Homeschool Update

So, we have been homeschooling for about 2 months now. Overall, it is going great! L is still happy to be home which makes me happy and sad. Happy because I know it's the right thing and sad because school must have been really hard emotionally for him. I know it's not the academics because he is doing great.

We are still using the Saxon Math program. We had to skip about 1/2 the program because it was way too easy for him. I wonder if the homeschool version is slower or at a different level than the school version he was in. I ordered the same level he was in at school and this one was really too easy.

We are somewhat using the Shirley English. There are some things we are doing in it, but not much. I ended up going to Barnes and Nobles and picking up a couple of English workbooks. One for vocabulary and one for reading comprehension. These have been great and he enjoys doing them.

He is currently making a State Box. Each week he picks a new state. He takes a 3x5 notecard and writes information about the state on it and draws the state. We then put it in a notecard box. He really likes doing this. We then eat a food that is special to that area. I think we will do this with country's when the states are all done.

Harry Potter is our current book. He is trying really hard to read the first one by himself. It's a struggle, but he is working on it and that is all that counts. He really wants to read like his big brother and sisters.

He is really hands on and creative! He is constantly trying to make weird things out of weird items. He collects cereal boxes because he likes to try and make things with them. I love watching him create. He especially loves going to The Home Depot and Lowe's kid's clinics.

We go lots of places and try to take every opportunity we can to teach him proper people behavior. We are having a little bit of a problem with how we treat people and what's right and wrong. I'm glad I can help him correct these behaviors now, but what a pain! I just hope we can change them. His ADHD doesn't help and when I forget to medicate him, we pay for it.

The doctor thinks we should up his dose. She is probably right, but I can handle him as long as he takes the dose he is on. When he doesn't take it, the melt downs start immediately and I have started to notice he talks more meanly to everyone. When he takes it, all these things stop. He is still bouncing all over, but this is a small thing to me.

We will get through all this and hopefully, by summer, I will be telling you how wonderful he is the majority of the time.