Grey skies are clearing up!

So after feeling like I failed my son (and the school district), I made him an appointment with his pediatrician. Since we live in California, and there are no clear laws concerning dyslexia, I didn't expect much. I've been through this before (with my older son), the school district says to take it up with your medical insurance, medical insurance says to take it up with the school district, and around the circle goes. It took 2 years of us jumping through hoops, meeting with different therapists/psychologists/psychiatrists to get Babe's diagnosis. What can I say, I'm a fighter!

I did some research, and the word neurological kept coming up. Texas even has a law passed where they test, and treat dyslexics free of charge! So at our pediatricians office I mentioned how horribly the school district testing went, and that we needed help getting another test done. He started mumbling about it being an educational issue, but when I brought up "couldn't insurance cover the testing if we classify it as a neurological issue?" , he jumped on board and gave me the number to a pediatric neurologist. As soon as I got home I called the number, and was told they don't specialize in that type of testing and couldn't help me, but gave me the number to another pediatric neurologist. This one knew exactly what I was talking about, and we set an appointment. Oh happy days!

Valentines Day is our testing date, and it's kind of far from us, but worth the drive. I'm also in the process of writing a letter stressing the importance of early intervention for dyslexics and our situation, which will be mailed/emailed to our local congressman, mayor, school district, and whom ever else I feel is important. Oh, I'll also be attaching a copy of the grievance I'm going to file with the school district, once we finish this test :)

There's a flaw in the testing system

I had butterflies in my stomach, and couldn't sleep Sunday night. I had an appointment early yesterday morning to receive the results of Orion's learning disability tests. They performed quite a few tests, and I knew it could go one of 2 ways. Keep in mind, that we had a VERY horribly experience with this school district last year, which is the main reason I pulled my children from public school in the first place. Let me give you a brief rundown of our history with the district. Since my oldest is an Aspie with ADHD, and ODD being their main concern, we HAD to medicate him in order for them to be able to handle him in the classroom.  We've switched between 2 schools, and I spent a year (the year I was pregnant with my daughter), walking back and forth to the school to talk my son down from social situations. He was made aware that he even had any of these "disorders" by a substitute, and was constantly in trouble. Orion has always been Mr. Popular, but when he started picking fights, I knew something was wrong. His first grade teacher kept insisting he was so smart, but wanted to hold him back a year (in first grade). Homework was never sent home, because they both did it in an afterschool program and were able to leave it at school. Orion was then sexually assaulted by another little boy, during recess in the boys bathroom. Because of their age, only a police report was filed. I was mortified that they still expected my son to share a classroom with this other child, and was told by the school psychologist that he would "get over it", and to just not mention it. I pulled my boys out of school the next day.

Fast forward to present day. As soon as I started working with my son, I noticed that there was a problem. He can not spell, sound out, and struggles reading. Yes he is very bright, but needs a lot of help with his work. Dyslexia runs in my husbands family, so I looked up the warning signs and he exhibits about 3/4 of them. Sitting in the meeting yesterday, and hearing the word average keep coming up upset me. They showed me the questions Orion was asked, and his answers. They showed me what he scored, and I'm appalled that scoring below your grade level is deemed "average". Shouldn't these tests let them see the students who are struggling and intervene? I was so angry, I stood up and told them how all I wanted was help for my son, and all they've done is destroy his self esteem, and deny me any type of help. I'll spare you the longer version of what else I told them, but I went into details about how I'm glad were now homeschooling, and how I should have never trusted any of those people with any of my childrens well being or education because it's clear why their there, and it isn't to help children.

I'll now be seeking out a diagnosis out of our own pocket, because sadly our state does not have clear dyslexia laws, and medical insurance does not cover educational issues :(

The year long story

A friend of mine on facebook started a story today, and had her friends add on to it throughout the course of the day. It was fun, and it got pretty long. Of course this got my wheels turning. My boys HATE writing! But, they are very imaginative, and come up with some pretty entertaining things. So, I have this idea of a notebook called the year long story.

Basically, I will start each day off with 2 sentences in the notebook (or the night before lol), and each boy will also add 2 sentences to add to the story. Each boy will have their own notebook, so 2 separate stories will be going on. The story will continue until December, with 4 sentences being added daily (2 by me, 2 by one of each boy). I'm hoping it will stir their creative juices, motivating them to get interested in writing, work on penmanship/grammar, and be something that's just between me and that boy (like an inside joke).

What are your thoughts on this? Good idea, bad idea? Or have any improvements I can make to it?

Workboxes

Yes, I'm about 2 years late into the game lol. In my defense though, this is our first year homeschooling, so I just found out about them... HA!

I've read Sue Patrick's book, and looked at so many different blogs and workbox pictures it isn't funny, and I'm convinced I NEED to use this system. It's just the thing I need to help my kids work independently and stop them from day dreaming or getting bored. We currently use a folder system like the one Jolanthe uses at homeschool creations, and it works... but not the way it should. The kids constantly complain and whine, about how much work is left, they day dream, they need me to sit there and hover to make sure it gets done, and it takes them forever to finish. I think it's just because my kids need constant breaks, and it's just not fun.

With the original system, Sue suggests using 12 boxes so that you can put your main subjects in them and break them up, then fill in the rest of the boxes with games/puzzles, review work or file folder games. I think this will work better for my kids, because even though it's essentially more work, the games provide motivation for them to work through their schoolwork.

So does anyone have any good websites with workbox activities, labels, and such for me to get more ideas of what else to put in their boxes? Oh, and I haven't exactly bought the boxes yet lol. Were waiting for payday, since I'm not sure exactly of the costs of everything for the 3 children. So stay tuned!

The Earth and the space center museum

Lately we've been really caught up in Orion's learning disability testing (the school district is really cutting it close). They have until January 30 to hold the final meeting, and we just finished testing last week. I still don't have a date for the final meeting, and I'm getting antsy.

Besides that, we've been diligently studying the Earth. Our unit on the earth was only supposed to last a week, but the boys have enjoyed it so much. We kept going more in depth, and adding different projects to our unit too. Now our earth unit has turned into a presentation, that the boys are excited about presenting to Daddy, and then again to my Grandma and Aunt. Bonus points for this project getting in some public speaking practice :)

Last week I took them on a field trip to the Columbia Space Center, and they had such a blast! They really enjoyed learning different space related things. I was hoping they would have more on the earth, but that's okay, they had fun anyway and it was educational.

Posing with a real astronaut suit. You can actually climb into the back and take pictures in the suit, it was really neat.

Flight simulator, taking turns landing our shuttle back on earth. Orion was the only one who didn't crash us, even with me taking a turn lol.

Catching parachuting shuttles and men. This was to show them the different types of parachutes used to slow down the shuttles as they come to earth.

Dropping marbles in and watching them spin around the giant funnel thing. It's supposed to simulate how the planets orbit around in space, and there were different sized marbles to try it with. We stood at this station for half an hour lol.

The boys launching pressurized 2 liter bottles. I'm glad the museum was kind of empty, or there would have been a line for this!

Lego robots that you program with a computer. The boys loved this!

Orion programming his robot for the next mission. I am now looking into finding a robot building club for the boys, since they enjoyed this so much :)


I'll be back in a few days with how the presentations went, and of course pictures!

Happy New Year!

And a Merry late Christmas. How was everyone's Christmas and New Year's? Our Christmas was really nice, and filled with lots of family... and of course gifts. I was really sick the week of Christmas, with a flu and vomiting. I thought I was better, and felt well enough to visit with family. I was wrong lol, boy was I wrong! I was a trooper though, and stuck it out for my kids (who were having too much fun with their cousins).

The week before new years I was still getting over my flu, and was so stuffy. I went to blow my nose, and had a terrible pain in my left ear. It brought me to my knees, and had me in tears. I had to call my husband home early from work to take me to the hospital. Turns out, I blew out my ear (literally)! I have a perforated ear drum in my left ear, and still can't hear a thing. They gave me some antibiotics, and pain killers, and instructions to schedule a follow up appointment with my Dr. My doctor said that my hearing should resume as my eardrum heals, but I might need surgery to repair that :(

I didn't let that put a damper on how we brought in the new year though! We went to watch the Pasadena rose parade. It's kind of a big thing around here, so we were excited to have great seats and be able to go. My husband's company had reserved parking, and bleacher seating for us, complete with our own bathroom (no waiting an hour in line for us). They even had free food (my kids favorite part), so of course my kids helped themselves to a breakfast of champions (hot dogs, popcorn, hot chocolate, and nachos).

This is before the parade started. You can see people still lining up :)

Boo Boo enjoying the parade, and all bundled up!

My Babe acting silly.

Bunny loves her photo ops, and she really loved the horses in the parade.

These were our favorite floats in the parade. Bunny is really into the Tangled movie (we've seen it too many times already lol), and thought the first float was Rapunzel's castle with Maximus the horse in front :) And the boys (husband included) are really into medieval stuff, and loved the jousting float that had knights on horses following it.
We've been keeping up with our school studies, I just haven't been keeping up with pictures and blogging. But, tis' a new year and I can always fix that! I'll be back in a few days with some more pictures of what we've been up to, and what I've been working on.

No more vacation time for us

We pretty much spent the last 3 weeks using up every last bit of vacation time we had for our school year. Were okay with that too. I needed a week to adjust to my new medication, which made me very drowsy, and gave me weird side effects. I'm pretty used to it now, and can still feel the side effects, but they don't bother me as bad as they did in the beginning.

I started feeling better towards Thanksgiving, so of course I was up for some black Friday shopping with my best friend. We went and had our traditional Thanksgiving with my in laws, and then we hurried back home. I thought I was smart by wearing a thermal, a sweater, and taking a blanket.... Boy was I wrong! Next year I'm wearing a double pair of socks, and taking a beanie, some gloves, and an extra blanket lol. I'm super excited with the deals I got though (I saved us a ton of money), because I went prepared. I stalked the black Friday ads the whole week before, and made a list. I shopped during the week, used coupons and compared deals. Target was a gold mine for us this year! We splurged a little this year, and got our oldest boy a desktop computer (can't wait to see his face!).

This last week we've been reviewing a bit what we did the last week we did school, so when we return to our studies next week it won't be a total shock lol. And we've been painting more wrapping paper. The kids have loved painting. I brought out all of our Christmas cookie cutters, sponge brushes, and regular brushes and let them go at it. I'm thinking of cutting up some cheap dollar store sponges into Christmas shapes for them to stamp as well, but we'll see.

Here they are painting up a storm. We used some packing paper that I've saved throughout the year that has come in our amazon packages. The key is to take a hot iron to them to get the wrinkles out. The other paper were using is a really inexpensive (around $3), but huge roll from Ikea.

Here's the first section of our wrapping paper roll laid out to dry. After it dries, I roll the dried end in on itself and paper clip it, so that the roll is in 2 separate parts (painted, and not yet painted). The kids have really loved adding in a lot of their hand prints, finger prints and painting in the cookie cutter shapes.

Our first wrapped gift of the season! This was a birthday gift for my niece. I was being extra cheap ( I meant thrift!), so I glued the open ends shut instead of using tape, and tied the package with a piece of yarn. He's kind of smudgy so you probably can't tell, but we cut out a gingerbread man out of the paper and used him as a card. The kids were super proud of their wrapping paper, and that makes me proud :)

We'll be back to our regular posting next week for sure, and I've got lots of fun links to share with you!