Special Hearts

I have the wonderful oportunity to go to the CHN Expo again this year. This is my all time FAVORITE Homeschooling Convention anywhere. These wonderful people have captured what all the Expos across the country are searching for: a place of belonging for the Homeschooling Family. Not just the parents, not just the kids, but the family. Karen and Ruth (and I’m sure countless others) have created a destination where Families can get together and encourage each other and be encouraged. I’m so proud to be a part of it! (http://californiahomeschool.net/events/expo/familyexpo.htm)

This convention runs August 1-3, 2008. We take over the Ontario Marriott Hotel (who are wonderful people, by the way). Here’s the scoop from the web site:

The Expo has 150 sessions and activities planned. Download the Expo Schedule now!

Friday sessions begin at 9:00 am. After dinner and shopping, there will be an Ice Cream Social, Jim Weiss story time, Guitar Hero Competition, video improv for the teens, Family Games, and three adult evening sessions, including one that will discuss the legal challenges of 2008. On Friday, the vendor hall hours are 11:30-7:00.

Saturday sessions begin at 8:00 am and after dinner and shopping there will be another Jim Weiss story time, Guitar Hero Face Off, the teen dance, and a CHN member meeting. The vendor hall will be open from 9:00-6:30.

Sunday sessions start at 8:00 am, the used curriculum sale goes from 9:30-3:00, and the high school graduation is at 2:00. The Expo ends at 3:00. It will be a fun and enriching three days from beginning to end. What a great way to start your homeschool year!

If you can swing it at all, stay at the Marriott Hotel. They have special prices (found here: http://californiahomeschool.net/events/expo/accommodations.htm) There is SO much happening that you don’t want to miss and this is defiantly a family affair! Take the time off work, take the kids out of the summer programs and come spend some quality time with other homeschooling families: learning, sharing and growing together. Knowing that you aren’t the only one out there is SO encouraging - and THIS Expo LOVES kids - especially OUR kids! Defiantly one Expo you don’t want to miss.

2 Corinthians 9
Golden Nugget:
The Lord loves a cheerful giver.

The church in Corinth was known for its generosity, yet there was a problem. False teachers had come in and spread around a lot of lies which lead to the Christians there not trusting anyone and thus giving reluctantly. Earlier in both the First and Second letter to the Corinthians, Paul encourages them to make the distinction between true and false teachers. Then Paul continues on to tell them that the Lord loves a cheerful giver.

I’ve always looked at these passages – in particular “cheerful giver” – as more than just monetary giving. I’ve never had much money growing up – mom and dad were both in the ministry and money was just not there. I grew up in hand-me-downs and going out to eat was a twice a year treat. Life was not the easiest, it was simple to say the least! As I strive to give my kids more than I had when I grew up, I find myself in the same situation: life is simple. Not a lot of money – especially right now with my hubby out of work and the recession looming ugly in our future. There isn’t a lot of hope in our lives.
Yet Paul, in his letters to the Corinthians always speaks of hope and joy. And no matter what his circumstances, he is still joyful due to the fact that he continually looks up to our Lord Jesus Christ.

As preachers now a days preach that “You need to give money to my church, you’re spiritual maturity depends on how much money you give to my church”, I have to stop and wonder what Paul would say about these preachers and their methods and their motives. Money is the root of all evil. Unfortunately, that evil has found its way into our churches and that is sad.

Why are churches of today so much different than the first churches? Or are they really? The first churches have lots of examples of how NOT to do things. Just as they have examples of how the Lord would want them to be, Satan got into those churches and corrupted them just as he’s getting into our churches now a day’s and corrupting them too. It starts out just a little bit off. Not much – just a half truth here and a half truth there.

What does Paul preach on? When he goes into the synagogues at the new city he goes into, he preaches on the scriptures – the books of the Bible. So why is it so important that preachers today preach on Topics? Why must we follow the “flow of today” and why do we have to be the “church of today”? Why is the blueprint that the Lord gave us in the New Testament not good enough for the “church of today”? Yes, we have the internet and we can use it to our advantage. But let’s keep to the basics. Let’s teach the meat of the Bible and not the fluff of the world.

Teaching Science to Special Needs Kids can be difficult, however, if you have lots of options, you will succeed! Considering God’s Creation comes in a Workbook format – but don’t let that fool you! This is no “normal” workbook. This workbook is full of information and hands on activities that will keep any kid actively learning everything from how God created the heavens and the earth to how the Human Body was created and how it works. It also covers everything God made in-between the first and sixth days of Creation, including the Universe, the Earth, Rocks and Minerals, Weather and the Plant and Animal Kingdoms.

There are 36 Lessons, but some of the Lessons have multiple ‘sub’ lessons under the main Lesson. Because the Lessons include lots of options in the forms of Vocabulary, Introduction (the research/reading part of the lesson), Song/Poem, Activity, Bible Reading, Notebook work, Evolution Stumpers and Reviews, you the teacher can use what is easy for your child when they are having a bad day or choose to dig in a little deeper when you are having a good day! The choice is yours.

Because my kids love Science so much, we did this everyday! We started this curriculum when my kids were in Kindergarten and 1st Grades. While we completed at least one lesson per week, we completed the whole workbook in one year! We LOVED all the activities and turned most of them into parts of our Lapbooks that we created. This workbook is great for Unit Study folks looking for a “Curriculum” to follow. We also loved how it followed the days of Creation, going into detail with each creation.

I think this would work well with the Classical schoolers as it has a Lesson Plan that you can follow, however, this same feature makes it a little too rigid for most unschoolers that I know. The only thing I can see that would make this “curriculum” more appealing to me is if it were offered as an eBook (a downloadable PDF). This would eliminate shipping costs and bring the cost of the product down even further (no printing costs equals less cost of product).

We loved this “curriculum”. It was a great foundation on which to grow from. I even find myself coming back to it as a reference with our Upper Elementary / Jr High Science! My kids learned that Science is fun and Science is from God. Two important points that I’m glad my kids learned early.
You can look at this “curriculum” here.

Oh what a week! Do you ever notice that when you really, really give it all over to the Lord, that your world comes crashing down around you? My Davie is working SO hard at being a man of God first, then a great husband, dad and working on a ministry. Ian has changed over the past three weeks. Ian is much more calm and SO much more willing to work with me on his schooling. Tori is having some challenges, but hey, you can’t have it all, now can you?

Our small car has been having issues over heating. It finally got to the point where Dave took the Water Pump off and checked it all out. He thought he had it all fixed up. Thought. Skip to Thursday … we go out to take Tori to the Dentist (she has yet another problem with her tooth) and the small car has a flat back tire! Mad switch to take the old suburban (it’s a ’96). We don’t like driving the gas guzzler cause gas is $4.40 per gallon out here in CA. So we get part way down the hill and smell wild fire. What should we do? Go back home where Ian is, or keep going down the hill. (I’m trying so hard to stay calm – my HUGE problem is worry. I worry about everything. So, while Dave is working on Dave, I’m trying to work on my worry and cars breaking down and wild fires are two of my BIGGEST FEARS … worries.) I called Ian and asked him to open the front door. He does and exclaims, “Mom, I smell fire. Not trash fire mom, brush fire.” It takes about 45 min to get off the hill. The middle 30 min are without cell phone coverage. I realized that we were getting to the part of our drive where we will loose cell phone. I go over what to do/ where to go in case of emergency with Ian (getting long “I know mom”, “You already told me this mom” amongst other now forgotten comments!) We hit the 30 min “dark” time and I try SO hard not to worry. Really I do. I pray and look to the sky’s. We finally break through the “dark” zone and I start calling Fire Stations and California Dept of Forestry (they do most of our fire response cause we live out in an unincorporated part of the county.) NO ONE can answer a simple question … where is the stupid fire??? So, we decide we need to get home, but alas … the gas guzzler is on empty! So we must drive the rest of the way into town, fill up and then get back up the hill before our access roads have been closed off to us. I call the Dentist (still trying to remain calm) and let them know that I’m truly sorry, but there is a wild fire somewhere and I have to get back up the hill to get to my son. We need to reschedule some other time. Then I try the fifth (no joke … 5 different phone #’s for different fire stations – anyone I could think of!) I get this nice lady who informs me that, “Oh yes, we have a control burn at Lake Skinner. We have lots of extra engines there to make sure that it doesn’t get out of control. You really should be fine.” I thanked the lady and hung up. Tears were in my eyes as I said a silent prayer of thanks to our Lord. I called the Dentist office, told them about the control burn and asked if we could still come in today as we were about 10 min from them. They said yes and Tori went in and got one baby tooth pulled and a “shard” left over from another baby tooth extracted. Oh, what a day.

Friday, Dave changes the tire on the small car to the spare and drives down to get new tires for the small car. The flat was a total blow out. Praise God it happened while sitting at home and not while driving! Dave makes it home, but the car overheats and spews water from the water pump. Dave takes the old water pump out of the small car so that he can get a replacement at the Auto Store.

Saturday, we all pile into the Suburban with our huge cooler to go down to Temecula to pick up our Angle Food. I’m struggling with not freaking out getting back into a car … did I mention I hate car problems? Ian and I have a few words and Ian gets stressed . Dave stays calm (which is a miracle – not because Dave’s bad person/dad, but because when Ian and I get stressed, it used to send him into stress city too.) I switch places with Ian so that he can sit in the front seat and I take the middle seat. I get car sick in the car on the way down the hill, but we get to the church where they have the Angel Food. We go in and get the food and load it into our cooler in the back of the Suburban. (we had also brought frozen gallon water jugs in there to keep it all cool) Dave starts the car, but it won’t catch. It turns over, but it’s not getting fuel or spark. We don’t know which. We heard a pop when he tried to start it. Ugh. I really can’t believe it. Here I sit for the who knows how many times trying desperately to hang on to my sanity … and grace. We called our neighbor and then called Auto Club. Auto Club towed Dave and the car to the dealership and our neighbor (bless his heart) came down the hill (an hour trip to the church) and picked up me and the kids and our ice chest full of food! Then we headed over to the dealership to pick up Dave.
The service people said that it could be a number of things, from a spark arrestor thingie to the Electric Control Modular. So from a few dollars to just under a thousand (they think) Ugg.
I know that all things work together for those who love the Lord and seek after Him. I’m just not sure why such bad things have to keep happening to us when we actively seek after Him.

Enough whine feast.

Special Needs Kids often need teaching supplements in order to learn/understand what we are teaching them. As homeschooling parents, these are often hard to find and what we do find is full of busy, babyish art work that only distracts our highly distractible kids!

Snap Away Cards© have been designed specifically for the Special Needs Child. The first batch of cards are the Dolch Words that many educators insist are very helpful for our kids to learn. Snap Away Cards© are downloadable eBooks that you print out on your own printer using Business Cards – the kind that come 10 up on an 8 ½ x 11 inch page. You can get a box of these (1000 cards) at Sam’s Club for $5.42!

There are lots of different ways to use the Dolch Words Snap Away Cards©:
• Use as teaching cards: hold your thumb over all but the first letter and let your child pronounce each letter as you move your thumb to show the remaining letters of the word
• Let your child look through all the cards and pick out the ones they know. Start a pile of words they know (Success Words) and another pile of words they still need to work on (Learning Words)
• See web site for further sorting activities
• Use as flash cards for review
• Show your child how to use these words to create a sentence
• Let your child use these words to create a sentence

A very important part of teaching High Functioning Special Needs kids is having options. Options that include different ways of teaching the same thing. That’s one great part of the Snap Away Cards©, the options are endless! Still not sure? Download Level 1 Dolch Snap Away Cards(c) for FREE here. Or you can see the entire Dolch Snap Away Cards(c) here.

Now a days, money is tight and with a Special Needs Child, time is always tight. Before spending any money, make sure to look through our Resource Page. It has lots of links to FREE products and lots of ideas for things that might work with your child. As we all know, each child is different and as such, what works for our child might not work on your child and visa versa. As much as possible, try to test out the product with YOUR child before buying it.
Have fun looking through all these links - but be forewarned: set a timer! You can waste away lots of time in here! http://www.home.maggiemccormick.com/resources.html

Over this past weekend, I represented my friends company at a local convention. It was really slow, but the people I did get to met were wonderful!
I went to give my Workshop and was amazed that there weren’t ANY people there. That just does NOT happen! I’m used to having anywhere from 40-50 people in my Workshops. Finally one dear sweet lady walked in at 1:29pm, (the seminar started at 1:30pm). After she sat down she told me that I should go and open my door and let the gal next door know that YES, I was in here. “Excuse me?” I asked her. She then informed me that the gal next door was standing in front of the doors (there was two doors side by side – one leading into my room and one leading into her room) and she was telling people “there’s no workshop in there” and “come into here to hear a wonderful workshop!”.
My blood pressure jumped to an alarming rate. I walked out there and opened my door and while I was putting that little door stop down (so that the door would stay open) this girl came up behind me and asked what I was doing. I turned and saw defiance in her eyes and although every once of me wanted to blast her to China and back, I calmly said, “I’m teaching the Lapbooking Workshop in here”. Although, I must admit, my first impulse was to walk right into her workshop and announce that there had been a mistake and that if you are interested in learning how to create a Lapbook, please feel free to exit through that door and into the room next; I realized that that was NOT the Godly thing to do. So I humbly walked back into my room and tried to figure out how to adjust my workshop for 1. I prayed and prayed and decided to make the best of it. I had the makings for a Lapbook, I’ll just sit and we’ll make a Lapbook and she can take it home!

As it turns out, there were about four other people who were running late, so I had a total of five people in a seminar that usually has about 40 – 50 people in it. But I think that those five people had fun and learned a lot.

I was extremely disappointed that something like this would happen at a Christian convention. It turns out that the girl wasn’t the speaker of the seminar – however the speaker of the seminar was the only other vendor selling Lapbooks. Ouch! That Hurts.

This computer program teaches the times tables in a fun and engaging way for young mathematicians – and non-mathematicians! It’s like something they would play on Nintendo or Game Boy … but on this game, you need to answer the questions correctly (times tables) in order to get the golden key and advance to the level.

Being the sneaky mom that I am, I loaded it up and started playing it myself (turning up the volume very loudly!) Soon, both my kids were saying, “no mom – go here!”, “push this button”, “MOM … you are gonna loose or walk over a cliff!!!” and the final, “Mom, you really need to let me play this game cause you are gonna loose.” Can you tell I’m really bad a video games? Obviously, this game is very engaging and even though it starts out with very simple mathematics, the game itself is so fun, the kids don’t realize they are learning – or reviewing facts they already know.

Timez Attack is a great game for High Functioning Special Needs Kids. It is easy for them to figure out – even this old mom figured out how to make it walk and such – of course, the directions are there if you want. But who needs directions when you can push buttons and make it work? My son who has Aspergers, ADHD and ODD figured it all out without any “directions” at all.

The only thing that might be tough for some kids is the timer. Some Aspergers kids or ADHD kids don’t do well with the intensity a timer creates. I realize that with “normal” kids, this would not be a factor, but with our Special Needs Kids, it tends to be. It would be awesome if the creator could produce a different version, one with out the “timer” for our kids!

I would defiantly recommend this Computer Program. Oh, and did I mention, it’s FREE! Yes, you can buy an upgrade version, but my kids are having fun and learning on the Free version. For more information, see: Big Brainz - Timez Attack

Today we did something my dear hubby thought up … Ian and Dave went fishing for lizards! It was the craziest thing. Ian got out his fishing pole and Dave tied a mealy worm to the string. Then they dangled the string/pole in a hole that the lizard had just gone down. The alligator lizard actually took the bait three times, but the boys weren’t able to “reel him in”

Have you ever seen that commercial where the dad and son go to an amusement park? Then they go on a ride and all of a sudden there are two boys, grinning ear to ear – having a blast together. When they walk past the mirror, the reflection is the father and son. That’s how it was at our house this afternoon. I don’t know which one enjoyed his time more, Ian or Dave!

I didn’t write this, but it is just too good not to share with you. 

Welcome To Holland
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel.  It’s like this…
When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning for a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy.  You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans.  The Coliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice.  You may learn some handy phrase in Italian.  It’s all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives.  You back your bags and off you go.  Several hours later, the plane lands.  The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”  “Holland?!” you say.  “What do you mean, Holland?  I signed up for Italy!  All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”
But there’s been a change in the flight plan.  They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.  The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine, and disease.  It’s just a different place.  So, you must go out and buy new guidebooks, you must learn a whole new language, and you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It’s just a different place.  It’s slower paced than Italy and less flashy than Italy, but after you’ve been there for awhile and you catch your breath, you look around and begin to notice that Holland has windmills; Holland has tulips; Holland even has Rembrandts. 
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there.  And for the rest of your life, you will say, “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go.  That’s where I was supposed to go.  That’s what I had planned.”
The pain of that will never, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.  But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, very lovely things about Holland.
~Anonymous