Will

Back in July we brought home a horse when we went to the Torrington horse show that Mark got from a trainer in Nebraska. The mare was two and had never been started. She is the one that we had a struggle with naming her (Mark wanted to call her Tommy, but she ended up being Mo).

The first week that Mark spent with Mo she seemed o.k. But he never gained anything with her after that. After about a month, he still hadn't ridden her, because she never progressed. (Usually in 7-10 days he is riding them). It finally seemed like maybe she was getting it and then one day he was working with her and she acted like she didn't know anything. We both decided it was a waste of time and he quit her. Some pal of Marks that messes with horses around here has her. I guess we still own her, but thankfully she doesn't live here anymore. She was a knot head.

Mark has a buddy that lives west of Gillette that is into cutting horses. They breed their own horses and always have a bunch of young horses around. So he called him and asked if he had anything he would sell. The guy told him to come by and he would see what he had. The guy ran a two year old mare and a 3 year old gelding in from the pasture. Both of them green broke. He rode them for Mark and told him he could have his pick. Mark chose the gelding and brought him home. His buddy told him to try him out and if he didn't like him, bring him back. Well, he liked him and bought him. Thankfully, he has a name and it was workable (one syllable) so we didn't have to go thru the name game again. This is Will............................

In this picture Mark is petting Will on the right side. When he came here you couldn't do that. The guy that owned this horse is a real cowboy and could ride anything. Gently a horse isn't something he does. He does enough to get a saddle on them and get on their back. When Will first came here three weeks ago, he would stand across the pen from you with a wild eye and look at you. He didn't want anyone close to him. He was kind of hard to catch. Once Mark was on his back, he was fine, but he had some serious "don't touch me" issues. Mark has spend some time on ground work to get past that. Now Will will follow you around the corral like a dog. Mark likes to ride him and thinks he has potential. He is a half brother to our little Tara. They are from the same stud.

What I learned in homeschool today

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See this child? I learned that she can write in cursive today. It may not seem like a big deal to you. But let me tell you the story.

When Kalen was 5 and started to pre K her fine motor skills and her vision hindered her from being able to draw a circle or make a cross and the alphabet was not legible what so ever. Kalen spent a year in vision therapy with a wonderful optometrist here. She went through several sets of lenses in her glasses dealing with different prisms to jiggle her visual spacial issues. By the time she went to kindergarten she could draw a circle, make a cross and her letters were better, but not very good. Toward the end of kindergarten, once more she had a change on her glasses with a different prism and overnight her alphabet was legible, not great but legible.

It has been a long road getting her penmanship visible. She went to occupational therapy twice a week at school. Her printing is very legible now. Last fall we did one last try with the prisms in her glasses and that brought on some drastic changes once again for the good.

I don't remember if Kalen was suppose to learn to write cursive in third or fourth grade, but I was told she couldn't do it. The OT worked with her and said she got her as far as being able to do her name. I never questioned it, I was happy that you could read her printing the way it was. Last fall when she was going into fifth grade it was brought up at her IEP meeting that at some point during the year the kids were going to be made to write everything in cursive. I was told once again that Kalen couldn't do it. I never questioned it. It was written in her IEP that she didn't have to write in cursive.

At her IEP meeting again this fall I was told Kalen can't write in cursive. It is starting to be an issue because she has so much writing to do that it is very cumbersome for her to print everything. I asked about her keyboarding skills and the OT told me that she had worked with her, but it was very difficult for her.

Yesterday afternoon Kalen was doodling and she wrote someones name in cursive. I was pretty impressed. I asked her if she knew how to write cursive. She said 'yes'. We talked about it and I told her that I was going to have her write a paragraph for me to see what she knew. She told me that when her 5th grade class was told that they had to write everything in cursive, she was told she could print so she never wrote in cursive. This is where the asperger comes in, she thought she was told not to write in cursive and that they wanted her to print. Oh, boy.

This morning I ask Kalen to write a paragraph about herself. I didn't care what it said, I just wanted to see her handwriting in cursive. I was absolutely shocked. Not only did this kid write in cursive, it was good. I asked her if it was easier for her to write in cursive and faster and she said it was. I told her to do it then. This is such a huge leap from where she started.

So, I'm going to load a keyboarding program on the computer and find out what she can do!

Another week down

It was a trying week in the homeschooling world. But that is to be expected. We have received all of our curriculum, so that is good. We had a few days of students working against the teacher. So I had to take away some privileges and that worked really well.

Last Saturday we went to Mark's company picnic. In social occasions like this Kalen tends to stay right by my side. We hadn't been to the picnic very long and I was talking to someone and realized that Kalen was nowhere around. I looked for her and she had found a girl about her age and they buddied up and stayed together the whole time.

Monday was Kalen's first dance day for the year. It is nice that she can get dressed at home now since she doesn't have dance until 5:45 p.m. We got to the dance center and I asked if she wanted me to go in with her. She said 'no', she was fine on her own. I ended up going in anyway to pay her tuition. When I left I heard Kalen striking up a conversation with another girl that she has danced with in the past about what classes she was taking this year. She is usually pretty aloof to the girls that she dances with.

On Wednesday, Kalens teacher Mr. Schliske (its easier to call him Greg) called for their bi-weekly conference. I had warned him that Kalen may not talk on the phone. Talking on the phone is something that she truly hates to do. Anyway, Kalen got on the phone with Greg (he is a super nice man) and they talked for over ten minutes. I was quite impressed.

I went to Kalen's IEP meeting on Thursday. When Mrs. K called me to set up the meeting and tell me that the people that had provided her 'services' at Conestoga were to be there, I cringed a little. I cringed because I'm 'so done' with the resource teacher Miss S. I have nothing good to say to the woman. Mrs. K told me that I could request that Miss S. not be there and I did. I knew that Kalen's speech and OT teachers would be there along with the district autism specialist Mrs. L.

Now, Kalen's speech therapist Mrs. W and her OT, Miss E have been with her since kindergarten. I know they have made a HUGE difference in Kalen's life. Mrs W has been a rock over the years for Kalen and I both.

The meeting went very well. The principle from k12 showed them that Kalen was ahead on her work and Mr. Schliske talked about their conference and that she was retaining her info and thought she was doing well. The speech and OT teacher talked about where Kalen was at the end of last year. When they asked what I wanted to do about services I decided it was time to explain why we made the decision to homeschool. I left out my issues with Miss S. It wasn't appropriate not to invite her and then talk about her. I talked about bullying issues and our concerns for Kalens self esteem. I also told Mrs. W and Miss E what a difference I thought they had made in Kalens life. When I was done talking, much to my surprise Mrs. W spoke up and said "don't think that you have offended us with pulling Kalen from Conestoga. I miss her, but I also commend you for doing what you think it right for her." They all spoke up and basically said that same thing. They knew it was hard to step out of the box, but commended us for looking out for Kalen's best interest. The IEP was written to give us services as needed, which we may need. After the meeting Miss. E told me to call her for any kind of help, it didn't matter what the IEP said, she would do whatever she could. Mrs. W held back and let the rest of them leave reinforced what she said about doing the best for Kalen and thought we had done the right thing.

It was good to have the support, especially from people that have been a big part of Kalen's life. When you say you are a homeschooler, people look at you a little cross eyed. You must be convicted. At this point, the difference that it has made in Kalen's life is worth all the cross eyed looks!!

Mike and Kaleb

Mike and Annie scratching each others back. These two really get into that.

Kaleb and Mike the other night.


I was expermenting with my camera the other night, so the picture is a little blurry.

Trotting along.

Pronouns, Nouns, Antecedents

We have made it two weeks in the homeschooling world and are all alive and well. We have had some trying times, some frustrating moment and times when I've felt so overwhelmed I could scream. But, all in all it has been good.

One of our frustrations has been getting all of our curriculum. All of Kalen's curriculum arrived before school started. However, the virtual school ordered all her materials at grade level so we have had to reorder her math, which finally came yesterday. It has been really frustrating getting Kaleb's materials. We finally received his language arts today and the rest will come on Monday. The kids do some of their work on the computer but most of it is from books. The teachers at the virtual school scraped together some of the materials for us to use. However, we have not been able to do math, language arts or music. We have been able to do science and history and have just been reading for language arts.

The k12 curriculum is more advanced than what the kids have been doing in public school. I asked both Kalen's teacher and Kaleb's teacher and they told me it was. We went to an ice cream social that Kalen's teacher had and I had an opportunity to asked other parents who's kids were in public school before k12 and they told me the same thing. The k12 program covers all subjects where as the public school concentrates on math, reading and writing. From what we could get out of the language arts without Kaleb's actual materials it was obvious that the level three was to advanced for him. Last year I volunteered in his class during language arts one day every week. None of his second grade class would have been ready to move on to the grade 3 k12 material.

So we are all on a learning curve. The kids have a lot of work to do. We start at 8:30 a.m. and end about 2:30-3:00 p.m. I have a full time teaching job. I'm struggling to get the my housework done. It's been a trial to even change the laundry during the day. Thankfully, Mark did most of the laundry last weekend so that was one less thing I had to worry about.

Kalen is a totally different kid. There is no more anxiety and meanness before she goes off to school in the morning and she isn't in a 'tear your head off' mood when she comes home from school. She would struggle on the weekends with the let down of not going to school and the lack of a schedule, which would make her difficult to get along with. In the beginning I tried to put her on a schedule, but we haven't stuck to it. Instead of setting exact times that we work on something, we work on it until its done. I also ask her what subject we wants to start with and let her make choices. We take breaks but not a set time and the same with lunch. I usually send the kids to lunch at different times so I can work individually with the other kid. Kalen is becoming less rigid with out having a 'set in stone' schedule.

I will have an IEP meeting next week for Kalen to make accommodations for her learning disability. She is still eligible for the same special services that she received in public school, such as occupational therapy and speech therapy. I was told that the people that handled her services at her elementary school will be at the IEP meeting. I asked that Miss S. not be invited to the meeting. It's going to be a difficult meeting. I'm not really sure what to do about her services, are they something that she still really needs or not. I will definitely put some prayer into it before I go to the meeting.

So I will keep studying my lessons so I can get my rusty brain to remember common nouns, proper nouns, demonstrative pronouns, indefinite pronouns, antecedents..............................

Sun down on the prairie

I was messing around with the settings on my camera tonight at sundown.

Plague of the locust

I have NEVER in my life seen the infectation of grasshoppers like we have this year. It is unreal. You walk through the yard and they are jumping all around you. This is what it has looked like everyday for the last two months. The house and building are covered with them. You crunch as you walk along the sidewalk.

Unfornately along with the grasshoppers we are starting to see blister beetles. Blister beetles eat grasshoppers. A good hard freeze would help with all of this.

End of the summer camping

We decided to take off last Sunday for a trip to the Big Horn Mountains and to camp overnight. We also decided to find a different spot to camp so we could explore places in the mountains that we had never seen. We headed up the mountains above Buffalo and about 15 miles up we turned off the highway and headed to Hazelton. It was beautiful. There were a lot of open parks that had cow camps on them. We ended up at Doyle Creek Campground, which is right along Doyle Creek. We were the only ones there except the campground host. The picture below is what the view looked like to the west of our camping spot. It looked out at Hazelton Peak. After dark there was a thunderstorm west of the peak and the lightning lit it up. It was pretty awesome.

You can't believe how much this kid has grown over the summer.

And our good dog Roo!

This was taken in Crazy Women Canyon.

And this kid has also grown by leaps and bounds this summer.

We had decided that we were going to take a ride down Crazy Woman Canyon. It was a extremely rough and bumping ride, but it was one truly beautiful. The canyon comes out south of Buffalo and so does Crazy woman creek.

So we had a good time and came home and got started back to school.