Our day starts at 8am when Miss Meg peeks over the side of her crib and giggles at me while I sleep. There is no going back to sleep when you see that sweet little smile. I can hear my son banging around in his room and my 4 older girls up watching tv in the living room. So mom drags her butt out of bed and changes Meg's diaper then it is off to making breakfast. My son is an aggressive self harmer and doesn't do well with the whole "waiting for food to cook" thing. So I make breakfast and get it on the table before going to get him from his room. The second I open the door he comes out like lightening and I have to chase him around the entire house just to change his diaper. Once he is changed the kids sit down to eat while I make myself a protein shake and clean up the kitchen quickly.
By 8:20 the doorbell is ringing and it is time for my son to start working with his behavioral therapist for the day. She talks him into sitting at the table to do some of her puzzles. She is working with him on his communication (he has about 10-15 words and signs), making eye contact, and decreasing his self harming behavior.
While they are working at the kitchen table I take the dinner I assembled the weekend before out of the fridge and dump it into the crockpot.
Then I make a mad rush around the house to get as much cleaning and straightening done as possible while he is entertained and safe. Meanwhile the girls are off playing together in their rooms doing a whole lot of giggling.
At 10am therapy is over for the day and we are back to our normal day. We spend the next hour playing and burning off energy till it is time for lunch. I make a quick lunch (sandwiches and fruit) then at noon I put the 4 youngest down for naps while the oldest 2 sit down to quietly read or do something from the "All by myself box"
By 1pm we are ready to go with school. I give Hailey 2 multiplication pages to do in her workbook while sitting down with Sara to do 2 pages in her math workbook. Sara is a fidgety little one and we have found that manipulative are the only way to go with her. Once math is done (about 20min tops) we move on to language arts. Both girls are currently working on nouns and verbs. They each do their work for the day and then I send Hailey off to read some more while Sara reads a short book aloud to me. Once she is done I have her draw a picture of what the story was about while Hailey and I work on her reading comprehension workbook.
By 2pm we are all getting fidgety and daddy is getting up for the day. Sara does her all time favorite thing.....playing on spellingcity.com to practice her spelling words for the week while Hailey disappears to finish reading her book. She is a little bit of a bookworm like her mama! Hailey is very easily overwhelmed and emotionally fragile so we purposely keep her work simple, straightforward, and eliminate all busy work. We find that the more straightforward and hands on the work is the better that both girls do with their assignments and their retention of the material. We try to do at least one experiment or other hands on craft style assignment per day. We are not currently doing any pre-k style work with the twins just because they just turned 4 last month. This fall we will start working with them on their ABC's and such. I think it is important to give them this time to just learn by playing instead of doing book work.
By 3pm daddy is gone for the day and all the little ones are up from their naps and ready to go full speed ahead. We have a snack and then bounce off the walls for a bit. I would *LOVE* to take them outside to burn off some energy but the 2ft of snow out there makes it a bit hard. Poor things can't even play in the snow anymore because it just swallows them up whole. I think we need snow shoes! Good thing we have a mini trampoline in our living room. We bought it for our son to do "heavy work" on but ALL the kids love it.
5pm rolls around and it is time for dinner. I am a firm believer in the crockpot at this point in our lives. I don't know how I would live with out it! After everyone has been fed I leave the crockpot on warm so that daddy can get his lunch when he comes home at 7pm. Then it is time to get the kitchen cleaned up for about the 4th time that day. The oldest 4 girls start working on their chores while I am cleaning the kitchen and dining room and the 2 youngest watch Mickey Mouse clubhouse.
7pm and daddy comes home just in time to kiss the 4 littlest ones good night. Once they are down he eats his lunch and I start working on our science lesson with the big girls. We are working our way through Apologia's Zoology 1 (Flying Creatures) and my girls LOVE it. They actually beg to do their work. We are currently working on a project about the endangered species here in New Jersey. So the girls spend an hour doing research on the specific endangered species that they have chosen and writing up the reports they plan to attach to a poster board for display.
8pm Sara is done for the day and goes to bed while Hailey snuggles up on the couch to enjoy the quiet and read her book. Daddy kisses both girls good bye and heads back to work.
9pm Hailey is off to bed and I am free to just sit and enjoy the quiet. I catch up on my internet usage and watch some mindless tv till 11pm when daddy comes home for the night. I make sure he has his dinner and then I am off to bed.
There you go a day in the life............not really very exciting at all but it is what it is at this point! Hopefully when it warms up we will be a bit more daring and exciting ;)
1 comments on "A day in the life homeschooling with special needs kiddos."
Well, your day was certainly more exciting than the one I shared! You have a very sweet family life. What a blessing to have such precious children and to be their amazing mamma. You ROCK!
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