He's Write!

Samuel never fails to surprise me. He can make up stories with abandon! Our speech activity today gave three words around which Samuel was to make up a story. So he might be given: frog, girl, house to launch an idea. We've made various attempts at games like "I spy," and he wouldn't get it at all, and thinking about an object and talking about it just seemed foreign. He's only recently started playing make-up games that require imagination. Now I find the seeds of a writer! Once again, I'm discovering that you cannot underestimate a spectrum kid!

Of Math and Spills

Hmmm, I showed the boys cups, pints, quart, and gallon measurements this morning. I think it would be smart to wait until this afternoon for them to do their own pouring and measurements out on the back deck! The ubiquitous soda bottle should make the metric measurements easy to show them when it's time.

He'd be where?

This last year has shown me that homeschooling was absolutely the right choice for Samuel. While we continue a good relationship with local educators (Samuel receives speech therapy from them) we've resisted their claim that he needs to be better integrated with his peers by attending public schools.

I have come to understand two things. First, the school's goal would not be for Samuel to integrate into differing roles in society. Instead its goal would be for him to be able to do well in a homogeneous group of 20-30 kids -- a setting unlike what we find in the rest of life. Secondly, because of the slow pace of his potty training, he'd likely be in a "self-contained" classroom. In other words, he would have spent most of his day with other children who have difficulties with language and social skills. What a detriment that would have been, and the administrators advising me to do this never said a word about this setting!

The value of what I've been able to teach him during our days together will be a subject for another day ...