Homeschool Update

I'm sure you are all wondering how homeschooling is going... well it's going. We officially started school on August 13th. Jack, Jaiden and Justine go to school 2 days a week and are homeschooled 3 days a week. Once Jack, Jaiden and Justine went to school, Josh and Jameson and I kind of eased our way into school.

Jameson is so eager to learn. She is definitely very easy to homeschool as far as attitude and the desire to learn. We are definitely starting at the very beginning with her. Vowel sounds are a mystery to her... therefore we are starting at the same spot Justine is at in Kindergarten. She still switches a lot of her sounds and letters. For example, if she sees the word "Help", she will try to make it start with a "p." When she sees the number 17 (for example) she thinks it's 71. We are starting very easy with her. I'm not sure if you can be diagnosed as dyslexic in a second language, but if she were a typical American 4th grader doing this, she probably would be dyslexic for sure. But how can you say that when she just learned English?

It's definitely something that we are watching and will seek out help for if it doesn't get better.
Josh is a very smart boy. He knows more than he lets on to. This Monday we had quite a day where he would just turn in his work, undone, half done or completely wrong. I guess he thought I wouldn't notice? He wouldn't talk to me or look at me. It happened to be the same day that public school started, and I basically told him that this was serious and if he wasn't going to try, I would drive him to public school RIGHT now. That seemed to wake him up. He has been doing great ever since.

We started really easy with him as well... probably too easy, but I am trying to show him how important mastering the basics is. Time and Money are new to him. His issue seems to be that he tries to go so fast that he ends up missing stuff, or just not doing it at all. I have to remind him all the time to slow down. Our goal for him is to be finished with first grade math by the end of September. His Reading Comprehension is also a mystery to me. He knows all the words, but absolutely doesn't know what they mean when they are put together in a sentence.

I'm not an expert, but I believe both of them probably have some degree of attention deficit disorder. He fits it to a tee... not the hyperactivity aspect, but the inability to concentrate. Jameson also has a hard time focusing on any one thing and tends to be highly distractible. From what I have read, this is not uncommon for children from their backgrounds.

They are learning. We are accomplishing. And the best thing is that the more time I spend with them, the more I am falling in love with them. The more I am getting to see them for who they are. I can tell that when things were at their worst was when I was working too much or involved in too much. It was definitely a good decision to keep them home. (I say this at the end of August with a big ha ha ha ha belly laugh) I have a confession to make: I actually kept the public school piss off letter until school had started just in case I changed my mind. But I mailed it on Monday.

Now it's official.