Math issues with possible solutions

Sorry no photos. Our camera is still MIA and of course I haven't bought another one.

We are in the middle of our math block. Ds did well with addition and subtraction, but is having having a little problem with multiplication even though it's his favorite squirrel. It's totally my method. It's not moving and he's resisting.

After researching, reading and thinking, I think I have the solution. I have to tap into his imagination. I need to make the forest come to life inside (due to the fact that it's cold and icy outside). Thankfully we are big collectors and I have just enough pine cones to help create our forest. The only thing I need are the squirrels. I know, I know. This should have been ironed out before we started. This is what happens when you jump in with out a lot of preparation. Wish us luck.

It worked. Significantly less complaining. Yeah!

So you thought I fell off...

We are still here, living, learning, moving. I've taken pictures but somehow misplaced the camera. No really, I had it one moment and now I can't seem to find it. So guess who gets to go shopping?!?

Another thing to write about joyfully: we have completely surrendered to homeschooling the waldorf way. In September, we were trying to work with a private school part time but it just wasn't speaking/moving us. It wasn't miserable. I love the philosophy, the concept, the people, but when we just looked at the experience as a whole and compared it to our waldorf experience; Our days were happier and more relaxed. The most interesting thing was my ds was begging for my stories. So if he is asking for more, why not follow his lead?

And you're wondering, why don't she write?...

As so many others that have started blogs, life swept me away. So what have we been doing? We are still homeschooling part time. Things are going very well this year.

I thought I would share our Christmas countdown

Day 1 - put up christmas tree

Day 2 - Decorate Christmas tree

Day 3 - Watch how the grinch stole christmas

Day 4 - Make Christmas cards for grandparents

Day 5 - pick out toys to give away

Day 6 - Write a letter to santa

Day 7 - Weave threads and ribbon on pine cones (thanks to little acor

n learning for the idea)

Day 8 - pick out books to give away

Day 9 - Mail out Christmas cards to grandparents & Santa Surprise!

(will post more pictures soon)

Taking a break

I haven't posted anything in a couple of weeks due to a few issues. Before we get back on track, we are spending the next two weeks doing a new program called Audiblox. This program is suppose to help children learning disabilities. In addition to adding some vitamin supplements, I am hoping that ds's dyspraxia will ease up. Wish us luck.

Another Round of Language Arts Block

I'm just trying to get back into the swing of things. I'm a little worn out with all of the Easter planning. I didn't have to cook dinner and I'm still tired. Ds was even having problems with going back into learning.

So this week in our LA Block, we concentrated on F I and N. I usually try to create a story about animals/things that start with the selected letters, but this week I was able to find a wonderful Eskimo story about the Fox Woman. I included a necklace in the story to cover N.

We usually work with playdough for our hand warm-ups before writing, but this week we used bendaroos to outline a coloring page of a fox. Ds was really receptive to it and it lasted 3 days.

A couple of books we enjoyed this week are:

Fox by Kate Banks

The Circus is Coming by Hilary Knights

monumental milestones

Those with SID children can agree that what most consider small milestones, we consider to be monumental milestones. MY ds always seemed to be slightly disconnected from his body; one side not quite communicating well with the other. We have been working occasionally on getting enough coordination to skip. I am not sure at what age a kid should be able to skip, but I know ds is at his own pace (he's 7 now). His right side dominates so getting his left side to do the same has always been a challenge. So to my surprise, today, totally self initiated, I witnessed my ds skip around my living room. With wood floors, I heard that he was skipping before I saw it. The best part was that he knew he had accomplished something that was hard for him; he had the biggest smile on his face. You know that smile. The one that says "Yes! I did it!" And this was all before I said anything. Of course there were a couple of victory laps around the sofa before he stopped.

For those wondering how we did it, we started of using stomping rhythmically, then we moved to knee ups in place, the last step was to skip slowly. It feels funny but it worked!

Now on to jumping rope....

Form Drawing with Element Influece

This week's form drawing is strongly influenced by last week's water study. I knew that this is what would speak to ds so I went with it. Here is a great photo of what inspired us all week long. Our weekly poem was Sea Creatures by Julia Redstone. It worked well with movement and we continued with various sea creature walks. I even got ds to pretend he was scooting across a rope on a sailboat.

Here is a sample of our daily playdough work.

Of course when there is water, we must have water color painting. See, "mess"!

We also got our next level of Right Start Math (level B) which we started up again this week. I love this program.

Some books that we used are Starfish by Edith Thacher Hurd and Do Pirates Take Baths? by Kathy Tucker.