Our Son's Favorite Subjects

     Well, school has been going on now for close to a month. Believe it or not, our 9 year old autistic son has asked me to ADD lessons to his schedule! He really likes learning about habitats which covers science and US Geography which I believe is considered social studies. We've also tried astronomy and American History but he didn't care for those subjects much. Since I've always like history, I'm hoping that eventually he will discover a love for the subject also.
     The company I bought the curriculum from is called Intellego Unit Studies. The materials were designed by a mother of a special needs child. I know my special needs son LOVES learning from the science and social studies portion of their curriculum. Each selection is usually broken into grades K-2, 3-5, and 6-8. The K-2 level tends to have more hands on activities so we have been using them although our son is actually ready for fourth grade work.He's more of a hands on learner and using manipulatives seems to help him learn a lot better than any other activity I have tried.  I add additional materials, like lapbooks from Hands of a Child or Knowledge Box Central, we've even made a couple of our own. I also include games that I have found on Currclick.com or I have created myself. We've also made cookies in the shape of the states we have been studying too or an entire meal with dishes or foods from the state we are studying. There are so many things you can do to help a child learn a subject, you are only limited by your imagination, Intellego Unit Studies is a great starting point.
     The way the program works, you download an eBook with instructions on how to use it. Each lesson is pretty short, most of the time we are done in about half an hour. There are pages to print out for the student to either fill in or draw pictures. Instructions about what is being taught and how to go about doing it. Lastly, there are links to click on to take you directly to internet sites that will teach a child about each subject. Those links can be anything from short reading assignments, games, or videos. Many times, we end up playing the games several times or finding and watching several videos associated with what is being taught.
   Believe it or not, I have already picked up our next eBooks for our next classes when they were on sale about a month ago. That way, when we finish what we are studying now, we will be ready to go on to our next ones. We will be learning about maps then world geography for social studies. The animal kingdom then living things for science. Sooner or later we will advance up to higher grade level sooner or later and I'm sure the higher grade eBooks will study the subjects more in depth or from a different perspective.