Hello, my name is Chelsea and I am glad I found this forum! There are no local homeschooling groups, so I am kind of embarking on this journey alone. My oldest daughter has autism and has just officially started the first grade. We have been "practicing" HS-ing for months now, but now that its "legal" and "official"... Lets just say there hasn't been a single day that I haven't been in tears by nightfall lol. It probably doesn't help that I have two other small children: a toddler who loves devising mischief, and a four-year old who is also on the autism spectrum. Also, my husband and I are starting a permaculture farm which adds another element of--er-- adventure to our lives. And no babysitters yet, but I haven't given up hope on that little dream lol. Wow this is turning out to be quite the long-winded introduction. I apologize about that! Anyway, glad to be here! ~Chelsea
Welcome to the group... how much time are you doing school a day? With that age and the autism, I would only plan about 10 minutes per a subject, at most!
I agree about the time per subject ... and welcome! Glad to have you here! I'm not familiar with very many cities in GA, but here is a resource where you might be able to find groups. You could also try starting your own through Yahoo, MeetUp, or Facebook. http://www.homeschoolclassifieds.com/groups_activities.asp?nm=Georgia&st=GA
Wow thank you all so much for the welcome! To answer the question, we spend about about an hour a day per subject. This changes from day to day depending on what she's interested in and how much work we accomplish before burn-out. Surprisingly, if she is interested in a given topic, she will want to keep going... Where we run into issues is whn I have to keep stopping to accommodate the other children (they are potty training right now). If she's disinterested in a given topic, she'll just kind of tune me out. I'm really trying to make it fun for her and keep her interest because she's such a linear thinker and will tune me out if she's bored. I'm doing a lot of visual activities because she loves to learn that way. We tried the time4learning demos because I'm looking for a fun, visual, supplemental learning tool to use when I'm doing my "other jobs," but I wasn't a fan of how fast the characters talked... Back to the drawing board lol and SO open to any more suggestions at this point And I really appreciate the link to all the homeschool groups! I'm already checking into them. I have a feeling I'm goin to be a very frequent visitor here hehe thanks ladies!! ~Chelsea P.s. excuse the grammatical faux pas... I'm usually a stickler for these but I'm typing this on my iPhone with my "man hands" right now lol!
Well remember you don't have to do every subject every day. You may want to look into doing lapbooks, or unit studies (where you study one thing she likes but it involves all the subjects, ie you may study butterflies, and that involves her language arts, science, math, etc etc... til she is bored or about ready to move on to a different focus that she is interested in.
My older son has Asperger's. I know there is a very wide range of abilities and interests among children on the spectrum, so I don't know if my two cents will apply to your situation or not. Bear with me ... One hour per subject at this age is WAY too long for normal children. However, when my son was that age, 1 hour was never enough. If he was interested in something, we could go all day on a single subject. One of the markers for autistic learning is an intense interest in a narrow field of study, and that interest could change over time. These days, my son eats, sleeps, and breathes anything that has to do with history, geography, culture, language, and religion. He knows WAY more history than I do! He sits on his bed every night memorizing geography books, and he spends an hour of his school time each day learning from a Biblical atlas curriculum. He got to visit one of his favorite islands over the summer, and it's all he talks about (Santorini). People will tell you you're doing everything right, and people will tell you you're doing everything wrong. Listen to your child, not other parents. People have told me I'm pushing my son, but when they actually MEET him, they see it's quite the opposite. He's pushing me. Can your daughter read independently yet? If so, encourage her to read anything and everything she can get her hands on. Go to the library and check out anything she wants, even if you have a stack of 10 books that are all about electricity or opera. If she's not reading yet, try to make that a priority (if she's ready ... if not, don't make it a chore so that she learns to hate it). When she's able to read independently, you'll be able to get her started on something and walk away for 5 minutes to tend to another child, and you'll be able to praise and encourage her efforts to work independently. Working independently isn't something that can be taken for granted in children on the spectrum. It's a skill that has to be taught and practiced in longer increments of time daily. As a general guideline for normal children, you should expect to spend 30 minutes per grade level on your core subjects. That means it should take a 1st grader about an hour to complete everything in reading, writing, and math. You can certainly take longer if you want to throw in social studies, science, art, music, etc., but the core learning should only take about an hour (give or take) for a 1st grader. Hope that helps!
