Special Connection Homeschool

Handwriting and special needs is not a great mix.  Gess' writing is atrocious.  A few years ago our therapist wanted her to learn cursive suggesting it is actually easier for her in the long run.  I had started teaching her but kind of let it go.  So when I had the opportunity to review the Rhythm of Handwriting Complete Set for cursive from Logic of English I figured maybe a fresh start and new perspective would pay off.  After all, the Logic of English Essentials kit I reviewed last year worked really well for us and I thought it would be great to be using them together. In fact, while  Logic of English  does teach manuscript they actually encourage you to begin with cursive writing and they offer all of their products with it.  While I wish I had started this at the same time I began the Essentials curriculum it does work well enough by itself. The Rhythm of Handwriting Complete Set included: The Cursive Handwriting Workbook The Rh...

Remember last fall when I told you that we were beginning cursive ?  Well, I wanted to update you and show you it was going.  We actually started cursive writing because our therapist recommended it.  She believes that many children often find it easier to write in cursive because they don't have to lift their hands as often. I have to say that I am finding that to be true.  Gess is really loving writing in cursive.  Once she learns a letter in cursive, that is the only way she writes it.  It also making her overall writing more legible.  Gess still struggles with spacing her letters appropriately when printing but since cursive letters are hooked together it easier to see where one word begins and another word ends. To learn cursive our therapist recommended the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum and as you all may know I was already fond of them.  They were the curriculum that Gess first learned to write with.  In fact they are th...

There is a controversy these days about whether or not kids need to learn cursive writing.  For typical kids they claim that technology is making the method obsolete.  While that may be so, I think we are doing a huge disservice to our kids by not giving them skills that can and will help them in life.  For kids with special needs the concerns are different.  I remember reading early on that it was not necessary to teach it to children with DS who struggle with motor skill issues.  I had all these thoughts tucked away in my head not having decided yet what I would do for Gess.  Then over the summer I realized it was time to address it. I generally use my debit card when shopping and every time I sign my receipt Gess wants to sign too.  She used to get really angry when I would not let her do it but we have a system now; I sign the store's copy and she signs mine.  It makes us both happy and she is learning how the paying process works.  It ...

Recently I shared with you a great FREE program I was able to review called BigIQkids . Not yet having my own spelling program, I was excited to have found something to use. I am really loving it and found it to be an excellent resource. You can see some of the activities it offers in my TOS Review: BigIQkids post. Gess has really found it fun and helpful. Now I wanted to share with you some other activities we use to supplement what we do on BigIQkids . We basically do spelling twice a day. We typically do our BigIQkids spelling on the computer in the morning and in the afternoon we do other hands on activities with those same spelling words. Here is how a week would look for us. Day 1 In the morning we will do the introduction to spelling activity on BigIQkids . This gives her not only the word and how to spell it, but the definition, how it is used in a sentence, and also shares the synonyms and antonyms of those words. In the afternoon she copies the words in her spelling...

Gess still struggles with her writing. It is not only difficult physically for her, but it is also hard on her mentally since she has to focus so hard to do it. Think about it. Writing is multitasking. You not only have to focus on the correct answer to the problem, but you also have to focus on how to write that answer. For kids who do not already know how to write and actually struggle with that skill, writing can be quite stressful. When I find that Gess is stressed I immediately try to find a way to adapt. One thing I do when I find Gess stressed, is I let her dictate the answers to me and write them down myself. You can see her workbook pages here where there were some sections I had her say the answer and I just wrote it down for her. When her book gives her a list of multiple choice answers I will sometimes write them on the board and let her get up and just point out the answer to me (and I will write it down in her book). That not only eases her workload but ...

I keep a grocery list on my fridge and write down things as I run out of them so I don't forget to buy them at the store. I never realized that my daughter picked up on what we were doing until one day I found this on my list. There are other times I have found pancaks , straws and other various things my daughter uses. If we run out of, or low on, something, she lets me know by leaving it on the list. Well, this was my realization that Gess was ready for some more responsibility, so we have been working on letting her do her own shopping at the store. By doing her own shopping I do not mean that we let her spend her own money, I have already been letting her do that. What we have started to do now is to break up part of the shopping list (unless I am only going to pick up a few things then she gets the whole thing) and give it to her to be in charge of. For instance today I made the following list: Then as we shopped for them Gess would put them in the cart and then mark th...

Last year I posted about the Creative Writing Journa l we kept throughout the year. In it Gess would write down something that she learned that day. I started with the sentence "Today in school I learned about..." and she would write down one subject or topic and draw a picture about it. By the end of the year she was writing the entire sentence. Our goal for the journal was to not to simply work on writing skills, though it is helpful for that, but to help Gess answer the question "What did you do today?" In order for her to answer that, she had to think about what we had done. Since her memory retention was limited she almost always just said the last subject we studied unless I cued her to remember another subject (which I often did.) So this year, her speech therapist and I came up with an idea that we hope will help Gess retain the information throughout her day. To challenge Gess a bit we decided that this year we would have Gess choose two things that ...

As I prepared to begin school this year I was looking through my Teaching Reading to Children With Down Syndrome book to see if there were any other ideas I could use along the regular reading curriculum we are using. Gess' reading skills are going quite well so I was reading the chapter on writing and spelling. While I am using Handwriting Without Tears to teach Gess how to write her letters, I am not currently doing anything to teach her about creative writing. Other than answering questions and beginning to write dictated sentences, Gess doesn't use her writing skills very much. Well the book on Teaching Reading had a great idea that I am implementing this year. I guess most public schools start creative writing journals in Kindergarten. During that year and much of first grade the journal consists only of pictures. Next they move on to open sentences. The example she gave in the book was the sentence "I had fun this weekend." They would copy the sentence ...

Don't you just love those moments when you see that everything you have worked so hard for all year has made an impact on your child's life? Well last night as she was sitting with a pad of construction paper, crayons and markers Gess got very creative and showed us this! Now I know you all realized she could spell it after my Ebay blog a couple of weeks ago. Yes, she has typed Jump Start into the browser dozens of times, if not more. However, this is the first time that she has written it on her own. Not only that, it is the first time ever she has written anything on her own!! We made my son and hubby birthday cards last month, but even then I wrote the word and she copied it. As you can see she did a pretty good job. But she wrote Jump Start completely and utterly on her own, with no help or assistance from us. She finally wanted to write!! Then today when she had to write the answer to her Bible story for reading she wrote God on the paper without me having to sh...

Handwriting Without Tears ( HWT )is a handwriting curriculum that uses a developmentally based, active learning approach to teach children how to write. It implements the use of blocks, songs and special instructions to help a child learn how to write their letters. I found the blocks particularly appealing. I discovered HWT through a fellow homeschooling mother at my church. She was watching my daughter during church one Sunday and they were playing with musical instruments. She discovered that my daughter was making letters out of the drum sticks, so they made a game of it. That afternoon she told me about Handwriting Without Tears and the blocks that they use to help you shape the letters. I ordered it and found it to be exceptional. While the first set of materials I purchased had the Preschool books rather than the Kindergarten set, this photo shows the basic materials I started with. The concept is to first build the letters with the blocks. You can get letter cards tha...