A Bewitchingly Ordinary Life!

A week has come and gone for David in his new adventure.   It has been interesting testing the waters and finding the groove that works for him.  One of the aspects often of Autism is the need for routine.  Without it, David seems to have more meltdowns, he becomes anxious. So I decided to have a routine from the time he got up until we were finished with the focused learning for the day. Our schooling day looks something like this: *Wake-up & breakfast *Dressed & teeth brushed [I find it works best if he "officially" still gets dressed to "go"] *Free time until 7:30am, then school is in session! *Daily free reading time [from a variety of science, social studies, or history books.] *Math time [which includes 2 lessons from a workbook and chalkboard work. *Science which is a mix of reading lessons, written work, and lab. *Social Studies *Language Arts [which includes writing & spelling.  Often this crosses over with science & social studies...

These last couple of months have been one of reflection, evaluation, research, and most of all a heart for my children.  I would have never dreamed how very precious, unique, and different 2 children could be.  How what works for one does not for the other.  One child will remain in public school, while the other child will be homeschooled!  Years ago I blogged about our one room schoolhouse.  Mainly it was done during the summer time time when regular school was out.  I was working then so that's the only time I had plus it kept the boys busy.  Now I am so thrilled that I'll be able to actually homeschool in "real school time". 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 know I've shared before how my children love Earth Day, and they love crafts!  Especially my youngest son Aaron.  He's the resident artist.  You could buy him crayons, tablets, paints, anything artsy, during every shopping trip and he'd be perfectly happy. Well for Earth Day, after having made recycled paper with their Bill Nye kit, he decided he wanted to make it for his class.  Then we read you could add flower seeds into it! So that's what we did.  They simply have to plant the biodegradable paper, keep it moist, and watch it grow!  We printed out a cute quote from "The Lorax" with planting instructions and put it all in a ziplock bag.  He will hand it out on Earth Day! You can easily make recycled paper.  Just Google "easy paper making" or something similar.  You really don't need much. And it's a cheap craft!   Essentially you need: Paper [newspaper, tissue paper, construction paper, copy paper] Big bowl wat...

We love Earth Day in our home!  Especially when the boys can get messy. learn something new, and help save the trees! All week Aaron has been reading me his library book The Lorax.  And we've been watching the old school 1972 cartoon of the book. They both really get the idea of speaking for nature because "trees have no tongues".  Our good friends Brooke and Mitch gave the boys a Bill Nye Paper Recycling Factory.  So this past week, we worked on recyling old paper into new!     The process is easy, but time consuming.  And you can do so much with it. During this first run we recycled  a lot of our old tissue paper we've had put up from past gifts.  They were perfect colors, green and white! From making the pulp, to grinding, to using deckles, to drying, the boys LOVED it! And we talked about what else we can do next time we make a batch.  We're going to make biodegradable wildflower paper! Making up the pulp and adding in a wi...