What Week is This?

Our back-to-school routine has not been near as structured & organized as I had planned. I had visions of 4 compliant children every day who would willingly do all their work in the designated amount of time and life would have a peaceful sense of structure.

HA!

Life happens. When you have 1 or 2 children being homeschooled, life is (or was for me) easily manageable. Double your student population and add in dynamics of sensory processing disorder, adoption attachment, etc and life is hardly plan-able! So here we are...somewhere in our third week of the school year but in various days of curriculum depending on the child and subject. We're muddling through, but the freedom of saying "it's okay" if we don't get to science EVERY day with every child has been liberating and has allowed some calm a midst the storm. The kids are enjoying school and ask to get started as soon as they finish breakfast. I hope that never fades!

Today we start into our completely insane fall schedule. Liam still has a month left in his soccer season (2 days/week) and Ivy begins ballet (2 days/week). Next week the younger girls begin dance (3 days/week between them) and I believe Wednesday night programming at church starts up again too. We will have a commitment every day except Friday (if you include worship & small groups on Sunday morning as a commitment).

I am thankful for the opportunities for our children to be involved in activities that interest them and help them to grow into the unique persons God created them to be. I am thankful that we are able to splurge on such endeavors. I am especially thankful that I am able to homeschool them by day so that the running around and busyness of our evenings doesn't take away from quality time as a family! I'm pretty sure if my kids were in a brick-and-mortar school, they would not be in so many activities because we would never be together as a family...and to me, spending time together as a family is the greatest blessing in the world!

Our Touchy Feely Noisy Vibrant World

To you and I, the world can be a beautiful sight to behold. To most "typically functioning" people this is the case. However, to some people, like our adorable L, the onslaught of vivid colors and touchable textures can be too much for him to handle. You see, L has what's known as Sensory Processing Disorder. I am not a fan of labels, but this one was welcome to us as we were at a loss for how to help him function on a daily basis. He has very real, tactile needs that must be met with love, support and encouragement so that L can learn to adapt to these needs within the boundaries of acceptable social behavior.

We're still learning about L's condition. We're still learning how to help him develop the skills he needs. We know that Occupational Therapy (OT) will be in his future. We're currently researching our options for him there. Most children his age in our state receive such services through the local school district. We are considering that option, but whomever we bring into his life in this regard must not only be a skilled and capable OT, they must also be familiar with older child international adoption and how that plays a role in L's sensory processing. This is a child who likely had little to no sensory stimulation the first 6+ years of his life! Just think for a second about the plethora of colorful baby toys with lights and sounds and crinkles and bumps and rattles and...you get the idea. Children thrive when early exposure to those elements is present. Our son is experiencing it all now...and his brain isn't quite sure what to do with it all. Thankfully we are working with a fantastic adoption specialist/counselor for L and she is beginning to work with him on his impulse control and some of his sensory behaviors. She is gathering resources for us to be able to ask the right questions of any OTs we consider and she would like to have an open relationship with the OT so that they can approach L's care as a team. I find a lot of hope in that!

For now, our homeschool is not as structured as I'd like (see schedules in my previous post)...because I need to constantly divert to meet the needs of one, but that's OK! One BIG advantage to home education is the ability to give to each child individually what they would not get in an institution...the ability to meet each child where they are and work with them to help them succeed. Some days that attention is distributed evenly, others it's not...but no matter what, ALL of my children know that when they are the one who needs a little extra, Mommy is going to be there for them!

So today, instead of forcing my children into a box (or schedule), I am enjoying watching each of them play with Legos before we even begin looking at books.

Fresh Start

Ahhhh. The refreshing summer breeze makes me smile. I am thankful for the sunshine and even more so, today, for the much-needed rain. It made for the perfect day to kick off our new homeschool year!

The children decided that, in lieu of a new outfit to commemorate the first day of school, they each wanted a new pair of pajamas! What a fun idea for "back to school" pictures! Definitely a benefit in home education (in my humble opinion)! ;)

In an effort to begin the year organized, I have created schedules for each day with weekly schedules printed out for each child. We won't live & die by these, but they were necessary for me to visually see what our days will look like.

We are starting from scratch this year. With four children now being educated within our walls and using all new (to us) curriculum, it's sure to be quite an adventure! We were not satisfied with our overall experience using LIFEPAC last year as the children bored quickly and lost interest in continuing their studies. Our new curricula is listed below.

In an effort to allow my sweet I more independence and the computer-based program she desired, we opted to use Switched-On Schoolhouse for her. She is very excited for 6th grade!

All 3 littles are using Sonlight this year. I am excited and nervous about it as I love the concept but fear the time commitment with 3 children using the program. M (2nd grade) and L (K/1st grade) will both be using Core B as their foundation (Bible, History/Geography, Science) with grade level Language Arts and Horizons Math. It is my hope that things will go smoothly with these 2 doing much of their work together.

C will be using the Sonlight Pre-Kindergarten package...and she couldn't be more excited!

Our first day starting out in our new routine went pretty well overall. There are some adjustments that will need to be made to our daily schedule as we find our groove and learn just how this new curriculum is going to flow for us, but all in all I'd say Day 1 has been a success. Looking forward to Day 2!