Post have been on the slower side because we made a big decision as a family and had to get things set up. I am thankful for my tribe that allows this to be possible. We have decided to homeschool our youngest. We will reevaluate after a year or two, but after much reflection and reaching out to different schools who specialize with neurodivergent kiddos and either not feeling they would be a good fit or no response back we have decided to homeschool.
We are 9 days in and have figured out our schedule. Things are calm and we are thriving. We are using on online guided course and then using the unschooling philosophy for additional learning. He is able to take breaks as he needs them and spend extra time on things that feed his interest. In just the last couple of days he has shown a renewed interest in music and instruments. I'm sorry to all our neighbors who are getting serenated by the harmonica in the morning! He is also being exposed to a Spanish lessons as well.
This has nothing to do with the schools themselves or teachers. We have wonderful teachers in our lives and we love them dearly. For us I just couldn't have him going on to hate school - which we were setting ourselves up for. Right now he needs small focused lessons followed by breaks where he can be active. I know there are IEPs and 504s, but I just didn't feel that this level could be accommodated in the school setting with as many kids as they have. As we figure out the balance between his ADHD and his Autism and he gets older this will be more manageable and we will see what fits at that time.
So what curriculum are we using. www.miacademy.co is what we chose. They have the core classes as well as extras i.e. foreign language, music, fitness, etc. Each course you can set the grade level. There are also assessments to gage if they are understanding the lessons. It keeps track of attendance and reports that will be needed to provide to the state at the end of the year.
We are still very new to this, so any advice, lessons learned you want to share we would love to hear it.
Things that we have found useful, so far, I have linked below. To help with his writing practice and support his "prop" needs we have weights we put on his pencils. We has have sensory gels that we put on the pencils that he says help him.
Then we have an Ipad that is just for school work and learning apps and of course has a kid proof case, because 6 year old boy. We supplemented with a key board and a mouse to help with those skills as they come up, rather than a whole other computer or laptop. Also I got the pencil, because I like gadgets, but it is also helping with pencil control and writing practice.
We will share more from our journey as we travel this road. I don't expect it to all be sunshine and rainbows, but just the weight lifted and the stress that seemed to have lifted from both of us in just these 9 days is worth it already. After the last year and how it ended we knew that a different path needed to be taken.
Next post I will share more of our dye free things that we have tried and liked or hated. If you have dye free things you are wondering about leave a comment and we let you know.
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