Third Grade Approaches

I have been absolutely terrible at updating this blog.  I guess I've had a fairly unproductive 2nd Grade year with creating anything for my TeachersPayTeachers account, which is part of the purpose of this blog.  Besides talking about the struggles we're having with homeschool and some of our wins.

Last year was a mix of highs and lows.  The year started out great, but then I made the mistake of enrolling in an online college program to study comic books and graphic novels as literature and art.  It was an exceptional class, which I really enjoyed and even wrote a little mini-comic from it.  However, because of my lack of attentiveness for those 6 weeks of studying, Chase regressed into an uncooperative state and the rest of the year was a battle.  He would spend 1-2 hours on a single assignment, refusing to write a single word.  Sitting there, doing nothing, no matter how much I asked him to or offered rewards and punishments.

I could sit right beside him telling him what to write for each word, but it was an endless struggle.  These assignments would take him less than 5 minutes if he were actually just doing them.  School dragged on as a daily chore of frustration and anger.  School became like a punishment.  Only towards the end of the year did we seem to be getting through to him that he must do the work and stop causing our stress levels to peak.  Perhaps the goal of summer was his beacon.

He doesn't want to go to Public school, and he honestly is not ready.  The aides assigned to us at NISEC have done absolutely nothing.  They haven't even returned my e-mail.  They were supposed to schedule an interview with an IEP school, where Chase could attend partial days with peers who were also struggling with adapting to school.  In a class with only a handful of students instead of more than 20.  And a teacher who is trained to help students with special needs.

I'm fairly certain that Chase is Asperger's.  I've looked at the signs and he seems to exhibit all of them.  I've addressed this with NISEC, but they haven't referred us to anyone to get him examined.  We don't really know what to do to help him.  Other than be cheery every day, grin and bear it and really pour my entire life and free time into teaching.

I feel selfish and uninspired.  I can't draw.  I can't create.  I'm constantly stressed and public school would be worse.  We had such anxiety every day during the first 2 months of Kindergarten where he was sent home constantly.

So, I must ready myself within the next few days.  I've filled in the school calendar and school begins on Wednesday by Tri-Creek Elementary's schedule.  We've been using theirs.  Of course, we don't have to.  But it is easy to track if I'm following theirs.  In case I skip marking the attendance record.  Last year, I used Class Dojo's records, but it is really inadequate.  I've sent them a suggestion to improve that which they replied it would be something they would work on as a new feature.  I like them and do intend to use them again.

I'll be using Sokikom, Scootpad and Class Dojo again this year as my main online school apps.  I've enjoyed each of them and they all have excellent content.  I may use Glogster again as well.

Ah, righ tnow, I should be getting our school station prepared, rather than bloggin here about it....

Tears and Cheers

So the first day of school was a mix of emotions.  He was kind of combative at first.  We had to do a restart.  He had started gaining then losing behavior rewards before I could even show him what the reward system would be like.

Sokikom and ScootPad are both roaring successes.  He loved the fractions game on Sokikom and said "I love fractions"!  And he eagerly wanted to do the tests/practices on ScootPad once he learned you can earn 50 coins for math and 25 for language arts/reading practices.  And the spelling assignment was 'easy peasy'!  After the student does a few tests the site places them on a learning path to determine their pace and placement.  So the level will be perfectly tailored to him.

And ScootPad allows you to add in your own rewards.  I need to adjust the prices, making sure there are plenty of low priced items.  He really liked the "Stand up and dance" reward/  I played Blue October's Jump Rope song, a favorite of his.  So he got out some sitting at a desk energy and enjoyed himself.

We only did light work today, mostly focusing on getting him familiarized with what programs we'll be utilizing.  After school was over, he still wanted to play on the math games for Sokikom.  ;D  He does love math.  The word problems he kind of balks at, but just straight out equations seem to be no problem.

His overall review of the day, "Boring and fun".