A Month of Gratitude - Day 18 (The ABC song)

 Jude has been working for what seems like forever on learning his letters.  At first it was learning letters themselves, then the sounds.  He was finished kindergarten before he had a grasp on 75% of the alphabet -- but never the same letters twice in a row!


We've been working on ABC order recently, mostly to reinforce the letters but also to work on sequencing.  It's been a slow process.  We've been matching letters to numbers, so he can see A is 1st, B is second, etc.

Even with the numbers, he's struggled to put them in order.  He always is getting H and I reversed. Once he looks to check, he knows its wrong and switches, but the first round always is switched.

We haven't even attempted singing the ABCs in a long time.  He was getting the letters all jumbled up because of his language issues.  I tried a bunch of different ways, but it just wasn't working.  He recently started watching Super Why!  and they sing an "ABC song" at the end of each episode.  I thought maybe he'd learn that one, if only from hearing it so often.

To my surprise, he's started singing the "old" ABC song - the one that is set to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  The other day in the grocery store he started singing it, and I was utterly shocked!  Most of the letters are pretty recognizable, too! Today at the doctor's office he started singing it again, so I pulled out my phone and recorded it!






I am so proud of Jude!  The ABC song seems like such a little thing to be thankful for, but for him, it is HUGE. 

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Weekly Wrap Up - Our First Test

This is our first post to the Weekly Wrap Up series.  The series is a way of sharing what we did this week with others.  For us, some weeks it will be a reflection of our progression; other weeks it will just be a reflection on any extra fun we may have had!

This week, our Bible theme was "generous," and we read the story of Isaac and Rebekah.  They were so generous to other people that God gave them to each other.  Jude enjoyed reading the picture story in our workbook; though my little literalist read one sentence as: "(Rebekah) gave (Abraham's Servant) and (the camels) (a puddle of water) from the (wishing well)."

Discipleland Kindergarten Program - "Heroes"

We finished our first math unit this week.  We have spent the last six weeks studying sorting (same, alike, and different), and working on careful listening (same shape AND same color; same color BUT different shapes).  Jude took his first test on Thursday, and had 25 out of 27 correct, for a score of 93.  I think the hardest part of taking the test was not being able to rely on me for help; I was only reading the instructions, not helping him think things through.





Jude is still working on learning letters and their sounds.  Last week we finished Book B of Explore the Code, so this week we took a break from the program and decided to do some more fun language-based "review" activities.  We did several activities from our folder games and played Alphabet Bingo.  Jude really enjoyed the Bingo Game.  It it geared for use in a larger classroom and contains 36 bingo boards, so we should be able to get lots of use out of it.  I also like that it should be able to grow with us; the instructions come with several alternative game ideas.

Some more pictures of our week:

Heading to duPont one day this week.  (I forget which day this was - we were there more days than we weren't!)  His jacket didn't have a hood, so he borrowed his brother's hat.  He decided to jump over each of the cracks in the sidewalk and the parking lot.  By the time we got to our car (I think two spots from the end of the property!) he was still hopping one foot at a time more than jumping, but he was getting some nice air on the leaps.









The whole family visiting my husband's grandmother at her her nursing home.  She turned 96 this past Wednesday.  Happy Birthday, Mom Mom Woody!!
















Journaling.  Jude has decided to be a fire fighter when he grows up.














Our first Halloween art. Our witch was totally sparkly.  He added pumpkins and stars, too.

 Playing Minecraft over Wifi with his big brothers.  He thinks he's a big shot since he gets to play  a big kid video game, but really -- it's building with virtual blocks. More shape work!!

Come see what everyone else has been up to!

D is for DeSales

I first was exposed to St. Francis DeSales and his teachings by the Oblates who staffed Father Judge High School in Philadelphia, PA.  Judge was the the "brother school" to my high school, and through the many interactions the schools had, I learned about St. Francis and was intrigued by his steadfast belief that regardless of what happened in life, God was there for us.  St. Francis' words have long brought me comfort:

Do not look forward in fear to the changes in life; rather, look to them with full hope that as they arise, God, whose very own you are, will lead you safely through all things; and when you cannot stand it, God will carry you in His arms.

Do not fear what may happen tomorrow; the same understanding Father who cares for you today will take care of you then and every day. He will either shield you from suffering or will give you unfailing strength to bear it. Be at peace, and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations. 

Though it took us several months to accept, it quickly became obvious that a formal school was not working for Jude, no matter how many pleas I made when I dropped him off: "Please, God, let this be the day something clicks!" "God, just for one day let him find his way."  "Lord, I need to take somebody else to an appointment this morning, so today would be a TERRIFIC day to not get a phone call at 10 am to come get him..."  It was a hard to accept that he just was a proverbial square peg, and no amount of coaxing was going to make him fit into a round hole.  As much as we wanted him to go to a "regular" school, and his doctors and therapists felt it was a setting where peer modeling would help him succeed, it became clear that he did NOT want to be there with equal fervor.  Not being in a formal classroom style school setting was clearly better for him, but we also felt he was ready to move beyond passively learning through television shows aimed at the preschool crowd. This meant the decision to not be in a group setting  "in a classroom school" meant we were "homeschooling" by default, so we easily made peace with the choice.  However, the process of actually homeschooling -- well, for someone who never expected to be doing this, it's a whole other issue.  

There are many days where I am afraid D really just is a D, and I am failing as a teacher.  Some days go exactly as I would like, and he picks up the concepts quickly and we zoom through what I have planned and are staring at each other saying "What now?" and it's only 9:30. Then there are days where it seems like lessons are taking forever and we are stopping to wait for him to re-focus more than we are actually working.  A month in to the "school year," and we have had two weeks where we spend part of every day at doctors' appointments and have to scale down expectations to "what can we fit into the few minutes we have here and there," topped off with a day like today where we spent 8 hours between the car ride and appointments at the hospital and we get no "real" schoolwork done at all.  I am afraid he's not learning enough, even though we spent breakfast discussing "If you had ten blueberries, and you ate five, how many are left?" for Math, and stopping at every car asking "Can you tell me what's on that license plate?" for letter recognition.  It's the best we could do, but I'm afraid he's going to fall farther behind than he already is because we missed a day of working in his books and the lesson plan I spent three hours carefully crafting has been tossed out the window. I worry that if someone were to evaluate him, they would find us severely lacking.  In theory, we should be able to do MORE around doctor's visits, since he's not missing days and days of "brick-and-mortar" school, but it seems like we get precious little actually done because of logistics.  "How to effectively homeschool when you are always on the road" was never gone over in the education classes I took in college.

There are times I doubt my ability to teach him. (Another "D" word.)  Sure, shapes and letters and basic math aren't that hard.  I mean, there are even blue puppies that understand the basics of the universe; even a particular blue omnivorous monster knows "C is for Cookie."  Our first thought was for Jude to stay home through kindergarten, and then move to a regular school next fall.  It's becoming obvious quickly that his other needs are not going to permit this, and we are now looking at a much longer commitment.  I am trying to take things one concept at a time, but I have to admit I wonder how we're going to do when things get harder. (Especially with math.  I am not kidding that there was a reason I did NOT major in Mathematics in college.)   I see him struggling so much now and wonder how on earth is he going to be able to manage later; if he can't figure out what sound a letter makes, how will he read entire words?  I will never, ever give up on trying to teach Jude, but some days I wonder just how much he will be able to learn, and is it really his medical issues holding him back or is it just me and I'm not very good at this?

St. Francis DeSales

I've never been opposed to homeschooling; it just wasn't something we felt was best for our other children, so it wasn't something I had researched much about.  To suddenly be thrust into it without notice is like being sent on to a high wire with no net below and hurricane force winds swirling about you.  

But St. Francis spoke the truth: the days where I wonder how I will ever manage this, God shows me I'm not doing without His help.  Sometimes it is when we are having a rough day and when I am praying for patience that I feel a quiet calm and think maybe this isn't so crazy an idea after all, and we're going to be ok.  Other times it is through friends who say "I have an idea that might work for you."  And there are moments where Jude says something that lets me know something "stuck" -- he tells a random stranger in the hospital cafeteria, "The sun made the water evaporate!" or he walks along the construction wall at the hospital and says each letter correctly as he points to N-e-m-o-u-r-s, or he just remembers more of the Lord's Prayer on his own than he needs prompting for.  

I don't know what each day will bring, other than to be almost absolutely certain that it will be full of surprises.  And I'm trying not to let my fears overwhelm me; I'm working on remembering the teachings of St. Francis: even if I still have them, with God's help it will all be fine. 

Our first quarter report card...

We're slowly getting our feet under us.  It's now been about 3 months since we started this whole homeschooling gig, and, if I do say myself, I think it's going OK.  We took some time to figure out what we knew (both Jude as a student and Mom as a teacher), and it's time for our first "Report Card."

I am very proud to say that, according to the iXL Math program, Jude has met the NJ state standards for pre-Kindergarten, and is 100% proficient in PK math.  We've started moving on to Kindergarten level math, and he is enjoying the challenge.  I'm in the process of acquiring a "real" math program.  We are going to use Progress in Mathematics, which is the same program that his siblings' school uses.  If we are able to get him back into school, at least that will be something he is familiar with.

Jude's language skills are coming along some. They're not great, but they're better, so that makes us happy.  We are working with Explode the Code for phonics. Jude has completed Book A, "Get Ready for the Code" in the Explore the Code series, and has moved on to "Get Set for the Code."  It's a challenge for him to learn the different letters and sounds, but he's trying very hard. His frustration threshold is rising, which is even better. When we first started, as soon as he was challenged, he would throw a tantrum or just stop trying.  Now, he really tries to make the sounds and learn his letters.  We are going to continue with this program for the summer, and hopefully move up to Explode the Code by the fall.  He also has discovered the PBS series "Super Why!" and enjoys the phonics reinforcement each episode gives.

We've added a new program to our day. It's called Five in a Row.  FIAR is a "unit study" program with a literature foundation.  We have just started it to round our studies out with science, social studies, and literature lessons. Currently, we are reading The Story about Ping by Marjorie Flack and Kurt Wiese, and next will read Lentil by Robert McCloskey.  I'm looking forward to sharing The Clown of God by Tomie dePaola, one of my favorite children's authors, and Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening with Jude as the "new" quarter goes on.

We have also added a bible study.  We currently are using Carson-Dellosa's Hidden Pictures workbook to guide us through Old and New Testament stories.  When we finish this book, we are going to switch to Discipleland's Amazing Heroes Kindergarten series.

One thing that is exciting is our "daily project."  We just completed a daily cross project for Lent (there will be a post on that later!) and are going to start a US Flag.  We have just enough days to finish in time for the 4th of July.  Each day, we will read a little bit about a state and add its star to the flag, so that all 50 are present and ready to celebrate Independence Day.

Jude also had some educational/behavioral testing done. It didn't do much other than put big word labels on what we already knew. However, having those diagnoses "in black and white" will help us be able to get him the extra help he needs.  He will have another evaluation for physical/occupational therapies and speech early next month, so it looks like we may be adding that to our schedule.  It certainly is going to be busy around here for the next while.  We are not taking the summer off, much to the big kids' dismay.  We will probably slow down a little, but learned the hard way that it's difficult to get back into the swing of things after a long break.  After taking off all of Holy and Easter Weeks, it was a rough re-adjustment back to listening patiently, following directions, and paying attention.  The big kids are upset because this means that they will have an hour each day they will be "forced" to read, draw, etc. out of solidarity.  I am certain they will have some assigned reading to prepare for next fall, and if they finish that before the end of the summer, there are several local libraries filled with books, along with everything Amazon.com carries! 

Thanks for following along with us! We expect there will be many more adventures to come!

E for Effort, F for (adorable) Face

Today we moved on from "just" pre-writing tracing and got into real letters. I'm not certain how much he really knows beyond J-u-d-e.  My initial instinct was to start in on A-B-C, because he's not great with putting things in ABC order, but then I read several articles that recommended working in a more natural progression, starting with "horizontal/vertical" line letters and working through to the ones that were more complex.  I know that doesn't help with ABC order, but I think for his motor skills/motor planning, this way will work for him.  He likes to draw and color, so we are doing dot-to-dots that use letters as point labels (instead of numbers) to work on putting things in order.

Today we started with the first two letters, Ee and Ff.  He did a great job with the prewriting drills, so these pages* were fairly easy for him. What was hard was learning to follow the directions and stopping/starting with his pencil.

He did great with the first line of the Getting Ready section,  but then struggled a little bit on the horizontal lines. It took several tries to learn to focus on the lines he was tracing, and to stop when the lines did.  Once he moved on to tracing letters, he wanted to just follow along with his pencil. It took real effort to stop, pick up his pencil, and go back and start over for the next stroke, rather than trying to do it all in one pass. Once he got the hang of 1-2-3-4 for E, he did well.  He added in an E at the end for good measure.

What takes him twice as long to do his work is that he often has to stop and tell me stories.  Today he told me all about baby elephants, like the one up in the corner. "He is looking for his Mommy.  He's hungry and wants a snack.  He would like Smarties and Celia chocolate, please."  (Nice try, buddy. Work, then snack.)

Little e was harder.  He did great with the stroke shapes, but is used to free-handing the e.  Rather than doing the more formal 1-2 strokes, he tends to work out the basic shape, and fill in the connections where necessary.  By the end, he was getting the idea. One thing we will need to work on is remembering that the line and the circle should "kiss" the first time around, rather than the line having to "run back over" to the round part.

F was tricky.  Uppercase F was a little harder, because after so many Es, he kept wanting to make the bottom line.

(For the record:  fish swim in the ocean, all drains lead to the ocean, and fish are friends not food.  Thank you Pixar, Nemo, and friends for those gems.)

It has taken him the longest of all to get used to the bouncing pre-writing exercises. Strokes he has done great with, in all directions.  He does fairly well with repeating regular/inverted Vs, lines with right angles, and other block-ish shapes.  But the rounded ones have been tough to make the curves.  Finally, I told them they were like the jellyfish that Marlin and Dory bounced on (sense a theme here?) and you had to boing-boing-boing over the line.  Eureka!  He has been bouncing away ever since.

 Surprisingly, having the camera around usually helps him focus.  I think it is at least partly because he wants a turn with it (and he can only take pictures after he is done all of his work for the day).  I like being able to document what we're doing, and to be able to watch him work.  Some of his best expressions are when he's working -- sometimes, you can almost see that proverbial little hamster in there, madly spinning on his wheel.

 Here, he's counting out the strokes.

Intent on bouncing.

 Taking a break.  Mr. Cuteness, or what?

*There are tons of letter writing pages out on the web.  The ones we used today can be downloaded here. They are from the blog Confessions of a Homeschooler.  There are lots of great ideas there for everything from Art to Writing. 

Don your hat...

What's a cowboy without his hat?
-Buzz Lightyear
Toy Story 2 (1999)

Today Jude and I were working on a hidden letter worksheet from Education.com using the letter J/j.  Jude recognized the uppercase J easily, but refused to do his work because the J was written wrong.  How does that happen?

  The J on the paper didn't have a hat. <gasp>













Jude has mentioned before the J has a hat.  Every J he writes must have one.  If he learned nothing else from his brief career in school, it is that J has a hat.  If I've learned nothing else as a mom to these kids, flexibility is not their strong suit. It was immediately obvious that a hatless J just was not acceptable.  To his surprise, Mom could fix this one. 

We just gave all the "big Js" hats. 

Crisis averted.

 
He could then color Uppercase J
(aka "Big J WITH a hat") black....

And lowercase j ("Little j, with a dot")

to create a Jack O'Lantern

Who, naturally, was bare headed.