School has begun!

In my house, we live with something called dup 7q11.2.  Google it and you'll find nothing.  It's all trial and error and figuring it out as we go.  Due to several unforeseen circumstances, we began homeschooling last year.  It was one of the best moves we've ever made and we both love it!

This year we started off with a pretty easy schedule, mostly to get him back into the swing of things.  He has classes at 9, 10:30, noon, 1:30, 3, and 5.  So far, he's doing great with it.  We had a pretty huge meltdown on our first class the first day, but other than that there's only been one serious issue.  The greatest deficit my child has is comprehension and cognitive abilities.  We attempted to read a first grade level story and then answer questions about it.  It ended with tears and screaming.  After calming down, he was able to explain to me that it was just too hard for him and he didn't know what I wanted from him.  That, in itself, is a huge leap from where he was a year ago.  The fact that he can instruct me on his levels and what he needs is wonderful!  So we backed down to a couple of sentences with a couple of questions and he's doing much better. 

I think what I love most about homeschooling is the flexibility.  This year we have some great stuff planned!  We're building a volcano!  Yesterday we made tornadoes!  We have an entire awesome kit full of great health activities to do!  Every day, we serve lunch as a class.  He gets to help make it and do the clean up, but while eating we also have whiteboard activities.  He's learning food groups and balanced nutrition and calories.  Our next step over the year will be different foods and how they interact with your body.  We get to go swimming!  We get to watch television!  He learned some really neat science information from one of his favorite shows and then we went to the pool so he could conduct experiments.  So neat!!

Homeschooling isn't for everyone, but it's been amazing for us.  Since he learns differently than most kids, we have to teach differently.  Also, he seems to be retaining a lot more information than most kids his age.  I'm looking forward to a fun-filled year!