The Burning Crusades Hatched in Australia.

World of Warcraft: the Burning Crusades was launched in Australia at midnight. Boy attended our local EB store and was the first in Cairns to receive his pre ordered expansion pack. Delighted he was. He didn’t get to bed until 3A.M and he only had a wee sleep in. He is now happily doing what kids do on the game – battling, leveling, learning and enjoying.

This morning he excitedly told me that he had made some friends. While waiting in line to receive his coveted game pack, he began chatting to other children. This stretching toward real time friendship pleased me. For a child with Aspergers he has spanned both the over stimulation of waiting in line for an hour and the difficulties in understanding how to make friends. Well done Boy. We are very proud of you.

Starving after his very late night, Boy still chatted merrily about Burning Crusades, his character, the job training he picked for his character and how to collect food. The topic of jobs and food led to some serious teachable moments that I just couldn’t let escape.

While cracking his four eggs to fry, Boy commented to me that he had a quad yolker. We tried to hatch as many words that started with quad as we could. If I had presented this as either an English or Math lesson, Boy would have disengaged and hidden for the rest of the day.

Once again, World of Warcraft has proven to be an acceptable medium through which Boy can learn. Using what I can, I am on a Burning Crusade to home school my child who cannot learn in a traditional classroom setting.

Thanks Burning Crusade. We’re supposed to be doing something around Australian animals to celebrate Australia Week but the prefix quad, sustainable food and employment choices has instead featured heavily in our home school this morning. I’m pretty happy with that!

Computer for Home Schooling

We hope everyone had a safe and happy Christmas. We had a great time.

Boy sure did too. Amongst a squillion other educational products, he got a lap top: a long coveted item.

An expensive gift for an eleven year old but we figured that he would be needing one for our new home school adventure anyway so why not kill two birds with one stone.

Boy is happy. He nearly didn’t get the computer though. His behaviour leading up to Christmas was characterized by the over stimulus meltdowns experienced by people with Aspergers. I spoilt the surprise by telling him that if he didn’t moderate his behaviour I would be taking the computer back to the shop.

Aspergers or just tantrums I’m not sure but once the computer surprise was out, Boy tried really hard to stay calm and in control. He really wanted a computer to play World of War Craft. Little does Boy know that World of War Craft is going to be built into Math, English and an emotional toolbox exercise.

Boy’s older brother bought him a game of Battleship. What a great strategy game for a child with Aspergers. Boy has had to place himself in other’s shoes (or boats) and work out what their placement strategy was. The assessing psychologist from Minds and Hearts suggested that we play strategy games with Boy so Battleship is a great gift. Thanks Big Boy.

I’m excited about starting home schooling at the end of January even though it means I will be working and earning less money. I am so looking forward to educating in a way that suits Boy’s needs.

What sort of things did you buy your home schooled children for Christmas? Did you get gifts for the sake of gifts or did you link them to home education or Aspergers needs?