Dyslexia and ASD and ADHD–Oh Yes!

Who else is homeschooling a child with symptoms of ASD, ADHD or Dyslexia? Did you know that the whole idea of Fun-Schooling was started to make homeschooling work for these kids? Kids who learn differently are the driving force behind all our books. I started designing “Do-It-Yourself Homeschooling Journals” because my kids could not do traditional schoolwork.

ASD kids love the built in schedule provided by the Core Journal. They LOVE how they get to study their special interests. They love the look and feel of the Journals. They love how the journals are logic based, and include puzzle type activities. They often want to work independently and focus on their “research”. Thinking Tree Books encourage this depth of learning.

ADHD kids love how they get to move from one activity to the next with lots of variety. Our journals are designed to rotate activities: Academic – Creative – Academic – Passive – Academic – Active – Academic – Playful! ADHD kids are not bored when Fun-schooling! They get to learn about things they love, and when ADHD kids focus on what they LOVE they are so much easier to homeschool.

Kids with Dyslexia thrive because the books are created with the Dyslexie Font and include games that help with dyslexia. Thinking Tree Books include a lot of room for creativity and imagination, and they have just enough structure to keep kids learning without squelching their drive to learn through play, curiosity and adventure. We also don’t teach through memorization, but through meaningful experience and research. It’s so hard for dyslexic kids to memorize information. There is a better way!

FunSchooling.com

DyslexiaGames.com

The Fun-Schooling Story: The Branches of The Thinking Tree Spread Out!

What The Thinking Tree Offers

As we’ve grown our tree has branched into several different offerings. Today we have six “branches” on our Thinking Tree. 

Fun-Schooling Journals consist of our core journals, the first journals we created. We also have dozens of smaller “single subject” journals on standard school subjects like Language Arts, History, Math, Science, Art, and Geography. Single-subject journals on “elective” topics have also been created such as Dance, Foreign Language, Animals, Sports, and even Minecraft! There are about 300 Fun-Schooling Journals.

Dyslexia Games is our art-based Dyslexia therapy program. It was created a few years before the first Fun-Schooling journal. There are three series for different age groups. Throughout the years we have found it helpful for students with ADHD/ADD, Asperger’s, and other learning challenges too. Interestingly, we’ve also found children without learning challenges or disabilities benefit too. It helps children with creative thinking, problem-solving, handwriting, spelling, art skills, math, and more.

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Never Judge a Child by His Ability to Sit Still and Be Quiet!

Do you have a child who can’t sit still and be quiet? GOOD!  This may be a problem at school, but not in the real world. In today’s world you need a little ADHD just to get by.We must NEVER judge a child by his ability to be passive.  Passive children often turn into passive adults, and that is a problem.  Did you know that classrooms and desks were invented for the convenience of teachers, not for the best interests of the child? 

Every child development specialist (and wise parent) knows that children need lots of time to play, imagine and invent. Children NEED to learn about the world around them by asking questions and experimenting. Children are naturally ACTIVE, ENERGETIC, IMAGINATIVE, CREATIVE, and NOISY.  They were NEVER meant to sit still for hours on end and be passive.  Why train up a generation of couch potatoes?  Children were designed to learn through PLAY, DISCOVERY and by IMITATING their parents and the people around them.  Do you realize that your child was smart enough to figure out how to walk, sing, turn on the computer, and learn a language by age two-and-a-half?  With NO lessons!  He wanted to be like you, so he figured it out on his own.  How is it that we live in a society where passive children are rewarded, but creative and active children are punished.  Real life does not work this way.  Not anymore.

 Contemporary schooling is all about controlling the child and training him to be a good student.  A good student is expected to be silent, to stop asking questions, and to stop being active.   The highest praise goes to the students who can follow a teacher’s instructions… instead of their own hearts.  The applause goes to the child who can fill in the blank and memorize facts, not to the child who would prefer to explore his own interests.  

Why? Because schools are designed to train people for institutional jobs. Schools were invented during the industrial revolution, at a time when the best job you could get was in a factory.  Schools follow a model that require individuals to let go of all of their individuality.  The child is trained from a young age to be a good employee who will work for the boss, no questions asked.  The goal is to train them to complete assignments and be dependent on an authority figure to control the their time and activities. 

During the 20th century almost all parents expected children to get a good education and a good job.  The good education was expected to be the golden ticket to a good job.  All the parent had to do was put the kid on the big yellow bus, no worries.  The government would take care of everything, mom and dad could go to work, junior would spend all day in a nice school and get educated for free.  The world has changed.  People who want to live the “good life” are no longer finding good jobs.  Many highly educated people are living on unemployment or living with their parents at age 35.  Many people who own businesses are no longer looking for employees. Taxes are high, risk is high, minimum wage is more than they want to pay, minimum wage is less than an educated person is willing to work for anyway.   (click Page 2 below to continue reading)

How Your Child Thinks: The Inventors (Part 3)

visual thinkers inventors creators

The visual thinkers of the world were created to be the designers, inventors, the artists, the musicians, the sailors and explorers. We say they have a problem with obedience and respect or we call it Dyslexia, Asperger’s Syndrome or ADHD. We try to tame them. Honestly, we have failed them . If a child is failing in his classroom, it is the classroom that failed the child. The child is not the one with a problem just because he learns differently.

The child must be set free to be the inventor, the artist, the dancer. So who will teach the inventor? Who will train the artist? The child must become his own teacher, and his parents and teachers must become his students, to learn from him, to understand him, to realize that he has within him the power to become great. We need to discover how to help him become who he was meant to be. We must accept that it may never happen in a desk, in a classroom and behind a pile of textbooks, even if you give the child medication and take away his crayons. Do you want to be the one to take away Albert’s compass, Benjamin’s kite, or Leonardo’s paintbrush or little Thomas Edison’s mirrors?

What is the solution for the child who fails in the classroom? Set him free from the classroom. Ask the child what he wants to learn about. Ask the child what he wants to do. Take the child to the book store, take the child to the art store, take the child to the beach, the forest, the ruins of a castle. Give him pets and let him catch lizards. Read to him until he learns to read to himself. Search for learning materials that captivate the visual mind–things like compasses, clay, mirrors, and paintbrushes. Let him sail, play instruments, and dig in the dirt. Let him take things apart and give him colored pencils. Let him watch people at work doing all different things in the world, take him to the kitchen, take him to an art studio, take him into factories and show him how to use sewing machines, instruments, scroll-saws, and tools. Let her dance. (to continue reading click here)