As I look back on that week in August from my desk several months later I know it was the very best thing. Now I know that she's learning so much at home that she may or may not have learned in school. Miss L is old enough now that she can sit (mostly) still during things like school. The problem is that a classroom full of five year olds contains so much sensory information. There are the sights, sounds and smells of 28 other children. There's the voice of the teacher. There are the colorful classroom walls meant to stimulate. In miss L's case, she just simply shuts down. She has become good enough in a classroom situation to not be a behavior problem, but she isn't really learning, she's just sitting and being overwhelmed. Maybe next year she'll be ready to cope with the challenges of the modern American classroom, but for this year, I know she's getting the best education for her.
Part of our school routine is just that, a routine. Miss L (and lots of kids even without SPD) has a much easier time with a routine. It makes her feel comfortable to know what is coming even if it doesn't happen at the same time or even if it isn't exactly the same thing.
We used those first two days to figure out what NOT to do. In my former teaching career, I remember this feeling well. It was always those first couple of days when I had to just feel out my classes and figure out what course the rest of the year would take. This was the same with miss L. That first day we started with handwriting (as we still do, actually). I handed her workbook to her and said, "okay, let's do page 1, letter E." She struggled through that first page and I realized that we were going to have to do something else to practice. We're using Handwriting Without Tears and I looked through the teacher's guide to find all kinds of great activities. Miss L doesn't like it when things get hard, but she's happy to practice as long as something is fun. The book had lots of suggestions for hand position, posture (including feet on the floor, which I knew was important for a kid with SPD but I forgot!) and for fun ways to work on forming letters. Miss L is a very strong girl but SPD gives her weak wrists and writing is very taxing for her. On day three we started with "letter of the day" with an art activity focused on making the letter (in this case, F). We did a coloring page (great for building endurance in weak hands!) and we worked standing up at the easel instead of sitting. One of the best things that Handwriting Without Tears taught me is the Wet-Dry-Try method (which is also an app, seriously! AND I promise they are not paying me for this - though I wish they were ;o). Basically they sell a chalkboard (which we don't have so we use this white board on our easel) and the teacher forms the letter explaining each stroke to the student (Start at the corner, long line down, frog jump up to the corner, short line across, etc). Then miss L uses a damp sponge to "erase" the letter following the line, then she dries it with a dry cloth and then she writes the letter herself. Basically, though she feels like she's only written the letter once, she's practiced forming the letter three times.
Though we've added more methods of practice (yarn letters, sandpaper letter tracing, writing in salt, etc) we always practice writing on paper strips before writing in the workbook. The strips are made from an 8.5X11 piece of printer paper that's been torn into four strips (folded in half, then in half again and torn or cut on the fold. I tear mine since I learned at a recent women's function at our church that I'm a tearer. It's very freeing if you haven't tried it. ;o). The paper strips (which HWT also sells, but we didn't purchase) are visually easier to practice on than a large piece of paper. It gives miss L a definite top and bottom to the area in which she is supposed to write. After that we move on to the workbook and she generally always plows through that.
Another great advantage of homeschool is the ability to do lots of "life skills" work. I'm not very well versed in Montessori at all, but I love the idea of Montessori education. So though we don't adhere to it strictly or even loosely, lots of our work is inspired by Montessori practices. This is our herb garden in the kitchen. Miss L takes care of the watering the garden as it is needed (with our hacked laundry detergent watering can that she can fill herself). Here she is taking care of her plants!
The first week was a bit rough. We've been getting into a groove. We started with a phonics program for miss L, but that quickly proved frustrating and we moved to sight words for learning to read. That was the best move we made since she's really doing so well with that now! The homeschool experiment has paid off so far. I'm excited to start posting more of our adventure!
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