Special Connection Homeschool

One of the reasons I like K-5 Learning so much is that it adds in some areas of study that we haven't addressed in school yet. For instance we have not studied poetry and they had a section on that. Another thing I realized is that we had not studied about the differences between facts and opinions and that is an important life skill you don't want to miss! In the K5 Learning lesson they read you a short biography and have you sort out which statements are facts and which are opinions. I was glad to see that Gess picked it up rather quickly. Now that they have introduced the concept, I try to work this in during every day situations, like this afternoon when we were cutting a fresh pineapple. I said, "Fresh pineapple is the best thing in the world!" I immediately realized, oh now it's lesson time. I then asked Gess, "Was that a fact or an opinion?" She answered "opinion" and got it right! Then I made other statements and asked her ab...

This last month we were able to review the Action Alert Parental Control Software which was really exciting for me since Gess just recently got her own computer. Action Alert is an internet safety solution that provides a way of restricting and monitoring internet access for children. They offer a FREE Protection Package or you can upgrade to Maximum Protection for $29.99 a year (although apparently they will give you a $10 discount if you first try to install the free version). We had access to the entire program during our review. When you first install Action Alert it sets up their kid friendly search page as your default start page because it has Safe Search enabled. They explain that "Safe Search is a Google powered search engine that filters out unsafe and explicit content from search results." Here's what their page looks like although there a few different themes you can choose from. My husband was immediately turned off because of the add that is...

I am a very politically active person and usually up to date on most everything involving politics. Since I am very involved I usually try to use these current events to explain about how our government works in our homeschool. For instance remember in 2011 when Congress opened by reading the Constitution ? Well, we were reading right along with them. This week our Congresswoman came to town to visit with her constituents and Gess and I went there to meet her. It was actually the second time that Gess went with me to one of these visits and we were even remembered from before. Here is Gess with our Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins. Lynn said that Gess was very smart because she knew that she "wrote bills." Gess also informed Lynn about something very important to her. She told her about some of the robots in Portal2! It was a neat experience and Gess enjoyed meeting her again. Whenever we learn that our Representative is coming to town I begin to teach about Congress and ...

Yes, I realize this is a sensitive topic but it's also very real to those of us trying address it with a child that has special needs. I plan on participating and thought I would share this for other moms with special young ladies. It's only an online survey but I am hoping through the course of this study they will come up with great helps in the future for those of us who have to face these very real and challenging struggles! I have seen his certificate of approval but if you want to learn more before participating just click on the link and at the bottom of the opening page you will find their contact information. ************************************* Survey about Menstruation (period) of Girls with Developmental Disabilities Thank you so much for your interest in this study! Parents/Caretakers are invited to participate in a survey about the topic of Menstruation (period) of Girls with Developmental Disabilities. This survey is being conducted by Hye Ran Park, a docto...