The Forrest Gump Homeschool Method

My momma always said, "Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." ~~Forrest Gump

Give me a party, charity or a fund raising event to pull together and I can carry it to fruition exactly as planned. Give me the task of carrying out homeschool plans with my three younger boys, not so much the case.

Once per week, sitting in the middle of the family room floor surrounded by books, papers, planning grids, laptop, pens and markers, the plotting of our week's journey takes place. In triplicate the little squares of lesson plan forms are filled in, required books gathered, necessary work papers copied and the appropriate amount of time allotted. I know this process is entirely for my benefit. I know things do not go according to what is written in those squares. I know square pegs to do not fit into round holes…

"Wil, today in your phonics lesson there is a sight word. A sight word is a word that does not obey the rules of phonics. You cannot sound it out. W-h-o. You must look at it and remember that those letters in that order spell the word who.

I continue to spell w-h-o while pointing to it in the phonics book and saying who several times as he repeats after me. Immediately I point to the word in the book and ask, "Wil, what is this word?" Wil stares at the word, attempts to sound it and looks up with a smile and says "I love you mom".

"I love you, too. Now remember this sight word is who." He repeats. Then I ask again while pointing to the word, "Wil, what is this word?" Wil looks at the word and again attempts to sound it. He looks up with a smile and asks "Mom, can we go shopping for my birthday party?"

"On Friday we will go shopping for your party supplies." Losing count of the number of times we repeat this cycle, I hug Wil, kiss his head and give him the pattern blocks to maneuver. There are simply days when a child…living with cerebral palsy on the autism spectrum with decoding difficulties…just does not get it. There is no rhyme or reason.

Next was the matter of math with Lee (FAS/ADHD). Apparently while I was not looking he had a spring implanted into his butt resulting in an extremely bouncy boy…"bouncy, trouncy, pouncy, flouncy, fun, fun, fun, fun!" Equations are much more fun when solved with Tigger. Add the Teflon brain syndrome (some days nothing sticks) and there is no point in trying. I send him to walk the dog.

Add into the mix Mac (Asperger's Syndrome) who would rather be anything but human, and you have a chicken able to literally cluck his spelling words…cluck-spell them one letter at a time. Do not ask me to give a description of this because there is no way. I should have recorded it. I allowed Mac to go read a book.

A little later we gathered together, took a nature walk and had art beneath the trees.

Too often we become caught up in the process and forget the ultimate goals of education are learning and instilling the love of learning. Fortunately our children are there to teach us that life is like a box of chocolates and each individual piece is to be savored for its own delectable goodness.

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