Special Connection Homeschool

Have you ever had that moment where you needed to keep your child busy while you were doing something else like chores, talking on the phone, or teaching your other children?  OK, silly question.  What mother hasn't had that problem?  Well Activity Bags is a really inventive solution for keeping children occupied so busy moms can get things done. Activity Bags are just what they say, they are activities inside a bag.  All the bags are organized ahead of time so the mom just has to grab it and hand it off to the child to keep them occupied so the mom can handle whatever chore or catastrophe awaits her at the moment.  So when you get that phone call that you just have to take and can't get your preschooler off your leg just "grab a bag" and give it to them.  This should keep them busy for awhile because they now have something to do that they haven't done a million times already because you aren't handing them a toy they play with all the time, but som...

That sure sounds like a fun topic, does it not!?  Well no it's not and it's very sensitive, but for those of us with special kids it's also a very real concern.  My Gess turns 11 today!  She is becoming quite the young lady and impresses me each and every day at just how "grown up" she is becoming.  Still, she does have Down syndrome and there are some areas in which she is still unable to experience some things that most 11 year old kids do.  For instance she can't run down the street to her friends house alone or go to the store by herself.  If she went school, she wouldn't be walking by herself there either.  She just isn't quite ready for that amount of independence as she easily gets distracted and could end up lost or worse yet, injured. Unfortunately puberty comes upon a person biologically without any consideration to their mental state and can sometimes exasperate things.  I noticed early signs of puberty about 2 years ago and immediate...

Gess is a really good reader but she does struggle a little with spelling and comprehension so I am continually looking for ways to improve those areas to strengthen her overall reading ability.  Recently we got to meet Samson, a cute little dog that Gess got to play some really fun reading games with.   Samson's Classroom is an online reading program for grades K-5 that focuses on three areas of reading; sight words, spelling and comprehension. Each section of  Samson's Classroom  works independently of each other and each has their own motivation and reward system.  The sight words category is really fun because you work along with Samson to earn your "black belt" in reading. There are 28 sight word lists and every time you master a list you get a star.  For every 4 stars you get a new belt.  Once you have completed all 28 lists you have earned your black belt!  Here are the belts by progression. The great part is that  Samso...

Crossbow Education is a company that specializes in providing teaching aids for people with dyslexia and visual stress.  One of those aids is the Reading Ruler . Since Gess has vision problems that are not completely corrected with glasses I was eager to give them a try and see if they would help her too.  The Eye Level Reading Rulers are a covered overlay text highlighter that helps you reduce page glare and blurring text to give you an easier, visually stress free reading experience.  Each ruler is about 6 inches in length and they come in various colors.  We were given a package of 10 that included one of each color for the purpose of our review.  That gave us the opportunity to actually see which color worked best for us. Reading Rulers come in the following colors: yellow, celery, grass, jade, aqua, sky, purple, magenta, pink and orange. We seemed to find that the lighter colored ones worked best for us.  I say "us" because I have found t...

I have shared how history is one of the areas I really struggle teaching to Gess (who has special needs) because she has trouble grasping things that are not relevant to her experience and surroundings.  Text books certainly are not a good way for her to learn history. Thanks to the Schoolhouse Review Crew I have discovered a method that Gess is enjoying and learning from!  Dayspring Chrsitian Academy offers a self-paced, interactive, online course for students grades 2 through 8 to learn about the The Pilgrim Story .   The Pilgrim Story uses the educational Principled Approach which means the principles of God's Word are the basis for what they learn.  They also rely heavily on primary sources such as letters, journals, and documents that were written by people who actually lived in or close to the time period being studied.   The Pilgrim Story is a narrated slide show presentation that allows for some interaction with note taking, activities, an...

Gesserine just loves music!  What kid doesn't, right?  Well, Gess has been learning to make music with Kinderbach , our latest Schoolhouse Review.  Kinderbach is an at home piano instruction program for kids Pre-K through early elementary grade levels.  While Gess is 10 (almost 11) and in the 4th grade I found it to be a good fit for her due to her special needs.  Gess actually has some sound sensitivity issues and doesn't care for most loud noises...except when it comes to music.  She can crank that very loud and loves to try to sing along.  She also loves to play her toy instruments as well.  She has drums, keyboards and guitars but because Gess has Down syndrome and has struggled with her fine motor skills I had not yet tried to teach her how to use them properly.  However her motor skills have improved greatly and when I was given the opportunity to review Kinderbach I was anxious to see her put them to use. Kinderbach supplies ...