No. I haven't fallen off the face of the planet, but I have been busy! We went on a vacation to Yellowstone (and I took over 800 pictures!!) and since we've returned, we've been trying to come to some decisions regarding schooling for our youngest son. He is special needs, as I've talked about before. Obviously I would love to homeschool (as I already do my oldest son), but ultimately I want to do what is best for my boys. I've been searching and searching to find a place to take Lucas to therapy that would be covered by my insurance. I finally hit the jackpot!
We haven't been yet (our first appointment is on Tuesday), but I'm really crossing my fingers that they can offer us the help we've been looking for. School also starts on Tuesday, but neither of my boys will be getting up and heading out the door. We've decided that I will give homeschooling both of them a try and see how it goes. My feelings are that Lucas being gone approximately 8 hours a day for kindergarten and then us driving about 45 minutes one way for therapy, have a session, then drive home would just be too much. Of course, I could take him during school hours, but I don't think the school system would like him missing school so often. Obviously I have no clue how often he will have therapy yet, but considering his developmental pediatrician has recommended occupational and speech therapy, I'm assuming it would be at least once a week.
So, I've been busy, busy trying to prep for our new normal. I was trying to get the homeschool room done already, but the decision to have both boys home made me move a little faster. I know that I need to be as organized as possible so that I can use our time each day wisely. I'm so, so excited to be mostly done with the school room!! I still need to hang our calendar and do a few final things with filing and such, but I'm pleased with the results!
I took some pictures, but it was after 10 PM and dark, and they just didn't turn out so great. They are a little blurry, but after spending about 7 hours down there today, I was too tired to go attempt taking them again. :-)
Let me give you a tour!!
This is looking down the hall into the schoolroom from the playroom. I just hung our world map in the hall because it was so big and I don't have a whole lot of open wall space in the schoolroom.
Here is my new homeschool cabinet. We bought this from a military family that bought it in Germany. It comes apart into two large pieces, which made it nice for transporting! It only had two shelves on the inside, so my husband added more.
We decided to go with a system that will allow me to move the shelves around if I want to and I love it!! I'm really excited about having it more organized than I have in years past!
Above the bookshelf, I'm planning on hanging a clothesline of sorts to hang the boys artwork.
Close up of the bookshelf. I haven't filled this yet, but I (or my husband, really) did move all the books down from the over-flowing bookshelf in Logan's room. I'm going to love having all these educational books in the same room as us (the chapter books are all still in Logan's room). Before when were doing school at the dining room table and wanted something, we'd have to go up a flight of stairs to get it. It got tiring and annoying!!
We got the corner desk on Craigslist and I love it!! Also got the filing cabinet on Craigslist. I have some plans for it, but that will have to wait a bit.
I'm going to hang our calendar on the wall above the little white bookshelf. Since we have to change things out on it often and I can't really laminate it, I'm going to try something new with it this year. I had been using that sticky putty stuff to hang it, but it didn't work very well and would fall. I'm afraid if I just use push pins that it may rip. So, Costco has a large dry erase board that is magnetic and I'm hoping that I can put that on the wall and then use magnets to hang our calendar up. I'll have to measure it and find out.
So, that's it. What do you think? I'm so excited that it's hard not to go wake the boys to try out our new room. :-)
Saturday, September 3, 2011
So excited!!
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10 Comments:
It looks awesome! I think you will have so much fun!
Looks amazing Candi! WTG!!!!
I love it! Looks great!
Hey Candi - your homeschooling space looks awesome! As a former public school teacher, I did have one question though...you said about Lucas's therapy and thinking that he shouldn't miss time from regular kindergarten to go to it. If there are services that L needs based on an IEP, he should be able to receive them free of charge to you via the public school district & incorporated into his regular day, thus not really detracting from his educational day & not causing you to drive 1.5hr out of your way to get him there. Anyway, I'm not trying to sway you or make you change your mind about homeschooling him, but I just wanted to make sure to throw that out there, too, in case no one had made it clear to you. You are a great mom to your boys :)
Looks great Candi! I've homeschooled all 4 of my kids and am finally down to the last 2 (with Katie almost done), and I can say the key is organization. Teaching multiple ages can seem daunting, but it sure helps to be organized and have everything in one room. Congrats to you, and have a fun year! :)
Thanks, Teri. Problem is, I live in a district that is known to be difficult. His IEP states he would get speech therapy. They don't seem to care what his doctor says he needs. I am actually fairly certain that. He can still get speech therapy through the district even if I homeschool him. I'm looking into doing the speech, but ALS adding in occupational and possibly behavioral.
Ahh, well that makes sense - I hope they will still be able to provide services for you. Technically they should when you consider that private school students (I would consider a home school a private school) are entitled to the same services as public school students...after all, you're paying taxes whether your child goes to the school or not. Please keep us posted - I am interested in how it all pans out!
Sorry about my typos. I was responding on my iPad. :-)
I contacted someone with the district and they returned my call on Friday afternoon and I wasn't home. I'll have to try again tomorrow (or Wednesday, since I'll be taking Lucas to his appt. tomorrow). I spoke to student services and they said he could get 1 hour of speech a week, but I'm trying to find out how I go about getting it because they told me to call his base school. I called his base school and they told me that they don't currently have a speech therapist. I'm assuming they must have someone coming in to provide speech for the kids there, but I'm calling higher ups to get it straightened out.
I will keep you all posted. And also, thanks for the compliments on the room. It was a lot of work, especially considering we tore out all the old stuff (including the massive wet bar) and hung the new drywall, etc... I love being in the room because I know we did the work ourselves!
Candi, the space is absolutely amazing. Can not wait to hear how things go as you use it with the kids.
Candi, your homeschooling space looks wonderful. I'm sure the boys will truly enjoy homeschooling and benefit from it greatly. Miss you ~ Mel
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