Special Connection Homeschool

Fostering independence is a bit tricky with a child with special needs. You can tell that Gess really desires to have the same independence that her peers have. Our current focus has been on giving her more unsupervised outside play time. Since we have a fenced in back yard that has a lock out of her reach, we are able to do this without too much fear of her wandering off. I must admit I am still constantly peeking out to be sure that she is OK, but it's the most independent she has been and she truly loves it. Our main concern with giving Gess the freedom is that she learn to use it responsibly. Gess had finally quit trying to wander outside without permission until we introduced letting her play outside alone. Now she was again trying to leave the house without telling us. However, this time she was not trying to simply "wander" off, she was just trying to do what we sometimes gave her permission to. So to address this we reviewed safety rules for playing outsid...

I am loving the Real Science 4 Kids curriculum we have chosen. Right now we are in the Pre-Level 1 Chemistry book. We divide each lesson into two or more weeks depending on the amount of material and how quickly Gess is grasping it. The first week we read through the workbook and on the second week we do the lab work. Gess really loves when we get to the experiments. This study was on chemical reactions. Our lab work for chemical reactions has us labeling 4 cups and placing lemon juice, vinegar, milk and water mixed with baking soda in them. Gess had to first describe what was in each cup (she didn't see me prepare them). She did pretty good but she thought the lemon juice was apple juice and of course the baking soda water was just plain water. Then we started mixing them. She discovered what happened when we mixed the following: 1. Lemon juice to vinegar 2. Lemon juice to milk 3. Lemon juice to baking soda 4. Vinegar with milk 5. Vinegar with baking soda 6. Milk ...