Wrapping up the School Year - An Immense Relief!

Oldest son's standardized testing is finished, ready to be sent off for grading. Samuel's work has been evaluated and I have the evaluator's summary letter in hand. I don't yet need to send in any "numbers" for youngest son's work, that begins at age 6 in Virginia. Best of all, I think everything went well this year. My first year homeschooling three children is over and I can still say I think I made the right choice to take Samuel out of school so that I could teach him at home. Not that everything is perfect, we have lots of room for improvement (who doesn't!?), but I'm happy having all my kids at home right now.

I recently went through the exercise of actually writing out the goals and objectives we were working on for Samuel this year. I feel so much more organized now in what we are aiming for with him. The plan I have developed for Samuel is so much more accurate than the school's plan in terms of what we really want him to achieve. Seven out of ten of his goals are related to his life skills. His previous plan only had buttoning, zipping, and controlling his behavior that addressed these things. There is so much more that he needs to accomplish than that, and I have found that educating him at home is the best way to tackle these goals. It was hard to narrow down everything to just 10 goals, there are so many things we are working on with him!

After our vacation I'll be coming up with a new IEP for Samuel and will be busy checking out all the curriculum recommendations I got from the education consultant. All of this on top of still checking out RDI, and everything else I want to do! There aren't enough hours in the day!

What Surgery?

Samuel's dental work went so well that now, only 9 days later, the whole experience is just a distant memory. He didn't seem to be in any pain this week at all. It is wonderful to see him with complete front teeth again! We have a follow up appointment with his dentist this week. I am expecting that everything will be okay.



We have been into our new school year for a month now. I am quite happy with how things are going. I have developed schedules for the boys that I review each day. I stay up late at night and get up very early in the morning to make sure I have work ready and lined up. Once the day gets started it is best for me to be completely prepared so that I can go an "automatic" mode.



Samuel's school day has become a series of sessions working at the kitchen table. We start off the morning with a look at the calendar and a Social Skills lesson. Samuel's two brothers join us for this. Then for the rest of the day I alternate teaching times between all 3 boys. Samuel has one in-home helper that is with us to get his morning started and then another starts later in the morning. He helps keep Samuel at the table while we do school work, and then they do other activities in the playroom or outside while I work with the other boys. The days go by quickly!

My goals for the next few months with Samuel are to continue trying to assess his abilities, coming up with more hands-on activities both for school work and leisure time, and trying to figure out where to take his lessons from here! I'm hoping to get some consultant help with this.