Today I'm hanging out at home for the most part, trying to work, trying to renovate, and trying to teach. Emerson is out of school this week. Well, take that back. He goes for a whopping 1 hour during the entire week. They are doing testing and each kid comes in separately for an hour to be tested, then are off the rest of the week.
Could they make school any harder on working parents? School hours are 9-4. They're out of school every time you turn around, not even just holidays. And sometimes it's crazy excessive. An Entire WEEK??? Plus 1 day next week and early release at 1:30 two days next week. How do parents work? I realize this isnt' supposed to be a babysitter, but come on.
So he's home with me for the week. As he's home, I'm seriously considering a disturbing issue.
What would happen if I tried to homeschool him?
Now normally I am absolutely opposed to homeschooling. In my experience it has led to children with very little social skills and without a well-rounded educational experience. HOWEVER, I am starting to think that in some cases this could very well be an excellent solution. Take Emerson, or probably many special needs kids like him.
He is very easily over-stimulated. He cannot handle crowds and children his age. He actually doesn't like a lot of routine, but he needs to know what is happening that day, though he gets bored if that's the same thing that happens everyday.
At school, he cannot stand still due to the overstimulating nature of the classroom. He cannot and will not complete his work, he won't sit in his seat, he roams around the room and crawls under tables. When overwhelmed, he knocks things off tables, climbs desks and bookcases, hits himself, and distracts from the other kids. He has also started running out of the classroom, which sits near the parking lot.
However, one on one, he performs excellently and does complete work and calms down when needed. In his instance, a more one on one environment would lead to better learning and better behaviour. He already has immense social interaction issues, so homeschooling will not adversely affect him there. It will allow him to function more in his comfort zone.
Now how I think I can homeschool him and us afford to live, I don't know. But I have got to find something to help him and enable him to learn in a suitable environment.
On the other hand, we have Jamie.
Jamie just turned 3. He knows his entire alphabet, upper and lower case, and all their sounds. He can read about half the kindergarten sight words such as from, we, see, are, and, you, my, and many more!
He can also write very well and can spell words on his own, such as Jump, Stop, Cat, Dog, Max, moon, book, and Emerson. He recognizes other words such as house, boat, fish, and his name.
His sitter would like for us to get him into an accelerated learning program or early preschool. She is very impressed with him!He's also learning to cook! LOL.
And of course, there's baby girl. She's doing very well, trying to learn to walk. She can zoom on her knees with the best though.
And that's about it for us. Kel and I are working our tails off, at jobs and trying to put our house back together after the flooding. Until next time!
~Sheree
