Convention Finds

I love shopping and meeting people at the Midwest Homeschool Convention.  I love seeing old favorites and discovering new products.  These are a few of my favorite this year. I tried to choose some things that may be off the beaten path. 

Shatterpoint Entertainment has produced two movies involving LEGO®  parts and Bible stories that my children love!  Their second movie is Jericho: The Promise Fulfilled.  The Rondina family who produced the movie is a homeschool family.  My kids are crazy about this movie and now quote it around our home. The extras on the DVD are very interesting as it explains their journey into film making.  

I enjoyed looking around the Odyssey Learning Game booth.  What fabulous educational games. They carry one of my all time favorite games Set. (down the page 4th game on right hand side) They carry other favorites like Rush Hour. (8th down on left) I love playing games with my children that build thinking and math skills.

Another favorite I like to visit is the Little House Site Tours.  They organize site tours to the places from the Little House on the Prairie books.  They also sell DVDs  and books about the little house tours.  My daughter absolutely loves these.  They are very informative. 

Another family business is Virgina Soaps and Scents.  I have known about them for awhile, but really enjoyed seeing the family in person. Richelle Spargur, the owner,  shared with me that they are now putting their soap in boxes.  She said that is a big deal for a soap maker.   She also shared that they are putting a 2 story building behind their home to produce and sell soap.  Their family wants the kitchen back to smelling like a kitchen.  You have to love a homeschooling project that turned into a business.  I am a fan of the lavender soap currently.

Just a few things  I found to nourish the life long learner in me.
Enjoy!
Becky

What the Duggars and my family have in common.

I was fortunate enough to attend the Midwest Homeschool Convention.  A highlight for me was hearing  Michelle Duggar talk.   I have never seen the show, but always enjoy hearing moms of big families talk.    I am the oldest of 19 children, so  that is my connection with them.     From the picture below you can see our family formed a little differently.  The three oldest joined our family by birth and the next sixteen through international adoption.  Many of my siblings have special needs.    If you are interested,  The New York Times Magazine had an article in 2001 about our family.  Also, here is a link to a  TV episode about my family.  I often joke I am an underachiever with only six kids.
   

My family including  spouses and grandchildren from 2007.

Next week I hope to share my favorite convention finds.
Enjoy your week.
Becky

Relationship Development Intervention

April is  Autism Awareness month.   I have a son with high functioning autism/ Aspergers.    We have come a long way in the past almost six years with a program called Relationship Development Intervention.  It is a developmental program founded by Dr. Steven Gutstein.    Autism is a processing disorder where children miss many developmental steps along the way.  Dr. Gutstein surveyed all of the milestones that typically developing children pass through and came up with over 1,000 objectives in the RDI program.     Dr. Gustsein believes you can deliberately work on  objectives in the developmental order they occur at a slower pace with children with ASD.  By doing this with your child  they  master objectives and  move along the typical developmental path. It allows your child a developmental "do over" on what he/she has  missed.  You work with a consultant who helps you guide your child.  It is a great fit with homeschooling.  Dr. Gutstein believes that you are capable of guiding your child and making progress.  Dr. Gutstein was a homeschooling parent himself.

My son has made amazing progress with RDI.  He is able to do more school work, is able to solve problems, has friendships with his brothers, sisters and others, and has become a joy in lives.  He is becoming a functioning and contributing  member of our family.    If you have a child  on the Autism Spectrum I think you might enjoy exploring  RDI. 

Lastly, my friend Kathy Darrow, an RDI Consultant,  did an interview on Autism One Radio about RDI.    I felt the interview does a great job giving you an overview of the program.  Kathy also follows my blog.  :-)
Happy April!
Becky

Multiplication the colorful way

One of my children does not consider math her gift. :-) We have been working on 2 digit and 3 digit multiplication, and this has been extremely challenging for her. She understood the concept of multiplication, but it seemed she could not remember how to do the algorithm, or the order of when to multiply. She would get stuck in the middle and was not sure what to do next.
To me this was an interesting problem. I wondered if color coding the problem would help her. So the picture below shows what we did. After a few weeks, she was able to solve the algorithm without the colors. I considered this great progress!

Each number in the second row of the multiplication problem is circled a different color. The lines that she writes the number on after multiply each number is the same color as the number that is being multiplied. This has helped her know where she is in each problem. We used Crayola erasable crayons.