Home Schooling Area

These bins hold stickers, my office supplies, learning manipulatives and things like that. We got them on a clearance sale.

The towers and their bookshelf were already there. We cleared out a lot of space from the towers (the XBox stuff is all in a storage bench now) and got the magazine holders to hold curriculum books. Our books have come since this picture was taken, so they are very full now.

The white boards now each have a sticker with the first letter of their name on them, colour coded to each boy's favourite colour.

Brettley's white board moved off of the window wall and is now beside the calendar. The seasons chart at the top of this picture is now above Ty's desk (far left). The desks were all on clearance sale from IKEA, score!

So here is our schooling space. We tried it out daily during Spring Break and it works extremely well for us. I love it and so do the boys!

My Latest Project is in Progress

A lot of people who know me well know that Tyrell has been asking me to homeschool him since Kindergarten. That was a rough year for us. His teacher (for 8 of the 10 months) was NOT someone I respected and we had a few situations that made me extremely angry with her. We nearly pulled him halfway through the year after one particular incident. Ty loved doing school in the afternoons at home for a while. He never forgot how much he loved it and would regularly bring up wanting to do 'Mommy School' instead of going to school. Since Caleb has started schooling at home, Ty has become more insistent (understandably, since Caleb ended up getting something that Ty has been asking for the past couple of years). He has ended up in tears about it a few times. So John and I went back to praying. Clearly, I am capable of planning a comprehensive curriculum and following through on it. When life happens and we get off track, we get right back on track and don't end up behind. We weren't sure if I could do this, but we trusted the answer that we got about Caleb, and it turned out to be incredibly accurate. Caleb is thriving! His emotions have become significantly more stable. I am becoming more patient with each day, which is something I've struggled with my whole life.

Well, we got another answer. Come fall, all 3 of our boys will be home educated. We are fortunate that Brettley's birthday is just within the cutoff date, and we are able to register him for grade 1 to receive funding for him, which is awesome! So I have been busy planning curriculum for Tyrell and Brettley, as well as our plans to keep learning over the summer. It was obvious that schooling in my room in the fall wouldn't be an option anymore, which we had been doing for the past couple of weeks. So we made a trip to IKEA, Staples and Walmart and began my latest project, which is making a dedicated learning space in half of our living room. We still need to grab another desk tomorrow, but so far we have 2 desks, white boards for each of them above their desk (I write their daily plans on them), organizers for workbooks and an open storage bin system for their different learning items (such as geometry set pieces, math manipulatives, Boogie Boards, stickers, etc).

It's not quite ready yet, but when it's done, I will post pictures of the space on here. It also includes their bookshelf, which was already there and 2 other 'shelf' units, which are for media as well as school storage. We are very much looking forward to this next adventure in our lives. The staff at the school, while expressing how much they miss Caleb and will miss Tyrell, have been incredibly supportive and respectful of our decisions, which I am very grateful for. We are truly being blessed so much as we seek for Heavenly Father's guidance in the lives of our children and follow the answers that we have been given.

Mostly a School Update

The past several weeks of doing home schooling with Caleb have been awesome. We get closer to finding our groove with each day. His behaviour has improved so much, it's awesome. Today we got his grade 4 and grade 5 novels in the mail, along with his grade 4 French book to do over the summer. He is reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe for grade 4 and Underground to Canada for grade 5. Of course, the planner in me has his novels picked out all the way through to grade 12, ha ha.

Over the past couple of weeks, I finalized his lesson plan schedule for grade 5 and got his Education Program Plan ready, so when his facilitator comes soon, we can get his registration for next year done quickly. I had originally planned to go with a different board in the fall and register him as aligned to the Alberta Programs of Study, but changed my mind for a couple of reasons. The first is that our current board was willing to bail me out mid-year when we needed a fast solution, and I am extremely grateful for that. Also, I enjoy being able to use whatever curriculum I want to meet our goals for the year, and don't want to have to potentially give that up by switching to aligned (it's dependent on the facilitator how much flexibility we would have). Our biggest expense for grade 5 will be his karate class, so we don't require more than what traditional gets for funding. We will be able to do quite a bit with our $835, and have included 4 field trips in that plan. Almost everything he will be doing will actually meet the Programs of Study, but we decided to focus on different units in science instead. In grade 6 I am hoping to water down the Book of Mormon seminary program to his level, and add that into our day. We are also planning to get him doing a typing program so that he is comfortable typing by the time he gets to grade 7.

We picked up a new laptop with our tax return, as our old one was several years old and I'd rather buy one when I have a few extra dollars than have it crash 6 months from now and not have money to replace it without using the credit card. Funny enough, the only laptop that met all of my requirements (and there weren't a lot, either) was HP's Star Wars laptop. I am really enjoying it. Now the boys can have the old laptop, which will be great when Caleb starts learning to type and has computers a few times per week come the fall.

Not much else is new right now, I guess. My life is very home school-centric at the moment. I am loving it, though. I am so grateful that we were led to this choice for Caleb and that it is working so well for him!

Realizing My Capabilities

We've been through a fair bit in the past week. First, my little Brettley turned 5 years old. Where on earth has the time gone? As an extra thought on this, when Caleb was 5 he seemed so big. Because Brettley is the youngest and a little short (or a lot short) for his age, he seems super tiny to me. He wears size 5 tops, but just got into size 4 pants a couple of months ago, so he is quite short for a 5 year old. However, he made up for his lack of height by losing not 1, but 2 teeth on his birthday! Caleb and Ty were both 6 when they lost their first teeth, so Brettley is ahead of the group in that area. Some of the things Brettley got for his birthday were a truck launcher he'd been asking for, 2 Paw Patrol toys and a Paw Patrol bedding set (comforter, sheets and pillowcase). He was a VERY happy boy, and he's finally keeping a pillowcase on his pillow for once.

On Friday, the stress of everything I've been going through the past couple of weeks sort of hit me really hard. John and I decided together a couple of things. First, that because we don't actually need the money I get from doing lunch at the school and because Caleb did straight out tell me that it disrupts his home schooling too much, I will finish working for February, but won't be continuing to do lunch anymore come March. Also, we decided that 5 filling appointments in a month and a half was way too much stress on both out time and finances, so we're going to do 1 filling each month until they're done. Also, we'll get Ty's all done before we start doing any of Caleb's to give Caleb more time to develop some skills to get over his big fear of needles. I felt so much better after we reworked these things to cut down on my stress level a bit.

I think I got into this mentality that because I can handle things a lot better than I could before I started Seroquel that I need to be able to handle everything. One of the first things my doctor ever said to me was that I need to be aware of what I'm capable of and work with that. I'm going to work harder to be aware of my personal capabilities and be more willing to say no when it's necessary.

John was able to have a 4 day weekend, and yesterday we took the kids to the Telus World of Science. The past couple of years, instead of getting lots of toys for the kids, we've asked my dad to instead just fund a family fun day for us. As I've mentioned before, our kids are the only grandkids on my side, so they kind of get spoiled rotten. The boys LOVED going to the TWOS. I was worried Brettley wouldn't like it too much, but he was right in there just as much as his brothers were. After we were done there we took the boys for lunch at Red Robins (their choice). Then we took them to Toys R Us and Mastermind Toys to each get something. Well, Brettley did get a lot since he had birthday money to spend as well. Caleb bought a paratrooper with a no-tangle parachute and a little science experiment kit. Ty got a little space gun, a singing Olaf toy, a Frozen pen and Frozen skin stickers. In case you couldn't tell, he is still quite stuck on Frozen, ha ha. Brettley got himself a grabber claw stick, a red Boogie Board and 6 Paw Patrol toys with badges. He only needs 2 more now to complete his badge collection (Zuma and Marshall).

That's about it for this week. I woke up with a sore throat this morning, so I got an extra day at home with Caleb and Brettley. Now Caleb is finishing up his math for the day and I'm drinking another herbal tea with honey. I'm very much looking forward to March when I get to have days like this (minus the being sick) far more often.

3 Days In

So today is officially day 3 of home school. Monday was kind of odd. It was the first day, we were figuring what works to begin with, and then I had to leave to work at the school, so my dad was over for the tail end of Caleb's work, which was the worst example of it. The last 10 minutes or so were hard for Caleb, he was feeling a bit done.

Yesterday was AMAZING! I didn't have to work because my class was on a field trip, so I didn't have to interrupt our day. I became more conscious of when he needs breaks and snacks. I ensured that he ate a good breakfast before we started. Caleb gets really 'hangry' as of late. It was an all around awesome day and he even helped make supper as well.

Today was a hard day. The day after Cubs is ALWAYS hard. It causes him to get to bed a little bit later than normal (his normal bedtime is 8:45) and has him extremely stimulated in the evening. Looking at how thing are today, I may switch it so that on Wednesdays he does his work in the afternoon when I get home from the school, instead of in the morning. Or split it half and half. We'll see how things go next week and continue to adapt from there.

Tomorrow I go back to working at the school, so our days will be messed up again. I'm REALLY glad that I won't be doing lunch supervision next year, it just isn't working well for us now. I agreed to finish the year out though, so I'm trying really hard to keep that commitment.

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In other news, my baby boy turns 5 tomorrow! His cake is currently in the oven. He LOVES homemade German chocolate cake with coconut pecan icing. He's my only boy who still prefers for me to make his cake instead of buy it, so I'm going to enjoy that while it lasts :)

I would also like to say that I was super impressed with myself on Monday, that I was able to home school and work at all. The night before was really bad. I have struggled with major back pain since I was a teenager. It's been a lot worse lately since I injured my back at Christmas a few years back. However, that being said, the pain I had on Sunday night was hands down THE WORST back pain I've ever had. If it wasn't for several layers of Tiger Balm, an amazing husband rubbing my back and keeping me as calm as possible, I definitely would have ended up in the ER.

Next week we're doing our family fun day. John is taking Tuesday off and Ty is being excused from school. We're taking the kids to the Telus World of Science, going out for lunch to Red Robin (as the kids insisted) and then taking them to Toys R Us so they can each pick out a toy. This day is my Dad's Christmas present to the kids. They are super excited for it and so are we!

Or Not...

So our plan was to wait until September for Caleb to start home education. Then things started going downhill really fast. Before, Caleb came home from school about 2/5 days each week and was either distraught in tears as he walked through the door, or he'd explode in anger. I eventually figured out that the problem was that he'd tried to stay in control all day long and bottled up 'everything' and it would explode when he got home. Well, it started happening every.single.day. Caleb couldn't handle things. I couldn't handle things. The status quo was clearly not working anymore. So we made a big change, and decided to start home schooling ASAP instead. I found a board that was willing to accept him mid-year. I quickly figured out some curriculum, pieced together an Education Program Plan and sent in his registration information last Friday. On Wednesday this week, I heard from Caleb's facilitator. He was very nice and let me know that he's happy to be involved as much or as little as we're comfortable with. Then yesterday morning the official acceptance letter came. So today is Caleb's last day at the school. Monday he starts doing home school. It's a little bit sad. He'll miss seeing his friends so much. It's sad for him to leave the school he's been at since the first day of Kindergarten. But all 3 of us (John, Caleb and I) know with a deep surety that this was the right decision for Caleb and his specific needs.

For inquiring minds, we are only doing 5 subjects for the rest of grade 4. English Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies and Health. He was planning on dropping art and music next year anyway, so I wasn't even going to bother with that. He's doing level 1 French in grade 5 as is, so continuing FSL this year wasn't at all necessary. As for Phys Ed, we will still have opportunities for him to be physically active, it's just not an official subject for him for the rest of the year. We may put him in swimming lessons a couple of months down the road, but we'll see how things go.

So that's kind of everything that's been going on, for the most part. Most of my time went into dealing with this and getting everything ready as quickly as possible. I'm sure there are people who think I'm crazy for making this choice, but we got an incredibly strong answer from Heavenly Father and continue to get them, so we feel very confident going into this that we have made the best choice that we could for Caleb. I feel so blessed to be in a position to be able to do this for him, and to do it within a province that (in my opinion) is one of the best places in Canada to home educate.

In the way of other news, Caleb and Tyrell went to the dentist this week. They were both awesome, but they both need fillings, so we'll be doing that next month. Mostly nervous about Caleb, because he has a fear of needles, but we will be bribing him to tough through it. Also, my doctor referred me for a sleep study for sleep apnea, which I have do to at the end of the month. I'm really not looking forward to it, mostly because I have a hard time falling asleep as it is and I'm pretty sure that having a mask strapped to my face isn't going to help much in that area. Oh well, better safe than sorry. Sleep apnea causes a truck load of problems if not treated correctly.

And as a final note, I can't believe that the baby of the family turns 5 next week. In some ways it feels like he's still 2, but in other ways it feels like he's been with us for so much longer than 5 years. Two things are for sure though. 1) We love him so very much and 2) He is still the best surprise I've ever had in my life.

Post #2 For Today

I think I have done Caleb a bit of an injustice. I never saw him as a kid with special needs, I saw him as a kid who struggles with ADHD. As we met with his psychologist the other day and she had me list off what has been diagnosed and what I feel still needs to be diagnosed I had a realization as I rattled off this list:
-ADHD
-Oppositional Defiant Disorder
-Anxiety
-Sensory Processing Disorder
-Severe Desire for Structure and Routine
-Rage Attacks Caused by Above
Caleb is, in fact, a child with special needs. It certainly doesn't make him a bad kid, and it doesn't even make me a bad parent for not realizing this earlier. It just means that now we're a bit better equipped to make stronger and more effective decisions regarding Caleb.

I think of things like travel, which we will be changing how we look at. His psychologist reminded me that travel in particular is going to be a very hard thing for him. It's different at my mum's. She follows any routine I ask her to, Caleb is used to travelling there every couple of months, and it's only a 2 hour trip home if things aren't working out well. Anything more than that needs to be seriously evaluated. Caleb desperately needs structure and routine in his life, and travelling really throws a wrench into that. He gets overstimulated very easily at family gatherings, which triggers a lot of difficult reactions in him. Travel that takes any more than 2 or 3 hours to get back home from, makes it very difficult if he needs to leave earlier than planned.

I'm in the process of changing how I make him aware of my expectations, of consequences and how I wind him down at the end of the day, so that these things are clear to him, become a routine and are more effective for him. We are becoming more aware of making sure his needs are met, both in making accommodations and also in making expectations and consequences easier to understand.