Special Connection Homeschool

Since it is spring break here we decided to take a day to spend with some of our friends who go to public school. We had three friends over today and we decided to do some of the art that Tim did with us during Drama Therapy . The collage was a hit by everyone. Even I enjoyed it!  You take a piece of paper and a bunch of magazines. Then find things you like or words that describe them or just anything you like about you. What do you like to do? What do you like about yourself? How do you feel? It's a great way to be expressive and the kids really got into it. I loved how the children went for words like beautiful, fun, creative, and bright future. Even the word lazy was in the context of "Sometimes I like to be lazy and relax." Don't we all? Here they are finding just the right words and pictures for their artwork. This took up quite a bit of time and they chose to do this over video games. At least the girls did!  It led to some really great conversation too. ...

Have you ever heard of Drama Therapy? If not, you should. It is something that is starting to really take off. My son is actually in grad school getting his masters in Drama Therapy. When he entered the program it was new to me too, but I am excited about what it can do. So far my son has worked with lots of kids with special needs, particularly many kids who are on the autism spectrum. Over spring break he came down and did a drama therapy session for my homeschool co-op. I was thrilled! While Gess is the only child in the group with special needs, drama therapy is a great way for any kid to learn. It enhances thinking skills, creativity, motor skills, reasoning and much more. I can't really share many pictures but here are two that give you a small hint about how it works.  The leaders engage the children in all kinds of pretend scenarios then the fun begins. During the art hour they brought crafts that helped the child to think about themselves. They could do two thi...

Our speech therapist has shared with us that Gess' rate of speech will be her worst enemy.  This child has a wonderful vocabulary and can read at her current grade level.  What she really struggles with is speech intelligibility and most of that is due to the fact that she just talks too fast.  Of course there are other factors that makes it hard for her to understand, but the number one factor is the rate of her speech. In order to fix this I found out that I needed to work on my own rate of speech as well hers.  Apparently, do what I say (speak slowly) not as I do (speak quickly) doesn't work very well.  While we don't consider our speech fast, to a child with special needs, it really is.  They have trouble discerning every sound we make when we talk at our normal rate and when they try to mimic our rate they can't properly express the sound properly. Now before working with Gess I need to start working on myself.  Speaking slowly and softly to y...

Since Gess has Down syndrome there are many things that she struggles with.  While she can identify rhyming words, it is often difficult for her to actually tell what word rhymes when she is not given choices. This week in speech therapy our therapist gave us a nice little tool to give her a visual clue for rhyming words. Using a white board or chalk board or even index cards you make a card list using only consonants. You can also choose to leave out q and x if you want. Then you ask the child to rhyme a word and write that word to the side.  "What rhymes with cat?" To help aid them in seeing what they are looking for to make the word rhyme you take away the first letter and leave the other two like this. Then you lead them to look at the letters on the side and see if any of those work to make words that rhyme.  When they choose a letter that doesn't make a word you just let them know that isn't a word.  You continue on writing down the words they ...

I am happy to announce that my new Therapy page is done.  You will now find this label at the top of my blog which organizes my posts and other resources for behavioral, cognitive, life skills, motor skills, social skills, speech and general therapy. Many of the posts are simply activities we did as part of our therapy, they are not an entire therapy program.  There are also links to other therapy websites and resources. Therapy is an integral part of our school each day and I try to share with you some of the ways we incorporate it into not only school, but daily living. I would love to see the information on this page grow.  Please feel free to share with me other resources that you think should be included as well as suggestions on what else you would like for me to write about. 

I know I have mentioned parts of Do2Learn in other posts but I felt it would be good to have one just about them.   Do2Learn is a tremendous resource for kids with special needs and much of it is FREE.  I particularly love their safety songs .  These were a great tool in helping Gess learn how to walk safely down the street and stay in the yard among other things. Gess is a bit older now and is getting more capable of exercising her freedom however she is still required to stay in the yard.  She came in the other day and was so proud when the ball went over the fence and she left the yard to get it all by herself.  We did tell her we were glad she did so safely and that she came right back, but that she should still ask permission first. So, to remind her we went back to these videos and reviewed the safety rules for staying in the yard .  Staying in the yard is one of the safety videos you get at Do2Learn .  It's a catchy, though childish tun...

Last month I shared how I am really trying to get Gess cooking in the kitchen .  We have been diligent about making sure she is a part of cooking at least one day a week.  This week she helped me use up all those Easter eggs she colored by making egg salad for lunch!  This one is great because it's really simple.  Here is how we made it. Your eggs need to be hard boiled, but if you color eggs like we did that part has been done.  Then you have to peel them. This was great motor skill work for Gess.  There is just no better way to teach peeling an egg than to actually just do it.  She did pretty well but she did have some eggs come out pretty choppy.  She obviously peeled some egg with the shell, but sometimes that even happens to me. Then we chopped up the eggs and added salad dressing (generic Miracle Whip), mustard, relish, salt and pepper until we had the taste and texture we wanted.  (We did not measure anything.) Then ju...

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...

My son Tim is off at college and so his girlfriend Chelsie.  Chelsie took a semester off awhile back to be a nanny in Alaska.  It was quite the adventure and was a great experience for her.  Now that she is back in school she is continuing to earn extra money by being a nanny, or sitter, part time for a couple of families.  She is really great with the kids and has many wonderful ideas about how to raise and educate them and knowing that I homeschool Gess she often shares them with me.  She gets these ideas from various places, some are from the families she works for, some from school, some are from research and others are from her own creative mind. One time while we were visiting her on campus she shared something one of the families were doing with their kids.  I loved it and have recently began implementing it with Gess. One of the things we emphasize with Gess is that it is not obedience if you do not obey the first time.  There is no countin...

Super Duper Publications is an excellent site for educational and therapy resources.  My speech therapist uses some of their products and I have found them to be quite helpful myself.  Well, they do offer a few resources for FREE that I wanted to share with you. First are the FREE APPS .  While most of them are for the IPAD they do have a few for Android based tablets.  You have to scroll down to the second section to find the FREE ones.  The first section is new apps, the second lists the free ones. While they don't have very many apps for us Android users what I do use a lot are their FREE Worksheets.  In order to get those you have to be one of their Facebook friends .  Then each week on Facebook they will post a FREE Worksheet to be downloaded.  It's only up for a limited time so I can't link you to any specific page, but if you click on their image it will take you to their Facebook page.  Once you click like and start followin...

Homeschoolers often find that they have more time on their hands than children who go to school.  It's not because they are slacking off, it's because a lesson for one person usually takes less than a lesson for several people. Once you are done you move on, without regard to the clock.  Because of that kids often find themselves with plenty of free time.  When you only have one child at home and that child has special needs, that is not always a great thing.  Gess loves and craves structure.  While most kids mourn the loss of their winter and summer breaks, Gess is usually eager to return to her routine and get in some structured time of not only learning but one on one time with mom.  I do not think that it would be quite so difficult if Gess had a sibling or two at home to play with, but she does not so we must make the most of it.  (Of course we are careful to have Gess in several activities to get play time with others but she still ends up with...

Gesserine is generally well behaved and strives hard to use her manners.  On most any given day she is respectful, courteous, helpful, gentle, and hard working.  While not perfect, she certainly tries her best and most people would say she was a very well behaved little girl.  But occasionally she will have what I call a melt down where she gets very angry and aggressive.  It's scary because she becomes unreasonable and uncontrollable and seems almost like an entirely different person. Parents of children with special needs have probably gone through similar situations and totally understand what I am going through.  I call these episodes "melt downs" rather than "tantrums" because they are not simply born out of disagreements and wanting to get one's way.  These "melt downs" generally do not happen during times you might think of like telling them to do their chores, stop playing a game, or go to bed.  No, they are random and over things that s...

Therapists used to ask me if Gess had a favorite toy and I always had to answer no.  Every time she had a surgery she could bring a special blanket or stuffed animal and Gess would always pick one out but it was not really something she used all the time.  Then on the day she got her tonsils out our pastor brought her a stuffed horse (or so it was named, it actually looks more like a donkey) and it has become her most favorite thing. Gess had a really rough time after her surgery, even after we got home.  She actually got an infection after the surgery and Gess was really sick.  Horsey became a great comfort to Gess and now she sleeps with him every night and takes him to every major stressful appointment and event.  He has been through many illnesses (and just as many if not more trips through the washing machine).  Here he was helping her through a rough sickness a little over a year ago. While Horsey has been through many times of stress, be assur...

When you have a child with special needs teaching social etiquette can be quite the struggle.  Gess has actually done really well picking up on how to act in certain settings and certain places.  I think she does a fine job in that regard.  We have also been careful to teach her the safety issues of being cautious around strangers, where not to let anyone touch her, and so on and so forth.  What we are missing is the in-between: How to make your own decisions (while being respectful) when someone wants you to do something else.  It's become an issue recently as Gess has become more independent.  There are times when she will be playing with kids who seem to want to control everything about her.  If Gess says no to something they try to compel her to change her mind and usually Gess gives in.  (This even got her in trouble one time as she was compelled to do something she was told not to do.) Now I am not saying that these children are taking adv...

After posting yesterday about Gess' little made up riddle Why did the chicken become a meteorologist , I decided to see if I could find some free joke eBooks to help enhance her joke repertoire.   I thought I might as well share the finds with all of you. Keep in mind these two things: 1.  I have not read these yet and do not know how appropriate or good they may be. 2. Free today does not mean they will be free tomorrow, so keep that in mind if you are reading this later.  However they may be free for a week, a month, who knows!  It certainly doesn't hurt to check and besides, some of the usual prices are as low as .99 anyway!  Just click on the book to download them from Amazon.

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...