Its a Darling Mess…

Part of my latex allergy experience is that I can go into anaphylaxis from clothing that has been exposed to balloons. I have in the past from my children’s clothing after they handled a balloon at school for a science experiment. My children have been terrified of touching or being near balloons ever since. Their school at the time accommodated this easily. My children, Bug and Boo, were not forced to touch or use balloons. The PTO got rid of balloons as decorations. The principal reached out find out how they could keep me safe. I felt so supported.

We moved last year for a job. My children’s new schools claimed to not allow balloons because of a child who has a severe latex allergy. At the end of the school year, they had an awards assembly at Bug’s school. Lo and behold, there were latex balloons there. I was unable to go to the assembly and had to make other arrangements for pick-up. Bug had to shower and change clothes to prevent me from reacting to her clothing, backpack, and shoes in the car at pick-up.

Exhaustion and Empathy

Advocating for myself gets exhausting. Constantly monitoring everything around me and everything around my family gets exhausting. I feel like a broken record asking before every invite and event, public or private, “Will there be latex balloons?” Then I have to explain why I have to ask because of how severe my allergy is. “I will go into anaphylaxis before I even see a balloon.”

Most people still don’t get it. My own mother tells me to “take a Benadryl and drink something cold,” as if that will stop the insides of my lungs from swelling and cutting off my ability to breathe in oxygen. I like to remind her that I once went into the ER with my sweet tea in hand. My throat swelled so much I could not swallow my drink.

If I never hear or speak the word “latex” again, I will die happy. I wish it would all fall off the face off the Earth.

I have lost my faith in people. Humanity lacks empathy. Our political climate in the United States reflects this. If Americans can celebrate ICE taking children from their parents, encourage the feeding of immigrants to alligators at Alligator Alcatraz, and elect a President who mocked a person with disabilities on National television, I don’t see what hope I have for someone in no-name-small-town-America to accommodate my allergy in the workplace, at church, or at a public event, let alone in my children’s schools. It doesn’t matter that its against the Americans with Disabilities Act. Discrimination doesn’t matter in a Red, Conservative, right-to-work state.

Perspective and Pivot

I could have continued driving the same cart on the same broken path, trying unsuccessfully to advocate and fight for myself. Instead, I broke the cart. I realized that I cannot change them. I cannot make them have empathy. I cannot force anyone to change, so I changed my reaction to it. I refuse to put myself or my children in harm’s way. This change in perspective opened new doors for us, doors I would have never considered going through. Now, I don’t think I will ever go back to how it used to be.

I chose to put my children in a virtual public school. It’s pretty much homeschooling though. I have the freedom to pick whatever curriculum I want to teach my children, as long as they meet all of their learning goals for the year. I will not include the name of the school for safety reasons.

Homeschooling seems to get a lot of flak for being an outlet for conservative Christians to keep their children “protected” from the “liberal agenda.” My goal is to allow my children the opportunity to actually learn. Bug and Boo will learn that Christopher Columbus did not discover America. They will learn that the Haudenosaunee Confederacy was an inspiration for the structure of our Democratic-Republic. They will read banned books. They will not focus on studying for state testing. No teacher will tell Boo that “if you fail your state tests, your teacher next year will know you’re stupid.” We finally have some semblance of control in this chaos.

Curriculum Choices

For Social Studies, we went with History Quest Early Times and Middle Times to study from ancient history to the Renaissance for Bug. Boo got History Quest United States. Study guides can be purchased for each History Quest book. The study guide includes coloring pages, maps, recipes for making Neolithic bread, writing logs, and so much more. They do not shy away from hard truths like European explorers caused the death of thousands of Native Americans, but they do not focus on it. They choose to focus on including facts about women and minorities. For instance, Sybil Ludington, a 16 year old girl, rode a horse twice as far as Paul Revere to alert the colonists that the British were coming. She is not typically mentioned in history books.

In addition to History Quest, we purchased the Kingfisher World History Atlas by Simon Adams. This atlas depicts child friendly maps of ancient civilizations around the world with illustrations of ziggurats, chariots, temples, and soldiers. There are also pictures of actual places, a timeline, and random facts that go nicely with the information in the History Quest books.

We are including History Pockets for Boo’s United States History material. Boo isn’t as interested in the coloring pages and craft activities, but he likes reading all the informational pages. He isn’t interested in learning about the colonists who fought with the Native Americans or who treated them badly. We are Native American, so it’s tough to talk about.

The History Pocket Colonial America includes a section about clothing, food, and colonial houses. Boo decided he wants to create a fictional colony where everyone works with the Native Americans. No one fights over land and everyone works together for peace. He came up with this activity on his own, so I will post an update when he finishes it.

For math, we are using CTCMath. CTCMath is an online math curriculum that was created by a dad named Pat Murray. Pat Murray taught math as a college tutor and then as a high school teacher. He founded CTCMath as a way to make math easy for kids to get. He teaches the lessons in short easy-to-follow videos. The follow-up questions are mastery based. My children prefer this way of learning math, but they need more practice in a spiral method to really get it.

We are supplementing with The Good and The Beautiful (TGTB) math for that extra practice. While The Good and The Beautiful curriculum is Christian based, the math material is not obviously Christian curriculum. TGTB website allows free pdf downloads to print the math and language arts lessons from home. We initially printed the free material for supplemental practice, but the downloads were so big they slowed down our computer. Then, it froze our printer because the pdf was too large. We spent way too much time and printer ink trying to print the material. In the end, we made the choice to pay for the printed math course books. They are around $35 each and well worth it. My only regret is that we didn’t buy these course books from the get-go. The lesson videos also deserve a shout-out. TGTB lessons are short, easy to follow, and my kids seem to be engaged when watching them.

For science, we chose Exploring the Building Blocks of Science Book 4 and Book 6. These sets include a student textbook, lab book, and teacher’s manual. Once we got the books, it became apparent Book 6 was a lot harder than Bug needs to meet her learning goals. Book 4 actually meets almost all of Bug’s and Boo’s learning goals. We are supplementing with The Usborne Science Encyclopedia with internet links and two chapters from Book 6. The sets do not include any worksheets, quizzes, or exams, but I have made my own using Microsoft Word and the material from the book. The lab books include a lot of essay style questions and tend to be several pages long. I let my children complete them together, since we do the lab together. They take turns filling out the essay questions after we discuss the questions and answers.

For English Language Arts, Bug and Boo are doing virtual classes through their school. Bug loves this option. Boo is not a fan. Boo prefers to learn at his own pace, which is a lot faster than the virtual class is moving. Boo gets frustrated with the slow pace and does not like using IXL for supplemental work.

IXL is a website that a lot of schools use for practice. Neither of my kids like it. When you get questions correct, it raises your score by a few points so that it takes a while to get to 80, which is considered proficient in the activity. If you get one question wrong, it drops you by about 20 points and takes several more correct questions to raise the grade back to the previous score. Boo is a perfectionist and hates this scoring system. It is a fight to get Boo to complete these assignments each week. I am probably going to switch Boo to at home curriculum next semester. I have no idea what curriculum we would use though.

We also supplement ELA material with Fry’s 1,000 Sight Words, which is a list of the 1,000 most common sight words in the English language. Since homeschooling, I have found gaps in what my kids actually know. Boo struggles with spelling and writing everything perfectly. If he messes up a single tiny line on a letter, he freaks out and erases everything, so we are learning to not erase and to allow imperfections. We are going through the word list by 10 words at a time. If they can spell the 10 words, then they can move on to the next 10 words.

In addition to spelling, we have added Latin and Greek root words to increase vocabulary and spelling ability. We started in “Word Roots: Beginning” by Cherie A. Plant and Stephanie W. Stevens. We make flash cards for the week. We quiz each other over the meanings of the words. Then, I have them complete the worksheets. I am not doing exams over the words. We are pointing them out every time we find one of the root words in our science or social studies material. It seems to be working so far.

We have incorporated literature into our studies using our library cards and apps through the library like Hoopla. I try to find at least one related book to their social studies chapter and science material.

Conclusion

So far, we are loving the freedom that homeschooling offers. We don’t have to worry about latex exposures. My kids tell me they love how laid back everything is. Neither kid has to worry about sensory overwhelm. They have their sensory toys and can take breaks whenever they need at home. It’s been so nice for all of us. I have learned this year that fighting a system set to harm me is no good. The system will change me before I change it. Putting my family first has made all the difference.

Love always,

B.B. ❤

P.S. I can add links to the material if anyone would like. I am NOT getting paid for this either.