Monday, August 23, 2010

Getting things ready...

Have you started school yet this year? We haven't - I mean, we've been counting things that are "school" type things to our school year calendar as Missouri allows us but we haven't "officially" started school yet. My goal is to get some things finished up around the house (pack up unneeded items for Goodwill, etc) and start after Labor Day...I figured it was good enough for me when I was a kid...it's good enough now too! :)

I have been working on getting this next school year organized, ordering books and making the "Figure Eight" that we will be starting. Thanks to Dianne Craft and her "Smart Kids who Hate to Write" and her knowledge of "Dygraphia" which is what my daughter has been struggling with. She's a VERY smart girl but she is right handed and left eye dominant which means she has a bit of difficulty processing when writing.

Dianne Craft sold a figure 8 "paper" layout at the homeschool conference here in St. Louis. She said I would need to duplicate it and have my daughter do the figure 8 daily with crayons and use 1 layout per week...say what!?! I'm all for duplication of a product but each week making this thing just got the wheels in my head spinning on HOW I could do this WITHOUT making a new one each week.



Thankfully, at the CHEF conference in June I went by the Rainbow Resource table and saw they had these wipe off Centimeter Grid Boards that were blank on the other side. I thought 4 of them put together would make a nice size layout to work on. I laid them grid side up and duck taped (isn't that used for everything!?! LOL) them together at the seems and flipped them over and used clear tape on the front. I traced everything but the letters on there with a permanent Sharpie (LOVE THOSE!) - I then cut the letters out and taped them across the bottom and top.After practicing with it I realize that I'll need to put a clear coat of laminate type stuff over it. When the dry erase markers are used over the sharpie and you erase it takes away the sharpie (permanent) lines also. I'll go to KMart later today and get the clear shelf liner/contact paper and see if that will allow me to write with the dry erase and also wipe it away. We shall see.

I think it turned out GREAT!!!

3 comments:

Danielle @ Transforming Home said...

Hi Kim! Wasn't sure which blog to leave your answers on - hope you check this one...
I used those Command hooks for my zebra bag because it isn't very heavy. For the backpacks, I actually screwed in hat hooks from Target. Those holes can always be filled in with wood putty if needed.
THanks so much for visiting! Have a great one.

Danielle

Rhonda Murphy said...

I know this is an old post, so I hope you see this. I just ordered Dianne Craft's books and DVD for my son who is 8 and I believe has dysgraphia or at the least his cross dominance (right handed, left eye) is giving him fits with learning to write. I haven't received the books from Dianne's website yet, but wanted to get started. What size paper did you use for the figure 8's? Is that 11x17? Thanks!

Unknown said...

I know it has been years since you wrote your comment Rhonda, but did your child benefit from the figure 8 course?

 
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