Even We Have Our Bad Days

I often feel like the special needs community makes a big deal about the parents being "Super." They juggle appointments, therapists, medications, equipment and the way the Internet makes it seem, we all do it with ease. But what you don't see are our bad days. The days where we just want to cry (and sometimes do!). The days where NOTHING goes right. The fights, the meltdowns, the screaming, the crying, the spills, the leaks. Even we have our bad days.

Yesterday was one of those days where NOTHING went right. I felt like an awful parent. I felt like I wanted to go hide in my room. And the thing was, it actually started really good!

Little Man got up and after ten minutes of watching TV (yes, I let him watch TV in the morning before school to help him wake up), he wanted breakfast! He was then ready to go to school by 7:15 in the morning! This NEVER happens. Who was this kid? We were out the door by 7:25 because I had to get Princess up. He was one of the first few at school and there was NO line to drop him off. I totally thought it was going to be a good day. I was wrong.

It started when it was time to get Princess dressed. See, Princess can't really get herself dressed or undressed and she's almost 3. There are things she should be able to do, but can't and things that I believe she can do but is so flipping stubborn that she won't. She will be receiving OT twice a month to help with this. So I decided to start before we have OT in place because there is a plan in the way things are done while we are AT the therapists. The main therapy will happen at the beginning and end of the session. Princess will take off her clothes, get to play and then put her clothes back on to go home. I know, sounds weird, right? But we were advised to get a leotard or swimsuit for her to wear. (Luckily we found her a short sleeved and long sleeved pink leotard at Walmart in her size and didn't have to find a dance store!)

Well, I wanted to start early with this "getting dressed/undressed" thing so we're not taking HALF the time getting undressed and HALF the time getting dressed and then there's NO TIME to play in between. (Playing is the reward for getting undressed.) So we decided to make her a sticker chart because she seems to be motivated by stickers.

So, back to yesterday. It was a NIGHTMARE getting her dressed! It literally took us 45 minutes! We almost didn't go to school! There was screaming, crying, bribery, everything. I felt like the WORST mom in the world! But we did manage to get to school. And she got to share her stuffed Everest because she was the helper. But beyond that, I think school was just too much stimulation for her yesterday. See, it's "Circus Week." So this week, we have a bunch of circus themed games in every room. The kids can have popcorn for snack. We even have a mini bounce house! And they are given tickets and if they want to, at every station, they can trade their tickets for prizes! Well, this was Princess's second day of preschool this week and I think after the first day of "go where you want, no schedule," the second day was just too much for her. Granted, I was able to sneak out and go grab a mocha because I felt so bad and she was hiding under the slide playing with her tickets. She wasn't interested in trading in the tickets, she just wanted to play with them. And then when I cam back, she was more interested in the things we usually have out, like the light table and the puzzles, than the games. She primarily stayed in the room where there were the least amount of kids. And when we went outside to play, she just wanted to sit on my lap and snuggle. Then she didn't want to leave!

When we got home, we watched some "Paw Patrol" and she seemed back to normal. We went outside and blew bubbles and she even let me use my new leaf blower. She went and sat on the steps into the house while I did it. And when we picked up her brother at school, she definitely seemed like everything was okay!

Then after Little Man was home, she started "denning." She hid herself under the dining room table, under the blanket, and then under the trampoline with all of her stuffies. Yeah, she was having an overwhelmed day, even though her brother wasn't being loud or anything. She took a late nap and then when she woke up and I was making tacos for dinner, MeMe had to hold "Tinky Nee," her giraffe, because he didn't like the noise the cheese grater made. She hasn't done this in a long time. She had figured out what that noise was and would usually come and ask for cheese.

When I got her into bed, I hoped that today would be a better day. So far, it seems to be. We skipped gym because it's been raining all day. And otherwise, we've just had a calm, peaceful day with puzzles and games. SO much better than yesterday!

Linked Up at #BloggyBrunch

Year End Round Up for Princess

Here is our Year End Round Up for 2015:

Trips to Sac: 6

Trips to YC: 2

Therapy Sessions: 50+ -- Princess receives weekly therapy, plus we added 3 more therapists, 1 though is redundant.

Dr. Appointments:  A LOT!

Specialists Seen: 4 -- We added 1 new one this year.

Ultrasounds: 2, thankfully done the same day!

ER Trips: 1!!!!!!! Hooray!!!!!!!!

New Diagnoses:  2

Hospitalizations: 0!!!!!!!!!

Highlights:

Princess graduated from NICU Follow-Up Clinic!

She was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy (CP) and Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD).

After her next birthday, we will no longer be seeing J, our developmental therapist. We also will no longer be seeing M, the OT through the county special ed department. She will no longer qualify to have her gym class paid for, but we will likely continue it, as it's only $7, we just probably won't be going as frequently. But we will be continuing with the medical based therapy with L, the physical therapist and M, the occupational therapist.

On Monday, she's scheduled for an MRI of her brain. It's to "verify" the CP diagnosis. I'm not sure if we're going to see anything on it or not, but it's more to make sure the insurance doesn't stop her services.

Also coming up in the next few months, the school district and regional center will be assessing her to see if she falls within their range to receive services. It's likely that she won't qualify except for maybe school based OT for the sensory issues, since the medical unit doesn't deal with them. Also coming up, we make the first quarter rounds with all the docs. Some we only see once a year (Dr. M and Dr. R), some we see twice a year (Dr. K and Dr. D), and then we see Dr. H quarterly.

But God continues to watch out for this little girl. At our last PT visit with L, she said that they would like Princess to be seen on their "clinic" days. I'm not entirely sure all that goes on, but I do know that a medical doctor comes in and we meet with her therapy team. It's every other month. Well, it turns out that Dr. D from Shriners is the doctor that comes to the location Princess is being seen at! So it means that we'll be able to get additional therapy, any medical adaptive devices, or other services taken care of much quicker than having to wait to see Dr. D at her bi-annual appointment.

So all in all, 2015 was a good year for Princess. We are two years out of the hospital and hope to stay that way! She's in a preschool that she enjoys and works well for her not only socially and academically, but also with all of her issues. And pretty soon, she'll be 3. It's hard to believe that this little tiny tyke is going to be three years old soon. She's such a warrior.

Linked up at #BloggyBrunch

Day 3: Signs of the Season

On the third day of Blogmas The Petite Mrs and The Coastie Couple gave to me...

Probably the first signs of the season that we get is the fact that my mom wants to decorate the house. We usually do this the Saturday after Thanksgiving. We haven't done our tree yet, as we will be doing that tomorrow. Partly because it takes so long to put up, but also because we want the kids to be involved. But here are some photos of the house decked out for the holidays:

The trees in the kids' rooms. We'll do the big tree tomorrow.

The kids' stockings and the reindeer in the entry way.

Another sign of the season now that the kids are in school are Christmas programs! And wow, how did I end up so lucky as to have BOTH kids have their programs ON THE SAME NIGHT even though they go to DIFFERENT SCHOOLS! Yeah, it was a big confusing thing when I figured this out! But thankfully it went okay. Little Man sang and signed two songs with his class and the first graders. They did "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" (a kindergarten tradition, I think because I did that song when I was in kindergarten) and "Santa Claus is Coming to Town." Yes, they learned them in American Sign Language, because it's one of the "specials" his school does!

The kids ready for their performances.

As for Princess, her thing was longer and I "helped." Their singing only lasted for a few songs, which we have practiced and practiced! But then it was a bunch of fun for the whole family! Princess did about what I expected. She stood up and did the songs in the beginning, which had lots of spinning and action, but the songs she didn't really like, she sat down for. She didn't wear her little reindeer antlers and Santa hat mainly because they wouldn't stay on her head, but she was fine with it. Afterwards, we went over and had some cupcakes and then Little Man showed up with his dad so we were able to go over and get a photo of them with Santa. Then I went over and helped the kids wrap presents after they "shopped" in Santa's Workshop. I had to help my mom get Princess in the car so I could finish helping the rest of the kids wrap. I got home shortly after the kids were in bed.

Favorites from yesterday's link up:
The Berger Bungalow's Random Acts of Kindness
Drops of Learning's Birthday Giving
Trish's Sweet Son

Up Next on Monday: Day 4: Holiday Quotes

Preschool Help

Princess is at a co-op preschool. It's really a great thing. And is a great place for her to be right now. (More on this later, I promise!)

But some days are just rough! And not for the reasons you might think.

I spent five years teaching third graders and then went to teaching ages 5-12 in Sunday School for the next two years. Then for a year I taught 2-5 year olds. I actually like this age. They're so cute and full of wonder! They are also full of energy.

Well today wasn't EXACTLY a "cute and full of wonder" day. Instead, today was a "full of energy" day! I guess it was because it rained yesterday.

We have up to 6 kids in Princess's Thursday class, which is the day I help.

Princess, 2.5yrs
G, 2yrs, BOY! Yes, boy with a Capital B! Rough, full of energy, etc!
M, 3yrs, girl. This is her second year at the co-op so she knows the ins and outs.
A, 2yrs, boy. Mom has to hide because he won't separate. Also can have massive fits out of nowhere.
N, 2yrs, boy. He's low on the Autism spectrum, so this is good for him!
R, 3yrs, girl. She's just a shy, sweet girl.

So that's the basics of her class. Today was one of those days where G was just thrashing around everywhere in every room! Couldn't be still for a moment. A had a couple of tantrums where he just threw himself on the ground. M was "grumpy" today. So it made for a VERY interesting day!

Princess was having none of A's tantrums and therefore would want me to carry her because she didn't know what to do. The others were so sweet though and would go down and check on him. Usually it's no problem for me to handle the 5 or 6 kiddos with limited help, but not today. There was one point we had more adults in the room than kids I think! It was just one of those days where we were ALL glad to go outside!

It was obviously a very busy day for Princess as well because she fell asleep in the car on the way home!

Week in Review: First Week.

So this past week was our first week of school. I had wanted to start back when the local schools started, but things just weren't to be. Instead, I cut myself some slack, did some more research and decided to start the week before Labor Day.

Being Little Man is "technically" in preschool now, I still fall under the "not legally homeschooling" category. There are no regulations about preschool (yet). So we're doing some random things here and there to just keep him learning, but not really focusing on any grade or curriculum. (Here are our Curriculum Choices.) Since he's not really going to preschool this year, I felt left out of the all the "first day of..." photos that all my friends were posting on Facebook. So I snapped this one of him on the first day of his Tot Time class at the rec center.

This week, I had planned a four day week, being Little Man had an appointment on Monday. It didn't wind up working out to be a four day week. Instead, we took a field trip on Friday!

So on Tuesday, I helped Little Man set up his Interactive Notebooks.

The ones that didn't have Expectations in them got them glued in. We also glued in the spelling list for the week. The spelling isn't so much about learning to spell the words as it is practicing his writing.

We also read "Pete the Cat: I Love my White Shoes." And then I had him do some writing to go with it!

It says "I love my blue shoes."

That was pretty much it for Tuesday. I wanted to ease into school.

The next day we went through just about everything. One of the things Little Man liked doing was the dot sticker page for spelling.

For math, we did a "math about me" page and glued into his notebook. He also worked on writing letter L and number 1. (I'm going out of order for the letters and focusing on formation of them. This way he has some success at first doing "easy letters.") We also talked about "The Three Little Pigs." We'd already read it, so he got to pick what he would make his house out of and write a sentence and draw a picture. It was a shared pen writing. We did science, which we are finishing the five senses. This week was the sense of smell. We also read from the Bible.

On Thursday, things were pretty much the same. We did counting by 5s in his math journal. I got this page idea from: Miss Van Maren's Fantastic First Grade

He wrote letter T and number 1. (We'll focus on one number a week.) He wrote his spelling words in capital letters. We read "The Three Bears" and he wrote that he didn't like oatmeal. Science was good vs. bad smells and Bible reading. Next week, we are introducing the review pages!

We had planned to finish the week on Friday, but being MeMe was off of work, she wanted to take the kids to the zoo. So we had a field trip to the zoo! (Blog entry forthcoming!) And one other thing we did, was during the week, we received a package from Great Grammy. So I had Little Man write her a thank you note!

So what was Princess doing while I was teaching Little Man? Well, with a little help from MeMe, we put together some Discover Bins for her. These are like the prelude to tot trays. In them, we have different things: post its, silk leaves, craft sticks, pom poms, books, just things for her to explore.

So far, they are keeping her busy. But I don't know for how long.

Curriculum Choices 2014-2015

Since Little Man is officially in "preschool" now, I figured I'd better figure out what we are doing. Since we are still "unofficially" homeschooling, as there are no regulations on preschool (yet), I figured I'd better assess Little Man FIRST and see what he can do. I found a GREAT kindergarten assessment (link will be at the bottom). We've pretty much gone through it and there are a few things that we haven't touched on in the Language Arts part and he can pretty much do just about ALL of the math. So technically, "preschool" is more like "fill in the kindergarten gaps"! (Gotta love an intellectually gifted child!)

So the plan this year is to do "playschool" about 3 to 4 times a week. We will ALWAYS have at least one day off, if not two or on occasion three. I don't want to overwhelm him, as I have no clue as to what is going to happen when he finally enters school in the fall of 2015. I don't know if the school will keep him in kindergarten or contemplate moving him up. We will just have to wait and see.

So what are we doing this year? Well, I plan to do "Interactive Notebooks" with him instead of a bunch of worksheets for everything. Not to mention, all the "Pre-K/K" packs are too easy for him. We have 4 Notebooks: Math, Spelling, Science, and Writing.

Math: I'm going to be using some of Easy Peasy's Math 1, but otherwise, I'm just going to fill in gaps. We'll do addition and subtraction, skip counting, even and odd, time, money, shapes, graphing. I'm going to be using Pinterest a lot to find pages for us to do.

Spelling: We are using K12 Reader's first grade spelling words. We more than likely won't get through all the lists. The intent isn't so much that Little Man learns to spell them, as they are primarily word family based, but that he works on his handwriting.

Science: We've been doing science for a while now, but I decided since we're not really focusing on a specific "grade" so-to-speak, that we would come back and do some science. So this allows us to finish some things we didn't get to last year and also allows me to do some fun things with him. I'll be looking primarily at kindergarten based "units" of science.

Handwriting: I managed to snag a free handwriting download from The Moffatt Girls. So we are using that for letters. And I am going back to the way the letters are formed and not going in alphabetical order. So essentially, they start easy and get more difficult for him. Little Man also still has reversals with his numbers, so we are using a few different sites for those pages. We'll do one number a week and then come back if he still has problems after 9 weeks.

Writing: We started a journal not too long ago. But we're going to be focusing on some prompt based writing, some interactive (shared pen) writing, and some free writing. I'm trying to get him to write FIRST then draw, but sometimes we may go the other way. We are going to be working on sentences.

Reading: We're not really going to have a reading curriculum, as he can already read at about a 2nd grade level. Instead, we'll read some classic literature. Maybe do some kindergarten literature units. We'll also work on comprehension with K12 Reader's comprehension pages. They tie into the spelling of the week, so that will work well together.We will also be hopefully attending the library's story time every Friday.

Bible: We'll be using Easy Peasy's Old Testament curriculum. We're only going to be doing it maybe twice a week and will be reading the stories out of the NIrV. It starts with New Testament, but we will get to Old Testament once we get through the Gospel of Matthew.

Review: Right now, we are still working through the K-1 Summer Bridge book. We are into "month three." We will do one side of a page each day or two, it just depends. This is just to keep Little Man fresh on things that we may not cover every day.

Socialization: This is our MAIN focus. One of the reasons I haven't put Little Man into an official preschool is because of his intellectual/verbal gifts. I KNOW he would be bored with the curriculum of learning shapes and colors and letter ID and sounds. The biggest thing he needs is socialization. So, instead, I have opted to put him into "Tot Time" through the recreation department in town every couple of months. It is for 3-5 year olds. There's some structure similar to preschool. It's twice a week for 2.5 hours. So essentially the same amount of time a kid would be in preschool. It's about half the cost of a traditional preschool, as well. Little Man will also be trying "Tot-nastics." I figured this might be a good way for him to do all that "climbing/falling" off the couch he's been doing lately in a safe environment. There was a 3 week program, so I signed him up for that one, in case he hates it. He's also got Rainbows on Wednesday nights, plus every other week, he'll be doing Sunday School at church. And when he's not in "Tot Time," I've got a playgroup that he'll be attending. (It just happens to be the same time as "Tot Time," so when Little Man is there, it will just be Princess and I.)

So that is what we are planning to do this year. I was going to post this earlier, but I just now got around to doing it! I'll be posting about our first week in the next day or so.

Specific Links:
Mrs Ricca's Kindergarten (blog)
Kindergarten Assessment

Everyday Snapshots
Learn to Write Numbers (She's up to 7)

Confessions of a Homeschooler
Kindergarten Printables (We're using the 1-20 Writing Practice vol. 2)

The Moffatt Girls
A-Z Handwriting Pages (You have to like their Facebook Page to get to it)

The Measured Mom
Numbers of All Sizes (They're at the bottom underneath all the letters)
Teaching Journal Writing in Preschool (This is how we started our "Writing" Notebook.)

Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits (blog)
Journal and Folder Labels (I got the cute labels for our journals from this teacher's TPT store for free!)

Alphabet Journal

After a year, we have FINALLY finished our Alphabet Journal! So I figured I would share it with you! It was just a composition book. Little Man picked blue and he wanted to decorate it with digger stickers.

We started each week with the letter in construction paper.

In the beginning, we would do something that started with the letter for our next page. Stickers. Glue. Cutting practice were all incorporated.

Sometimes we did science in our journal too! This was before we started our Science Journal.

Apple Science for A week.

A really neat experiment with an egg in a little plastic bowl about the brain and the skull. We'll probably do this one again later!

Little Man LOVED all things vehicles, so I was SO lucky that I found Royal Baloo's Zoomin' Moving Alphabet! We did a lot of things from her packets in the beginning. But towards the end, we only did a few things: dotting the letter and gluing whatever the vehicle was onto the letter. I always cut out the letter and glued it into the Alphabet Journal. In the beginning I didn't have a color printer, but towards the end, I did.

In the beginning, we did a number every week too! I found this great number book that I would cut the number out and he would put the correct number of dot stickers on it. We only did number 1-9, even though there was a number 10.

We also did a memory verse every week. I got these from Totally Tots. And we did a page from Homeschool Creations Preschool Alphabet Pages. She has A LOT of great stuff on this page, but we just did the alphabet cut and paste pages. I would cut the letter out and glue it into the journal and then Little Man would glue all the pictures around it.

At first I didn't have a color printer.

We also used the journal to just draw and write in. And even did a "I'm Thankful For" thing each day the week of Thanksgiving.

At first Little Man would draw and I would label.

Then he would label. "DIGR" (Digger)

"I'm Thankful For..." DUMP TRUK. All his days were like this until the last one.

"BABE" (baby). He was thankful for his baby sister!

I had Little Man draw a picture of himself towards the beginning of our "school year" and when we finished our Alphabet Journal.

Little Man's self portrait in October 2013.

Little Man's self portrait in July 2014. And yes, he did write his name at the bottom!

Daily Calendar Notebook

I loved the idea of calendar notebooks for the classroom when I found out about them last year on Pinterest. Well, I'm not looking to keep 30 students on task during calendar time, I'm working with just one, so I did a little researching. On Confessions of a Homeschooler's Calendar Printables, I found a preschool version! I printed out what I wanted (her version has lots of pages to it!) and put parts of it in sheet protectors. As long as you get the glossy sheet protectors, the kids can use a dry erase marker on them and reuse the pages in them frequently.

I took these photos back in November! I just haven't written this up until now!

We have the following pages:

The daily pages where Little Man traces the day of the week, colors in the number of the date, writes that number and then, if the number is below 20, he writes the word too. I'm looking at using the Elementary ones of these pages as he gets a little better at his writing. So as a result, right now we don't do these pages. We've actually have an Elementary page in there and sometimes he'll write the days up at the top. (He gets about 3-4 letters) and he'll do a few other things on it too. And come fall, he will be doing the Elementary page instead of the preschool page.

There has also been a days of the week page and months of the year page. But this is something Little Man already knows and therefore we don't do this anymore. It will be coming out of the binder this fall. I also created a "Number of the Day" page, but now that I think he understands most of the concepts on there, we may or may not do it any more. I may keep it in there for review though.

Behind that is the blank 100 chart:

He colors in a box and then he goes and adds a craft stick to our place value cups.

I got our cards and labels here. Royal Baloo has a ton of great stuff in the whole pack as well! We have added the States and therefore also have a blank US map that he colors in the state of the day.  Here's how we do our place value cups. When we get to 10 sticks in the ones, I rubber band them together and put the whole bundle in the tens cup. As we get more tens, Little Man counts by tens and then ones as we add more ones. This is a great addition to it and prepares them for kindergarten! This also goes along with our "Days in School" chart on our Calendar Board.

After we do the place value, Little Man would almost always counts the boxes on his hundred chart to make sure they match what we just did. 

Then there are 2 pages of where he can write his name every month. We do this at the end of the month as he has to write his name at least once every day.

After that are the calendar pages. He has to trace the date and any days we miss every day. I believe come fall these will get more difficult as he will have to write the number in himself instead of trace it.

Behind that is our weather graph. Every month we do a different pattern.

I also added numbers of 1 to 20 for him to trace. I'm not so worried about number recognition as I am about his writing the numbers and the number words. He doesn't do this anymore. These will come out come fall.

I'll be sure to post an updated version of our Calendar Notebook when I get it together this fall!

Happy 100th Day of Playschool!

Okay, we hit 100 days! YAY! For us this is kind of like a BIG deal anyway. We've had so many things happen this past year! Let's see: Princess was born in March and Little Man came out of his playschool at the end of May. Princess came home in June only to go back to the hospital for another week. So by July, we thought we had everything figured out, except Princess had appointment after appointment for months! So there were some weeks we got one or two days of schooling done. Then the Big Chaotic Mess happened and we moved. That put a damper on things again! Between my battling depression over the Big Chaotic Mess and battling with my son and appointments that can sometimes take MOST of the day because they are so far away now, we have just NOW hit 100 days! Eh, I'm not too worried about it. It was like he went 2-3 days a week and had Christmas and Easter and Thanksgiving off.

This is from our Calendar Notebook. Little Man has had to color in one square every day we've done school.

We are one day away from finishing our Alphabet Journal. We also finished learning all the letters today. And this weekend, the playroom/schoolroom becomes JUST a playroom and the schoolroom stuff gets moved inside. I don't know how I feel about that, being Princess can climb up on the picnic bench we use for schooling. And in the following photos, she climbed up there and sat down next to her brother. So, I gave her a crayon and some paper. She actually scribbled and dotted a little. She also tried to eat the crayon!

Summer Learning

Okay, I know most homeschoolers are off for the summer, but we're not. Why? Well, I'm lazy and haven't want to homeschool for periods of time. But that's okay, we're making up for it now! So here's what we've been up to.

We're still working on our handwriting, like the last update post here. I've also been pulling stuff from 3 Dinosaurs and Royal Baloo. Mainly their "Jump In" and "Build Up" summer units. The "Jump In" series is last year and the "Build Up" is this year. It's still in the process of being released. I wish I would have looked into these beforehand! They are GREAT! Here's what's in them:

There's a word family page. Sometime we do a page if I'm teaching a word family. We will also use the Read 'n' Stick mats from The Measured Mom.

We also put them on a page in our Word Family Dictionary from This Reading Mama.

Then there is some type of math/language arts page. We've done this one on the penny. I know Little Man KNOWS his change, but it seems to come and go sometimes.

We've also done a page on the parallelogram. Little Man wanted to color ALL the shapes at the bottom so we had decided he would color the parallelograms blue and the other shapes a different color. We've also done a page on rhyming words and we're going to do one on syllables.

The third page is a sight word page. Little Man has mastered (I think) all the Dolch pre-primer and primer (kindergarten) words. So we are now starting on the first grade words. I have him read them and then introduce the ones he doesn't know. He continues to surprise me every day!

The fourth page is a math page. We've done adding and subtracting. There's other things I'm going to introduce and teach like time and fact families over the next few months.

I've also purchased one of those Summer Bridge workbooks. This one is for K to 1st. I'm pulling pages in order and letting him use our page protector to do them. This way, if we have to do them again later, we can! I'm also kind of using this to see what I still need to touch on because the book is supposedly correlated to the new Common Core State Standards.

I also signed him up for our library's summer reading program! So far, he and I have read 25 books together. There are a few of them he has read by himself which is still WAY impressive! We only signed up a week ago too! I'm not sure how long the program runs, but I'm sure we'll have a LOT of books read by the end!

The other thing we have for him is a simple word search book. He still needs help, but he does pretty well with it. I know the picture is blurry, but he is trying to do it himself! We got it at the dollar store and all the words are either across or down. There's no diagonal or backwards words, so it's a perfect first step for him!

So I'm debating on enrolling him in transitional kindergarten this year. For one, I don't know if they'll have a spot for him. Secondly, I'd really like him in a charter school, but I don't know our chances of getting in. Thirdly, I'm debating just enrolling him in kindergarten the year he should start and then letting THEM see that he's too advanced for K. I mean, really, the only things he has to work on his handwriting, which we are doing. And according to their benchmarks, by the end of the year, he needs to be able to write a  sentence narrative. (HUH? When did K become 1st grade?) Well, we can hit both of those through his journal. In fact, he does well creating sentences on his little computer! Now I've just got to get him to hand write them!

So I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this kid. He's just too dang smart but needs the socialization. Anyway, here are the links to the worksheets we're using

Links We've Used:

Build Up to Summer Learning (3 Dinosaurs and Royal Baloo -- the link is to 3 Dinosaurs, but some links will take you to Royal Ball. They partnered on this!)
Jump In to Summer Learning (3 Dinosaurs and Royal Baloo -- the link is to 3 Dinosaurs, but some links will take you to Royal Baloo. They partnered on this!)
Read 'n' Stick Mats (The Measured Mom -- These are under word families. I'm not sure how up-to-date her list is, but I think she said her site is going to be redesigned soon.)
Word Family Dictionary (The Measured Mom but written by This Reading Mama)