Three Plus Two

Spelling tools

Melissa asked for a link to the handheld electronic spelling dictionary I mentioned in my writing post. We have a Franklin-Merriam Webster handheld dictionary that's sort of like this, but not exactly.  (It's a little older, I think.)  I picked it up at Border's because I saw it and I had been thinking about getting something of the kind for a long while.  Since I have a tendency to forget things I wanted to do and remember them later only to forget again, I went ahead and bought it.  But...

It looks like there are also cheap, electronic spelling correctors on the market, too.  $13.  Not too bad.

I have found a spelling book for my older kids which I am hopeful about, although we haven't started it yet.  I ran across a mention of it on the 4real forums (but unfortunately I can't remember the exact thread).  The name of the book is Spell of Words -- which is kind of a goofy title, but since it was written for older dyslexics, it lays out the essential spelling rules in a logical, succint manner.  This is exactly the format I've been looking for in order to do some remedial work.  But... we'll see how it works out in practice.

(A note about the links: I've mostly given up the Amazon Associates program.  I've made $20 in 4 years.  So these links won't net me any money.  If you buy a book from the sidebar, however, I might get a kickback.)

Week 4: We Catch Another Cold

Week 4 was this week, Sept. 7-Sept. 13.  I feel like I am writing a continuing saga with these colds.  "And then we got sick.  And then we got better.  And then we got sick again.  And then..."

It's just one of those years where I date events by the virus we had, I guess.

Anyway, I forgot to mention in week 3 that Gareth made his first ever trip to the ER.  The kids were having bike races down the hill in our yard and onto the driveway.  (The road is too busy to ride on.) Gareth hit the top of a metal trash can and fell off his bike, cutting his leg on the way down.  I was inside putting the little ones to sleep while this was going on.  So when Gareth came to tell me in a reasonably calm but somewhat loud voice that he had fallen and cut himself but that the cut wasn't bleeding much. I told him to try and take care of it himself so he wouldn't wake the boys up. 

When I came out in a few minutes (Chipmunk woke up anyway), I took a look at the cut and felt really, really bad for shushing Gareth.  Fortunately, Andy had just (as in, he'd been home for 5 minutes) gotten home from Boston, so he took Gareth to the ER for the staples that were removed on an extremely unplanned day in week 4.

Gareth and I are trying to work out a few kinks in the way the year is going.  I have tossed Lingua Mater... not because it's bad, but because it's just not working for him.  Katydid will probably use it next year, or perhaps even sooner, as she's using  Lingua Mater 6 with the grammar supplement right now and enjoying it.  I am thinking of using Our Mother Tongue: An Introductory Guide to English Grammar, which is what Ambleside Online recommends for Year 7.  For 2 reasons: 1) I own the book already and 2) it isn't as drill intensive as something like, say, Seton.  And then I think we're going to add in Editor In Chief Beginning Book: Grammar Disasters and Punctuation Faux Pas (Editor in Chief Beginining).  Because this is where we run into some of those learning difficulties I have mentioned before.

Another area we're tweaking has to do with planning -- his planning and his time management -- and also maybe a change in style to some extent.  What I've seen is that Gareth doesn't seem to be as motivated to work through plans that I make out of his interests after I have written them down and made them into "school" as he is if I just, say, leave the book out on the couch, or write down a series of choices on the whiteboard.  So I'm wondering again about unschooling vs. structured schooling, and how best to help Gareth learn to self-initiate, follow through, and finish projects, when goal-making on a weekly basis or making lists of assignments to complete both seem to some extent unpalatable. 

We also had to change the way we were planning with Katydid this week.  She decided she didn't like giving herself even vague assignments (like "botany") for each day of the week.  Instead we decided to make out a list of what she wanted to do for the week, broken down into subject areas.  In the morning she refers to the list and decides what she wants to do that day.  Katydid is mature for her age, motivated, and interested in what she's doing, so this works pretty well.  She knows she'll do some subjects every day -- math, Latin, language -- so those aren't written down; they're just assumed.

But the big deal this week was a visit to the NY State Museum in Albany. 

Your two year old throws fits when you attempt to make him leave the "mammufs", right?

Devonian era fossils found in our county... the bottom picture is a tree stump.

Playing in the Discovery Room...

Stopping to pose for a picture.

Medical week

Pretty early yesterday morning I knew it was going to be one of those weeks where life revolves around medical needs, but I couldn't have predicted which ones, exactly. Katydid and Farmerboy woke up with stomach aches.  I called Andy and asked him to bring us gingerale at lunchtime. (I thought we could survive until then.) I told Katydid to go back to bed and assigned chicken duty to Gareth.  I did Katydid's chores and read books to the little boys.

Pop did not wake up with a stomachache.  Instead, he apparently woke up with a burning desire to go to the ER.  In the morning, I was called on to stop a game in which he climbed up on top of his dresser - on top! - stood up, and then jumped - as high as he could! - onto his bed. All he needed was to turn a somersault in midair to complete the crazy three year old imitation of an Olympic gymnast. At least he managed to stick the landing.

Then, at lunchtime, as I was sitting down to eat my lunch after doling out cheese quesadillas to every one else, and putting away the gingerale that Andy had so thoughtfully brought for the sick kids (who did NOT throw up, all thanks be to God!!), Pop decided to toss a Mason Jar onto our stone patio to see if it would break. (It did.) I dashed outside to stop the other three boys from walking into the broken glass, barefoot, thoroughly disciplined the offender, and cleaned up the mess, then sat down again to eat.

Not five minutes later Pop started howling. "My toe! My toe!"

Now, I have to back up and tell you that he was standing on the step down from the deck, where we had earlier that day seen a snake.  So what I immediately thought was that he had been bitten by a snake.  A garter snake.  So I wasn't too alarmed, but he was crying like he was in a great deal of pain.  I dropped my fork and ran outside to see what was wrong.

(This is where you should stop reading if you're squeamish.)

Once out there it was obvious he had not been bitten by a snake.  I thought he'd just stubbed his toe.  But on closer examination, the toenail on his big toe looked a little odd. 

It turned out that he had a "splinter" of wood half an inch long and a quarter inch wide jammed underneath his toenail, all the way to the back.

There was no way I could pull it out without putting the poor kid in even more pain that he was in already -- which was considerable -- so I called Andy (who wasn't even back at work yet) -- and sent the kids into emergency mobilization mode, and we headed off to the ER... which was packed... and hoping that Katydid's stomachache did not grow into anything bigger and more messy.  (Thank you, God, it did not!)

Anyway, poor Pop -- they had to numb his entire toe to pull the splinter out, and even that didn't block all the pain, especially since the splinter came out in three or four pieces.  He's none the worse for wear now, but - ugh.

This morning I had my own encounter with needles -- I went in for allergy testing and discovered that I am REALLY ALLERGIC to dust mites and grass pollen, but not to mold as I expected... and oh, yeah MAPLE pollen (and hello, where do I live??) -- but after Pop's ER experience with the numbing needles and the splinter, I was humbled enough to think that an entire tray of needles was so not a big deal.

And tomorrow Katydid has an eye exam.

So I think I meant to be sorting and organizing this week, but um, I'm having a bit of a hard time remembering.

Preparing for Junior High and High School

I am sitting here in the family room on a Sunday, with Pippi Longstocking playing in the background, the Daytona 500 on the TV on mute for Andy, Gareth playing Toon Town on the computer, and an 18 month old who should be asleep running around wreaking havoc. So of course I thought it would be the perfect time to write a post about junior high and high school at home. 

Gareth turns 13 this fall and will enter the 7th grade. I'm thinking of this as "junior high", because New York's homeschooling laws change after 6th grade. As of 7th grade, the law requires that homeschoolers complete "units", not unlike those required of high schoolers for graduation.  (Actually, the same definition of "unit" is used for both 7th and 8th grades and high school: 6480 minutes. No, New York could not come right out and say 108 hours.  6480 minutes, and not a second more.) So in 7th grade, we will have to document 108 hours (6480 minutes) of English, 108 hours of history and geography, 108 hours of science, and 108 hours of math, and provide "regular instruction" in health, "practical arts", and library skills to equal 990 hours a year.  At some point in the next two years, Gareth will also have to complete 54 hours of art and 54 hours of music.

Now, this is not really a big deal; we do more than 990 hours a year anyway. But in the process of doing my mid-year tweaking, and in checking the laws for next year, it suddenly dawned on me... I am going to have a teenager. And it also dawned on me, he will be in high school in two years. And then I realized, he's almost done with Saxon 7/6. What next? He's not ready for algebra, is he?

Cue hyperventilation.

I'm trying to do something novel.  I'm trying to be prepared.  At this stage in the game, I know that Gareth learns best with materials he can use independently.  I know that he needs to follow his interests and exercise a certain level of choice in his studies, but I also know that he needs some structure imposed from above, as it were.  I know that he needs time to prepare for changes, and that he needs to know what to expect ahead of time.  And I also know that his particular mix of intellectual giftedness and learning disabilities (what the educational establishment now refers to as "twice exceptional") means that we often have to meet his needs in creative ways. We have to be willing to ditch grade levels, which are kind of irrelevant when your twelve year old is reading a technical book on prehistoric mammals written for adults AND struggling with a third grade spelling workbook at the same time.  But we also have to know how to work the system.  This is becoming important right now, since he might conceivably do high school level work in more than just Algebra I in the next year or two.   

So here I am, reading, reading, reading, googling, googling, googling, immersed in a strange world of "credits" and "transcripts" and "course descriptions". It seems like there are two common responses to high school in the homeschool.  The first is to go the traditional route -- sign up with a curriculum provider, focus on academics, add in a hefty dose of extracurricular activities.  The other response seems to be along the lines of, who needs college? Think apprenticeships, exploring interests.  But I have seen glimmers of a middle way, and I think that is the path we want to trod.  "Practical bookishness," as David and Micki Colfax named it. Should a teenager read Homer? Yes. Should he be able to build a chicken coop, fix a car, and/or make himself dinner? Yes. Should he be able to draw as many imaginary creatures as he wants, write novels instead of papers, and read stacks and stacks of science fiction novels to the exclusion of all else?  Well... yes and no. (And I say this AS an SFF writer who wrote novels and read stacks of SFF mainly during class as a teenager.) If a twelve year old says he wants to be an astrobiologist when he grows up (yes, an astrobiologist), or an archaeologist, or a paleontologist (as well as a dad), how does one prepare him for that?

So here's where the research comes in.   Right now I'm just becoming educated about the big picture.  How does a homeschooler apply to college? What do colleges want from homeschoolers? What's a credit, and how do you put together a transcript? Will it be better to sign up with a traditional curriculum provider starting in 7th grade or to go our own way?  Through all this, I'm thinking about our philosophy, our faith, and -- most importantly -- what will benefit Gareth. And if homeschooling Gareth has taught me nothing else, it's that nothing we do will fit into anybody else's holes. If there are square pegs and round holes -- we're trapezoids.    

(Since this post has gotten really long, and because it's now time to run downstairs to grab some green beans for dinner, I'll list some of the resources I've found so far in another post... hopefully before next weekend!)

 

Winter Term: Weeks 3,4, and 5, or Cabin Fever Hits and I say, "No TV".

Weeks 3, 4, and 5 are being lumped together as cabin fever weeks.  I think we did actually do something, and I have a few pictures to prove it, but mainly winter insanity took over.

This week (week 5) ended up a little better than I expected, after a disastrous Monday on which I informed my husband that I was going to pack the kids up myself and head south for a month or two, just so the three year olds would be able to GO OUTSIDE.  The twins have broken every Christmas present that can be broken.  Every time I go outside to feed the chickens I come back in to find that they have been throwing Duplos as "bombs". Invariably, this means that the living room looks like a bomb has gone off in it.  They have completely demolished the laundry room (we haven't replaced the fifth gate to be broken in two years), the hallway, and their bedroom (daily).  They hit each other with wooden blocks, light sabres, and anything else that can be pressed into service as a weapon.  Of course, it's easy to focus on the twins because they're usually the loudest, but really, all of the kids have been a bit out of sorts. (Cough.) On this particular Monday, every single time I opened my mouth to read, Chipmunk and at least one of the twins would be involved in a punching, hitting, kicking wrestling match on the floor. There were more tantrums than I care to mention, and my older kids were not helping.  Thus, the threat. Sensing things had gone a little farther than normal, my dear husband met me at the optometrist's office so we wouldn't all have to stuff into the small waiting room, and he took the other kids to Home Depot where he bought me a plant.

So I did not pack off after all (although my mother called on Friday offering to fly up here and drive down with us so Andy could stay here and work, an offer I may just accept.) What I did was to take away TV time in the morning.  I had to do this with Gareth, too, a long time ago.  No TV time in the morning, no background music during the day, no media period. Not even Bach.  Too much screen time, too much noise = too much hyperactivity. But, being a sluggish riser, I had wanted a babysitter for the mornings.  TV as a morning babysitter was doing more harm than good, though, and the rest of the week saw a vast improvement over Monday. I haven't revoked all TV, but it's down to 30 minutes a day, in the afternoon.

Because I said "no TV" in the mornings, I am also having to deal with my own screen-time habits, namely computer use.  I used to get online while the boys watched TV, but since saying, "No TV," I thought I probably ought to tell myself, "No computer," too.  Revoking my own online priveleges in the morning means I'm less distracted about getting the day going, and I can hop right on it if the boys start revving up.  I find it immensely difficult to be "on" all day like this -- considering that sometimes the boys open their eyes and immediately start climbing all over their beds and hanging off the bed rails, hooting and pretending to be monkeys, and when they do go down for a nap is the only time my older three can concentrate on academics, and Chipmunk will only nap on me, and then it's time to start dinner -- but it is introducing some sanity to our days.

But enough of my winter woes and on to some actual accomplishments.

• We finished studying ancient India and moved on to ancient Africa. There isn't a whole lot of information on ancient Africa for kids, so we are mostly focusing on folk tales.  (For ancient India, we also focused heavily on fairy tales and the Ramayana.  I should post some book lists.)

• We started learning about caves.  We watched Mysterious Life of Caves - NOVA and were all suitably disgusted and amazed by the formations eloquently named "snottites", which look like... well, you can probably figure it out.  They're formed by bacteria which produce sulfuric acid.

• In an ironic twist of fate, just when I had given up on the Montessori materials because I had to put them all away to keep Chipmunk from scattering them everywhere, the little boys decided that they really wanted to use all the sensorial stuff I have tucked away in the linen closet. This week (week 5) the boys used the color boxes, the geometric solids, the knobbed cylinders, and the constructive triangles.  Chipmunk just loves putting objects in containers and putting the lids on them.

• Gareth was awarded Tenderfoot rank at a Boy Scout ceremony.

• Gareth and Katydid started swimming lessons.

• Katydid wrote and delivered a five minute speech on the life of St. Agnes.

• I started long picture book reading sessions with the little boys after lunch.

• Katydid read aloud Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone -- the entire book -- to Farmerboy (and the rest of us.)   

• And everyone did math.

To make a long post even longer, how about some pictures?

The kids set up a pet village in the family room.

Katydid, concentrating on writing her speech.

 

Pip is a robot.  Every game the twins play -- farm, dogs, monkeys -- ends up with an evil robot.

 

Andy and Gareth fixed the dishwasher when it broke.

 

Gareth drew more of his invented animals.  This one is based on the marbled cat, which he read about in an old Scientific American.

 

I'm not sure what this one is based on.

 

Drawing maps has also been big around here lately.  Gareth likes to draw maps of the worlds he uses in stories.  He's been working on this map for a while, but this week he started a new map as a collaboration with Katydid and Farmerboy.  The kids have an intricate world system they've formed over the years.  It has its own languages, geography, creatures, planets, cultures, mythologies, and economies. I am privy to some of it, but not all of it. I like watching them map their imaginations. 

St. Ignatius' Prayer for Generosity

St. Ignatius' Prayer for Generosity

 

Lord, teach me to be generous.
Teach me to serve you as you deserve;
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labor and not to ask for reward,
save that of knowing that I do your will.

 

I used to have this prayer on my refrigerator.  I don't know where it came from, but it appeared at a time when Gareth's Tourette Syndrome related problems were at their height.  He's come a long way since those days, but I find myself wishing that this prayer was still on my refrigerator door.  I went looking for it today, and thought I would send it out to other mothers of kids with behavioral disabilities.  I said a prayer for you today, too.

Seven Quick Takes #2

Visit Jen at Conversion Diary for more Quick Takes!

One

Once a month shopping.  I first encountered this concept when Kim mentioned it.  Living out here in the boondocks with four of our six kids age 5 and under, once a month shopping sounds like a good deal.  So I started a thread on 4Real asking about it.  The consensus seems to be that 1) it may not save you as much money as it is supposed to, versus shopping store sales; 2) storage space is the biggest problem, especially when you are buying large quantities for large families; and 3) there's no way that we can freeze enough milk to last a month.  (Our family goes through about a gallon of milk a day -- sometimes more.)  On the other hand... only having to do the grocery shopping 12 times a year?  Priceless.  So my current plan is to investigate Amazon for certain non-perishable items that we can order in bulk and see if we can stretch our shopping to at least every two weeks. 

Two

Vitamix blenders.  I'm wondering if I can cobble together enough birthday and Christmas money to buy a reconditioned one.  I'm wondering if having a better blender (one that doesn't smell like an electrical fire when I turn it on) will make the thought of whipping up a smoothie in the morning a thought that does not inspire dread.  I'm wondering if it would make canning easier next year.  I'm wondering if I'd use it if I bought it or if it would be like the elliptical we bought a few years ago which currently resides in our bedroom where it functions as a jungle-gym and safety hazard. I have to confess that I think one of the Vitamix's coolest uses is to make cold compost.

Three

Breakfasts.  Toast is not cutting it anymore.  Gareth and Katydid put their own breakfasts together (although I have to remind Katydid that a bowl of pineapple is not breakfast), but I'm wondering... is there a point at which it is easier to just make everybody eat the same thing at the same time, like lunch?  This is probably a silly question, but I am asking it because I am really NOT a good morning person.  I need a little time to wake up before thinking about civilized things like breakfasts that consist of more than bread and peanut butter, eaten on the couch while watching Curious George.  But I do wonder if asking three small people what they want for breakfast instead of saying, "This is what we're all eating!" is shooting myself in the foot.  I think at one point I actually had the kids sit at the table, too, but sleep deprivation has robbed me of those memories.

Four

Lunches.  It turns out that Chipmunk is one of those weird kids who actually likes food with taste -- you know, like spaghetti with sauce?  Crazy, I know.  But he won't eat any of the food I habitually make for the other kids, who mainly oppose food with taste as a matter of principle.  Our lunch list looks like this: plain buttered noodles; tortellini (surprise -- they will eat spinach tortellini); cheese quesadillas (hold the jalapenos); cheese sandwiches; the occasional leftover lasagna, roast beef, or roast chicken.  That's about it.  I don't buy deli meat, hot dogs, prepared chicken nuggets, or frozen pizza anymore... although there are times when I wish I did.  But we've been trying to weed food additives, etc. out of our diet for the past several years.  Just yesterday our eye doctor mentioned that we might try getting rid of salicylates (think apples, among other fruits) to see if that affected Katydid's headaches.  I sighed.  Getting rid of salicylates is a major part of the Feingold diet... and the part we've found hardest.  In other areas of the country, substitutes for staples like apple juice -- pear juice, say -- are easy to come by, but not here, and certainly not in the kind of quantity we're talking about.  BHT,TBHQ, vanillin, and dyes are relatively easy to avoid once you know what to look for, but it doesn't always mean it's easy avoiding them.  There are times when I think, why, why, can't I just buy some egg nog for Pete's sake? And cereal?  Why is it necessary to add petroleum products to my children's breakfast cereal???  Ahem.

Aside from the soapboxing, lunches are kind of boring around here. 

Five

Winter coats. (Bet you thought I was going for a food theme, didn't you?  Alas, I am not that good.) As usual I'm behind on this one, but I finally found last year's bag o'coats and snow pants in the basement, just in time for our 20 degree weather.  And -- oh, happy day! -- it turns out that nobody needs a new coat this year.  Although Pip was a bit miffed when I allowed Pop to wear Farmerboy's old car print coat.  "Where's the other car coat?" he asked, reminding me that twins view the world just a bit differently.

Six

Speaking of twins... I keep waiting for them to outgrow the "destructive phase".  But three of their favorite games right now are called "Damage", "Whammo", and "Cannonball".

Seven

You know, I think of these "quick takes" all week long, and now my mind is a complete blank.  So I will just leave you to contemplate the fact that Farmerboy mistook the word "fudge" for "smudge" the other day, and now "smudge" (a concoction of cream, butter, and chocolate) is an official part of our lexicon.  It's funny how fast that happens. A child utters something cute, and ten seconds later everyone else in the family is saying, "Have you had any smudge yet?  Would you like some smudge?  No, thank you, I've already had a piece of smudge," and it's like the word fudge never existed.

 

Logistics makes my head hurt

I just wanted to say: I have hit a wall.  Any woman with six children should be able to buy executive functioning (the part of your brain that helps you plan stuff) over the counter when she needs it.  You know, like vitamins.  Say, when she is trying to prepare for a vacation and a new school term at the same as she is researching the probability that her twin toddlers have sensory integration difficulties and she is also trying to decide whether or not to bring all or only some of the tomatoes in, because the forecast changes every fifteen minutes.  In this scenario, without supplemental executive functioning, she is likely to give pride of place to the tomatoes.

My wonderful husband bought me a fancy new laptop to replace the one I burnt out at the beginning of the summer.  This fancy new laptop came with Windows Calendar, which I am using to make up a schedule for our fall term.  My goal is to start up again on September 22.  I'm not sure we're going to make it that long, considering that my kids are reacting to this "break" the way they react to all breaks -- in other words, not very well.  But I still have a few things to do.  Like clean off the table.  And the hearth, which is full of potatoes and onions.

But back to Windows Calendar.  I like it, but I am not using it in the way that its authors intended.  I started out by using a day to make Gareth his own schedule.  Gareth's schedule is easy.  Gareth likes to work independently.  He does not like anyone hovering over him while he does his work.  This means that all I need to do is give him the books, let him know what my expectations are, and spend about thirty minutes or less going over his work when he's done with it.  After we get past the rocky adjusting-to-the-new-routine period, my responsibilities overseeing his education are not that hard.

After I did Gareth's schedule, I went on to Katydid's.  Here I ran into trouble.  Katydid will be in the fourth grade this year, and she does not always do well when asked to work independently.  She needs me to work with her in a few subjects, most notably math and Latin.  It should be easy to work two subjects into my day, right?

Um.  Have I mentioned that I've been researching sensory integration issues with the twins?  It's gotten to the point lately that I can't do much else when they're awake but be with them.  If I try to read aloud, even while they're eating, one or both of them will yell, fight, throw blocks, dump toys, hassle the baby, and just generally make it impossible for me to read.  (By now I'm pretty good at reading over and around chaos.  Believe me when I say they are making it impossible to read.)  Behavior of this general sort goes on all day.  The boys have always been just a little MORE than your average kid: MORE intense, MORE active.  But lately it has escalated to the level of breakdown -- which would be mine and Andy's, thank you very much. 

Anyway, the sensory integration road is no stranger to us, although when we have trod it in the past it's been for sensory defensiveness, not sensory-seeking.  Still, I know the drill: behavior improves when appropriate activity is built into their day.  In the case of sensory-seekers, a lot of jumping, swinging, heavy lifting, pushing, pulling, stuff with weight to it. 

Okay, so when the twins are awake, I need the older kids to be very independent.  What about when the twins are asleep?

By the time the twins go to sleep, I'm shot.  I need a break.  And, oh yeah, Chipmunk naps in twenty minute intervals in the afternoon.

Sometimes it feels as if my day is a special needs roulette wheel.  We'll just give it a spin and see what turns up next.  Sensory defensiveness?  Got that.  Sensory seeking?  Got that, too.  Visual processing problems?  Yep.  ADHD? Yep.  ADD without the H? Oh, yeah.  Tourette Syndrome?

Now, where does math go?  Windows Calendar doesn't seem to have a function for this.

         

Sticker Stories

Yesterday while the big kids and I were working on the dining/living room according to plan, the little ones amused themselves by raiding my store of scrapbooking stickers.  Since I haven't actually done any scrapbooking in a long time, I'd set the stickers out in the art cabinet for the kids.  Pip and Pop put a few stickers on some construction paper and lost interest (heading outside to the fenced yard), but Farmerboy was busy for most of the morning creating these two sticker stories.

If you click on the pictures, you can see some of the detail.  One of the penguins is catching a fish with a lollipop.  The penguin whose back is turned is saying, "I give up!" -- because he didn't catch any fish.  "Home Cooking" is supposed to say (according to Farmerboy): "Home Camping".  (The piece of paper is covering up his name, which he spelled with letter stickers).  Every sticker he placed had a story to go along with it.  Not only was this art, but also language arts and a great fine motor activity.  When Gareth was about the same age ( 5), he was also very interested in stickers.  Back then(before blogs), I did scrapbook, and Gareth and I would work together in the afternoons while Katydid napped.  At the time, the early childhood program wanted to put him in occupational therapy as well as speech, but since the therapists seemed overly concerned about the use of scissors to the exclusion of all else, we decided to do our occupational therapy at home for a while.  Stickers worked wonders (for speech, too). 

Of course, the problem with stickers is that you run out of them.  So now that I have had these stickers hanging around the house for years, I am suddenly left with a sticker deficit and no craft or scrapbook store within less than an hour's drive.  I guess "Cruise Internet for stickers" will have to go on that To Do list for today as well -- gee, what a chore! ;-)

 

Singing the praises of developmental optometry

The biggest event of our week was Farmerboy's very first eye exam ever (which was why we went out on Tuesday).  In February, a few weeks before we left on our long vacation, Farmerboy started receiving physical therapy for what appeared to be some bilateral and gross motor issues: going up and down stairs, bringing both hands together to catch, pedaling a bike, etc.  When I mentioned these issues to our developmental optometrist, he said, "Well, we'll have him go down our stairs here, and I'll watch him."  He ran Farmerboy through the standard vision test, then had him work a wooden puzzle.  While he was working the puzzle, the doctor put a pair of glasses on him.  He worked a little faster.  Then the doctor played bean bag catch with him, with and without glasses.  He caught better with the glasses. Next came the big test: stairs.  Farmerboy hesitated at the top of the big staircase, tentatively put one foot down, then the next on the same tread.  Once he was securely on that tread, he repeated the process: stick one foot slowly down until it hits the tread, bring the other down to meet it.  Stick one foot slowly out...

"That's not a PT issue," Doctor F. said immediately.  He had Farmerboy come back up and slid a pair of glasses onto his nose.  With the glasses on, Farmerboy walked much less hesitantly down the stairs, and then ran back up the steps, alternating feet, no hand on the handrail.

My eyes practically popped out of my head.  "I've never seen him do that before.  He never runs up stairs like that!"

Farmerboy grinned.  "I ran up the stairs, Mommy. Much faster than Gareth."

The doctor nodded.  "He's got some problems with depth perception.  The reason he's a little tentative about the stairs is that he doesn't know exactly where the next one is.  I think your therapist will find that with the glasses, his PT issues will clear up within a month."

Now then.  I have to contrast this visit with visits I have made to pediatric optamologists, who will only do the standard eye exam and tell me my kids see fine, even though they're complaining to me that letters jump around on the page, they're squinting and rubbing their eyes, or they're having problems going down stairs.  With Gareth and Katydid, I beat my head against the wall of traditional eye doctors for a long time, but it was a visit to the developmental optometrist that resulted in actual improvements for both of them.  Gareth, after vision therapy, has improved the most dramatically, probably because he had the most problems: tracking, focusing, and peripheral vision among them.  After vision therapy, he can read a long book cover to cover; he can copy words and math problems from books without having a huge meltdown; and in general, he's a lot happier.  And yet, I had one doctor tell me that his eyes would "take him to Harvard" and if he was having trouble reading, I should "hire a tutor."

But the frustrating experiences of his older brother and sister have at least borne fruit for Farmerboy (and his younger siblings, in their time).  We could have spent months and months trying to work out Farmerboy's "issues" in a PT setting and getting a whole lot of nowhere.  We might have frustrated him and ourselves.  He might have become convinced that he just wasn't "good" at anything requiring depth perception, when the real problem was his eyes, not his muscles.  Our developmental optometrist advises that children be seen around the age of five (if you're a homeschooler; age four, if you've got your kids in traditional schools, which are pushing kids to read at ever earlier ages) to catch any vision difficluties before formal lessons (or even informal ones) are begun.

Farmerboy is happy with his glasses.  He probably won't have to wear them for more than a year.  And now he can run up stairs, just like his older brother.

To learn more about developmental optometry, visit the optometrists' network.   Or read this article reprinted from the journal Latitudes.