Week 4/5: We Found Friends!

 *To be consistent with the OpenEd weekly logs, this week is labeled 4/5.

And we found Ed (OpenEd's horse mascot) a friend, too

Last year, the homeschool community in our rural part of the world, frankly, didn't exist. However, we've had new families move in and new families begin homeschooling. There are now many, many families around.

We had our second monthly get together this week.  What's was even more exciting, we met two other families who have children with autism. That's 5 homeschooling families I am aware of in our area who are homeschooling an autistic child. I've often felt like I stood out for doing things others don't; it can be a hard an lonely place. It's exciting to find others who are doing the same and we're feeling hopeful this year.

OpenEd Weekly Report

Science: This is probably K's favorite subject. This week he watched the OpenEd field trip on otters and the magic of matter show. He had animal studies club, chess club, and Escape Room club. We did baking soda/vinegar experiments at forest school with other homeschoolers, too.

And playdough sculptures

He also enjoyed the forest school's tree swing

And he built a Lego marble maze

Math: Multiplying by twos, practicing addition and subtraction, and beginning 3 times tables.

LA: It is important that my children know how to spell the most common words in the English language.  This week we went over the first 25 fry words. The only thing we need to work on is talking about "to, too, and two".  

We also worked on pronouns. Like many autistic children, K struggles with identifying proper gender pronouns. There is an extra step involved when deciding if you should use "he" or "she". A computer is always referred to as an "it", a group, regardless of who's in it, is always called "they/them". But with individual people, we are required to identify something distinguishing about them- their gender- and then change the pronouns we used based on that information. Those with autism may already struggle just being around other people. And it can be very difficult for them to have this change in word use, particularly when it involves something they can't always clearly identify.

We are patiently working on proper pronouns. Especially in our current cultural, pronouns- or the misuse of them- can be socially disastrous and the saddest part is, the autistic child probably won't comprehend why. 

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On a lighter note, we had a birthday celebration for A2.

Her birthday gift/party was a horse ride
with grandma and grandpa.

And A1 was nominated by his class to be on the Hope Squad. A group of 6th graders who look out for the rest of the kids in the school, who help stop bullying and make sure others have a friend.  Speaking of friends, after spending a couple of weeks without anyone to play with at recess, he found a new group of friends. They want to play DND at recess and asked him to be the Dungeon Master.

And more good news, J found out they will be doing a high school play in the spring. I'm excited, she is incredibly talented and making new friends as well.