Homeschool – Page 4

What would you do with an ice cream bucket FULL of crayons?

Well I’ll tell you what I did. I sorted them by color and saved all of them longer than 2 inches for precious little hands to color with. The ones under about 2 inches went back in the bucket to be melted into new exciting shapes!

I did this a few years ago with my playgroup friends. At the time it was just about Easter & we made butterflies, eggs, and spring shapes.

Today it’s just me and my little guy, so we are making dinosaur shapes!

So far I have had the oven set at 170 (the lowest my oven will go) for about 20 minutes. I checked them at 15 and they weren’t totally melted yet.
I’ll post an update when they’re completed! I hope they turn out well, but if they don’t, I’m not too worried about it. These were just pieces of crayons that had already had lots of love. And really, more than anything it’s something for the short guy and I to do together until his big sister comes home from school.

*Update: My dinosaur took FOREVER. I know this is because I didn’t break mine into little pieces. So the result was it took longer (about 50 minutes), and the back of my dinosaur looked like it had bones and a horn where there were still pieces that hadn’t melted. The front of both looked just right though! Mine is the brownish/red (I used all the dark crayons I was sure the kids wouldn’t want to use).

Now the two creatures are playing with each other and the little guy is occupied because it’s like he has a new toy. Success!

Time flies when…You’re having fun! You knew that already didn’t you?
Well it’s been just over a month since I’ve blogged, and I can tell you it’s because I have been having A BLAST!
We learned a few months back that my daughter is dyslexic. Praise God! I sound crazy, right? Well it feels like a giant blessing to now understand (sort of) what is going on and why her work wasn’t progressing at grade level.

By the way, I’m the one who had to tell the school I thought she was struggling and have her evaluated. They didn’t pick up the dyslexia even with the evaluation (they suggested she was ADD, her pediatrician agreed that with the information from the school that was probably it and to have her further evaluated & medicated. I stopped there. I mean, their primary treatment for that is drugs, and if you can’t tell by my previous posts, I’m far to “crunchy” to medicate my children for something that they can learn how to deal with (my opinion here, don’t hold it against me). I thank the school for trying, they really did do their best. But in this case, their best, wasn’t good enough for my little girl.

Thankfully, my husband and I trusted our hearts and kept looking for more answers! The neighbor/eye doctor suggested having her tested for dyslexia in his office.

Can I be honest here and tell you I only had it done hoping to rule it out. I was pretty sure we wouldn’t figure out what was going on this easily. And in my head, clearly it couldn’t be dyslexia because she could read words like “cat” and “dog”. She COULD figure out small words, but man was it slow and emotionally hard on her and me both!

She was tested, and the letter from the optometrist came in the mail…Yes, we were dealing with dyslexia.
Initially after the diagnosis I was crushed. I felt very defeated. I first felt like she would never learn to read, and certainly not at her level. I think I cried for almost 2 days before I came to terms with it and did what I knew I should do “Let go and let God”.
That’s when I started to do research on Dyslexia and how her brain may be processing things. Yes, this diagnosis makes perfect sense! If you’re having trouble following along with what everyone else is reading you might as well be looking outside at the birds or twirling your hair, right? At least if you’re 8 that’s what you’d do.
It was that nasty attitude of mine that kept us from success. I should’ve known better, but I was caught up in the moment of feeling sorry for myself.
I felt like a terrible mother for not being able to teach my daughter. I was disappointed in myself for leaving her education up to the school.
Then I grew up and got over it.
Flash forward a few months. We’ve been doing vision therapy with the eye doctor, which my daughter thinks is supper fun (at least most of it). We set up a bedroom in our house as a “homeschool room” and bought lots and lots of curriculum when it was on sale.
All of this is seriously fascinating to me. The transformation has been remarkable.
Once I took on an attitude of gratitude we saw big changes.
On her first try my princess read Barbie: Story Collection in 53 minutes, this week it was in 24 minutes! She shaved 29 minutes off of her time!! And best of all, she did it without crying or giving up! Oh and she actually read it herself, no help!
I love teaching my children! My 3 year old is sort of liking learning, but it’s been a big adjustment for him. Right now he’s doing lots of fun things and learning his letters. We’re working on ways to keep him busy while his sister is studying. I am happy to say we have only a couple of times had to do this with using TV as a distraction, otherwise he is learning right along side of her!
We’re going to keep trying out homeschool through the summer and possibly into the school year. It has been such a rewarding experience for all of us and brought our family so much closer together.
My husband has been a great support and even enjoys teaching too!
This has been a wonderful summer!

Here is a peek into our school room.

Melted Crayon Shapes

Time flies when…

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