Another Week...

It's been fun and super busy!

On Monday Alison and I went all the way to Grand Rapids for a homeschool craft meet-up. It was with one of the new homeschool groups we joined and at the home of a little girl that Alison had played with a lot when we went to the beach party. It was fun to see some of the same families we had met at the beach and also meeting more families.

Then on Wednesday we went to the Grand Haven Fire Station for a field trip. We got to see a ladder truck with a 100ft tall ladder, an equipment truck, a rescue truck, a police car and a police truck. Ian, as you can imagine, was in awe. I was surprised that he didn't want to get into the big firetruck. Alison and the other bigger kids all did.

Thursday Ian had speech. The school district is not liking that we aren't sending him to the sp ed pre-school. I just have a lot of problems with the idea. First, I think that as a barely 3yo he is way too young to be gone 4 days a week. Second, the only option is going to school in the morning. Ian is NOT a morning person at all. He consistently sleeps till 9 or after (he also goes to bed late many nights because daddy gets home from work and he is excited to see him and spend time with him before bed). If I try to wake him early to go away, he has horrible tantrums and doesn't want to go and doesn't participate or act appropriately when we do go. (Trust me, we've tried going to co-op and playgroup before he's fully ready to go and it isn't good at all. This week he begged to go to playgroup and spent the whole 1.5 hours with me and the other moms whining and complaining instead of playing with the kids.) :( Third, they are trying to say that he'll get speech 4 days a week. That is just not true. I used to teach the kind of class that they want him in and the speech therapist saw the kids once a week in a small group and once as the whole class, no individual time at all. (plus I have a friend who's little boy is in the class and she said she doesn't think he's seen the speech therapist yet this year!)

Here at home we all know his speech homework for the week and we all work with him on it all day every day. You can't get any more intense than that. There is his speech models would be other kids with speech problems. Here at home and when we go to playgroups and co-op, his speech models are grown ups and kids without speech problems. I might consider school for him if he could go 2 days a week in the afternoon to a general ed class with speech. I think that's more age appropriate and he is definately a much happier kid in the afternoon. But as it stands now, I don't think the school placement they are suggesting is going to be good for him at all.

Oh and the craziest arguement they had for him going to school is that he's going to have to get used to getting up early for school when he starts kindergarten. Hmmm...first of all that would be 3 years from now! Second, like I told the speech therapist "No he doesn't. We homeschool."