Seamus wears his hat everywhere and it gets to go on many adventures - find out what his hat is up to. If you are wondering why were are out and about so much during school time it is because our adventures are made possible because big sister Izabel attends a virtual academy.
Izabel had the opportunity to take an archery class at a local museum called the Wildlife Experience. It was taught by one of the olympic archery coaches. It was a rather extensive class for about 2.5 hours and when Matt called to make the reservation they asked if he would participate. So Matt had a slot in the class and got to shoot too. It actually goes well with her fencing since it uses similar muscles but the stance is different so she had a hard time adjusting.
According to the instructor 80% of the population are right handed and right eye dominant. He tested eye dominance because if you are right handed and left eye dominant than you have to shoot with an eye closed thus loosing depth perception. The test has revealed that Izabel is among the 3% of the population that is right handed left eye dominant. I am left handed right eye dominant - I can only assume the rarest. Matt is right hand right eyed but just to stick out he has a rare blood type. Seamus is hat dominant. The result of all this is that Izabel shoots left handed. Word for the left handers! She will now know what it is like to use the left-handed equipments that is sad, broken, and/or missing.
While this happened Seamus and his hat took in the sights around the museum including the short walk around the outside to see sculptures of Colorado wildlife. Seamus really enjoyed the sculptures but was disappointed he did not get to see the hippopotamus display inside the museum.
Matt is over on the left in the orange/brown shirt.
Warrior Princess.
According to the instructor the number 1 injury is someone looking at the shot while another person pulls out the arrow hitting the first feller in the eye. Here, Izabel and Matt demonstrate the proper form to remove an arrow.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Izabel enjoying some league play.
These pictures are mostly from a hike we did just as the leaves were turning. We have been so busy with everything going on that I did not have a chance to post them earlier. It is a hike we did with fellow COVA kids in Castlewood Canyon State Park. We had volunteer interpreters on habitats and the ecosystem. We found a salamander and lots of other school kids - it was a busy day for them. Our interpreter pointed out the place where their local mountain lion hangs out in a tree some days perched over the park watching. They gave the kids each an animal card around their necks and when we came upon their habitat they were called out and explained. Izabel was the skunk, Seamus a porcupine. We had just watched the Nature program on skunks. It was very interesting and better that we could not smell it. And for my bird watching friends we saw the usual including a blue bird and a meadow lark.
The park had a damn built there in the 30's when it failed, 8 hours later downtown Denver was flooded.
Semaus got some help from all the parents. That is one of our fellow COVA kids with her mom.
Seamus and our interpreter.
The hike lasted 2 miles. Yes, both the kids did the entire thing and are easy to pick out in the pics since they both have camel backs.
Izabel the skunk
Exploring the cave.
Izabel chats with her friend she met last year on this hike.
The kids on the farther rock, waiting to cross Cherry Creek are other COVA kids. Our groups went in opposite directions and met here.
Snack break.
Seamus gave up his pack but was still enjoying the fall colors.
Seamus got a new hat! A Denver Zoo hat and since then has had at least 2 dozen people comment on it and several ask if had been to the zoo that day.
1 of my new friends
Seamus' new friend - one even landed on his hat!
This one on my arm is Ebony the cancer survivor
Seamus says Hi to Izabel's friend the king cobra. "So we meet again." She tells him every time we go there. She used to try to convince me she could talk to him (doing an imitation of Harry Potter) and refused to talk to the other snakes so that "she would not aggravate them."
Seamus hangs out with Totem after they both had a bath (separately).
At the park in Parker after Seamus' initial evaluation consultation.
SNOW! And that is as far as I went outside that day; not because of the snow but because of the week we had.
Izabel checking out the Holmes' in West Virginia.
I figure everyone wants an update on what is going on with the kids.
About 2 weeks ago Seamus had a seizure. It was a myoclonic meaning a twitching of the muscles. So this meant we had to take him to the doctor who ordered an e.e.g. So on we went to the Parker hospital for the e.e.g. Seamus did great. He was a little scared a couple of times but they needed him to take a nap which he did. If it had been Izabel she would have not only rewired the equipment she would have rearranged the furniture. Miss Natasha was the tech who preformed the test. Picture everyone's Russian grandmother - if everyone had a Russian grandmother. "Miss Natasha loves you very much. No one wants to be in hospital but this no hurt. Miss Natasha will give you some jew-ell-reee like prince of Egypt. OHHHH you look just like prince of Egypt. This very relaxing just like the acku-punc-turrrrre." Of course, Seamus would have rather had jewelry of Barbi and when she started wrapping the gauze around his head to hold the electrodes in place I am sure he thought of the mummy monster from Scooby-Doo.
Two days later Izabel and Matt flew to Cincinnati to attend Matt's Grandfather's memorial then funeral in West Virginia. They all drove to West Virginia and back before flying back to Denver on Sunday. Izabel had a notebook of schoolwork and was able to not miss a day of attendance and get some fencing practice in with Matt's family and air bazooka and card practice in with Grandma Ann.
After dropping Izabel and Matt off at the airport and seeing the traffic on the highway it was clear we would not make the drop off for Seamus' school, so he asked to go to the zoo. He happens to ask to go to the zoo a lot but this time we went. There weren't that many people there and we were going at Seamus pace so we saw almost everything. We rode the train then the carousel. We fed the lorikeets. They actually were hungry and flew to us to feed them. One sat on my arm for a long time and we made friends. The bird's name is Ebony and he only has one leg after surviving bone cancer. They only live about 28 years and this one has survived 4 years after his amputation.
Seamus got to spend time with cousin Conor and Uncle Muncle while I braved a blizzard at the Eisenhower Tunnel. Seamus had a blast hanging with 'the guys'.
Then it was time to have the initial consultation on Seamus' autism evaluation. I am still not so sure about this place and would rather go to Children's Hospital but their wait is just way too long. The evaluator wants to do 3 different evaluations on Seamus but 1 of them is never covered by insurance, one of them is always covered (or so they say), and the third is not always covered. Of course, Seamus was able to hold himself together and show all his talents in the office and then showed all of his symptoms at the park afterward. She said that she sees where he has strengths and seems "normal" and sees where he has deficits they are distinct deficits.
Another reason I am not sure about this private evaluator: She asked if we can talk in front of him. He is 3 what he does understand he is allowed to hear and we are doing this about him I am not going to hide it from him. She did not laugh at my response to "Is he potty trained?" Which was something to the effect that I don't think it is ever going to happen. She just stared at me. The practice is for children but the office was all swanky decorated. Seamus spent the time playing with a bowl of decorator balls (you know the kind made out of grape vines or covered in twine) then he licked the satin throw pillow (okay he showed a symptom or two). All of the toys there were sacked away in organized boxes, a little creepy.
The next step is the fight with the insurance. I will keep you posted.
Safety fair at our church included railroad safety (the hat on Seamus) and a real life fire truck tour.
Seamus got to sit in the driver's seat of a fire truck at the safety fair.
Matt got to sit on a wave runner - at least that's what we told him.
Scroll down after my vent for lots of videos.
I will start by saying why should I worry about this. If the education system fails my children they can always run for the Legislature…..
This week a member of the Colorado Legislature called for an audit of online K-12 schools. He declared that this was because students in these schools were posting failing grades on state testing.
This week controversy surrounding the graduation rates of Colorado Virtual Academy (COVA) circulated in the media.
This week the comment threads for these stories included naysayers declaring that attending a virtual academy shows how lazy these kids are and encourages their already anti-social behaviors.
Needless to say having Izabel called a lazy, anti-social, failure who is unlikely to graduate got my dander up. I am writing a letter to that particular legislator but I thought I would also write something on this for the blog. Where to start?…..
It is striking how at meetings of virtual academy families (that’s right in-person meetings not anti-social texting/online/skype meetings) when it comes time for introductions how virtually (no pun intended) every family says the reason they chose to use a virtual academy is some horror story on how the brick and mortar system failed their student. How they were told to hold back a gifted learner, or how their child was “unteachable”, or how a student with special needs was left ignored under the guise that the only intervention needed was “observation” by a district psychologist. To put it in perspective it was suggested to us by both Izabel and Seamus’ teachers that we should give them a Mt. Dew in the morning to calm them down. We tried it with Izabel – it did not work.
Izabel was being held back because of an arbitrary birthday cutoff for the area that literally is the difference between Matt and myself. (We were both born in the same year; I was born the week of the cutoff and Matt the same week Izabel was). So off she went to another year of preschool with the promise that this year they would teach her more advanced stuff because their program was individually based. At the same time we started her on a kindergarten program with K12 virtual school.
I remember having a conversation with her when I saw the same exact worksheets from the year before coming home with her. I told her something about how she already knows all this and asked if she was doing other things in her class. Her response, “Mom I don’t know this stuff or they would not be teaching it to me again.” We were spending all this extra time doing the work the school should have been doing AND sending her to the school which was discouraging her. I could not allow her to hate school especially at such a young age; at least wait until high school or jr. high to hate school, right?
To the commentary on the laziness of these kids: This cat thinks that it just says to the world that your kid is too lazy to get up and be dressed and at the bus stop by a specific time. He is neglecting the fact it actually means that the kids have to be self-motivated and self-disciplined. Not to mention they can take their time to learn things that are difficult, speed through things that are easy, and take some time to delve deeper into things that are interesting TO THEM, not to some school board or teacher or textbook writer.
To the commentary on the anti-social behavior: It is so opposite of that. These kids are learning to care about each other. At the multitude of events we attend Izabel and Seamus are included in the activities and make friends with the other kids easily. The other kids understand Izabel with her exceptional vocabulary matching theirs, they look out for the younger kids like Seamus and they do not bully or tease each other. They are not learning things like how to deal with the mean girl clique or dodging punches and ridicule on the playground and sometimes from the teachers. Plus they do not have some arbitrary age that their friends must be. They play with toddlers and older kids.
To the commentary on the failure rate: Ridiculous. These standardized tests show nothing and are poorly written. It should be noted that COVA had an arbitrary mis-administration of the Colorado state testing 2 years ago where the state told them after the test that they could not test kids from different grades in the same room. Like that M*A*S*H episode where they are dismantling a bomb, “but first cut the red wire.” Also, it is a myth that standardized testing boosts education in anyway. The tests do not measure what they purport to measure and teaching to the tests ignores practical and needed knowledge. I have a multitude of references but I just found one that I am currently reading, Top 10 Myths in Education: Fantasies Americans Love to Believe by Larry E. Frase and William Streshly from the library. I could go on for ages about DIEBLES (it is a national standardized test for fluency in reading but actually does not test fluency in reading) or about Colorado’s (or Ohio’s) system of standardized testing so I will stop with that.
To the commentary about the graduation rate: Of the children who enter the COVA high school as freshmen 100% graduate on time. They should shout that from the top of Pikes Peak. They also pick up many students who along the way in high school have lost credits and are not in line to graduate on time when they enter the academy. Of those kids they have been able to have a 50% graduation rate. They should shout that from the top of Mt. Evans. They are taking on the kids that the other schools are failing. Denver Public schools have a 50.4% graduation rate and spend $15,769 per student. COVA has a 75.9% graduation rate and spends $8,129 per student. In comparison the state average is a graduation rate of 75.4% and spending of $9,326 and Brush High School (the school system Izabel started in) has a 69.6% graduation rate with $8,398 spend per student.
Seamus was asking to get his shoes off.
I know it is not for everyone but it needs to remain a choice for those for whom it works. I would challenge the legislator and the naysayer to follow my family for a week and see if they can keep up. Speaking of that soon I plan to post some nuts and bolts on how it is done since we get so many questions on that.
The kids try on some hats....
After bowling league play Izabel and Seamus along with Izabel's friends and teammates Morgan and Dana enjoyed a virtual roller coaster ride.
No hats, this time helmets for a ride to the park.
