Homeschooling Week 05

Homeschooling Week 05 Art
Originally uploaded by sandiesry
More of Ben's Work

The week went by fast this week. Tuesday we went to Buckner Elementary and Ben got a tour of the Special Ed room. He was very impressed with the smart board and said that he would like to go to school in that room. The speech teacher did some screenings and I should hear from Valerie in about a week. Then she will come to our house to observe Ben doing his school work here and then write up her evaluation and set up whatever therapy is needed.

Thursday Ben had his bi-weekly behavioral therapy with Brandi, but Rick was freaked out that Brandi's office is now at a new location and made us leave 30 minutes early even though I told him that I knew where it was approximately. So we sat and waited for 35 minutes before Ben got to go back for his appointment. Waiting and Ben are not good combinations. New office and Ben just made it worse. He was rude and told Brandy that he wanted to go home and refused to talk to her. So that was a wasted appointment and trip.

Ben has been complaining about stomach and leg pain since we put him on the Prozac and the complaints are daily since we put him on the Abilify. He's also complaining of head aches, blurred vision, and I've noticed that his hands twitch in his sleep a lot.

We are still getting school work done. Ben still says he hates it. With all of the new symptoms he thinks that he may be allergic to school work. He says that moving objects do not blur the way letters do so he can play his computer games.

This week he is reading "My Dog Ate My Homework! 160 Laugh Out Loud Poems" by Bruce Lansky and he really seems to be liking it. He doesn't give me any hassle about reading it for 15 -20 minutes per day. We are listening to the audio recording of Lemony Snicket's "The Penultimate Peril" and he really likes that. He puts together Legos for an hour while he listens to the story. We both love audio books with actors portraying the different characters and music added to the story. There are so may classics that are on audio cds that it is easier and more enjoyable for us to get those from the library instead of me straining my voice an hour or more every day reading to him. It adds a lot to his vocabulary. I am not doing vocabulary lessons other than "Word Girl" and "Martha Speaks." Both are wonderful PBS shows that stress vocabulary. Ben picks up vocabulary in the reading of classics and in all of his other subjects lessons.

We didn't get a copy of Kenneth Branagh's "Much Ado About Nothing" until today so we are watching that to finish up our study of Shakespear from last week. We are finally moving on past just copy work in our Language lessons and are studying the mechanics of poetry. Our copy work was actually dividing up the poem "To Market" by A.A. Milane into stanzas for us to see.

We were amazed to find that the Mid-Continent Library has no children's books about Octopuses that have diagrams of their bodies. We need that to finish our research report on Octopuses for his Writing lessons. I've got to do some digging for that this weekend.

Ben reads his Bible for 15 minutes daily and I'm using Karen Henley's Day by Day Children's Bible and her Sword Fighting Devotions together. Each week we study Bible stories about a character quality. This week it was about believing in ourselves and in God. Another week it was about truthfulness and it goes on with a new trait every week. We are also studying Karen Hill's Bible Journal that teaches how to pray and how to keep track of our requests in a Bible Journal.

Ben says he hates school work, but once he starts doing it he seems to learn and enjoy what he is learning so I think we are doing great so far. Soon we'll be adding Occupational Therapy, some type of small group therapy, and I don't know what, if anything, else at the school. I feel good about how things are going. I'm just worried about the side affects Ben is suffering from with the medication. So many side affects with so little improvement to the frequency and duration of his melt downs. We go to see Ben's psychiatrist at the end of this month.