The Jan-Feb, 2011 issue of Home Education Magazine includes an Interview with author and HEM columnist Tamra Orr discusses writing, homeschooling, and how families can find their own approaches to living and learning together. Articles on sustaining homeschooling over the long haul, trying school, writing, reading, music lessons, and The Great American Road Trip provide great reading! The columns for this issue include Laura Weldon’s column in which homeschoolers answer the questions homeschoolers ask, Rebecca Rupp explores the wonderful world of eyeglasses, David Albert shares his adventures in learning to garden successfully, and Larry and Susan Kaseman explain the concerns regarding privatization of education, how it would affect homeschooling families, and what we can do to minimize the damage. Also HEM publisher Helen Hegener on unschooling (stay tuned for more on that).
January-February 2011
One Response to January-February 2011
Leave a Reply
|
Home Getting Started FAQ Resources |
News and Commentary Editorial Closer Look Support Groups |
Home Education Magazine HEM Archives Subscribe Contact HEM |
Privacy Webmaster Advertise |
Magazine Premium created by Themes by bavotasan.com.
Powered by WordPress.
In response to (Laura Weldon’s Q & A) question about HSing
kids with Down Syndrome, I have HSed my 19 year old daughter
with DS since she turned 3 and finished home-based early intervention.
I pulled her out because the quality of services/therapy
provided in groups is almost never as good or as effective
as individual therapy. If you don’t think same age peers
are the best social group for your typical children, why do you think
they would be so helpful to your child with DS, who is even MORE likely
to innocently imitate the very behaviors you do not want
your other children subjected to? Another major reason
I chose to HS is that a student with special needs spends
most of their life learning school behaviors such as sitting
quietly, responding when a bell rings, walking with a lunch
tray, raising his hand before speaking, when ultimately
they need to be able to live in home and community. The child
needs to develop INITIATIVE, not PASSIVITY, effective
INDIVIDUAL COMMUNICATION SKILLS, not just group acceptance.
I have met many kids with DS who can read in a forced rote
face-in-the-book way but who don’t respond to “hello” or
other essential communications. When my daughter was about
12, I let the school district test her to “see what they
would offer her.” They said her IQ was only 46 but
“suprisingly” her social skills were “higher than most
the kids that would be in the class where we would place
her.” Too much intense structure and constant therapy also
causes many children with special needs to become depressed
and unmotivated.
My daughter gets up everyday around 7am (her choice).
She gets dressed, makes her bed,and makes her own breakfast independently, usually two
scrambled eggs sandwiched between wheat bread with ketchup.
Although she insists on cooking the eggs on “high” so they
stick and burn a bit, she has learned to safely get the
pan to the sink and turn off the stove and she loves to cook.
She takes her own medication after I set it out in a weekly dispenser. After breakfast
she feeds and cleans the cages for our two rabbits. Then
she listens to music or searches PBS kids on the computer.
On Wednesdays, she attends a music class with 6-8 yrolds
and then stays to help the teacher with 3-5 year-olds.She
has weekly Speech therapy, Horseback riding lessons and has
volunteered to play with the cats at a local pet store.
Her best friends are public schooled girl with DS whom she
met at camp, and a boy with Aspergers from her Sunday School
class. She shops using picture cards and readily asks for
assistance if she needs help. Like most HSers, she is
comfortable with people of all ages and with herself.