Lesson 8

Yesterday, we went to a Winter Playdate at John Eager Howard Elementary School. We were invited by Miss Brenda, who is Elinore's special instructor. The party was held in the rec room and was very well done. The room was organized into centers, supervised by teachers from the tot program. Elinore did not spend much time at Miss Brenda's station which had color sorting, and cardboard blocks. Clockwise around the room, the next station was a floor piano; a bubble station with handouts, bubbles, and bubble wrap; gross motor area with a ball pit, mini-tramp, and a slide; decorate a picture frame station; painting and dot stamping; face painting; and a make and take station for the parents. The make and take included a Wheels on the Bus laminated picture with the different parts of the song on small velcro-ed cards to make the song more interactive. A second project was making a small color wheel with matching clothespins. We even had a catered lunch. Cate engaged Elinore in quite a few activities, though Elinore's main focus was the gross motor area.

Sadly, I have not many pictures, but as I told Jeff, I can keep track of a camera or Elinore, and Elinore is more important.

The women who worked for the program were amazing. They all focused on the children, were polite, respectful, engaged them in activities while still respecting the choice of the child. I am impressed!

I was also impressed, albeit in a negaive way, by something I saw at the actual school. Some of the folding chairs had states and capitals, I guess as a study aid. I thought that was great. Until I saw the capital of Louisiana was Banton Rouge. And that brought home to me, again, the deplorable state of Baltimore City Public Schools, and why I homeschool. At my most generous, I allowed that it could have been done by a parent volunteer, but somone should have noticed. And fixed it. There were only a few chairs labled, obviously left over from another time, which to me indicates there was time for someone to notice, a teacher, the principal, another parent, someone. Sad. Also, a rat or mouse in the hallway.

Special instruction today featured things that go. Miss Brenda used a book written in verse that had an actual storyline, and illustrations that attached to the book with velcro. Awesome. Then Elinore played Bingo with the vehicles, and extended patterns on the iPad.

Elinore completed lesson 8 in Calvert Pre-school. It is flowing along at a perfect pace, average of three days a week, just like I hoped. Each lesson begins with Opening. Our Opening starts with:

Prayer and
a Bible story. Today we finished story number 60 in Bible Stories to Read, by Rod and Staff publishers. It has a companion coloring book that we haven't used yet, because Elinore is not that interested in coloring. Maybe next go-round she'll like it. Tomorrow we start The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes.
Starfall calendar for month, year, days of the week
Flag salute, the one introduced by Calvert (Red, white, and blue, I love you)
Song, such as Itsy Bitsy Spider, Twinkle Twinkle, etc.
News time, same as show-and-tell
and Thought For the Day, such as Be kind, Be thoughtful
Lesson 3 started teaching left and right, so for now, opening also includes putting a sticker on her right hand, which she promptly moves to her left.

Our discussion time was spent on seasons, focusing on spring. Number readiness presented the concepts of opened and closed. That was a lot of fun with eyes, mouth, door, gate, refrigerator, boxes and arms opening and closing. Story time covered Little Boy Blue which we dramatized, and Little Bo Peep. It was hard to convince her to color with crayons for Things to Do, but we will try again on another day.

Monday's occupational therapy went well as usual. Elinore is finally engaging in imaginative play. She put the weighted lizards down for a nap and my outside-the-box thinker put the pillows under their tails. She has about mastered buttons, and is getting the hang of zippers. She used color changing markers to write E, and got in a swing with the precious lizards. Miss Jodie and I were talking about all the progress she has made, and when we got to the neighbor's to get Hannah, she promptly stripped down to shirt and diaper. So much for progress. Miss Jodie highly recommends Handwriting Without Tears, so we are looking into that.

I am getting long winded, so I'm skipping off for my Pinterest fix.

Lesson 5

Elinore finished her fifth lesson today. She has trouble sitting still, paying attention, and following directions. Oh yes, and answering questions. I wonder if it is worth the effort at this early stage, knowing about the better late than early philosophy.

I also know that children tend to perform to expectations. I have gone very easy on Elinore these three and a half years, because with her speech delay, it's hard to know how much she understands. But her developmental pediatrician is convinced that she's smarter than I give her credit for.

The reason we are soldiering on (doesn't that sound like she's a lot of work?) is that Calvert school is very non-academic for preschool. Today we reviewed red and introduced yellow, and according to our team of experts, this is a three year old skill. She is identifying her learned colors with about 75 % accuracy. To me, this means an appropriate skill.

We played with the Lauri alphabet puzzle, talked about books and read the first story in Read to Me Storybook. This is our third copy: PJ got one in his Kindergarten box, and Hannah got hers in a Pre-K box eight years ago. Reading to children of any age is developmentally appropriate.

We also reviewed yesterday's discussion topic of left/right, name, address, and phone number. Calvert's manual acknowledges that mastery of left/right may take some time. As an impaired left/right adult, I think it's never too soon to start.  Phone numbers are a lot longer than they used to be. And her speech is not clear enough to convey her address in case of being lost. However. We do not plan for her to get lost. But you all know about the best laid plans...

For games and play, we did hunting for a spool, using a bean bag. It is not for lack of spools, we have plenty. I just don't want to share my sewing supplies.

So, in my opinion, there is nothing out of reach of a three and a half year old, at least, not yet. The main thing for Elinore is learning to sit still, follow directions, and answer questions. She has her team of experts (speech therapist, occupational therapist, and special instructor) all helping with these same issues, so I know these are age appropriate skills to acquire as well. So, for now, we'll keep soldiering on.

Lesson 2

Elinore did another fabulous job completing lesson 2 of Calvert Pre-K.We did a good job on Opening, although we need a flag for the salute. For News, Elinore didn't do as well as yesterday. Even though I asked questions to elicit conversation, she was pretty quiet. Maybe this had to do with her boo-boo: Penny scratched her.

Discussion was about the color red, which she recognized better than I expected. Number Readiness studied before and after, which I don't think she quite got.

We read Little Red Hen and acted it out. She listened to the story just fine, but she was not interested in acting it out. We made some of the items out of play-dough such as eggs, the cake, logs for heating the oven, and the hen. These covered Stories, Things to Do, and Games.

Elinore used Starfall.com for the calendar portion and played with the letters H, W, C, and G.

I discovered that it's very difficult to take pictures of the action when Elinore needs so much direct intervention. I am really excited that she's doing such a great job, but tomorrow we start left and right.

Pre-school

Elinore started Calvert pre-school today.

She had an appointment with a developmental pediatrician yesterday who said Elinore does not have autism according to the new proposed DSM definitions. She also said Elinore is smarter than I give her credit for.

So, Elinore started Pre-K today.

We introduced the idea of school, already familiar because Hannah does school. We started with Opening. This included prayer, Bible story, salute the flag, and News, also known as Show and Tell. She did a great job! I asked her a few questions about her breakfast, and she was able to tell me about it.

We read Peter Rabbit. We covered in and out for Reading Readiness. She colored a picture of her own choosing, and she drew an E. We played Go In and Out the Windows, accompanied by the song on her CD. She completed the whole day with flying colors. I am so proud!

My goal is currently to complete 3 lessons per week, as she is a little young, only 3 1/2, not 4. Also, she has 2-4 therapies a week. I want to be flexible.

Monday Morning

Starting off the day with Pumpkin Spice doughnuts and family morning devotions.

Elinore finally climbed over the gate yesterday. The upstairs is no place for her to be alone, so I can't consider her "safe," but the gate will still slow her down.

She wore clothes for an hour this morning- I bribed her with a lollipop. Bad mommy.

Backyardigans are her absolute favorite television viewing pleasure. She can ask for some of her favorite episodes with a word or two: Newsflash ( reporters from W_IOWa with breaking news about corn),
Newspaper ( about delivering newspapers in fairy tale village, and Austin thinks the inhabitants all want to eat him), and Robot on a Rampage.

She is also quite impressed with the robot animation on Starfall for the letter r.

Poor child is yelling about being cold, but already took her clothes off again. How do I explain to her that they will help her stay warm?

Dora Candyland

So I decided it's time for Elinore, age 3 and one month, to learn how to play Candyland. My mom gave her the Dora version for her birthday last month.

Kudos to this version for using primary colors that resemble what I am actually using to teach her colors. Here is the process for teaching Elinore how to play this game:

• Look at the color cards and name the colors (yeah, that was all me).
• Look at the picture cards, and locate them on the board. My newly talking 3 yr. old impressed me with her vocabulary: princess, crown, Dora, Boots, Swiper (Swiper gave her nightmares when she was a year old), Pirate Piggies, mermaid.
• Find start, trace the path, find Finish.
• I am exhausted, that's enough for a first lesson on how to play a game.

I would love to show some pictures of Elinore's Dora adventure, but let's see, my newly talking 3 yr. old throws her clothes, shouting, "I don't like it-clothes!!"

Stubborn Girl

My darling little sweetheart, aged 3 and one week refuses to potty train. She sleeps all night in underwear ( in my bed) and I know she stays dry.

 And she just changed her own diaper!

She wears Pull-Ups, and just ran past me muttering, "Need a change!" I check on her in her sneaky spot and see a naked butt. So I calmly put the wet Pull-Up in the trash, and by the time I got back to the living room, she already had another one on.

Um, that's a sign she's ready for training, right?

First Two Weeks in Review (Seventh grade)

Well, we started off with a bang, finishing ahead of our scheduled time, only to have difficulties arise as early as lesson 6. The first few days went well and quickly partly due to finishing the first two Algebra lessons, giving us an extra 50 minutes for unforseen situations.

Bible: Hannah is working on the ancient Israelites, reading in Exodus, drawing stick figures to remember the scripture covered.

Algebra I: Last year math started with a warm-up, this year, it's Check Skills You'll Need. So far, we've covered variables, exponents, order of operations, number categories (whole, real, counting, integers, rational, irrational), + - / * rational numbers, distributive property, and matrices. Wow, that's a lot.

Science: We have covered lab safety, a modern scientist, metric measurement, living things, classifying organisms, taxonomic keys, and domains and kingdoms.

History: Across the Centuries picks up where we left off last year with A Message of Ancient Days. Hannah is reading about transportation, and the fall of Rome.

Geography: Hannah started with a review of earth's place in space and how this affects the days, months, seasons and years. We are comparing map projections, reviewing longitude and latitude, and mapping ancient Israel.

Composition: We discussed the writing process (prewriting, rough draft, edit/revise, proofread, publish), e-mailed a friend, began a narrative account, vocabulary, unity, coherence, and the order of ideas.

Grammar: Grammar begins at the beginning: sentences, sentence fragments, run-on sentences, subject, predicate, simple subject, simple predicate, and beginning diagramming.

Reading: We began the first day of school with poetry, "A December Day,"and "The Mist and All," " A Visit from St. Nicholas," "Come Into My Tropical Garden," "The Charge of the Light Brigade,"We studied rhythm, rhyme scheme, repetition, meter, internal rhyme, and free verse. We read 11 chapters of Around The World in 80 Days and discovered that in spite of having a hot air balloon on the cover of many versions of the book, Jules Verne's story does not include air travel! We have extensive vocabulary lists, a map, and a character bank.

Spelling: We've had two chapters of spelling so far and she gets some wrong on the pretest, and aces the posttest.

Music: For Music at present, we are using BrainPop to study musical genres. We will try to unearth composer studies from the basement.

Phys. Ed.: Where we live, PE is tough. We are starting a log book to keep track of "progress."

Art History: Architecture is our focus this year. So far,we've looked at Egyptian pyramids, obelisks, and Stonehenge.

Art: For art, Hannah drew a diagram of a pyramid including ways to discourage tomb raiders, and we did a papier mache of a trilithon with toilet paper rolls.

Technology: Technology is long at this point, 25 minute videos, mostly of things she already knows, but you can't switch the order, and there is valuable stuff later. So she has reviewed computer safety, basic vocabulary, menus, toolbars, OSs, keyboarding, networking, and web browsing. We are using BrainPop, Discovery Streaming, and Easy Tech.

School and the Telephone

It's not exactly a hard and fast rule, but I don't necessarily answer the telephone during school. I also don't check the caller ID to "screen" calls. And I also do not have the answering machine on.

If Hannah is working well on her own, and Elinore is occupied, I will probably answer the phone. If we are running later than I like, I don't answer the phone.

I don't check the caller ID so no one feels like I am ignoring just him or her. If it has been awhile since I answered the phone, I call Jeff at work so he doesn't worry.

The reason I don't have the answering machine on is that once it records a message, it gives an annoying beep every few minutes.

I try to get back to whomever has called, but truthfully, if I wasn't answering the phone because I feel behind, I am not likely to catch up. We may be finishing up after dinner, or Elinore is needing attention, or I am just wiped out from trying to balance all my responsibilities.

This also extends to the door: I may not answer it. I know someone went to the trouble to visit, but my priority is the care and education of my children. Also, there is probably a mess on the floor from letting Elinore have free reign while I focus on Hannah.

So, I'm sorry, I am not free to socialize just because I am home during the day. If you want to visit in the middle of the school day, call to make an appointment and offer to bring lunch, like my mom did.

Thanks Mom