A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

I watch and think about Brother a lot. He has too much going on in his mind and body for one small 4-year old. He makes me crazy. He makes the whole family crazy. But when we stop to really look and listen, we realize that he's hurt, and his actions aren't designed to make us crazy, they're simply what he does because he's hurt. I've been trying to pay close attention to him so that I can tell (and so that I can receive inspiration about) what's going on in his mind and body. We are six months into our journey together.  It took very little time to suspect that something was not right in his brain, but I have watched and waited to see if he just needed room to be healthy and safe and heal. However, I am slowly coming to the conclusion that he will need a special sort of education.  He can learn.  But he's not going to pick things up the way other kids do.  He will learn what he is taught carefully, in a focused way, and what he is taught over a...

This week started normally but ended profoundly.  Sunday was as full as ever, including a delightful Family Home Evening lesson and treat delivered by M12.  The lesson was about service; the treat was lemonade ice cream pie . A good way to start the week. Monday, Tuesday, and Friday were at-home school days, full of language arts, math, reading, geography, writing . . . all kinds of regular school stuff.  I3 also had a fever that left him feeling wretched.  He spent a lot of time in my lap just quietly coping. S12 has the privilege of writing almost full-time for NaNoWriMo these days.  She does have to continue with daily scripture reading and math, but otherwise she's free to write and write and write.  Her goal is 1,000 words a day, and she's meeting it. Wednesday was an outing day with our Explorer's Club.  It was our turn to host, so we set up a hike at a local nature center. (I was glad that I3 woke up fever-free that day.)  We ...

A6, H4 and I2 have been into Signing Time lately.  It it their current love. I'm encouraging it. Today A6 had a spelling "test."  It is part of her Sonlight Language Arts 1 program.  Honestly we don't treat it as a test at all.  We just have fun seeing what she can remember. Today she spontaneously asked, "Is it okay if I spell the words with my fingers?" "Okay," I answered. She then proceeded to practice fingerspelling every word on her list as she read and spelled the words aloud.  After that she wrote the words down. She had 100% recall. It was amazing. I've known about visual-audio-kinesthetic learning modes for a long time.  I  know that the more of these we use the more likely we are to remember something. I know this. But watching A6 today blew my mind. My oldest struggles, struggles, struggles with spelling.  I wonder if she'll try fingerspelling . . .