Acquara Independent School

I’m not sure how to get back to blogging. So, I will do a summary of where we are now, then go back and backfill as I can. It will probably be more like occasional posts.

Back in May, we visited the Village Free School. We went for an interview and spent two days with them. I admire what they are doing, but both kids said it wasn’t for them. And to be honest, the trip would have been long. It is located next to OMSI.

Then one day, after school had ended for public but before the office was closed for summer. I just took Aaron and Naim there to enroll them. I think I was just burnt out of everything. I was working several jobs and so was Nik and we are still just above poverty level and so we qualify for nothing and I just felt like my head was a jumbled mess.

When we were there, I talked to the principal about Naim and getting him evaluated for an IEP in the summer. She said it wasn’t going to happen till probably more than sixty school days into the fall. I just thought, well what will you do with him til then? It would be February before an actual IEP would be set up and in the meantime, how would he be helped with the reading he can’t read to keep up in all of his other classes that he is fine in except for the reading? Everyone just kind of shrugged it off. So then I decided to keep Naim as a homeschooler, enroll Aaron and put Avery in Goddard for four half days a week in the fall.

And that is what we have been doing. I am not impressed with Aaron’s school, but will hold judgement for a bit more. I have parent/teacher conferences on Monday and that will be eye-opening I am sure. I feel like I send him away for six hours to float. Avery’s Goddard has gotten really academic since now he is in preKindergarten. Its letters and numbers and worksheets for him now. I am paying up the ass for that and he grumbles about it a lot, but for now what it allows is for 4 days of 4 hours of uninterrupted Naim school time. Which I think really helps.

Naim and I have been using a notebook system to keep track of our work. It has worked well. I can easily sit there and fill out what we have done and what we will do next while he is working. I still would like to get him a neurodevelopment evaluation but the ESD won’t call me back, which is their tactic to wait list kids since wait listing is now allowed. If the don’t contact you; the process hasn’t started yet and the clock doesn’t tick. So, they could not contact you for months on end. I tried to go through my pediatrician; who referred me to OHSU CDRC but medicaid rejected it. So, we are just moving along. I am looking into what would be possible at Hillsboro Online Academy, which is HPS online arm.

So, where are we in curricula right now?

We are finishing up Chapter 2 (of 6) in Reading Horizons. We need to circle around and do some reviewing before we go on. As it has always been, he is improving in reading, but it goes at a snail’s pace. We started this curriculum last fall, and we have done two of six chapters. But I absolutely don’t move on until he knows it at at least the 85& level. So, we circle around a lot.

I added back in Hooked on Phonics. He kind of does it on his own as homework. He is at the tail end of the First Grade; First Level book.

We finished Math in Focus 2A and are at the beginning of 2b. This goes ok conceptually, but we work everyday on math facts and also reversing numbers.

I think he has done one or two practice handwriting books. I just have him do a page a day.

We finished the worry book and also A Life Like Mine, the UNICEF book. We started Hilyer’s A Child’s History of the World and also Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens.

We have moved along in Calvert Music (Lesson 19?) and Atelier Art a bit (Lesson 15?)

We have completed RS4K Chemistry up to Lesson 9 (of ten) so we need to think of where to go from there. He wants physics next.

We started doing Keyboarding without Tears, but the application was just horrible and didn’t work. Now we are starting anew, with another typing tutorial. We also have been journaling, where he dictates a sentence and I write it, then he copies it.

I think those are the main things we work on at home.

Classes and Activities he has done:

Starting with Summer camps, he did a pioneer camp at Washington County Museum that they (A and N) both really liked.

He did a NWCT camp about improv.

He did a DI camp at Village Home.

Currently, he has done one term in VH with Explorers, Drawing, Music, and DI. He is not particularly a fan of the music class, but to my surprise he loves drawing.

He also did soccer again this year.

Aaron and Avery both did Zoo camp this summer. It was Avery’s first camp. Avery was a penguin and Aaron was an otter.

Aaron also took some classes at PCAS this summer, and attended the same pioneer camp as Naim.

That’s where we are for now. It has been tough. I have had to struggle a lot with what every mother has to struggle with, balancing career and motherhood/homeschooling. Money has been exceedingly tight (we are living on probably the lowest per capita amount than I have ever lived on before.) D has been in and out of hospitals and nursing homes and I still work for him nights and it makes for very long days. The day time is childcare (It all falls to me) and still trying to get work done for our company and current contracts I have. I also got a guide dog in October, so that was 2 weeks out of town and then the work and adjustment of a new dog since being back.

It’s overwhelming, but we keep on and keep trying our best and keep trusting that we will know what to do when we get there.

Filed under: Aaron, Art, Avery, Class/Camp, Drama, Early Intervention, Fieldtrip, Handwriting, Home, Language Arts, Math, Music, Naim, Physical Education, Science, Social Studies |