Summer school starts

First day of summer services for Casey.  And, for Colin, too, but I'm doing them--he's not going to the school like we did last year. 

Julie had Casey all ready for Ashley when she came at 9:00.  Most of the time was spent on chatting and Google mapping and looking at and saving images of whales.  Hopefully, they'll get into the swing of things and get some good work done.  Planning on having outings on Mondays.  They'll stay pretty local since we'll be using our van and Julie will be driving and Ashley doesn't know Casey very well.  They'll be able to hit Costco, Hannaford, the library, etc. 

Colin and I did our things.  I hooked him up to his DynaVox and played around with his switches.  He's losing movement in his hands and it's always different each time we use his switch, sigh.  He did pretty well with his English/writing.  We talked about Wonder and he wrote a few sentences about what we read last night. 

Math for us was kind of a bust.  Tried about the DreamBox online that the school has licensed for a bunch of the kids to use independently.  I'm not a fan.  I didn't like directions nor the sections that we opened for Colin, nor the teaching style.  I'll plug away a bit more with him on it but may end up doing something else altogether with him.

We also did a science experiment.  We made Zombie snacks.  Added vinegar, milk and red food dye together so it curdled and made lumps which were zombie snacks.  Colin had no interest in the science behind it but liked doing the experiment.

I also forced him to play tic tac toe.  He doesn't like it and doesn't get it at all.  I'm trying to get him to predict and plan and he is not much for it.  He really needs to work on that skill and playing is one simple, quick way to do it but we've tried over and over again but he doesn't get it.  I will keep trying and maybe one day it will click and he'll actually like it. 

He picked tic tac toe over Scooby Do concentration, so I guess that tells us how much he likes concentration.  Just trying to get his brain to get out of a rut and do some real thinking.  He smart and has a good memory but only tends to use these traits when it suits him, ha ha.