Beyond Homeschooling Autism

A lot of people having been asking me lately how I manage to get everything done now that I am homeschooling Jackson.  I think those closest to me worry that I have taken on too much and it will negatively impact me on a variety of levels. Prior to pulling him out of public school around Halloween, I was substitute teaching on a regular basis and/or part-time teaching reading, but did have plenty of free days as well.  Now that I have J home everyday, I have rearranged a few things, but have found a nice rhythm that seems to meet all our needs, without adding unnecessary stress. So please don't worry about me - I have the best life and find plenty of time to take care of myself:) I thought I'd write up schedule for a typical day for me and give you a behind the scenes look at how I keep it all running relatively smoothly and keep my sanity as well.  I found this blog entitled "What Kind of Mom are You?" and it is awesome! I am definitely a "Rountine Lover...

Math has always come easily to Jackson.  He is not a numbers genius or anything, in fact, I find it offensive that some people think all kids with autism have some weird super-math brain.  He is just a like any other kid with a normal aptitude for math, but since he struggles so profoundly with language-based subjects, he excels in math by comparison. However, teaching math to Jackson has not always come easily.  Traditional classroom educators relay so heavily on verbal instruction that any student who struggles with audio-processing is going to get frustrated very easily.  I found this to be true with Jackson during our first month of homeschooling. When we pulled him out of Poe Middle School, after 8 weeks of being there, he had done "zero academic work".  So I had to go all the way back to May of 2011 to get a sense of where to start with him.  I decided to start him at the beginning of 3rd grade math just to sort out his strengths and weaknesses....