Every year my students change and grow, but their names don’t change. Over the years I can look back at old pictures and hardly remember when they were that small, yet they are the same people as always. This upcoming school year I will be teaching my 8 & 10 year old sons for 3rd and 5th grades.  I will also probably be tutoring my 11th grader J for a few months, for math.

D1 will be my fifth grader this year. He is tall for his age, and growing so quickly that I suspect he will be taller than me by the time he is 13.  He isn’t 10 yet, but will be in less than two weeks. He wears a youth/men’s size 5.5-6 shoe. From his glasses to his freckled nose, his brown eyes to his silly smile, he always brightens our day, every day. He has developmental delays, which I have gone into in depth on my Dyspraxia Updates page.

What this looks like for him right now is different than it looked for him when he was 1, or 4, or 7. As he grows and learns and develops, so I also develop and adapt to meet his needs.  Right now, at this point in time, his struggles remain with language development, with comprehension/understanding being the constant focus in his speech therapy sessions.  With homeschooling, this means that I need to use as few words as possible to explain things, draw diagrams, and use object lessons to help him understand things, particularly abstract things like math. His attention span varies, depending on his sensory input needs at the time. Sometimes having him do a set of 10-15 pushups will have him attentive for an hour. Other times I need to put a reminder on his lap, such as a large throw pillow from the couch, so he knows he is supposed to be sitting DOWN in his chair. Whatever works at the time, this is how we operate.

D1’s favorite things are playing Portal (for computer & XBox), Star Wars (the movies and The Clone Wars series), reading science oriented books, bike riding, cooking, and swimming.

D2 is my upcoming third grader. He is also very tall for his age, and I suspect all of the jeans I bought for him in March will end up being totally unworn, because he’s grown again and will need a new size come fall. Our boys don’t get the tall genes from us, as these are our adopted kiddos. They will both tower over the girls and I inside of just a few years, I’m sure. His sense of humor and constant (I do mean CONSTANT) stream of sounds definitely keep me on my toes at all times. He is sensitive about letting people down, but also knows how to work things. He is the quintessential baby of the family.

He has struggles also with school work, mostly in the area of fine motor. If I had him tested I am sure he would be diagnosed with dysgraphia, as his second grade handwriting is STILL barely legible, and he can’t stay within lines for anything. We work at it slowly but surely. He’s also struggling with reading fluency, and we will be working to  strengthen that this year.

D2’s favorite things are playing the XBox (Lego Star Wars games), bike riding, and peanut butter and Nutella sandwiches.

J will be in the eleventh grade this year, and is planning on attending the Running Start program at the community college.  We aren’t sure yet about the timing and whether it is too late to get her registered for the fall, but we are trying.  If she can’t attend for fall, she will attend starting Winter Quarter, and will spend interim working her tail off to sharpen her Algebra skills.  We haven’t decided on a program yet but I figure we’ll decide when we get there.  There is a fantastic tutoring center here where she could take a refresher course, but it’s not our only option.

J’s passions are evangelism, painting, and anything crafty. She loves creating things with her hands, and she is very talented.

These are my students for the upcoming school year.  If you could give me one piece of advice to help me with each of them, what would it be?