Be Impressed. Be Very Impressed.

Playing Clarinet in "All Band" Performance at Falmouth High School

In the last few months, we have done amazing things.

• Mapping and labeling Massachusetts and all the New England states
• Creating a Massachusetts timeline from 1620 onward
• Creating a map (with photos) of the old Cape Cod train line
• Reading about (and answering questions about) colonial New England; comparing it to present day
• Reading about (and answering questions about) native Americans, particularly the Wampanoag
• Attending a presentation by a Wampanoag educator
• Visiting an early lighthouse and centuries-old shipwreck in Wellfleet, MA
• Doing an arts project related to colonial America (making and using a hand-made loom)
• Performing in an "all bands" event in the local High School gym
• Visiting the Fine Arts Mueum in Boston
• Continuing and doing much better in math (word problems, simple multiplication)
• attending weekly homeschool gym at the Y, and working on all kinds of ball-handling, rock climbing, swimming, etc. with "typical peers"
• Continuing with candlepin bowling league -- Tom and Sara's team is top among four!
• Volunteering monthly to feed and exercise the critters at the local nature center
• Completing and writing about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (the book)
• Learning to use a graphic organizer to develop and write paragraphs
• Becoming expert in conjugating the verb "to be," and using the right tense
• Starting to learn about homynyms
• Created a painted river and waterfall and made "trees" from twigs and "old man's beard" for train layout

And on and on it goes...

I'm beginning to understand while homeschoolers all sound so impressive: it just kinda happens, without your spending too much time planning or describing it.

shipwreck at Cape Cod National Seashore

The big question, for me, is how much of this is he actually understanding and retaining? And I have a sense that it's somewhere between "some" and "a bit." For example, he's definitely getting local geography and basic map reading. He's definitely got the very general gist of Mass history (there was the Mayflower and pilgrims and Wampanoag indians greeted the pilgrims. Life was diffferent then. There are still Wampanoags around now, and I met one). He understands that the king of England was in charge of the colonies, and the the revolution was about removing the king and replacing him with a president -- George Washington. Is that about as much as most fifth graders know? I wonder...

Both of us have pretty much had it with American history - at least for the time being. And we're staring in on what I think will be a more engaging unit on The Human Body. We'll start with a National Geog. video, and cover various different systems (skeletal, muscular, digestive, etc.). Found some good books and websites, and will supplement with some hands-on fun (I know some good stuff, and grabbed a Janice Van Cleave hands-on book from the library). Should be able to cover science and health content pretty nicely, along with some non-fiction book reporting, drawing, and maybe even a three-D art project.

Thanks, so very much, to the person who recommended the City Creek Press animated times tables. So far, they have made a huge difference in Tom's understanding -- even though he claims he doesn't want to watch or do the quizzes!

When Imagination Meets A Brick Wall

People with autism perseverate. I'd never heard the word before Tommy came along - back in the olden days we called it "spinning your wheels," "talking about the same thing over and over," or just plain "being boring."

At first, Tom's perseveration was not really contentful. He'd recite scripts from TV shows... recite poems... or just talk gibberish.

Now, he's really quite imaginative, and I KNOW I should appreciate it. Usually I do! Today, though, I am bored, bored, BORED with Tom's imaginary world.

We're working on a unit about Massachusetts history, and recently traced the path of the Mayflower from "old" to "new" Plymouth. Tom is trying to find a way to turn Massachusetts history into a story about his favorite old pal, Lizard.

Tom: "Lizard has a Mayflower."
Me: "What do you mean? You mean a real Mayflower boat?"
Tom: "Yes, he has a real Mayflower boat, and he sails it with his friends."
Dad: "Tom, the real Mayflower isn't around anymore. It sailed more than 400 years ago!"
Tom: "What happened to the Mayflower?"
Me: "I think it sank."
Tom: "Lizard's Mayflower didn't sink."
Me: "Tom, can't we talk about something real, just for a minute?"
Tom: "OK, OK - the real Mayflower was 400 years ago and it sank in the sea. NOW can we talk about Lizard?"
Me: "Oh, Tom, can we NOT talk about Lizard for a while?"
Tom: "I WANT to talk about LIZARD!"
Me: "I'm going to clear the dishes!"

Now, honestly, this is a pretty great and impressive conversation. It shows that Tom really did understand that the Mayflower was a real ship... that it carried pilgrims to American... that it sank... and that's HUGE! And I know - a good autism Mom would encourage that conversation, build on his interests, and help him get beyond perseveration to real symbolic language and conversation.

But the truth is - Lizard is starting to bore me.

Lizard's always here. ALWAYS. And love him as I might, he gets... a little dull. Lizard has everything. He is all things to all people. He's a great reptile. He even has his faced carved on a mountain (Tom sculpted Lizard's face out of clay and stuck it onto the model mountain he and Dad are building for the model railway). Lizard has a golden palace... a giant hotel... a white and gold train, a sailing ship, a racecar, a restaurant, a playground... you get the picture.

Lizard is the ultimate good guy (unlike his pal Sid, the Skeleton, whose job is to whack badguys in scary, brutal ways).

Lizard is the Superego, Sid is the Id. And Tom's working on finding his own place.

It's not that I don't appreciate Lizard. But I think I need a break.

Tomorrow I'll work on finding more ways to let Lizard come out and play - and help Tom learn math, care about history, and explore literature. Maybe we'll even invite Sid to come out and whack a few baddies.

For tonite, though, it's ENOUGH! Lizard, take a nap!

Homeschool Blues

OK, I've been busy. But that's not really why I've been remiss about posting on this blog. The real reason is... I've been working to put together a better, more focused program for Tom, and running into no end of frustrations.

We'll be starting a homeschool gym program at the YMCA in Wareham next week - and I must admit I'm nervouse... who knows whether he'll integrate into the group, manage the pressure of uncertainty, or submit to swim lessons when he already has a basic grasp of how to get from one end of the pool to the other?

He's started a "tutoring" program two hours a week with two other boys... one is autistic, the other just "different" - and already I'm wondering whether it was really the right choice. He does ok, but the teacher is not particularly animated - and Tom just sorta wonders about the kids but barely interacts.

He's back in "Hot Jazz," playing clarinet - but after last fall's concerts, where he did beautifully but was basically ignored by teachers and kids (and did his own very impressive job of ignoring everyone around him except to play his music), I can't say I'm terrifically excited...

He's continuing in his bowling league and bowling well, but he continues to use two hands (no one else cares, but we do) - and has yet to say a word on his own to another human being.

We've stopped speech therapy for the time being, because the therapist is working with us as a "thinking coach" - but while she's brilliant, it's also very hard indeed for me to really make sense of how to integrate her ideas into our program.

I'm using Math Mammoth as a math program, and while I like its intense drills and I think Tom's doing well with it, I also know that he COULD be doing more advanced calculation with Touch Math - and I'm totally conflicted. I wake up at night worrying about this!

I'm using comprehension review questions from EdHelper for language arts - and he does just great (just finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). But since all the questions are who/what/when/where questions, and he's seen the movie 50 times, I'm not sure that's much of an accomplishment.

In short - I'm wondering whether I really have a clue as to whether I'm doing a particularly good job at teaching, choosing curricula, or even managing our schedules.

Meanwhile, Tom and Peter have been working on an indoor train layout.... building a mountain of papier mache and plaster. It's a great art project, but I had somehow imagined something more integrated and richer.

Part of the problem is that we're really struggling to find the time to plan out much of ANYthing: we're each trying to earn a full-time living in our "off" hours, and I simply can't afford to have my clients feel that they're anything but my first priority... Don't want the house to be a disaster area, or make dinner from a box, or sleep on dirty sheets, or ignore Sara's requests to read aloud or play board games... and every night I fall into bed like a lump.

Not sure where all this is leading... I'm assuming that my spirits will rise as the spring comes closer?!

Surveying for the Homeschool Garden Railway

Long before we actually started homeschooling, Peter promised to work with Tom on a real (small scale) garden railway. We'd seen fabulous garden railways at the Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia and the Brandywine Museum in Chadds Ford - and both guys were very gung ho to create their own. As you can see from the photo of the Morris layout, they have BIG ideas!

Since I'm no railroader, I've left the entire project to Peter, and had no clear idea what he had planned. Last week, the two guys got started - and it's turned out to be a wonderful project so far. Tom, of course, perseverates on trains - but that gives him the motivation he needs to really engage for more than just a short while.

To start with, the two of them went out into our wooded backyard, and drove wooden stakes into the ground at intervals to represent the path that the railway will take.

Next, they drew a picture of the track, and added in existing features such as rocks and plants.

They then measured the distances between the stakes, using a tape measure. Tom did the measuring and called out the numbers; Peter noted them on the map.

Lastly, the added together all the measurements to come up with the perimeter of the track (the length of track to be purchased).

Unfortunately, it turns out that good quality outdoor track costs MUCH more than we anticipated! So the guys will have to practice their skills on indoor track for now - and save up (another homeschool project?!) for the outdoor system...

Writing: Meet Lizard

Tommy has a dear friend named Lizard. As you can see, Lizard wears ladies' underwear. Outside of that unusual quirk, Lizard is quite a guy. He's a social butterfly; an entrepreneur; and an adventurer. Lizard's best friend, Frilled Lizard, joins Lizard daily for a glass of watermelon juice at a table at Lizard's restaurant. Other patrons include various bobcats, siamese cats, lions, and characters from almost every movie and book Tom has ever seen or read. Lizard caters to them all.

The restaurant is on the bottom floor of Lizard's building, where he has a penthouse suite. The view is wonderful: he can see his own boat, train, and car.

Today, Lizard and his friends took the houseboat to Nova Scotia, where they met up with the Harbor Master from the Theodore Tugboat series. There, they had a long chat about provisioning the boat; compared the merits of various research subs; and got directions to the nearest butcher's shop (where Lizard could purchase sausages for his cat friends aboard).

I think they're heading out to sea, but I'm not sure.

It occured to me that we could combine keyboarding with fiction writing by turning Tommy loose on the computer to write Lizard stories. So far, he has been very enthusiastic about this - though his handling of the narrative arc (not to mention spelling and grammar) leaves a great deal to be desired.

I have a feeling that, after another couple of weeks, we will be in desperate need of illustrations. So far, for example, Lizard and friends have taken a "pop car" on a "huge mettal thing" to the 7th floor, Room L. I'm not quite sure what that means - but I am absolutely sure that Tommy has an amazing, rich, and wonderful imagination!

Unit Studies... Eclectic Studies... Unschooling.... Oh My!

In a bit of a panic, I plunged into homeschool research. I learned that there are "styles" of homeschooling -- and it seemed that we fit neatly into the "eclectic" style (which seems to mean a little of this and a little of that). Whew. It's nice to have a label for your style - makes you feel less lonely!

I had already decided to try "unit studies" (organizing content around an area of interest) because I had seen Tommy show interest in a variety of topics - and then NOT have a chance to delve deeply because the teacher moved on. So... unit studies. But what topics should we start with?

I reviewed the district's 5th grade curriculum carefully, and saw they were focusing a LOT of time on Massachusetts and 18th century US history. OK, fine, I could do that. I found a unit on Mass history at the AHEM.org (Mass homeschool organization) website... But it didn't sound like a ton of fun, so I thought we'd try parts of it out midyear after I had a better idea of how to modify it. we were DEFINITELY going to do a unit on trains (Peter had actually promised Tommy that we would build a garden railway for homeschool - much more on that later!) - but we just weren't ready to plunge into such a complex project. What else was out there?!

At the end of August, we went on a whalewatch trip to Stellwagen Banks off Cape Cod Bay. There were humpbacks galore... minke whales... even an Atlantic Right whale. Tom was enthralled. So was I. What better topic to start off our life on Cape Cod? So... whales it was, for a starter.

OK, whales. I started researching whales. There are dozens of whale sites. Over a dozen whale species. There are probably ten or more whale units online - not to mention the one I just happened to have in my files. There are whale stories, whale interactives, whale songs, whale myths, whale anatomy books, and there's Shamu the killer whale. There are whaling books, whaling museums, scrimshaw, Inuit art...

So what ABOUT whales? Which whales? How much was I trying to integrate into the unit? How long should the unit be? My head was spinning. Meanwhile, I had no clear idea of how to approach math... spelling... library skills... could I integrate it ALL? Peter suggested I start with Right Whales... but there wasn't enough just on them... or was there?!

About this time, Labor Day rolled around. Sara started public school. There was no more time to waste - and so we plunged in.

Day One involved a visit to Staples and creating a schedule (we use velcro and 3X5 cards). On the cards, Tom and I wrote things like "library," "math," "recess" and "science." We included enough math, reading, music and lunch cards for every day. And we set up a schedule for the week. Recess, I figured, could be a nature walk one day... swimming another day... bowling another... or maybe that was gym?

On Day Two we went to the library and borrowed Tom's very first chapter books (Magic Treehouse and an older English book called "The Worst Witch" which confirmed my certainty that JK Rowling ripped it all off from other writers!). I started scouring the web for math worksheets, and found a great resource at softschools.com.

And we started studying whales.