My name is Jennifer and I homeschool my 4 kids ages 7-12, and the neighbor’s grandson who is 11. I suffered depression after the birth of my 4th child in 5 years and have recently been diagnosed with ADD. I also just found out that I have sleep apnea, which means I stop breathing during sleep, which doesn’t allow me to get deep, refreshing sleep.

My second son has Learning Disabilities, ADD, dyslexia, dysgraphia, some muscle and coordination delays and Sensory Processing Dysfunction. My youngest daughter has ADHD and is going to be tested for dyslexia.

I thought maybe the kids would be better off in public school, but it was not meant to be.  

At the beginning of this school year, I was very excited to be using Sonlight Curriculum,”one room schoolhouse” style. I felt confident about the neighbor’s grandson joining us.(What’s one more?)And because my own son had LD, I wasn’t worried when his mom told me he’d been tested and had no LD, dyslexia,etc, but was 2 years behind.

As I would soon learn, being “behind” and having LD are two totally different animals! My son cannot read or write well, but has normal comprehension ability. This little boy can read and write better than my son, but doesn’t understand things easily. So they have have distinct and OPPOSITE needs. Not to mention the needs of my other 3 kids!!

I started searching out a solution to the madness and found t4l. We have one computer and each child takes their turn while I observe. Some days a child will wake up before everyone else and start without me. It does help us get everyone in earlier, but I don’t allow that everyday, as they don’t always get as much out of it when I am not there.

What is kind of funny is that with the kids being so close in age and ability, I hear some of the lessons 3(and sometimes 4!) times!!

They still read from their Sonlight readers. One day I hope to be able to add in more of Sonlight History and Geography.

Sorry it turned out so long. I look forward to getting acquainted with everyone!

Barns & Noble has a program that We participated in a couple weeks ago.  The children understood that it was more about ‘community service’ thank about making money and we also thought that we would include T4L in the project.  It was a pretty good experience for the kids and I think that by incorporating T4L they were able to see the link between their school work and life in just one more way.

I want so much for my children.  Having T4L curriculum has been a huge success in our house.  My boys reference T4L on so many occasions that I could not even begin to count and I am thinking of starting a note book so that I can see in print the overwhelming excitment in not only school work but what they are learning.

Just this morning Quentin was doing measurements and I heard him say “Ahh, so that is how those work”. When I looked over there was a photo of a scale on the screen and he was putting even weights on each side so that it would zero out.  The experiences that each boy gets even after the lessons end is wonderful.  Zachary had trouble with calenders this morning and was getting so frustrated.  I had him go back through his lesson and he got it the next time; just one more benifit to T4L online curriculum.

Our wrapping went well.  I would have liked it to go better but it was fine and we had a really good time.

Thanks guys!  We did look good!

Ever have one of those horrible days where you just want to crawl back into bed?  My husband has to get up every morning at 2:45am because he works in the medical field and they start to see people at 5am.  Last Thursday morning he blew out his tire on the way to work and had to change the tire to one of those mini donut things in the freezing cold, using his cell phone for light (we live in the country, little to no light and he was lacking his flashlight after our last camping trip)….  The morning started out pretty rough for him but he went on to work and then went later in the day to get a new tire.

We met Kati’s family for a home school thing where we promoted T4L and also where able to do some community service.  We went out to dinner after and really had a good time.  Our families are so great together.  My mom tagged along and it was a great day for us.

When we met up we had two cars and my husband was about 3 minutes ahead of us when we where driving the hour back to our house.  It was about 8pm when we left, not late to some but late for my husband and 3 miles from our home he lost control and totaled his car.  The car ended up on its side (yes the same side that had the BRAND new tire that was not even 5 hours old) and thankfully because of seat belts and air bag he was able to climb out the top of the car (which was the passengers side) and when we arrived behind him he was standing alongside the road.  Overall very scary to see but thankfully the boys were not with him (9 out of 10 times they come back with him; “he has better music”).

So then the search is on and we did end up finding him a great car to take its place.  The conversations about airbags and seat belts have been pretty strong and that is when the boys brought up something they read on T4L about seat belts.  Learning happens everywhere and it is nice when they have something that actually backs up things they read…..

Well we are back from Vacation.  What was sort of a small vacation even though it was a great deal of work it was nice to be away from home and in the warmth for a week.  The boys managed a couple days of school work but the dial-up was not always friendly and I did not really push it because we were laying a floor.

I did notice a couple things though I thought was interesting.  The first was with my youngest son.  By the end of the week of being out of his routine of school work his mind was going a million miles a minute.  He was not at all relaxed and his hyper-ness was strong.  It occurred to me about the 4th day and when I asked both boys to do their work I noticed that he jumped right in and wanted to do his and extra; that night he was calmer and more in control.  Not that he is overly hyper, don’t get me wrong but for a 6 year old he tends to repeat himself and not able to sit for more than a little bit when he has not been able to “think” hard.. If you know what I mean…..

The next pleasant surprise came yesterday when we were back at home and they both jumped right on line to do some lessons.  I was surprised that there was no griping when I asked them to do extra because of the few days they missed and this morning even before breakfast my 6 year old was on line doing lessons.  In the past it has taken us days to get back into the swing of things and my two just did their work, did extra and never said a word about it.

We miss Florida but are happy to be home and I am thrilled that the transition back to full time school has gone so smoothly.  They both are doing well and still call out when they finish a test or a quiz how many they got right.  Someone asked me today how this year is going and I was thrilled that I was able to brag about T4L and how great the program is.

We are on sort of a working vacation in Florida.  My mom and I are installing a tile floor in my grandparents Florida home.  My dad got a new laptop and I brought it with me so that I could do some work, keep up on whats going on and for the boys to do their school work. 

A very nice thing about on-line school is that as long as there is some type of online service (dial FTW… lol) the boys can just sign on and do work…

Things are going well..  The boys each did a few lessons today with out any major complaining.  I snapped a few shots while I was taking a break from grouting. 

Of course when I went back to working on the floor the boys started taking photos and Z got one of Q “Sleeping” while doing work……