Lighthouse Beams

Homeschool Family Blog

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Ultimate Special Needs Expo Today Online

Hi Friends! This just in from my friend, Felice Gerwitz. She is “delighted” about her Ultimate Special Needs Expo resource library.  Actually, she is so “excited” that she has just shared a sneak peek into her Membership Site. You see one of the great things about the Ultimate Special Needs Expo is that it is a one of a kind …Continue reading →

Merry Christmas from the Criders!

Dear Friends & Family, Where has the year flown to? Each year seems to go faster and it is so hard to keep up. This has been a busy, emotional year but we have been blessed in so many ways to. We have learned again how good God is to us and how He is watching over us each and …Continue reading →

The Old Schoolhouse Black Friday Special

The Old Schoolhouse Magazine is an awesome magazine full of helpful articles for every part of homeschooling. I have personally found encouragement as a mom, homeschooler and a homeschool director. You will find reviews, helps for each age group, how to homeschool when things are tight and so much more. It is a magazine that I hold high on my …Continue reading →

CHRISTmas Challenge

I have just attended the Ultimate Homeschool Expo, which was ULTIMATE! I came away inspired a new with all sorts of helps for homeschooling and to make this Christmas CHRIST centered more than ever!  After think about the last few days and all the inspiration I received, I would like to make a challenge to all my Christian friends around …Continue reading →

Suzy did it!!

Yes!!! Suzy has done it again!!! Several weeks ago Beth introduced Suzy to pick ups but she did get it.  So Tuesday I got a wash cloth for her to try and by the time she left on Wed. we had her doing pick ups.  Yesterday I sat down for a few minutes to work with her and picked up …Continue reading →

Review of Astonishing Animals from the Download N Go series

Another great DNG book.  This book is an awesome book to use with autistic children to help them learn.  It is great for non handicapped children but autistic children can learn a lot from the movies and pictures that they see and my son got really excited watching the movies.  Do you know what an Aye-Aye is?  They are ugly …Continue reading →

Progress

Each day is a new day for our family.  When we get up we never know what to expect!! We spent the day cleaning the family room and doing odd jobs around the house.  It was nice not being on the run this weekend.  Abigail came down with the flu Sat. afternoon so we had to work around that. The …Continue reading →

Worms & Treats

Wow, we are learning all sorts of things with Suzy!!  When we were in Oklahoma we found out that Suzy had tape worms (not the kind that can be passed on to humans).  As with everyone money is tight and when we looked into getting the stuff that she needed, it was very expensive.  A close friend suggested we try …Continue reading →

Suzy & Squirrel

Another busy week.  It kicked off with having Beth and Jenny with us on Monday this week.  They visited Milton’s speech therapy session and Milton had a ball.  He would grab a card and run over to Chaka and Dot and show them the card and say the word.  It was so much fun to watch him show off to …Continue reading →

Practicing

The real challenge of training a service dog is all the time that you put into working one on one with the dog when the trainer isn’t on hand!  Beth was sick this week so couldn’t make it but that didn’t stop our end of the work. We don’t have Suzy to the point yet of doing things without the …Continue reading →

Trip to Silver Dollar City

A busy weekend but a fun filled one.  We left home Friday night for Branson, MO with a truck loaded with homeschool goodies.  Yes, this was our 10th annual Homeschool Weekend at Silver Dollar City. Suzy doesn’t like the truck as well because of the bigger jump to get into.  We are planning to get a ramp that will help …Continue reading →

Restaurant Time

This has been a busy week for us.  A week ago today found our family pack our PT Cruiser and heading from West Plains to Oklahoma City.  This was our first LONG drive with Suzy.  Due to her car sickness we gave her a non drowsy Dramamine and it worked!  She didn’t get sick one time and seemed to enjoy …Continue reading →

Kisses

Wow, another great time with our trainer Beth.  Again she arrived at noon and I had kept the food warm from our lunch so she would have something for lunch. The day started off rough but ended pretty good. We had a run in with our neighbor that we were afraid might happen at some time.  She is mad (again) …Continue reading →

Working Hard

We have worked hard this week on what Suzy learned on Tuesday.  She has come a long ways.  She is so gentle and sweet that it is really easy to work with her. The kids love to watch her do “push ups” and she rewards them by do really good with them.  For the most part if you put food …Continue reading →

Doggie Pushups

Wow, our week is rolling by! Our wonderful trainer, Beth Levine, showed up at our place at noon yesterday and started working one on one with Suzy.  It was a different from the classes we attended for a couple of weeks.  Beth and Jenny pulled out of the SPCA due to the board members embezzling money from one of the …Continue reading →

On the Roll

Wow, what a week!  We found out that the trainer and one of the founders of the organization we were planning to work with had pulled out of the organization due to some money that was stolen by the board and some other things. We will be continuing our training with the trainer on a one on one basis which …Continue reading →

Rocking Robots – Review

This is another great Download N Go!!  Our family saw its first R2 this summer and robots have never been the same.  This one is chocked full of fun movies to watch on the different things that robots are being created to be able to do.  The first day you will learn what a robot is.  What is is made …Continue reading →

All Clear

We have had a busy week with Michael home on his last vacation week of the year.  We have been busy little bees trying to cut ourselves into different areas of the place.  For some time we have wanted to get some much needed work done on our place and we finally got a bunch done!! Tuesday night found our …Continue reading →

Starting our Journey

In January we contacted a group in Arkansas about getting a service dog for our Epilepsy/Autistic son.  They were excited about being contacted about it but this was new to them and they hadn’t done anything in this area.  They also told us that it would cost us around $20,000 to get it and train it to him.  The money …Continue reading →

Review of Fiesta Freebies 2nd edition

Fiesta of Freebies, 2nd Edition needs to be in every homeschool! One thing I have found over the years, freebies are a great way of adding to my teaching!  This ebook is full of wonderful helpful things for all ages.  You will find a section of activities and lesson plans; a section for helping those students learn more about the …Continue reading →