Decision made - jumping in with both feet

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. 

 Disclaimer: Some of the links included in this article are affiliate links, meaning that at no additional cost to you if you click through and make a purchase, I will earn a small commission.

Pencil Weights

Pencil Grip Soft Gel Pen Grip

Ipad  and  Ipad case

Ipad keyboard and mouse

Metapen iPad Pencil

Cabin Fever, what do you do?

 It's raining, it's thundering, and it has been for a few hours.  We were going a little stir crazy. So where do you take you prop sensory seeking child?  Why do the trampoline park of course!! Along with what feels like just about every other child in our city.  

Well today we had some amazing wins! We played nicely with multiple other children. We waited our turn without being told.  As we jumped we were aware of our surroundings and held up when required. 

When it was time to go, we struggled a bit, but then were able to rain it in and walk out nicely.

We will be back! 

How do you make letter learning fun with sensory kids?

Is your child a hands on sensory learner?  Are they just learning their letters or starting spelling and reading?  These sensory squishy letters and cards are a great way to make that learning fun!  

Tested with a new letter learner and a stating to read learner and both were able to learn and have fun with these.   The only con that we have found is we really need two sets, not because we have two students, but because some of the words they have on the cards to spell call out things with double letters.  

There are small cards with the word and pictures and there are the flat cards with just the letters to match the shapes of the letters.  They are also soft and squishy so they can also be used in a "bean bag" fashion if you lay out a big board on the floor to spell out words.  Many many possibilities await with these fun letters. 

*affiliate links below

Alphabet Letters Sensory Toys

 

Number Blocks - calming in our house

Since my little man was about 3 he fell in love the show Number Blocks.  Numbers are calming for him and he was learning along the way.  

This shows characters are based on the cubes we use to use in math class when I was in elementary school.  I will randomly hear my little man signing the songs around the house and he even used one to show his cousin how to draw the number 8 the other day.  The below activity set now brings number blocks into your home.  You have to do some set up with the stickers yourself, but it even gives you which episodes different activities are associated with. 

 

*affiliate link

MathLink Cubes Numberblocks

Learning while managing ADHD and ASD

 

Summer is not wall to wall learning, but learning should never stop.  So today we took letter beads and hid them in the sand and set up the construction fun.  We also hid some fun little figures and a spider to surprise the boys.  As they pulled the letters out they read them out loud.  They had a ton of fun digging around in the sand to find all the treasures.  

*affiliate links below

Construction Sensory Bin

Letter Beads Acrylic Alphabet Number Beads

Success in Road tripping

 Road trips ......do those two words bring you excitement or dread?  Mostly for my family and I it is excitement.  However we never know where on the trip our neuro spicyness will pop and we have to be prepared.   So for my husband and I this time I grabbed our old school CD binders and we played memory lane roulette - it was interesting to see how many of the same CDs we had from our younger years (we did not know each other in our teenage years). 

The older son got the whole back seat to himself and had his laptop, phone, and headphones with access to games, videos and music.  He also has a summer reading assignment that has to be completed and after some prodding finally used some of this dedicated time to almost finish it.  

The younger son had his tablet, a sticker book with scenes to put the stickers on, a look and find book as well as the Leapfrog headphones from the previous post.  

All was going well, but as we hit the 2 hours left to go mark there was a marked increase in the energy in the car - that can make for a very long 2 hours if it cannot be redirected.  Thankfully at the same time a request for a bathroom stop was made and a rest stop appeared fairly shortly after.   At which time the little one says I don't need to go, but I want to stretch my legs.  

What a win! He is starting to identify when he needs things to bring him back to calm.  So out we all got and thankfully it wasn't a super busy stop.  He ran from one end of the rest stop to the other and then he still needed just a bit more, and he found a hill.  Said hill was a great place to summersault down, run back up and do it all over again, about 3 times.  He then says I think I'd like to walk back to the car now.  

The rest of the trip was peaceful and enjoyable, just like the first half!  

What is the other thing we make sure to have on any trip and I recommend to all my other traveling families out there?  These wonderful Plastic portable storage caddy's, but you don't use them for them for storage.  You use them for anything food related.  You can easily load and pass around the vehicle.  The keep all containers in up right positions.  If you have little ones that you have to break food up for it keeps all the crumbs contained.  Then they dump and rinse out super easy.  They come on every color under the sun - though I highly recommend getting them in bright colors so they are quickly located in a vehicle that can be quickly over packed.  Even by teenage eyes, who often struggle to find "it" and it is two inches from their left hand (if you know you know).  I have linked these wonderful wonders below the pictures of the rest stuff fun.   I also relinked the Leapfrog headphones.  

*affiliate links

Portable Plastic Storage Caddy

Leapfrog kids Max Headphones

Prime day deals - I would recommend

 Prime Day Deals I would buy or buy again:

First the kindle reader - I have a girl friend that struggled with reading all her life and she saw a tiktoc about trying the reader - I have followed her journey and this reader changed her into a reader! She can change the text size and the color that works for her. 

Paper white Kindle reader

For my fellow walkers/runners or those spending alot of time in the heat.  Liquid I.V. is great!  I can only use 1/2 a packet at a time, but I love all the flavors I have tried so far.

Liquid I.V. 

A phone mount for the car - in our family this is a must.  We do a lot of traveling and I always have my map going, even when I know where I am going.  I can't tell you how many times I have been saved by quickly being able to see there is a slow down ahead and a possible detour that I was able to recognize in less than seconds.  I don't have to look down or mess with my phone while traffic is slowing or possibly slamming on breaks.  

Car phone mount

The Amazon kids fire has been great for both our boys and has grown well with our older one. The parent controls, though a bit clunky, are great and really help control time allowed on the screen or on which type of apps.  

Amazon Fire HD 8 Kids Pro tablet

Another family favorite are these magnetic tiles - legos without the having to snap together or pry apart.  A different form of creative construction - add that these travel well and no really small pieces to lose along the way. 

MAGNA-TILES Classic 32-Piece Magnetic Construction Set

I have the Versa 3, but I am in love with watch.  It lets me track my distance, pace for my runs/walks. It tracks my sleep.  I also can track if I am hiking vs just a exercise walk.  And I can go back and look at all my past data and see how far I have come. 

Fitbit Versa 4 Fitness Smartwatch

Ok I think that is plenty - there is so much out there for Prime day, but these are the ones I would recommend.  

You control you

 Who could have known how important these words and learning to put them into practice would be later in life.  

My household is full of nerodivergent people of all ages.  Not one of us is the same in our nerodivergence.  Therefore what is soothing to one of us can often be over stimulating to the others.  This is nothing new. 

Knowing how genetically "popular" this is, I'm sure you've seen the tiktocs asking did your parents "fill in the balnk".  If you go down that rabbit hole,  just be prepared, times are not different they just didn't give it a name.  It was also welcome to life, people are not going to bend over backwards for you.  You controll you.  You do what you need to make the situation work for you with in the parameters of that situation.   

Now we have names and a whole slew of resources that just say the same thing.  One of the things that works for our nerodivergent house is head phones.  For my youngest the leapfrog ones below are amazing.  First they can blue tooth or hard wire into his device. Seond there are 6 different options just in the head phones, i.e. calming music, dance music, directed activities, learing about rainforest. 3rd they are limited for kid safe decibles - so even when he has it maxed out he's not doing damage to the ear drums.  

So find out and teach you control you to ypur household. Do whay works that fits with in the situation parameters and know we see you, we support you, and we are learning not judging when you see us looking. 

Leapfrog headphones

After insect bite relief

*affiliate links below

Are you or your children suffering from nasty insect bites?  Does it look like you have grown another limb with the way you swell up from the bite?   We find relieve from the products below - they are the same Burt's Bees Res Q - they are just different options of it:  the OG, and one with extra soothing in it. 

My family likes to hike so I like to keep these on hand in my pack and around my house.  I've seen a lot of friends with kids who are swelling up from bad bites, I highly suggest checking this out.  Happy Summer! 

Res Q 

Res Q with cooling

OG Res Q ointment

Protein Cereal .... really? honest review

Magic Spoon Cereal

*affiliate link

Honestly I heard Protein cereal and thought no way that could be good.  Protein is so hard to get the taste right and not be bland or chalky.  

 However we had the opportunity to try them, and WOW!  We all loved them.  We liked them dry and we liked them with milk.  If you are trying to get your protein intake up, but you are craving cereal, Highly recommend magic spoon cereal.  

Jell-O and Golf Cub Storage

 

*affiliate links included

What do Jell-O and Golf Club storage have to do with each other?  Well they were both part of yesterday's fun!  My AUDHD little man loves Jell-O, red Jell-0 .... well if you have read any of my last posts you know that we discovered an issue with dyes.  At first it was just blue (because it set him off in less than 15 min) but as we went dye free for 2 weeks and then added different ones back just to test them out, it turned out all the dyes have an effect on them it just takes them longer to show up in his behavior.  So of course his red Jell-O was out.  

Trying to find replacements was not easy for Jell-O.  We do not find most things difficult to find dye free replacements, i.e. marshmellows, gummy bears, chicken nuggests, but Jell-O took some experimenting.  Finally we fond Simple Mixes - we have only tried the Strawberry and Cherry but both are kid approved. Mixes up just like any Jell-O mix brand.  We have not found ones we like that are read made so I have to plan a little bit a head, but honestly it takes less than 5 min to make the mix and then it just needs a min of 4 hours to set.  So even last minute before I jump in bed I can through this together.  Now if only I could find a clear, flavorless protein to add to it to up his protein level it would 100% perfect! If any of you mom's or dad's have found a good clear protein that mixes in well with things please comment below. 

Ok so where do the Golf Club storage come in with all this.   Well living where it extremely hot we decided to keep our clubs inside. However we kept tripping over them.  I have had golf club storage racks in the past, but they have tended to be heavy and bulky  One day while searching I came across the one below and on a whim got it.  It sat around for weeks in the box, but last night we decided to put it together. We are having visitors and need to get the clubs out of the way.  

Well let me tell you!  1. So easy to put together. 2. Very light 3. We went with the wheels option (yes they are lockable) and I have been able to move it around my house fully loaded to find the right spot for them with no issue.   I do not have the lower draws "full" of balls, but there is weight on there.  So if you need golf bag storage I highly recommend.  And we do not have super big bags so we can easily fit 4 sets on it, if you have the bigger type you will only get 3.  I love that all my golf stuff can now be in one place, clubs, shoes, unbrellas, hats!  Bonus even the little man helped put it together! 

Jell-O mix

Golf Club Storage

Mama's self care

*affiliate links included 

We are Moms, sisters, daughters, bosses, employees, partners....pick your titles and add more.  It is easy to get lost in each and everyone of them, so I challenge you today to pick a title that let's you give you some love and self care.  

I have been an athlete my whole life and the older I get the more I enjoy running/walking and golf.  So each year I sign up for my local running stores 7 run series.  I pay for them all up front, because now that I paid I "have to" participate.   It helps me keep all the other excuses from stopping me.

Tuesday, the 4th of July, is the kick off Firecracker 5k. A girlfriend of mine is also going to be there sans family so we are going to attempt to run together... our paces are usually very different, but I am looking forward to seeing my friend and catching up. 

Rule number 1 of race day - wear nothing new...so I had to test run my skirt today, I already did the socks last week ( wasn't about to create more laundry for myself that had to be done before 6am on Tueaday!)

So here is the skirt trial,  it worked great, but man was it hot. I've included links to the interval timer I use and the shoes I wear, but please go be fitted for shoes. 

Gymboss interval timer

Hoka arahi 6

Little things

 *affiliate links included

Everyone always says do your own research, be yours and your childs own advocate.  Well on this journey we have found that antihistamines and dyes are a problem. Like turn into the hulk type problem.   

If dyes are not a problem for you and your family - awesome, I agree they are not an issue for everyone. However if you are having issues that even medicines seem.to be helping and then they get worse - give it a try just two weeks cut out all dyes, read every label.  That's right out, even our son's medicine had dyes in it. No you cannot just look at it and say it's white so no dye, they use blue to make it whiter.   

We haven't found a real good alternative to the antihistamines yet, but I'll keep you updated.  What has helped us keep more even keeled is Chillax, two in the morning and two at night. Now this is not medical advice, but it is what is working for our family.   It doesn't work stand alone or if we are already in the middle of a melt down.  It isn't a miracle medicine,  but one more tool in our bag.