homeschooling??? | ADHD Information

Is there anyone else out here that homeschools there kids too? My son is 8, has adhd and tbi, speech delays and emotional behavior issues. I am a first time homeschooler. What is your type of homeschooling? What kind of things do you do to keep them focused?? So far we have been doing good, just looking to find other to relate toofound this link :) http://familyclassroom.net/hsboys/

 

I am an infants teacher in Australia - Last year, on the advice of my son's specialists, I home schooled him.  He is 13 and his sister is off at boarding school during the week (We live in a small community and she needed to go!)

I found it very difficult teaching my own son.  He was at the stage where he was so anxious about learning.  The shutters came down with the mention of the m word (maths).   Anyway we were doing distance education but because he was so down and withdrawn, he didn't want any social contact.  As a result, I was his world.  It was very draining!!!!  But happy to say that he has agreed to go back to his small school.  Our school year starts on Monday so we'll see!!! We've spent alot of time working on strategies for when he gets stressed and the teachers are happy to work with us!  I'll keep you posted!!

 

Early Writing

Here are some ideas from my classroom where I teach kids not just to read and write, but to also love it!

Step 1 -

Have some stimulus - play in the park -  draw a picture - ask for words and write the words  that may be used on a board radomly.  Child writes down sentence using words. Can give sentence starters.  I went ....  I had.....  I saw....  It was....  Try writing .  Give a tick and congratulate for each correct letter.  Write the word above it. Don't make this a big deal.  Use a finger re-read the story pointing to the words.  Display the final product. 

Step 2

Same procedure.  Just write words which could be used for story.  Brain storm these with your child and sound them out.  (stretch the word!)  Having a go needs to be congratulated.  Tick correct letters. 

Step 3

When they become happy to write, circle a few incorrect words and use these for your spelling words.  Write out and  then you can rainbow write  -  use coloured crayons to trace over letters - change colour when a different sound is heard.

Remember to put stories together in a scrapbook so they make their own reading book.  A great reminder of how far they develop.You can re-write and put them on the computer.  Have them dictate stories but they need to develop that having a go at words.  You could put words together to form a word bank (wall of words) so that they can find the ones they need.  Try not to encourage looking up all unknown words  because that will stifle the amount they write and the risk they take.    Don't focus on handwriting.  This too will limit the attempts. 
No lines first followed by 1 line and then grade lines.  My class after 3 months were writing a page of work and by the end of the year it was at least 2 pages!  We wrote daily about all different things.  Books, we had read. playtime, weekend trips etc.   Then we began to write stories.  Make up books with coloured covers for them to work on. 

 

Hope this helps!!!

 

 

I love edhelper, we get most our worksheets from there. And dlktkids too and a through z homeschooling. We are truly lucky that there are so many resources out on the net. And so many people to talk to about homeschooling as well. Does anyone have any ideas for writing. My lil man can do sentences but when he gets to having to write more then one he gets very fustrated, we take are time and i let him use the dictionary to look up words, but then he ends up copying straight from the book instead of writing in his own words. Any advice?? Yeah we are also lucky in Va to have alot of rec that have stuff for homeschooler, alot of groups and even people who will teach your get for free doing art and music along with their child. I loved going to public school, but i am really enjoying this on on one time and so is my son. His self esteem has boosted and he just seems so happy. I truly haven't seen that in a long time. Only bad thing is the two oldest are very jealousI am not homeschooling our son, but I have seriously considered the option. I do spend a lot of time working on reading and math skills with him in our spare time. My personal dilemma with homeschooling is that while I have confidence in guiding him through the early years, what happens when he makes it to Algebra (omg!). I would be a complete disaster at working through that with him! I don't know how effective I would be during the later years. I wonder how well-versed you have to be with the more difficult subjects to instill a thorough education.you guys are so lucky. i'd love to homeschool my kids but everyone (DH, mom, inlaws) are so against it. plus i am ADD, self employed, and i don't know if i could be patient enough to do it.  i have a VERY bright little girl (started school a year early) and i want to nurture her love for learning.  i dislike the schools around here and so much wish that i could homeschool.  best of luck for you guys that do :)I have got to take my hat off to those of you who take on the job of homeschooling. I could never do a good job and have a lot of admiration for those who do.

I own my own business and it would be very hard to give up, I've worked hard to build it. And I am not too sure I would be able to home school him anyway, I have a short fuse and am a bad teacher........If worse comes to worse, I would home school him though. Am waiting to see how the tougher grades go for him.

DillonsMom39107.7248148148

I don't have the support from my Mother, she thinks homeschooling is silly and a waste of time. That only trained teachers should teach children etc. Even though she knows that my son has a terrible time in ps, self esteem issues, being bullied, Teacher saying since he is in special ed that they have so many other kids with issues that they don't always get to what they need to do, so my son would get bored or starting acting out. Since homeschooling his esteem is soaring. Its the best gift in the world to see your son come off that ledge. For us homeschooling saved my son's life. I hope one day my Mom will come around. It hurts but i know i am doing what is best for my son, and she taught me to do that.

We are lucky here too, with a thriving homeschool community. Between 35 and 40 families are involved in our weekly homeschool group, so DS gets to be with kids of all ages every Wednesday, plus we parents sneak in a class or two. Right now drama (Macbeth!) and science (snakes!) are two big hits.

There's also an outdoor program nearby -- a wilderness program with natural science, orienteering, survival skills, etc. About 30 kids spend all day outdoors with their mentors every Thursday. Very cool. One of the mentors there was astonished to find out DS had tried public school at all. "Oh, he's not designed for that!" she said. Yep, she's got it.

I like that both programs are multi-age, so his socializing runs from redirecting toddlers to learning about robotics from the teenagers.

Writing .... well, I hear you. We have challenges there and a teacher recommended that for now I have him read to me (or explain the dictionary definitions in his own words, tell a story, etc.) and I write what he told me. It's common for ADHDers this age to have fine motor skills problems, and I know my DS gets so frustrated trying to deal with both forming sequential, logical thoughts and also putting them on the paper manually that he just burns out. Once the conceptual part comes easier, we can work on the physical act of writing. We'll see!


On having to work/not being able to homeschool ...

Just our experience, but I did quit working to do this. Which freaked me out on so many levels -- financially, emotionally, identity-wise, etc. But after several months of worrying about how it could all possibly work, we decided to take the leap and see what happened, with the idea that we could always go crawling back to the public school system if need be.

Anyway, about 6 months into this and somehow, it is working. We are more careful with our money, but this option is also a lot cheaper than our other alternative, which would have been private school.

I realize I have the luxury of a husband with a good job, but I do know single parents who do both work & homeschool; seems to work for them, but I can't imagine having that much energy!
We use life pacs alpha omega's series. We like it cause it also has alot of christian stuff in it for him to learn as well. We use that, the internet, and pretty much just the world around us. We start around 10am, so he can sleep in a lil, helps him to work better. And normally have a break around 12 for lunch, then continue till about 1:30-2:00 Then he has free time until his older brother comes home around 3. He does his homework at the table with his older brother. Then his middle brother comes home from school and they all do bible study at the table. It works this way so he has his own stuff but then he can work with them and around them to not feel left out. Its normally worksheets for hmw. I love homeschooling, most days we use the alpha omega but then there are days we just go and do our own thing, if he wants to learn something else sure, we love doing this :) Right now we are working on a project where he works, gets paid, pays bills rent and makes a grocery list weekly. We have math,science,historylanguage arts,spelling,music,art. Once or twice a week(depending on his mood and progress) we have the specials(art,music,and lately learning braille and japanesse writingThat all sounds so great! I sure wish I did not have to work!

I home school my son part time -- about 15 hours a week. It's amazing, but, with one-on-one attention, he's able to get through at least as much (I believe more) material in those 15 hours as he does in class all week. 

I opted to keep him in school, though, because his ADHD symptoms are mostly under control (thanks to diet and meds,) and he's an only child who really needs social interaction with other kids, IMO.

That said, just curious.  Have you tried any of the education websites out there?  I really love edhelper.com, because there are a ton of learning materials and worksheets there that help my son, especially as he prepares for state-mandated standardized tests.   There are a couple other fun websites I'll have to post, when I remember what they are, as well.

 

In addition to that, I've been winging it on a week-to-week basis, watching what he needs and trying to help him as needed.

 

It's working for us, so far, with basic reading and math.  I'll check back in later and let you know how our next module goes -- creative writing.  Ugh!

 

For full-on home-schoolers, I do know that my local recreation center and a couple other places offer supplemental programs for homeschoolers.  For example, the science center here offers once-a-week science classes for home schoolers.  And the rec center offers all sorts of PE classes for home schoolers.  Very cool.

Hi there -- we are first-year homeschoolers too!  Also an 8-year old son. It's working great for us. I keep telling people it's WAY easier than fighting with the school system.

We use more of an "unschooling" approach, within a certain amount of structure. That may not make sense to anyone who isn't homeschooling, but it works for us. For instance, we belong to a homeschool group that has classes (parent or teen-led) every Wednesday, but DS can drop in and out of whatever class strikes his fancy on a given day. He has a wilderness (outdoor all day!) program on Thursdays. The other days we wing it, mixing math, reading, writing into playing board games, doing school material on the computer, field trips, etc. We very occasionally manage a workbook type of experience.

We listen to books in the car, do kitchen science experiments, anything really that is constructive. He just soaks it all up.

I am in touch with a teacher who supports this kind of approach, so she will do our assessment at the end of the year. The other option in VT is a portfolio but I must say that "product" is not our strength right now!

What are you all doing?
Sheila