Special Connection Homeschool

Well, tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we are certainly ready. Here are some activities we did this week to help teach Gess what Thanksgiving is all about. Books We checked out two books from the library, the same two as last year as I thought they were both very good. The first book, "The First Thanksgiving" by Jean C. George which was about just that, the first Thanksgiving. It was very detailed and beautifully illustrated. It is long so it took us a few days to finish it. The second book was shorter and Gess was able to help us read it. It was called "Thanksgiving Day" by Gail Gibbons and is also about the first Thanksgiving but then it shares how people actually celebrate the holiday today. I liked that because it helped my daughter to identify the story of Thanksgiving with the events and activities that she partakes in on that day. Videos Since Gess is a very visual and hands on learner, sometimes just reading and looking at pictures are not enough for her t...

My daughter is not really much of a whiner, but she does have a way of not always asking for things politely. Instead of whining about being thirsty she would ask for a drink in a demanding sort of way. A very irritating and loud demanding sort of way. Well, at last year's homeschool convention I listened to a speaker and found that she had an awesome technique to stop whining and other behaviors that showed a lack of self-control. Ginger Plowman, a Christian author, speaker and founder of " Preparing the Way Ministries " had some great advice. It was not anything new or innovative, in fact, it was pretty simple yet it is the key to getting to the heart of the matter, which is the heart. As she says, most parents work on trying to change the way their children "act." We figure if they learn to "act" right then they are being raised right, but that is not true. What we have to do is change the way they think. We have to reach past he outward be...

So where have we been the last three weeks and what have we been doing? Well, we have moved into a larger house and I finally have more room for all of our school, therapy and art supplies (not to mention basic household items)! It has taken all of my extra time to pack, unpack and get this house shaped into a home but it is amost there! I love it already and can't wait to host my first homeschool group meeting here! Now I know many of you have entire rooms for your school and this would seem like little to be excited about, but just imagine how small the room we left was! We used to have to pull everything out and put it back each and every day. Of course I am not done. There are still flags to mount and calendars to post on the wall, etc, but its a start! I also had issues with my computer. First it just quit working, so we took apart our media center computer and installed my drives and video card in it. My video card was not pleased and demonstrated by torching itself....