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Friday, March 2, 2007

Marching Down the Isle – Home School Wedding Preparation

We’re getting married this month (March 31). Boy is just as excited as we are. To ensure that I can maintain our home school learning AND get all the wedding tasks completed in a timely manner, I am capitalizing on Boy’s natural wedding interest by incorporating wedding tasks into home school.


Reading: Boy will be reading at our wedding. This is a huge thing for him to do. He HATES having to read aloud and sometimes struggles with pronouncing words. However, Boy rather fancies Dragons, Myths and Fables so guess what he’s willing to read at our wedding. By choosing something that he has a natural affinity to, I aim to encourage his reading progression and to lessen anxiety around public reading at our wedding. In true Asperger’s obsessive tendencies, we will be daily reading the following story from Michael Leunig so that Boy gets to know it almost by rote.


Once there was a damsel in distress.

She had become a bit of a dragon and it was consuming her.

A knight in shining armour confronted the damsel, and, seeing her reflection in his shiny breastplate, she realised what a dragon she had become, and she didn't like it.

In earnest she set about getting the dragon where it belonged and making sense of it.

"You have saved me", she cried, "Take off your armour that I may kiss you in gratitude".

"The removal of armour requires assistance", responded the knight.

So, together they removed the heavy armour and the damsel embraced him warmly. The knight had never been so warmly touched. He felt immense relief. He felt lighter; less weary; more free.

"That's how I feel too!" cried the damsel joyfully, and after some healthy, passionate kisses they had some healthy, passionate children.

They kept the dragon and the armour , which were useful from time to time; and generally speaking, in their own funny way, they lived quite happily ever after.

Spelling: We’re still on the list of Egyptian associated spellings and today was the test day for the whole list; not just the ones that Boy has got wrong during the week. Congratulations to Boy: he got 9 out of 10.

SOSE Time Planning: Boy and I had a rather large clash over this. He considers that time planning is too hard and takes too long!!!! Ummmmm…I had to bite my tongue several times during his Asperger’s melt down. The lesson I had planned did not even get started. I wanted Boy to turn an exercise book into his own diary and start blocking out project time, including time for working on fun wedding stuff. Best I could get from him was a Wedding advent calendar (made from the FREE home school resources available at Home School Mom) and a list of tasks to be completed in the next week.

Writing: “I’m not writing anything,” he wailed. “Fine. I’m not putting up with this behaviour any longer,” was my truthful response. “Don’t write the jobs down. Get the white board and jot them there so I can then write them down.” So, without realizing that whiteboard work is writing, Boy happily listed tasks as I spoke them. Beautiful.

Math: Step Dad and boy are off to the shops to do some budget shopping with Boy’s pocket money. Apparently, Step Dad has a Math framework around the trip. I look forward to seeing the write up to keep as a home school entry (hint, hint, step dad).

Thank goodness it's Friday: I'm tired so Boy must be exhausted. Have a GREAT weekend everybody and stay safe.

2 comments:

Elisheva Hannah Levin said...

I love it!

The calendar, the whiteboard and, especially, the story!

My knight and shining armor still needs assistance getting off his armour, on occassion. And I (the former damsel-in-distress) still need held quenching those dragon-flames. Fortunately my knight's passionate kisses do very well!

Megan Bayliss said...

Yes, great little story isn't it. The kids always refer to me as a dragon so it has significant familial meaning along with the obvious metaphores.

E, I had to laugh to myself over the whiteboard scenario. Boy is so "schooled" in his perceptions of writing and reading that he just cannot get his head around scribbling on a white board as a writing exercise. At this stage I will not be telling him that it is indeed writing - I will just enjoy his success until he realizes that he is writing.

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