Special Connection Homeschool

Some of you may remember my review of Captivated , a DVD from MediaTalk101 which brings to life the reality of how our society has been saturated by media. It surrounds us on a daily basis and while it appears to be helping people stay connected, it actually does the opposite. In one of Beth Moore's studies she talks about how having instant access to information makes us more anxious not less. While it is great to get news quickly when we don't get that news we are not happy. We used to have to wait days, weeks, or even months to hear from someone, and we dealt with that. Now if we don't get a response to a text in a few hours we are in panic mode! There really can be too much of a good thing and media is one of them. So, now that my review year is almost over I feel it is a great time for me to take a break. Therefore I am taking the month of November off. No don't rush off because I have actually scheduled some posts to finish out the month so there will be activi...

Who wants to hunt for treasure? Maybe a better question would be, who doesn't? Treasure hunts are lots of fun and my recent review had us doing two of them. Clued in Kids was created by a mom who realized that hunting for treasure is a great hands-on way to teach a concept. It is not only fun, but healthy too because it allows the child to get up and move around. For the purpose of my review we received two PDF printable hunts:  Homework Reward Treasure Hunt and Thanksgiving Treasure Hunt . When you get your printable hunt, it is in a PDF booklet form. Both of mine were 8 pages in length. They came with easy to follow directions and the clues were divided into two per page. At the bottom of each clue it tells you exactly where to hide it, so set up is really a breeze!  All you have to worry about is finding something for a prize at the end. While these were beautiful, full color photos, I printed mine in black and white. Each page has an activity that you must do to fi...

My most recent review was from New Liberty Videos a company dedicated to producing Christian movies. For the purpose of my review I received a copy of the  Mysteries of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This video actually covers topics other than the Dead Sea Scrolls. In all it covers three topics and is about an hour total in length. Let me tell you a little bit about each segment. Dead Sea Scrolls The first segment is the Dead Sea Scrolls , with Joel Lampe. This features what appears to be a lecture on the Dead Sea Scrolls. While I have heard a lot about them I really was not well versed on their exact significance. Joel did an excellent job of covering a wealth of information in a very short time. I was so fascinated with what all I learned, such as the fact that while they call them scrolls, there was actually only one scroll found completely in tact! He shares how many scroll fragments were found and how they were pieced together to become whole scrolls. I was not aware that...

I think an important part of educating yourself about Down syndrome is understanding the appropriate way in which to talk about it. While I have found much improvement over the years, there is still confusion on just how to speak about it. As a mother with a daughter who has DS sometimes I am not even sure what is "acceptable" these days. My emphasis is not about being politically correct but rather showing respect to the person or people involved. People First Language - The most important thing to do is to remember to use people first language, that means that you address the person before you speak about their condition. They are not a Down syndrome child. They are a child who has Down syndrome. This of course would be used for any diagnosis. A child has autism, they are not an autistic child, etc. Individual Distinction - People who have Down syndrome are individual humans and stereotyping them by their diagnosis is no better than classifying people by race or gen...

I am excited to share a presentation that Gesserine gave for our homeschool co-op. I recorded it while she practiced at home rather than in front of class. I actually assisted her there and instead of doing that in the video I inserted slides with that information. Turn up your volume as she speaks softly!

I love teaching Gess the Bible and she loves learning about it. As she gets older there are deeper and tougher questions to tackle, questions adults don't always have the answer to. How did we get Bible? Where did it come from? How do we know it is true? Apologia Educational Ministries is helping us tackle some of these issues with their iWitness book series. I was blessed to be able to review three of these books for you: Old Testament iWitness , New Testament iWitness, and iWitness Biblical Archaeology . The iWitness book series was created as a way to get "scholarly" information into the hands of those who might not otherwise pick up a book on these topics. They are very visual and presented in an investigative format. They have notes pinned on every page instead of just text. It is trying to help you visualize how you would do things if you were really investigating the issue, piecing information together bit by bit until you come to the final conclusion. It...

There is a video circulating on the web of two preschool children arguing over whether it is raining or sprinkling. One child says their mom said it was raining while the other child's mother said it was sprinkling. They go back and forth for some time defending what their mom said. Eventually one begins to poke the other and for some reason this is supposed to be cute. I disagree. No, its not the cutest argument ever. In fact it reveals one of the biggest problems in our culture today. We are so absorbed in media that we have disconnected ourselves from the very children that are in front of us. Whenever they do something cute we think we need to immediately run and grab a camera for all the world to see rather than actually interacting with them. I find myself falling trap to that very thing. This blog started as a way to share ideas on how to teach children with special needs, especially in a homeschool environment. However, if you want to have readers you need an active blog ...

Gess has become a regular model in our local Fall Fashion Show. As always, she is a huge success. She really gets into walking the floor. Here are some shots of Gess in her outfit before the show. Here are a few of pictures of her walking the room. She really gets into this part. She spins and poses and lights up the whole room! I love my little girl! Well, she isn't so little anymore!

October is Down Syndrome awareness month. Since Gess visited her cardiologist last week I figured I would start by mentioning the health issues that people with Down syndrome often face. When Gess was born she hospitalized at birth for 5 1/2 weeks due to a heart defect and feeding issues.We had planned to have our baby and come home. That was not to be! We finally got to come home for awhile. They wanted her to gain weight and grow for the heart surgery. During this time we had home health come 3 times a week to monitor her growth and heart. She didn't thrive very well so we went ahead with heart surgery in January when she was 2 1/2 months old. We didn't take photos back then. We didn't even have a cell phone, let alone one with a camera. However, the Kansas City Star took photos of the actual surgery!  That is a bit graphic though so I won't share, but you can read the article on one my past blogs about Gesserine's Heart Surgery . Here we are consultin...