“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to” (Cheshire Cat, “Alice in Wonderland”)

Last week I finally sat down and thought through all the areas I would like to cover in my “home-school” and made my current priority list. I felt that I was starting to lose the sight of the big picture as I easily get carried away by my and LM’s current favourite activities, which may not be necessarily the most important for LM at this stage.

The free X-Mind software came in handy as I could actually map out the main areas of focus and, as a result, I can now have my plan all on one page! It is not a curriculum, as this is all a bit too raw, it is simply a mind-map of the various areas which I would like to help my daughter develop. I have assigned a priority to each area to keep on track of what is most important.

My “map” so far covers (in the order of importance):

1.     Speech and Language Development;

2.     Social and Emotional Development;

3.     Play and Creative Development;

4.     Pre-Academic and Academic Learning;

5.     Motor Movement and Coordination;

6.     Right-Brain Development;

7.     Music;

8.     Art;

9.     Science.

I then broke each area into sub-areas, and then each sub-area into further specific lessons which we are currently working on and the lessons to be started soon.

This is far from being finished and is not set in stone, so I will be changing it as we go and as priorities change. But it is good to see where we want to get to!

So Do I!

We had an appointment with a paediatrician this week to assess LM’s development. Although the doctor was overall pleased with LM’s progress, her speech, language and communication are still severely delayed.

She is roughly where she should be or slightly delayed on most of the other criteria. I was not surprised to hear that LM is quite advanced in her visual skills and, according to the doctor, this is her way to compensate for the weakness in her auditory skills, which is what often happens with children with early chronic ear infections.

Overall it was a more positive meeting, as this time round a “multidisciplinary assessment” to exclude autism did not dominate the discussion as it happened a year ago. The paediatrician thinks at this stage it is not necessary and would like to see LM again in 9 months. She commented on how interactive LM was and her good eye contact, as well as her "very good concentration". She seems to have noticed a lot of potential in LM and, in her own words, she wants “to see even more results in nine months’ time”.

Well, so do I!

Calendar Time - September 2010

Somehow I always feel that September is a great month to start something new – to make a new resolution, sign up for a new course, refresh the CV, bin that clutter, etc. I guess it must have something to do with the end of summer holidays and the start of the new academic year, which after many years of attending numerous schools and a few years of working as a teacher, has been firmly ingrained in me.

This September, I am celebrating the beginning of the new academic year with the start of this blog, which is something I have wanted to do for a while, and this little DIY project:

My daughter is a visual learner and I hope this will help her grasp some temporal concepts, such as dates, months of the year, days of the week, and seasons. Our mornings now start with fixing the new date on the board and saying out loud what it is. We then change the day of the week to the current one. I also make LM look out of the window and decide what the weather is like outside and change the sticker as necessary. She seems to be enjoying this new routine.

I spent a few hours trying to find a ready-made board calendar set online and was quite surprised at the very limited choice available to the UK. So I decided to make one myself. I must say it has been quite a time-consuming process, but I am pleased with the result and I know LM will be using this calendar for a while.

I used a cork board and yellow sticky tape to create the calendar outline. I also printed out the month header and the numbers, stuck them on cheap stripy wrapping paper and laminated each piece to make them last. I then punched holes in each number and hang them on a hook under the calendar (I used the hook from one of LM’s broken hangers and stuck it to the back of the board). I use coloured pins to attach the numbers to the board (although LM is old enough to handle these, she only does it under my supervision, so if you have a very young child and would like to do this activity, you may consider using some alternatives, such as Velcro).

The pieces under the calendar are:

1.   An envelope (laminated) with days of the week – I made these the same way I made the month header and the numbers. There are pieces of Velcro attached to the back of each card and there is another piece on the front of the envelope to hold the current day card;

2.   A weather envelope little holding pictures of different weather conditions with a piece of Velcro on the back to go on the front of the envelope – all laminated;

3.   A seasons chart with a little arrow – also laminated and hung on the number hook.

I used free Microsoft clipart and tweaked it a bit to design the printable pieces. If anyone would like to use these and commit to this project, please let me know, I will be happy to share the files.

This is still very much a work-in-progress and I am planning to add a few more things to it in the nearest future. I think LM is ready for some more calendar activities. I will post about them separately.

Bye for now,

LM’s Mum

First Post

I guess a few lines about myself and LM would be in place...

I am currently out of work and the biggest part of my life right now is raising my daughter who has just turned four. LM is not a typically developing child and there is no agreed professional opinion regarding her. There is a wide range of labels of varying degree of optimism, which could probably stick to my daughter, ranging from “speech impaired”, to “ASD”, to “late bloomer”, to “visual-spatial learner”, etc. All of these labels would probably give some truth about her, with a bit of tweaking, but at the same time would neither fully, nor entirely correctly describe her.

Lables, even the most optimistic, are large-stroke, confining and static. My daughter is unique, limitless and changing - just like any other child. And just like any other child’s, her path will be different from anybody else’s. My job is to help her start it confidently and firmly, and work on her strengths and her challenges while taking into account her learning style .

I have shifted my focus away from looking for a label, particularly since at least at this stage and within the area covered by our post code, the practical benefit of it is close to nil. I have been doing quite a bit of research and, with the help of some prefessional advice, started my own “DIY home-based intervention”, and I learn as I go. LM is a bright child and a quick learner provided she is given the opportunity to learn her way. She has been doing great and she has kept surprising me with the things she can do.

I decided to start this blog to keep some sort of a record of the different things we are doing. I hope this will keep me better organised and will give me a sense of direction. LM is a very visual learner, which is why I create a lot of DIY props as I cannot always find what I need at an affordable price. I have been taking a lot of inspiration from the blogs of other homeschooling mums and have also come up with a few ideas of my own, which I will be sharing here too.

I will be happy to meet other like-minded people online – you are welcome to my blog!

LM’s Mum