Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Review of Time4Learning
I had great hopes for trying Time4Learning. I set up the kids accounts and honestly I did not think that the process of setting it up was very user friendly to begin with. I had 3 accounts to set up - grades PreK, 4, and 7. I had the kids try it and while the preschooler enjoyed all of the activities the older two felt it was too babyish for them and they both had trouble with the website. We tried it on their kindles too and there were several errors that kept coming up. I have heard other homeschoolers that rave about the program but to me it was more busy type work and not in depth enough for what I look for in homeschool. If its something your looking for them to be able to do to keep them busy while you work with the other children I think it would be nice for that but at the price I would not be able to justify it for what we were able to get out of it. So for this review, I personally thought it was good mainly for lower level kids programs. Thanks for the opportunity Time4Learning!
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience. Time4Learning can be used as a homeschool curriculum, for afterschool enrichment and for summer skill sharpening. Find out how to write your own curriculum review for Time4Learning.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Homeschool or home school?
I am often asked the ever daunting question of why I started homeschooling. Most people figure its because we are very strict religiously or that I think Im better than someone who has been educated to teach children. I never had plans to homeschool the kids and like most people thought homeschoolers were just a bit odd!
Our story starts way back when our youngest Matthew started in K. I had started him the fall right after he turned 5 in April. We decided to put him in a charter school versus a public school feeling that his education would be better with smaller classes. We were excited to have been chosen for the brand new charter school in our area. Matthew started K just as my husband, Greg, joined the Army so off to boot camp he went. The first half of school seemed to go pretty good. Matthew never really enjoyed all the stories I tried to read to him. He knew his alphabet, could write his name and knew how to write most letters. After the first semester of school I was called in for conference with the teacher and I voiced my concern at his struggling with reading and that I really wondered if he was dyslexic based on what he struggled with. I was told then that it was never even considered till 4th grade and that he was fine. We finished out the year and then moved to Fort Rucker, Alabama just in time for him to start first grade. First grade again brought many concerns and meetings with teachers. I again expressed my concern that his handwriting was so bad, spelling was awful,and he still was behind in reading. They decided to start him in a remedial reading program. The program seemed okay at first. He met with a reading teacher a few times a week and was sent home books to read on top of his regular work. The problem was that he read the same 3 books over, and over, and over again for a month. By the 3rd time reading the book he had the thing memorized and it was pointless. They seemed to be dropping the ball and noone would listen. By the end of the year I was so frustrated with the process that I was not going to lose any more time and we decided to start homeschooling in second grade.
Third grade was a very trying year. We spent the majority of our time reading, reading,and reading some more. Working on phonics, spelling, and comprehension. He finally seemed to be going in a positive direction but it was s-l-o-w! As time went on I started picking up that he spelled and read words leaving out verbs completely! After some research I found that this is a common issue with kids with dyslexia. I began to dive into what kids with dyslexia need and how they see their world of reading. By fourth grade I had a totally different outlook on what Matthew needed. All the phonics the teachers and myself were teaching him were pointless. He needed to see patterns and just memorize! His eyes were seeing words wrong!
The biggest and best thing we did for him was to purchase a kindle. We did this over the nook because of the text to speech option. He need to relearn and retrain his eyes to read words correctly. He of course loved the cool little gadget so it was not hard to get him to finally WANT to read.
At this stage he is starting 7th grade this year. Homeschool has had to adapt and change every year based on his strengths. He is fantastic at math and science. He soaks up and loves history so all of those things are not a struggle except for him in reading the text. He is currently at a 6th grade reading level which is much improved from back a few years ago. His spelling is the worst problem area by far. We are working on that but I have come to an understanding that like me spelling will be a thorn in his flesh for life. I had to learn by just memorizing. It didnt come to me easily and still does not but being aware of that you are sort of checking yourself all the time. We will be starting a Bob Jones spelling program this year which I hope will be helpful. We are also looking into a few specific programs for kids with dyslexia.
As we started this journey to help Matthew get the help he needed we have seen so many more benefits to homeschooling that I really imagined. This is a crazy,scary world and I am so glad to have my children home with me as long as possible. I cannot see putting them in a public school environement the way society is these days. Not everyone has the option to homeschool and I feel very blessed for God to have allowed me to work from home and the patients (most days) to be their teacher. Im not perfect at it and I strive to do better each year. Yes, the are socialized and yes they are happy to be homeschooled. They are not awkward or weird like I though "homeschool kids" were and we get to open up an entirely new world to them. They not only learn math, science, reading, history, etc but they also learn hands on taking care of a farm with animals, money budgeting, cooking, household requirements, auto care, and simple hard work.
This coming year I really hope for an awesome year of learning not just from our books but from eachother. I look forward to the field trips and projects we will plan and being able to be a part of it! My prayer is that I will be able to be a full-time homeschool mom. Its so difficult balancing my MT work and then putting the teacher hat on. Financially I need to be working so thats what I will do, for now, but I would love to be able to go back to homeschool exlusive before long.
Our story starts way back when our youngest Matthew started in K. I had started him the fall right after he turned 5 in April. We decided to put him in a charter school versus a public school feeling that his education would be better with smaller classes. We were excited to have been chosen for the brand new charter school in our area. Matthew started K just as my husband, Greg, joined the Army so off to boot camp he went. The first half of school seemed to go pretty good. Matthew never really enjoyed all the stories I tried to read to him. He knew his alphabet, could write his name and knew how to write most letters. After the first semester of school I was called in for conference with the teacher and I voiced my concern at his struggling with reading and that I really wondered if he was dyslexic based on what he struggled with. I was told then that it was never even considered till 4th grade and that he was fine. We finished out the year and then moved to Fort Rucker, Alabama just in time for him to start first grade. First grade again brought many concerns and meetings with teachers. I again expressed my concern that his handwriting was so bad, spelling was awful,and he still was behind in reading. They decided to start him in a remedial reading program. The program seemed okay at first. He met with a reading teacher a few times a week and was sent home books to read on top of his regular work. The problem was that he read the same 3 books over, and over, and over again for a month. By the 3rd time reading the book he had the thing memorized and it was pointless. They seemed to be dropping the ball and noone would listen. By the end of the year I was so frustrated with the process that I was not going to lose any more time and we decided to start homeschooling in second grade.
Third grade was a very trying year. We spent the majority of our time reading, reading,and reading some more. Working on phonics, spelling, and comprehension. He finally seemed to be going in a positive direction but it was s-l-o-w! As time went on I started picking up that he spelled and read words leaving out verbs completely! After some research I found that this is a common issue with kids with dyslexia. I began to dive into what kids with dyslexia need and how they see their world of reading. By fourth grade I had a totally different outlook on what Matthew needed. All the phonics the teachers and myself were teaching him were pointless. He needed to see patterns and just memorize! His eyes were seeing words wrong!
The biggest and best thing we did for him was to purchase a kindle. We did this over the nook because of the text to speech option. He need to relearn and retrain his eyes to read words correctly. He of course loved the cool little gadget so it was not hard to get him to finally WANT to read.
At this stage he is starting 7th grade this year. Homeschool has had to adapt and change every year based on his strengths. He is fantastic at math and science. He soaks up and loves history so all of those things are not a struggle except for him in reading the text. He is currently at a 6th grade reading level which is much improved from back a few years ago. His spelling is the worst problem area by far. We are working on that but I have come to an understanding that like me spelling will be a thorn in his flesh for life. I had to learn by just memorizing. It didnt come to me easily and still does not but being aware of that you are sort of checking yourself all the time. We will be starting a Bob Jones spelling program this year which I hope will be helpful. We are also looking into a few specific programs for kids with dyslexia.
As we started this journey to help Matthew get the help he needed we have seen so many more benefits to homeschooling that I really imagined. This is a crazy,scary world and I am so glad to have my children home with me as long as possible. I cannot see putting them in a public school environement the way society is these days. Not everyone has the option to homeschool and I feel very blessed for God to have allowed me to work from home and the patients (most days) to be their teacher. Im not perfect at it and I strive to do better each year. Yes, the are socialized and yes they are happy to be homeschooled. They are not awkward or weird like I though "homeschool kids" were and we get to open up an entirely new world to them. They not only learn math, science, reading, history, etc but they also learn hands on taking care of a farm with animals, money budgeting, cooking, household requirements, auto care, and simple hard work.
This coming year I really hope for an awesome year of learning not just from our books but from eachother. I look forward to the field trips and projects we will plan and being able to be a part of it! My prayer is that I will be able to be a full-time homeschool mom. Its so difficult balancing my MT work and then putting the teacher hat on. Financially I need to be working so thats what I will do, for now, but I would love to be able to go back to homeschool exlusive before long.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Going back to the beginning
I have had this blog now for over a year and have never felt that I really had enough to say. I have been taking a new journey that has been a pretty scary one. For starters, I will go back to the beginning of this journey:
When I was 9 my aunt took me to get an eye exam as I was doing poorly in school and she suspected I needed glasses. Turns out I was as blind as a bat. During my exam the doctor made mention that I had "arthritic looking eyes" at 9. I remember this statement but never was it questioned. Fast foreward to high school. I was on the track team and was having a lot of foot pain and found out I had a bunion that had to be removed because it was causing so much pain. So, at the age of 14 I had a bunionectomy. After the surgery the doctor said that "I had the bones of an old person." Again, we didnt question it but as I got older I started having a lot of knee and back pain but so did my dad so I figured it was just genetics, bad back and bad knees.
After my second child was born I started waking up in the mornings with extreme weakness in my hands. I can recall taking my husbands hand and squeezing it as hard as I could and asking him if that was hard and he would laugh. This went on but didnt really worsen. I went to the doctor and asked for some blood work for RA. Everything came back normal. Then 4 years later I delivered our last baby. He was such a cute little baby, almost 6 pounds and a month early. He was such an amazing baby. I took him home to meet my family when he was about 4 weeks old. We were in southern Alabama where my husband was stationed at Fort Rucker for the Army and our family was in Michigan. While I was there visiting I can remember getting up and down off the floor to change diapers and it was getting harder and I was moaning more and more.
A few days after we got home I woke up in the middle of the night and my legs were bent as they usually were when I slept only when I went to stretch them out they were stuck. Like REALLY stuck. I tried to unbend them but it was not working. I took my hands and reached down and pulled my leg straight which sent me into a scream from the pain. It was like lightening running up my back. From that point on every morning was spent getting my legs unstuck, and rubbing my hands and fingers until my clinched hands would open. Our bedroom was upstairs and I could not climb the steps until my body "woke up" so my husband would start our jacuzzi tub and help me into it so that I could soak to get my knees working. He would bring me the baby so that I could nurse while in the hot water. After that it was down the stairs for the day. We bought plastic cups and plates for me to be able to pick up as the glass was too heavy. I would have to have someone lift the pans off the stove, cut the meat up for cooking, use special slicers for cutting up veggis, and of course have the kids open everything for me. Between my husband,Greg, and my son, Matthew who was about 8 at the time, they helped me survive during that time. When Greg had to go to work Matthew changed all the diapers and helped me change Andrews clothes when he had poop explosions because I could not grasp the snaps or the tabs. Matthew grew up fast that year but he will always be special in my eyes for what he did for me. I cant even talk about it even to this day without crying. It has created a very tender heart in him and for that aspect I am very thankful.
The first few weeks were spent with tests and waiting. We were still military at this point so we were seeing the doctors at the Army Clinic. I can still remember the phase of the Leutinent that was my doctor when I came in with my newborn strapped to me because I could not hold him. I cried and she was very tender and was convinced it had to be RA. When my blood work came back it was very positive so off to the Rheumatologist I went. My first doctor was a nightmare. I was so, so glad to be able to request a new doctor and he was wonderful. We tried everything out there. Started with the "baby" RA drugs like Plaquenil and Mobic. When those didnt work tried things like Enbrel and several other biologic injections. Even tried the low-dose chemo drug methotrexate which made me so sick. After many attempts and failures my mom convinced me to try a gluten free diet. I was very much a skeptic and really didnt want to give up my beloved bread products.
Two weeks into the gluten free diet and I was shockingly better. I of course cheated a few times just to be sure it was not "luck" but it wasent. After being on the diet for a year I was able to go off everything except for the occasional pain killer for a tough day. After 18 months I decided to introduce bread back into my diet. At first it went good but I couldnt go crazy. It took about 3 months for the RA to come back to the point that I had to go back on the diet. This was about 3 months ago. The only problem was that it wasent going away this time and in fact it was getting worse but in different ways.
This time has been very frustrating. I have some joint pain but the main problem is a weakness like I have never experienced before. If you can imagine the feeling you have after having the most awful flu that has had you up all night tossing your cookies thats how I feel every day. I am so weak some days that I can barely stand. My mind seems like its in a fog. I lose the ability to write. Even with the RA I was able to write for a few minutes before cramping up but now I can barely grasp a pen to try. I have tingling and numbness in my legs the moment I sit down and even sometimes when Im up walking. My hands turn white and go numb with prickly feelings. I was typing for my job one day when all the sudden my hand turned ghost white and just dropped lifeless to the keyboard. I had no hand for about 2 minutes. It was a pretty scary feeling! I go days where I cannot pick up the weight of a glass or a reference book I need for work. This is the girl that just 5 years ago was hauling and hanging drywall, climbing up and down ladders while I helped my husband fix up an old house we bought.
I finally decided it was time to see what was going on. I had a regular appointment with my rheumatologist and discussed with him this extreme fatigue and weakness. He felt all my joints and said that everything RA wise seemed good and he was concerned maybe this was something more. I agreed and decided that if this was RA it was time to move on to the bigger newer drugs we had not tried yet which was Orencia given as an IV infusion. I have been putting this off for a year trying to avoid it but I was losing my life. He sent me for a load of blood work and 8 viles later they were off to be tested for about 12 different things.
It took about 2 weeks to get all the blood work back and to my dismay all my RA blood work came back good. Normally this would be exciting but that just meant something else was going on. They did discover that my iron load was very high for 1. Being female still having regular cycles 2. Have ALWAYS been anemic. They also found that my vitamin B12 was a little low so we are supplementing for that. I then had an appt with my PCP for a yearly physical and Pap and while she was reading over my chart from the rheumatologist she said that he was looking at me for possible MS, multiple sclerosis. I said WHAT??? I talked to my PCP about my symptoms and she of course was doom and gloom and convinced me that this is what is going on. She also told me I should not have any more children. I already knew it would not make good health sence for me to with everything I have been on but hearing that is disheartening. So now what?
So here comes the journey. Its a journey of self discovery and growth. One of patience and faith. Im looking at a diagnosis of early stages of hemochromatosis which is iron overload and also possible MS on top of my already diagnosed RA. Let us not forget that I have to juggle all this along with homeschooling 3 children, working part time from home as a medical transcriptionist, caring and breeding our goat farm, and of course all the normal wife and mom duties. My parents have been so supportive to me through all of this. I know they would drop everything if I needed them here in TN. My husband has been my rock. He has never, ever once complained about the extra work or my inability to help him like I used to. He tries to get me to do less than I do to keep me from myself. My kids have been very understanding when I have to sit out of an activity or we have to slow down on walk. I truly do believe that God has a purpose in this. I tried once praying for patience and learned quickly not to do that! Haha. I dont know what I am supposed to learn through all this, maybe someone is suppose to learn something from my own personal journey that I wont even know about.
This next month will prove to me one of many questions, probably scary uncomfortable tests that I really dont want to go through but in the end I hope we can get some answers so that I can start figuring out how to handle all this and if I will ever be back to the old me. I know whatever happens I will be stronger than I have ever been before. With God on my side I know it will all be okay. He never promised a smooth road but he did promise a road.
So, sit back, check back often and I will be updating again soon. I do plan to post about some of my reseach on not just the amazing results I have had with the gluten free diet but also some interesting things I have learned about hemochromatosis and MS, even if I dont end up having to deal with any of that in the end. Maybe something that I have learned will help someone who is!
When I was 9 my aunt took me to get an eye exam as I was doing poorly in school and she suspected I needed glasses. Turns out I was as blind as a bat. During my exam the doctor made mention that I had "arthritic looking eyes" at 9. I remember this statement but never was it questioned. Fast foreward to high school. I was on the track team and was having a lot of foot pain and found out I had a bunion that had to be removed because it was causing so much pain. So, at the age of 14 I had a bunionectomy. After the surgery the doctor said that "I had the bones of an old person." Again, we didnt question it but as I got older I started having a lot of knee and back pain but so did my dad so I figured it was just genetics, bad back and bad knees.
After my second child was born I started waking up in the mornings with extreme weakness in my hands. I can recall taking my husbands hand and squeezing it as hard as I could and asking him if that was hard and he would laugh. This went on but didnt really worsen. I went to the doctor and asked for some blood work for RA. Everything came back normal. Then 4 years later I delivered our last baby. He was such a cute little baby, almost 6 pounds and a month early. He was such an amazing baby. I took him home to meet my family when he was about 4 weeks old. We were in southern Alabama where my husband was stationed at Fort Rucker for the Army and our family was in Michigan. While I was there visiting I can remember getting up and down off the floor to change diapers and it was getting harder and I was moaning more and more.
A few days after we got home I woke up in the middle of the night and my legs were bent as they usually were when I slept only when I went to stretch them out they were stuck. Like REALLY stuck. I tried to unbend them but it was not working. I took my hands and reached down and pulled my leg straight which sent me into a scream from the pain. It was like lightening running up my back. From that point on every morning was spent getting my legs unstuck, and rubbing my hands and fingers until my clinched hands would open. Our bedroom was upstairs and I could not climb the steps until my body "woke up" so my husband would start our jacuzzi tub and help me into it so that I could soak to get my knees working. He would bring me the baby so that I could nurse while in the hot water. After that it was down the stairs for the day. We bought plastic cups and plates for me to be able to pick up as the glass was too heavy. I would have to have someone lift the pans off the stove, cut the meat up for cooking, use special slicers for cutting up veggis, and of course have the kids open everything for me. Between my husband,Greg, and my son, Matthew who was about 8 at the time, they helped me survive during that time. When Greg had to go to work Matthew changed all the diapers and helped me change Andrews clothes when he had poop explosions because I could not grasp the snaps or the tabs. Matthew grew up fast that year but he will always be special in my eyes for what he did for me. I cant even talk about it even to this day without crying. It has created a very tender heart in him and for that aspect I am very thankful.
The first few weeks were spent with tests and waiting. We were still military at this point so we were seeing the doctors at the Army Clinic. I can still remember the phase of the Leutinent that was my doctor when I came in with my newborn strapped to me because I could not hold him. I cried and she was very tender and was convinced it had to be RA. When my blood work came back it was very positive so off to the Rheumatologist I went. My first doctor was a nightmare. I was so, so glad to be able to request a new doctor and he was wonderful. We tried everything out there. Started with the "baby" RA drugs like Plaquenil and Mobic. When those didnt work tried things like Enbrel and several other biologic injections. Even tried the low-dose chemo drug methotrexate which made me so sick. After many attempts and failures my mom convinced me to try a gluten free diet. I was very much a skeptic and really didnt want to give up my beloved bread products.
Two weeks into the gluten free diet and I was shockingly better. I of course cheated a few times just to be sure it was not "luck" but it wasent. After being on the diet for a year I was able to go off everything except for the occasional pain killer for a tough day. After 18 months I decided to introduce bread back into my diet. At first it went good but I couldnt go crazy. It took about 3 months for the RA to come back to the point that I had to go back on the diet. This was about 3 months ago. The only problem was that it wasent going away this time and in fact it was getting worse but in different ways.
This time has been very frustrating. I have some joint pain but the main problem is a weakness like I have never experienced before. If you can imagine the feeling you have after having the most awful flu that has had you up all night tossing your cookies thats how I feel every day. I am so weak some days that I can barely stand. My mind seems like its in a fog. I lose the ability to write. Even with the RA I was able to write for a few minutes before cramping up but now I can barely grasp a pen to try. I have tingling and numbness in my legs the moment I sit down and even sometimes when Im up walking. My hands turn white and go numb with prickly feelings. I was typing for my job one day when all the sudden my hand turned ghost white and just dropped lifeless to the keyboard. I had no hand for about 2 minutes. It was a pretty scary feeling! I go days where I cannot pick up the weight of a glass or a reference book I need for work. This is the girl that just 5 years ago was hauling and hanging drywall, climbing up and down ladders while I helped my husband fix up an old house we bought.
I finally decided it was time to see what was going on. I had a regular appointment with my rheumatologist and discussed with him this extreme fatigue and weakness. He felt all my joints and said that everything RA wise seemed good and he was concerned maybe this was something more. I agreed and decided that if this was RA it was time to move on to the bigger newer drugs we had not tried yet which was Orencia given as an IV infusion. I have been putting this off for a year trying to avoid it but I was losing my life. He sent me for a load of blood work and 8 viles later they were off to be tested for about 12 different things.
It took about 2 weeks to get all the blood work back and to my dismay all my RA blood work came back good. Normally this would be exciting but that just meant something else was going on. They did discover that my iron load was very high for 1. Being female still having regular cycles 2. Have ALWAYS been anemic. They also found that my vitamin B12 was a little low so we are supplementing for that. I then had an appt with my PCP for a yearly physical and Pap and while she was reading over my chart from the rheumatologist she said that he was looking at me for possible MS, multiple sclerosis. I said WHAT??? I talked to my PCP about my symptoms and she of course was doom and gloom and convinced me that this is what is going on. She also told me I should not have any more children. I already knew it would not make good health sence for me to with everything I have been on but hearing that is disheartening. So now what?
So here comes the journey. Its a journey of self discovery and growth. One of patience and faith. Im looking at a diagnosis of early stages of hemochromatosis which is iron overload and also possible MS on top of my already diagnosed RA. Let us not forget that I have to juggle all this along with homeschooling 3 children, working part time from home as a medical transcriptionist, caring and breeding our goat farm, and of course all the normal wife and mom duties. My parents have been so supportive to me through all of this. I know they would drop everything if I needed them here in TN. My husband has been my rock. He has never, ever once complained about the extra work or my inability to help him like I used to. He tries to get me to do less than I do to keep me from myself. My kids have been very understanding when I have to sit out of an activity or we have to slow down on walk. I truly do believe that God has a purpose in this. I tried once praying for patience and learned quickly not to do that! Haha. I dont know what I am supposed to learn through all this, maybe someone is suppose to learn something from my own personal journey that I wont even know about.
This next month will prove to me one of many questions, probably scary uncomfortable tests that I really dont want to go through but in the end I hope we can get some answers so that I can start figuring out how to handle all this and if I will ever be back to the old me. I know whatever happens I will be stronger than I have ever been before. With God on my side I know it will all be okay. He never promised a smooth road but he did promise a road.
So, sit back, check back often and I will be updating again soon. I do plan to post about some of my reseach on not just the amazing results I have had with the gluten free diet but also some interesting things I have learned about hemochromatosis and MS, even if I dont end up having to deal with any of that in the end. Maybe something that I have learned will help someone who is!
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