Laurel has inherited her father's learning disabilities (ADHD and dyslexia at least), but we're not a "let's drug 'em" family, at least not at this age. So I have to get creative. There are very few resources out there for homeschooling a child like Laurel. Lots of stuff for parents who want to wade through the public school system with a learning disabled child, but not much for those of us who want to do it ourselves.
Yeah, super fun. So how do you get a girl to do a sheet of math when she gets distracted halfway through the problem? Seriously. We have "Look! A chicken!" moments all the time.
When she's interested in what she's doing, she can concentrate like nobodies business. So the trick is to get her interested.
Today, we learned fractions, with some grammar and punctuation thrown in. And all we did was make chocolate chip cookies.
Lessons in timing, following instructions, texture, color. All in a bowl of chocolate chip cookies.
We doubled the recipe, so there was some math involved, including adding fractions. She wants to do MORE!
And the most important part? Tasting the cookie dough of course. This girl is like her mama - LOVES the raw dough.
Neither one of us realized we'd forgotten the vanilla. Oh well. With as many chocolate chips and walnuts we added, we didn't miss the vanilla all that much.
I'm thinking we'll do some research on the history of the chocolate chip cookie, maybe the world's record holder for biggest cookie. Fun stuff. And there will be art. You know there will be art. In fact, when she wrote the recipe down in her notebook, she had to draw an elaborate bakery picture.
Next: molasses cookies. And we're going to read a book on the great molasses flood. Pretty exciting stuff around here.
