Learning Life with 3 Sons: October 2014

A real quick update on Joey. We were able to get into the Nureo-pychologist's a week earlier for his evaluation. So this past Tuesday he took his two hour "test" with only a 2-3 minute break after an hour. After his evaluations I asked him what kind of things he was asked to do and he couldn't remember many of them except the last one which was really fun. He said most of the things were fun things like using only one hand to put small pegs in a board or word associating. Twice I could hear him from down the hall when he had a melt down. The first one had to do with stacking blocks a certain way and he just couldn't do it, he said there weren't enough blocks to make the pattern (I think the point could of been to see how he would react when things didn't work out the way he thought they should). The second melt down was because he was asked to do a handful (maybe 12) math problems and he simply refused to do them because he doesn't like math. From the sound of things there was a stare-down between the evaluator and Joey for about 5 minutes before he caved and worked the problems. We have an appointment for a month from now (that was the next available) for the feedback on the evaluation. I'm surprised on how long this process is taking, the school year is going to be halfway over before we figure out what is the best ways to help him.

The school has also begun their evaluation on him. I thought I would hear from the school as to when they had planned on preforming their evaluation, I found out when Joey told me he was pulled from class for a 40 minute block for "testing". I'm interested to see the difference (if there is any) from the school's multiple 40 minute sessions and the doctor's 2 hour session. Joey is getting pulled 3 times a week to head down to complete 40 minutes of testing each time.

Class time is still a struggle for him. He's still feeling that his teacher doesn't like him and just wants to make him miserable. Seems he's not happy in class he's making the teacher not not happy by being defiant, just to be defiant. He is still getting sent to the resource room everyday mostly during math. We are still getting stacks of homework sent home daily.

Homework takes up a good part of our evenings anywhere for 2-3 hours. Mostly because he'll write in any answer just to be done and can spend some time outside. When we come back in I check over his work and we end up reworking the all the pages. He knows the material, he just doesn't want o be bothered with doing it. Even though this "routine" is very time consuming and a pain in my backside, he is doing the work without much complaint. The last couple nights we have been working on math homework half hour to an hour past bedtime. I think we found the key to making math a bit easier on him (although it's more work on Mom), I rewrite every problem on graph paper so he can properly line up his numbers. On a page with 16 problems he was getting 11 of them wrong and the teacher would send it back home for him to redo (You know, during all our spare time). With the way he writes you can't really tell which numbers your working with and which ones are to be added/subtracted. He can't read his writing to tell me if the number is really suppose to be a 0 or a 6, and neither can his teacher. We have been working on slowing down and making sure numbers and letters are formed correctly (or close enough).

I started referring to his homework as a party one night just to get him to want to do it. I think I made doing homework to much fun because when I pick him up he'll inform me that 'We get to have a math party and a social studies party today!' I'm glad he has a better outlook on homework, but honestly I would love if there was one day, just one, without any homework. I have set up a couple bribes to encourage him to get his work done in school, he hasn't earn any of them yet :( I have come to accept that there will probably be homework everyday and math will probably be a page or two of it, but if we could just get to where that was his only homework I would be thrilled.

So much energy goes into getting Joey's assignments completed and to get his behavior under control that it makes it more difficult to have time to spend with the other two boys. I know from when my nephew, Matthew, was living here and the effect of so much of my attention going to correcting his behavior, helping with his assignments, and sitting at his therapies that it really took a toll on my boys. There was (and still is) A LOT of resentment there. I'm trying to make sure that doesn't happen this time, but it is a very hard juggling act. Jordan and I still have our hour a day before the boys get out of school for just the two of us. I play with Jacob during our 1-2 hours after dinner before Joey and I to recheck his homework. I try to make sure that I have time with Joey doing non-homework related things. I feel like there just isn't enough hours in the day.

Get ready for a photo explosion!! Yesterday was our last day to reach 1000 Hours Outside within a year. We didn't reach the goal but I'm proud of the amount of hours we did get outside. When we first heard about the challenge from our friends at Homeschool Camper we thought "we've got this one in the bag, we spend tons of time outside", turns out 1000 hours is more than we thought. Our grand total was *DRUM ROLL* 782 hours!! The arctic temperatures this past winter really played a part in keeping us indoors more than we would have liked. Other than when it was too cold to even think about being outside we got outdoors as much as we could. Back in March there was a week we got absolutely no outside time for a whole week. Our best week for getting outside was in the beginning of July when we logged a whopping 43 hours!

Here's a look how we spent some of those 782 hours :)

October 2013