A dream realized! Finally our one room school house!
So on the subject of two siblings being so different: I have my feisty, fierce, stubborn, sensitive, loving, and extroverted 7 year old, Aaron. He does not like being alone! From birth, he knew, I mean he KNEW when I stepped out of the room. Instant screaming. The child had GREAT lungs! I remember at just a few months old when they still haven't developed that cognitive ability to realize that out of sight doesn't mean gone forever, he had to be in the bouncer in the bathroom when I showered. In the kitchen when I cooked, basically he was like Visa, everywhere that I wanted to be!
He also needed some one to interact a lot more with him. And even if not, he just wanted to know someone was in the same room.
This is why public school has always worked so well for him. Lots of other children. Lots going on! On Saturdays when no one else can play, the kid is lost! He has a hard time playing alone.
Even though he's excited about summer break, he's already talking about wanting to go to a camp. I don't think we'll be able to afford it sadly. He's already lonely thinking of no kids to play with!
David on the other hand, is much more introverted. He's sweet, thoughtful, academic minded, black and white in his thinking. Though he did like to have me there as a baby. He was fine if I walked into the other room. He found things to keep himself busy. To this day, if company comes over, he often goes to his room first for awhile. To adjust, to feel more in control, and then he comes out when he's comfortable. He rarely wants to play outside if everyone is out there. He'll play for a bit with his brother and then he's tapped out. Much of this is because of the Autism. Which also makes it hard to filter out any stimulation from noise to people. He takes things to heart. He doesn't understand joking and sarcasm from other children. He's often overwhelmed and overstimulated by the time he would get home from his day. It was a battle from the get go at night to do homework on top of that.
There are quite a few factors that went into our decision to pull David and home school him. Some are personal and those that need to know, do. IN short, we saw a downward spiral in him for a long time and feel this is the best decision currently. We are always open to the what the future holds, but for now, this is a great time for him to decompress, to have the one on one that he needs. To regain control of some of the out of control behaviors. To work on skills that he had and has lost.
He is excited! I am excited.
As we go into our first official week, we are diving in with enthusiasm.
Friday was the first official day. We started it by doing the normal mathematics, language arts, science, and social studies. We took a field trip to our local botanical gardens [Bok Tower] and I had a list of questions he needed to investigate to find out the answers. It went along with a unit they had started in his class room on land forms, so I decided to stick with that for this coming week and piggy back on it.
He learned that the tower itself was built on the 2nd highest point in Florida known as Iron Mountain because of it's abundance of hematite. He learned of 3 flowers or flowering shrubs native to that area. He learned that the gardens have a mixture of landforms from hills to prairies. As a mater of fact, he wants to go back this week to learn more! I love that!
To continue learning about landforms, this week will cover erosion and river systems and the types of landforms they have and can create over the many millions and thousands of years. Bill Nye has some great videos to supplement this as well. Many of which you can watch on YouTube.
This week, our first full week, we are going to dive into Florida History for social studies and may make a trip to the Florida Grove House to learn about how orange juice is made.
He's also going to learn about the Seminole Indigenous people who lived here before it was a state.
Some of these lessons will be a crossover into Language Arts since it of course involves reading, writing, and vocabulary. Plus will be finishing up a story called Tara's Terrarium.
His spelling list will focus on the Y to I change in words that become plural.
Mathematics will be focusing on wrapping up time telling and elapsed time as we start a new unit on measuring through liquid volume. I'm looking forward to this because I've incorporated a hands on unit to help him understand this. We are going to be making "Pioneer" bread. He'll have to follow a recipe and then answer mathematics based questions concerning it. This is a link to the recipe and questions if you want to use it for your own schoolroom ;)
Pioneer Spelt Flour Dutch Oven Bread
For music and art education we are going to focus on Mozart this week. He has been asking some questions about him and he loves classical music so that will be a perfect place to start. I want to do a project combining the art and music this week, but I'm still working on that aspect! However I think I am leaning toward letting him free paint while several pieces are playing to compare and contrast how music may affect our mood. Do we paint faster when the the tempo is Allegro. Do you paint slower, with different colors when it is Andante?
Do you hear the bell ringing? That's the sound of the Gouge one room school house that I wrote about so long ago, finally being in session for a real academic school year! Wish us luck! This should be an interesting journey!
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