Special Connection Homeschool

As you can see from my last post, the Summer of Socialization , I truly do try to let summer be summer. I am not really about spending our summers doing "school." However, since math is the subject that my daughter (and many children with DS) struggle with, I have tried to make sure we do some math drills. We have done some flash cards and math games to help her remember what math facts she has memorized, but I wanted something more fun. I pulled out our Teaching Math to People with Down Syndrome book and found a fun hands on activity titled "Making a Picture Graph." (You can find it in Book 1 on Page 154) Gess has been pretty good at reading simple graphs, but she hasn't really made one before. So what we did was ask her family members what their favorite flavor of ice cream was, giving them the choices of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry. I wish I had saved the paper on which she collected the data. When I said I liked chocolate she spelled it "...

What a busy summer we are having! Since my last post about Special Olympics we have had 3 weekends of company visit our house. The first week we had some dear friends from Indiana come through on their way to a wedding. They had their grandson with them and he and Gess really seemed to hit it off. Those two played so well together that the grown ups were able to relax and visit without much interruption. We walked them downtown and took them through the Safari Museum , which is this biggest tourist attraction in our small town. Gess willingly gave up her bed and enjoyed sleeping on her "pallet." In fact, she continues to ask to sleep on one. The next weekend we had her cousins for 3 days. We love having them around as they all play really well together. Their ages are also perfectly spaced as they are all about one year apart. We pretty much had an 8, 9 and 10 year old for the weekend. For this visit we spent most of our time at the pool, which kids that age love. ...

This was our second year participating in the Special Olympics . It still seems to be Gess' favorite time of the year. She had been looking forward to this since we went last year. Being homeschoolers, I was not sure how to go about getting involved as the youth programs are usually handled within the school system. However, Special Olympics is not a public school program and therefore homeschool children are invited to participate. To find a Special Olympics team in your area you can go to the Special Olympics Website's Find a Program Near You page. That will link you to your statewide organization. That's how I found Special Olympics Kansas . From there you should look for a link to hook you up with your local area. The page for that in Kansas is Find a Local Program . Through the program we have 2 events a year. Our regional area has it's own Special Olympics events. Bowling is in the fall and the spring track and field is in April. Then we head to the s...