It's getting busy now, and if one more person asks me if I'm ready to start school, I'm going to either scream or burst into tears. Maybe both. So far, I've managed to say, "Well, we finished school at the end of June, so we're not going back until August 30. And no, I'm not EVEN ready!"
Sad, but true. Not ready.
It's been said that at 10 years old, kids reach a tipping point, educationally. They can read, write, add, multiply, and do some fractions. They know the basics of US government and geography. They know parts of speech and how to conjugate "swing". They have completed a few years of "survey of science" textbooks. They have a basic education. Now the fun starts -- it's time to let them choose what they want to learn!
Now, in The Girl's case, it's a little different. At this point in her education, she can write a little, spell common words, identify parts of speech, decode a large range of words. She can not conjugate verbs, draw conclusions from text, or write long essays. She can add, subtract, carry, and borrow. She can multiply single-digit numbers. She can round, identify fractions, count money, and tell time (almost). So, she's got another year before she hits the tipping point, probably more.
Still, it's time to start evaluating what she needs to learn. I'm not talking about spelling lists or US government. I'm talking much more fundamental. It's going to do her no good to learn all the "necessary" academic material if she can't go through the grocery store without hopping, darting, whinnying, and generally doing weird stuff. Or if she can't read and disseminate.
So today we drove an hour to the nearest "real" city to get a speech evaluation done by someone who works at the school for autism. While we were there, the speech therapist had us talk with the occupational therapist. She talked dirty to me -- said things about sensory diet, aspects of braingym, academic accommodation, vestibular input, etc. It's been a long time since I last heard an OT talk about much else than writing in shaving cream on a table. So, we've hopped on board for a two-hour round-trip drive once a week, with a promise to do our homework. OT and speech, here we come!
In the mean time, we're going to be hopping. Today was the speech eval, tomorrow is my portfolio review for last year and emptying closets, Wednesday is the mold remediation (take the cats to my mother's, drive the kids to the Science Center in the big city, dinner at my mom's), Thursday and Friday are days to put everything back that we had to move for the decontamination.
On the up side, I got to buy myself a new power tool yesterday to move the shelves around in the master bedroom closet! Ooh! Aah! It's a good thing!! ;)
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