We spent today- four hours- with the lady. She has come highly recommended by several people in the quest for diagnosing learning problems… and correcting them.

As stated previously, we are working with developing visual memory. And the persistent problem of letter reversals. I came away with several games/activities to use in our lessons.

I also came away with permission to be a hard ass!

No more overlooking spelling errors and letter reversals just figuring he isn’t capable of doing it correctly. Oh no! Set the bar appropriately high and expect he can do the work correctly and in a neat and tidy fashion. Apparently, while there are issues at play, the worst of these problems is that he has developed some nasty bad habits out of never being held accountable for producing appropriately quality work. And being told he can do it- now. Rather than, “He just can’t do it, yet.”
The buck stops here. No more pansy assin’. This is a smart kid. I saw what he is really capable of today… and it’s a helluva lot more than any of us, his parents or his teachers, gave him credit for!!

He was exceptionally pleased with himself. I was thrilled and immensely proud!

A good decision.

After much mulling, haranguing and debate we have come to a conclusion about whether or not to pay for lady’s specialized instruction.  What did we come up with?

Well, very reasonably and with an uncharacteristic show of common sense, we decided we would use her services on a trial basis to see what Beasley and I get out of it.  Four hour session, by four hour session.  I am anticipating about a month’s worth of work with her, where I can develop an adequate aresenal of tools and approaches that might better acommodate the learning challenges associated with his lack of Visual Memory.

I am rather relieved.  He and I should come out of this time with her much further ahead…  I’m excited about it.

Well, today we visited our local… lady.  She’s a lady.  She was a teacher and administrator for years and years and years and, oh yeah, years.  She’d no doubt appreciate this.  Anyhow, given her experience extending over the oh-so-many years, she knows a lot of stuff.  She is a tutor, with an increasingly growing number of clients.  I guess evidence of our rural school districts many strains.  She is also amazing with the assessments.  I’m not sure what her certifications and ‘papers’ are beyond the teaching and administrative aspects of her career, but she came highly recommended by several mothers with kids needs not being met by our local, over-extended, under-funded school system.

Ahem… bottom line is our Beasley has some interesting issues that need dealing with. The prevailing being the lack of a developed Visual Memory.  We’ve had this come up in past assessments, except it was described to us as Working Memory.

While he doesn’t show any other signs of ADD, this issue of memory is present in the disorder.

So, we commit to the “60-80 hours of work” to get Beasley up to speed OR I do a heckuvalot of research and prep to find out how to best “work through” this problem, ultimately improving the other issues he has, on our own.

$160/wk vs. my time and effort.

Looks like it will be my time and effort, folks, as this is why we chose to homeschool.  Sure it might be a little about the money, but we want to be able to provide him with the most customized approach possible and given that we already knew we had issues at play, we were prepared for a whole lotta work.

It’ll be 60-80 hours of time working here at home, lovely though tutor lady may be.  We are certainly appreciative of the language she gave us to be able to work with this problem.  I now know what we’re dealing with.

So far this morning… minor surgery, procrastination, yelling, frustration, pain, tears.

Why? This durned toe, actually today looking worse rather than better. Providing a really yucky, bothersome and quite unfortunate distraction to this school day.

Our Beasley Bean, gotta love him, has zero pain tolerance. Good thing he was not born female. Nor is he particularly adept at swallowing any form of liquid medication. Upon requesting, “somethiiiinnnnngggg for the paaaa-iin”, he promptly spit up the gooey orange liquid onto himself and my new sofa! Cue the yelling.

This toe and it’s pesky ingrown nail… I operated, as per real medical professional’s advice, first thing this morning. A good soak in warm water and epsom salts, followed by a gentle nudging of nail out from under red, swollen, now freshly oozing, side of lovely, big piggie.

Ohmigoodness… you’d think I was removing it by it’s root, with a soup spoon and some rusty cooking tongs. Rather than the, again, gentle nudging, with a harmless, cute and fuzzy Q-Tip.

I’m trying to find some learning opportunity here as it seems this toe is going to subsume an entire school day….

Well, thank goodness. What a crazy relief.

As of Monday, we will have a new classmate. Our Gusti-roo. My little Zip. He has decided he no longer wishes to go to school over there. He wants to join us. He wants to do activities like Beasley and wants to do a lot of “cookin’”

His homeschooling was really an inevitability. He’s in kindergarten and up until a couple of weeks ago, was having a lot of fun. We figured, “what the hay… let him enjoy it, since as of our next trip to our Mexi-casa, or summer holiday, whichever came first, he would be done. Well, he chose sooner. I think it’s a combination of the longer kindergarten days that began around the first of this month; he misses his brother being there; he misses big bro’ on the bus ride home; last, but hardly least, he claims he’s bored with the kindergarten stuff. He’s very close to reading and Beasley is running him through his math paces, including very basic times tables, so it’s no surprise, really.

OK, bud. You got it! Enjoy your Valentines festivities and then home you shall be.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Last week, depending on who you ask, was a not-so-great one. I’m writing this and so, therefore, not such a great week… If you ask Beasley, a fantastic week. Why the difference in opinion? Because not a whole lot got accomplished. To me, bad. To him, just dandy, thank you very much.

So, today, as with most Mondays, we were off to a roaring start. This is my expectation for the remainder of the week as well. My expectation… tempered with surrender. I’m learning, quickly, that it is a matter of expectations or more specifically managing expectations. Whether life, generally speaking, or homeschooling. I need to ease up on myself, and probably him. New theme: ’surrender’. Work hard, but keep expectations in check. And have fun.

Today, was some good work: lots-a math and some good reading and comprehension. A good day.

Surrender. A word that will bear repeating in many, many future posts.

We did spend the weekend, beginning Friday in Calgary. Beasley participated in a developmental swim workshop with one of the best developmental swim coaches for this age group in the country (preceding a meet the next day).  He had a great time.  These opportunities are few and far between and if it means a trip to Calgary in sub-freezing temperatures, so be it.

It was, ultimately, all about the food….

Yesterday I went to my great Grampa’s house.  It was a long trip.  When I was there, I had swim lessons.  For dinner, I had fresh springrolls and sushi.  In the morning I had a cinnamon bun.  Then we were on the road again!

It’s been a good week.  It’s been a strange week of alternating intensity in learning and… not so much.   We are finding those activities where he works well alone, getting a fair bit accomplished, math for instance.  Others require a lot more poking and prodding, a lot more parental participation (nice alliteration…), such as reading and comprehension. 

I’m betwixt and between.  The curriculum we are using is dictated by our district and the province of BC.  As I’ve said in previous posts, it is a great tool in getting this process off the ground and providing some much needed direction.  However, what I am finding is that this is some waaaayyyy borrrring stuff, man.  I’m having a hard time with it.  Some of it is not bad and we can make our way through happily and quickly.  Other material is just flippin’ plodding stuff.  So, given this fact, and that this process becomes tedious plagued with procrastination(him) and nagging(me).  It is time to get creative and put more effort into planning engaging means to learning required material.

We are also working to attune ourselves to his interests and how they can better guide our planning.  Gardening is a good one.  His keen interest in computer games is also an easy one.  He wants to create his own games… this can open up some interesting opportunities…  I just gotta find ‘em.

A great Monday- everybody gung-ho!!  Beasley did a great job, today.  There was a fair bit of reading… he started with a fair bit of math.  Long division; multiplying double digits.  I checked with calculator.  Me no unnerstand dem nummers, eh!  Math, first up, will probablybe a regular beginning to our day.  Get him feelin’ good right off the top.

Our little winter window sill garden has been planted.  Tomatoes, hot peppers, green onions, oregano and basil, basil, basil…. 36 little pellets stuffed with seeds. This should provide us with on-going subject matter through the winter and then on to the spring when we start prepping the real thing out in the yard.

It’s been three years since anything other than weeds grew in that soil.  More than a little bit of child labour in that job!