I apparently like to have blogs for all of my different hobbies & interests. I figure it’s an easier way to keep things organized and let people choose what part of our lives they want to stalk. So, if you’re reading here, this would be our homeschooling blog!
I kind of follow more along the lines of letting little kids play and explore life and learn that way. I’m not real big into preschool, or much official teaching of anything, until they are a little older. Reason being, it can help their comprehension be greater, if you wait a little bit longer…
That all being said, I’ve recently started having more official schooling of the kids. They needed more stuff to do to occupy their minds, so this is what we’re doing, and they love it!
Right now, here’s where we stand with what they know so far…
EMMA: She just turned 8 years old. She is a bit more challenging than average in that she has a hearing impairment (moderate to severe hearing loss), making it difficult for her to hear all the different sounds, even with her hearing aids. She is also at a slight disadvantage in that she didn’t receive hearing aids (more like she wouldn’t keep them on) until she was 18 months old. She has stayed about 18 months behind when it comes to speech/communication. Due to those reasons, we put her at about 6.5 years old when we gauge what she should be learning.
She is using Hooked on Phonics and is at Kindergarten level reading. It’s been great for speech therapy too. We can focus on all the sounds, and she’s working on making ones she has never made before. She has a submous cleft palate, which causes speech issues, added to hearing issues, which together can create a bit of a challenge for her. She’s done great, though. She has the concept of reading down now, and she learns quickly and remembers for the most part. Like I said, she’s at Kindergarten level (I’m thinking it’s Level 2).
Another challenge she faces is that of her blood counts! If you’re reading this, your most like a family or friend and know about her anemia issues, if you happen to be someone else, Emma has a disease that causes bone marrow failure. When her hemoglobin is low, she has a much harder time thinking and processing information. It has made teaching her be quite challenging at times, and we have taken big breaks to not push her too much. Luckily, with the meds helping her hemoglobin, she is much more alert and very smart!
TS: He just turned four. I have done very little with teaching him anything “official”. We sing the alphabet song, count to 20, and that’s about it. He has learned to recognize his letters mostly on his own with a tiny bit of help from me on occasion. I was surprised once to point letters out and for him to know most of them (he knows them all now). We don’t have TV channels or any learning shows, unless you consider Blue’s Clues to be one.
I’ve been doing learning activities since Monday with him. We bought a DVD called “Leap Frog: Letter Factory”, and he has gone from not knowing the sounds the letters make to knowing them all, only missing three, then remembering them when I told him. I was quite surprised at how fast he learned!
VIOLET: She is almost 2.5 years old. We aren’t really working on teaching her anything! She has to participate because her siblings are doing fun stuff, and she wants to too. She enjoys gluing, using scissors, drawing circles, etc. She is quite a smart little pickle, though, we aren’t purposefully trying to teach her anything at the moment…just learning through play and living life.
I’ll probably be updating our blog with activities and things they are doing daily. For now, this is just a quick summary of what they know thus far… It’s fun that they are getting older and more at an age to teach. It’s also been interesting to see the difference between teaching a child with issues that make it challenging for her vs teaching one that doesn’t.