I took Ellie to a friend’s house because I knew they’d get nothing accomplished with her there. ;) We headed to the Early Childhood Center where we met Maureen, a very sweet speech pathologist. She explained they would do the whole early childhood evaluation, as many times they get parents worried about “speech” but there are many other issues that are revealed in the screening.
Owen didn’t want to go in alone, so I sat outside the open door which was nice because I wanted to see what she did anyways. She asked Owen to do a series of things like stack 9 blocks, draw lines and shapes, and describe objects she laid out on the table. He had fun doing most of them, as witnessed by his hands in the air here:
She said (later) that she won’t ever forget Owen because of what he did during one portion of the “test.” He was asked to look at 2 pictures and then she turned them over. Then she held up a matching picture and he was to tell her where to lay it down so it would be on top of it’s matching card. Does that make sense? Well, he did the 2 cards just fine. But then she did it with 3 cards, a house, a duck, and cup. He placed the first one fine, but looked confused about the second. He pointed at where to lay it down and then looked at the cards (which were turned over). He said “that one is wrong.” She asked him how he knew that since they hadn’t turned them over yet and he said “the numbers don’t match on the back.” We both laughed! She said she’d never had a kid pick up on the fact that they were labeled with numbers (for her benefit) on the back before. But of course, she still had to dock him that point even though he showed a higher level thinking skill. (boo to standardized tests)Overall, he passed with flying colors and she said he an absolute joy to work with. She did hear the 3 sounds I was worried about, so I wasn’t a complete nutcase for requesting a screening. He replaces his /th/ sound with a /y/ sound. For example, instead of this, it sounds like yis. He also has trouble with a /r/ sound when it’s in a blend. For example, in crayons, it sounds more like cwayons. And lastly he struggles a bit with the /l/ sound. It sounds more like a /w/ or /y/. For example glasses sounds likes gwasses and leaf sounds like yeaf.
She said she never does speech therapy for the /th/sound because it almost always corrects itself. And for the /r/ and /l/, she said it is totally normal at his age. I’m supposed to just model over and over and she even suggested using a mirror so he can see what it looks like to make those sounds. So we’ll just work a little on those sounds extra hard as we start preschool here in a few weeks! It was an interesting experience to be on the other side of the teacher table for the first time. :) Glad to know that on paper, he’s right where he needs to be!
I buried about 15 dinosaur fossils and “footprints” in the sandbox. It was really chilly in the morning, but he could not wait to get outside. We took shovels and paintbrushes to brush off the sand and started digging. We matched up the fossils to the dinosaurs that made them. He stayed focused for almost 2 hours, digging, matching, re-burying and talking about being a paleontologist. It was so much fun to watch! 
They stayed engaged for about 45 minutes- an hour which is about what I planned for. We mixed in lots of dancing and singing to keep things interesting.
One of the hardest parts to everything was the cute little thing here dressed in a dress. Ellie. She was into EVERYTHING. I had a box of new toys for her that only get pulled out at school time, but she was still into everything. She did great when she could dance, sing, or color. But other than that, watch your crayons boys. Whew, that will take some tweaking to find what works best for her.
I was definitely impressed with his willingness to work and work hard. I know, I know it was his first day. But in general, it was super fun and I think he really liked it. There was one page he wasn’t willing to do and I told him it just needed to get done before nap. After lunch, all on his own he went and finished the page!
While we were at lunch, I did a short survey with him so we could remember this time:
I’m really excited about what this year has in store for us! Yes, it’s going to a lot of work to stay on top of everything. And there are so many ideas out there, I’m really going to have to pick and choose the things I want him to do. But for our family, for Owen, and for this year, this was the perfect choice (I think after day 1). haha
He takes off the number and puts it on this sheet. I only have enough open spaces for the amount of boxes he’s doing today. For example, today we started with 5. Box 3 held a snack with the activity which he thought was great.
Here’s an example of what’s in store for tomorrow. Excuse the dark, night time pictures.
Box 2: cut out the apples and glue them onto the tree (great cutting and gluing practice)
Box 3: put together the 6 piece apple puzzle and read the words
Box 4: practicing positional words – I will say “put your apple above the basket, put your apple under the basket, put your green apple beside the basket, etc” We will them write a sentence about where he hides his apple.
Box 5: a truck coloring page where he has to color the capitals one color and the lowercase another color.
Box 6: We each will get an ice cube tray. He will roll the dice and that’s how many little pieces of felt he gets, one in each little spot. It goes back and forth and the first person to fill their tray wins. Great for learning to count the dots on a die, and learning one to one correspondence. And maybe to learn about losing. :)
It’s easy for me to refill every night and I’m not scrambling during our actual lesson time to pull things for our next activity. I’m very excited about this system and while I know we’ll have to tweak it as we go, tonight he was already asking what was in his work boxes for tomorrow. Keep up the excitement kiddo!
Her activities have a great range of skills covered and are themed with cute graphics and easy to make instructions. I of course will be supplementing with ideas from my own teaching like a long calendar time, teaching ALL the letters (not just the one of the week), lots of singing, and tons of art projects. I’ll do a separate post and link to various curriculum, books, and CD’s I love and will incorporate throughout our year.
I dug out some of my school room decorations. While it’s not my dream school space (someday our basement will get done) it’s going to work PERFECT for where we’re at right now with school. Literally a few minutes before I was going to buy a table on Amazon, this little guy popped up on Craigslist. How I love Sir Craig and his list.
Ahh, is there anything prettier than new school supplies?
Here’s a little closer look. You will see a calendar with a season and weather graph. Our letter, number, and shape of the week are in page protectors at the top so I can just slip in a new paper every week. The color book is hanging on a hook. I have a clipboard with my plan for the week and a pocket chart and white erase board. 
The red apron is an idea I tweaked from my friend Christine. When school is in “session” I wear my red apron just to signal that it’s a different time for Owen. Today when I took it off he yelled “now you’re mommy” so I guess he got it.
This is our workbox system. I’m going to do a separate post on that as it’s too long for here. Used it for one day and already am in LOVE!
And that’s the start to our new homeschooling journey!
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