, but remedial math assumes that you have had those subjects before, and now you are just working on making those skills stronger.
Unfortunately for our daughter that is NOT the case. She has not worked on most of those skills before, so spending a few days on this or that and then moving on to the next thing does not give her enough time to have the information sink in.
With reading, we explained that while she can read at a 2-3 grade level in English, she by no means has that level of reading comprehension. When they said that the kids needed to do a book report I KNEW there would be trouble.
For one of our other girls we explained to the school that she needed a preschool-kindergarten curriculum since she had never attended school in her life. Instead, they just worked on life skills. I get that life skills are great, but she has never had anyone try to teach her reading and writing before and that is what she needs. She needs to know how to count and add and subtract. She needs all the basics, not just life skills.
So, we have started to work on homeschooling with the girls, and they are really getting it!! I am so proud of them!!
Our little ones are learning so much too!! They are working on fine motor, gross motor, and following directions.

Working on shapes

 Working on putting numbers in order

Working on grouping by colors

Matching word and picture for the correct letter

 Quiet Reading time

Counting

 Addition and subtraction

 Journal work

Writing down her math problems after she solves them

 Yoga

Working on matching shapes

 Cutting skills

Putting numbers in order

finding blends/rhyming words

Copying visual directions

USA puzzle with states in correct shape

 More Math work