The Journey is the Reward

"The journey is the reward." - Steve Jobs

 

It’s been a few weeks of blood, sweat and late nights in front of the lap top, but my Home Education Program for Sam is finally complete and is now winging it's way via Express Post to the Department of Education and Training's Home Education Unit.  As I said in my post 'Teachers Are Awesome', because of Sam’s 22Q and learning differences, I felt that I needed to add additional information about 22Q and Sam's unique learning profile. Researching the learning challenges and strategies children with 22Q face and then bringing it all together with my own observations and experiences with Sam has been incredibly illuminating. It has really helped me to better understand Sam’s needs and how he thinks. I have a much clearer picture of what works, what doesn’t and why.

 

Another thing that I discovered as I poured over the curriculum requirements for Foundation (or Prep) Maths and English is that Sam is actually pretty much on target to meet the achievement standards by the end of the year. The only area he will fall short is in reading and comprehension, but even here he is slowly improving. So despite all the bumps and pot holes we have encountered over the last few months, Sam is holding his own. I am incredibly proud of him.

I really have to thank the amazing teachers and teacher aides at his school, who supported and encouraged him, even though he could be quite a handful at times. Their genuine excitement and joy when he jumped to the next reading level, or kicked butt on his vocabulary assessments was wonderful. I always knew when Sam had a good day at school because he would come out of class beaming and covered in reward stickers!

 

Now I truly understand that joy and excitement as I see Sam grasp a new concept, engage with the lessons I've designed and have fun learning. Home schooling is a lot of hard work, but I can honestly say this journey is one of the most rewarding I have ever made.  

Today's Lessons



Our new morning routine - days of the week and the weather.

Then we used our weather observations in a hand writing exercise. I do use tracing apps to help Sam practice letter formation as he has difficulty with pencil grip, but I still include small hand writing activities each week. Oh and that colourful blob on his pencil is play dough. I improvised a pencil grip to help him hold the pencil. It moulded to his grip, which is weak. It did appear to help.

Colour sorting activity with the primary colours - red, blue and yellow. Sam had to cut out the coloured objects and then glue them in the right spot.

Before we did each colour, we watched a 'Story Bots' video about the colour.

Awesome job Sam!

Today we looked at shapes again - Circle, Rectangle, Square and Triangle. Before each shape activity, we watched a 'Story Bots' video about the shape.

Then Detective Sam was on the case searching for clues, or in this case shapes. He had to find things around the house and garden that matched the shapes. We took a photo of the items and they will be another activity tomorrow.

Nothing gets past Detective Sam. This clothes airer had a triangle shape. Can you spot it?

Tuesday's Lesson 

 

We started the day with shapes. Sam watched a video about shapes (no not Story Bots this time). He picked up the matching blocks as they appeared in the song.

Then we played a shape and colour matching game.

Finally I introduced Sam to patterns. I started a simple shape sequence - three shapes - then asked Sam to copy the pattern.



Next we tackled a new measurement concept - long and short. We kicked off the activity by watching a funny Sesame Street video clip with Kermit and Grover. As you can see, Sam loved it.



Sam was not too happy about giving this activity ago at first. It was new and he was out of his comfort zone, so he went into full 'avoidance mode'. When I started using silly character voices to ask him what object was long and which was short, he couldn't fight me anymore and began giggling. It really can be a fluke finding the way in with Sam sometimes.

To finish off our 'long and short' activity, I grabbed some straws and wooden craft sticks and cut one of each in half. Threw a long pencil and a short crayon into the mix and then recommenced with 'silly voices'. "Where is the looong straw?" in a deep booming voice. "Where is the short paddle pop stick?" in a squeaky mouse like voice.

 

I was feeling adventurous yesterday so I introduced yet another new activity. Teaching Sam how to break down single syllable words phonically so that he can begin to work out new words for himself when reading. I have been working on the sounds each letter makes with Sam over the past two weeks. In my post 'Inspired by Sir Isaac Newton', I had created a sheet of picture prompts for Sam to cut out and glue next to each letter of the alphabet. My hope was that the visual aid would help Sam remember the sounds and it has worked! 

 

I used the same pictures to make laminated flash card. I had a list of six simple single syllable words and wrote them on the whiteboard one at a time. We looked at each letter and I asked Sam to find the picture that makes that sound. Once he had stuck the picture cards under each letter, we sounded out the word and then blended it. It worked even better than I had hoped. I was really excited.

 

h = a boy hopping, I = ink, t = tennis racket

 

We finished up the day with some ABC practice. Sam had to put all the letter cookies in the correct order. I used the wooden sticks as a guide for him to follow. He was unsure what to do with the letters at first, but when I added the line of sticks, he was happy. Once the letters were in order, he took the sticks away.

 Monday's Lesson

   

Cheeky monkey. He had the days of the week all sorted.

We worked on our positioning words with some Angry Birds. I stuck a post-it note on the whiteboard one at a time. Sam got to choose a different Angry Bird to use each time. When he got it right, I checked it off and we moved onto the next one.

Angry Birds 'under' the box.

To set up the lesson, I began with a YouTube clip called 'Where's the Monkey?' from Kids TV123. To reinforce the lesson once we he had finished, Sam watched a clip called 'Where is it?'

This week I wanted to work on sequencing with Sam, so I used this game called 'Number Lions'. I laid out numbers from 0 to 10, but missed out a number here and there. Sam had to figure out what numbers went where. No problems with that.

He wasn't too happy when I reversed the order and did the same thing however.

But what I soon discovered was that he didn't have a problem with going backwards...I just had not started in the right spot!

 

I revised our two Sight Words lists, which by the way I have renamed 'Cool Words'. I wrote the words on coloured wooden sticks, which I can reuse, and stuck them on the whiteboard. The words with smiley faces or suns next to them he got immediately. He just needed a bit of help sounding out the letters of the words with a tick.

Last lesson of the day was a Short /e/' activity. Same format as the other vowel activities over the last couple of weeks. Again, I kicked off the lesson with a YouTube clip to engage Sam. A video clip about the letter 'E e' and yes, this one was the 'Story Bots'.

Great job matching the short /e/ words with the short /e/ pictures Sam.

Time to chill with an online story book.