These are the honeycomb washcloths, pattern found here. I'm using stash yarn and posting my own pictures because the photo that goes with the pattern doesn't show the contrasting colors at all. The green one is smaller because I ran out of green.
purple and blue--a little washed out from the flash.
Yesterday went well. I got a project turned in and made some progress on another project. The kitchen is nearly under control and Penn State and I came to an agreement about how to handle the kids speech needs since even with their incredibly low costs ($40/50 minute session) I can't pay for 4 sessions a WEEK, which is what they were hoping for. They wanted one each for the twins (in addition to the English Language Group--the speech preschool, more money, although I'd never find another preschool at that cost) and two each for Max to address his stuttering. That would have averaged out to just under $800/month.
The director of the program offered 50% off of Max's therapy sessions and offered her opinion that Ben and Milo would probably be fine without the individual session -- they just have plenty of college students and Ben and Milo have some intellgibility issues that the kids could work with them on. But they've made good progress and she feels that its not crucial for them at all. Mostly she wants them to stay in the speech preschool. So that's what we'll do. Speech preschool for the twins and stuttering therapy for Max. This feels much more doable.
The conversation with her about the twins was fun. It's always pleasant hearing people say nice things about your kids and she had lots of nice things to say. She shared that they were getting a new space in a different building with lots more room and that they expected to expand the program so there were many more kids in it. She marveled at how recently interest in the program had exploded. I offered the opinion that the father of the other set of twins might be behind that as he's tapped into the Cooperative Preschool and that's a huge and chatty network of parents. If he let it slip that his daughters were getting two mornings of preschool a week for hundreds less than he was paying at the cooperative preschool, I'm guessing lots of parents suddenly had kids with speech delays ;)
Anyway, they're expanding the program to go through the summer, which is fine with me. I offered the opinion that I had to hope that they would keep some mild delays since they really love the preschool and I didn't want to put them elsewhere. She said that there isn't actually a requirement that the kids have delays -- they can score as developing normally because the program works the way it does because it gets these kids talking. Ben and Milo are the cruise directors of the group, coordinating imaginative play, modeling please and thank you with each other, (and how to stand up for yourself without coming to blows), welcoming any new child or adult that comes in, and just generally using their ability to never stop talking to great effect. In short, as long as I can keep paying them SOMETHING, Ben and Milo can stay.
That makes me feel great.
In other news, I admit, I'm second guessing myself on continuing to homeschool here. Maybe I should just after school Latin? The schools *are* supposed to be good. But I don't WANT him in public middle school at ALL, and I don't see how we could keep up with his other activities (piano twice a week, the sports, etc) if we had to work around those school hours.
I'm not sure what's bothering me about the current arrangement. Except that I always start to worry this time of year that he didn't learn enough. And by the end of school five months later, he's learned enough. I should order his ITBS for the year.
Back to work.
2 comments:
What does Max think about going to regular middle school? I know, for a fact that he is learning more at home than he would in a school room, but what about the social side? Just a thought
He's never expressed an interest in "regular" school -- he can still remember his kindergarten and first grade experiences and knows that the whole social thing is a double-edged sword.
And remember, we're not keeping him locked at home. He seems to get his social needs very well met in the (group) piano class, the basketball team, his class at Sunday school, and the neighbor boys that he plays with every day after school. If he did "regular" school, we'd have to cut back on the outside activities. He'd never have time for homework with all that other stuff. To us, that's a pretty big downside.
Come to think of it, I don't really know anyone who had a wonderful social experience in middle school. High school--yes. Middle school--no.
Post a Comment