The Chaos and the Clutter

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Helping Children Pray by Creating a Prayer Wall

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Creating a prayer wall in your home or classroom is easy to do. It can be instrumental in your child’s journey of faith. I have previously written about teaching children to pray and in that article, I mentioned our prayer wall and what an incredibly powerful tool it has been for us.

Creating a prayer wall can be as simple as placing names or pictures on your fridge with magnets or writing the prayer requests on a whiteboard. Children can even draw pictures themselves to create a prayer wall.

We used to use our fridge for pictures, but have found that since we start our homeschool days with prayer, it was better for us to make something in our homeschool classroom that we could use as a visual reminder. It is not only a reminder for myself and the kids of who and what to pray for, but also, an amazing visual of answered prayers.

We created our prayer wall by gluing cork to plywood to make a giant cork board. We can then pin pictures to it using pushpins. Some of our prayer wall includes pictures that are highly personal such as birth family members of some of our adopted children, so I have taken pictures that do not show the entire wall but will still give the general idea.

Helping Children Pray (creating a prayer wall in your home or classroom)We have a small stack of other pictures that I keep nearby of family members and loved ones so that I can rotate some of the pictures out from time to time and also in case they are needing extra prayer for something, we can add them to the wall. I have the wall divided into sections which is not the easiest to see in this picture because of the areas I left out of the picture, but an example is the top right corner. That section is reserved for things that are on a bit of a deadline. In this case, my dad and my aunt were both having surgery on the same day, so their pictures were there so that we could be praying for them specifically and daily.

On our prayer wall, we also have a red piece of paper and the picture on that is the person of the month (or day or week or year). The reason that person’s picture is on the red paper is so that it will catch our eye whenever we are walking through the classroom or sitting in the room and we can be reminded to silently (or not so silently) pray for that person.

Our prayer wall includes friends of ours who are battling cancer, children we love who have medical needs, family members who are serving a mission in another country, grandparents, those pursuing adoption, and many other specific people who have prayer needs.

One of the things I love about having these photos up is that the kids really do seem to remember the prayer requests more easily. When I am tucking them in at night and we can no longer see the prayer wall, they often bring up the people whose pictures are currently there in their bedtime prayers.

Another thing I love is when we are able to rejoice together about an answered prayer. One of our friends who they have been praying for for many, many months now is now cancer free and we can now be praising God for that answered prayer and seeing the reminder of that right there on our wall!

A Day in the Life of a Special Needs Mom

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Welcome to a peek into what the day in the life of a special needs mom looks like. Of course, a day in the life of any one mom is going to look very different than a day in the life of another mom and no two days are the same for any mom. In my case, I have five kids with special needs with a fairly wide range of different diagnoses so detailing our routine presents challenges as there are so many variables.

I decided that instead of focusing on one particular special need and explaining how that affects our family’s routine, I would instead present a peek into a typical day in the life of this special needs momma.

A typical day in the life of one special needs mom, well as typical as any day can be.It’s ironic that I’m typing this particular post today because this day is about as far from typical as you can get. I’m typing in the front passenger seat while we drive back from a camping trip with the kids. I’m not a camper, so that’s pretty outside the norm. I won’t talk about what this week has been like but instead focus what our regular days at home are like.

In our home, we have three type of days. We have what I would call at-home days and then we have appointment days and then we have never-a-dull-moment days.

At-home Days.

Before I was the a special needs mom, I was the mom of two neurotypical children so I have a pretty good idea of what the differences are between that life and the one I’m living now. A normal day now consists of me getting up before the kids are awake, working on my blog or whatever book I’m writing at the time and maybe doing a bit of tidying up and throwing a load of laundry in before the kids get up. With a large family, there is always laundry to be done!

Once the kids are up, we have our morning routine which is similar to what probably goes on in most homes but the main difference would be that particularly with our one daughter, I have to be involved and help her through her routine even though she’s ten years old, as even the basics such as personal hygiene and toiling are challenges for her due to her delays.

It’s about this time of the day that the battle of the hearing aids begins. Dancing Queen has progressive hearing loss but she is quite resistant to wearing her hearing aids. As a result, her speech continues to get worse and she becomes harder to understand so I’m quite rigid on insisting that she wear them. This battle continues off and on until bedtime and usually includes a family wide game of searching-for-the-missing-hearing-aids because she takes them off throughout the day and forgets where she puts them.

The kids have breakfast and I read them a story and we talk for a bit and pray together for people we know using our prayer wall. During the school year, one of our sons heads off to school on the bus while the rest of the kids start homeschooling.

In the midst of the morning routine and homeschooling, there are usually several behaviour issues that go far beyond what would be considered typical so we parent a bit differently than a typical family might.

Five of our kids have Sensory Processing Disorder so we take sensory breaks throughout the day and even while we are homeschooling. We also have many sensory items that we use throughout the day to make it easier for our kids to cope and even thrive.

After homeschooling, we have lunch and I do some clean-up. The afternoon is usually spent with the kids playing. This looks similar to most other kids other than the level of supervision that is needed considering their ages and the sensory needs.

Our one son comes home from school. There are some behaviour issues and sibling conflict that need to be dealt with. We eat supper. The kids play again and then we start their bedtime routine and tuck them in and I work again on my blog or writing in the evenings other than date night.

Our at-home days don’t look much different than yours might other than having to remember some of the kids’ medication schedules, increasing supervision and assistance, meeting their sensory needs, the frequency and intensity of the behaviour issues, and the worry.

I find that the worry I have as a mom of kids with special needs is a constant struggle. What that daily routine could have said was “wake up, worry, get frustrated with myself for worrying because it does no good, work, worry, breakfast, worry, homeschool, worry, pray and try to give control to God, behaviour issue, pull control back from God and start worrying again, lunch, clean-up, worry, kids playing, child gets hurt, worry, pray, supper, worry, remind self not to worry, worry some more…”

Appointment days.

I try to schedule all of our appointments in the city for one day a week instead of going to appointments almost every day. Our appointments include:

  • Miss Optimism needs two injections every second week and those are in a neighbouring city downtown.
  • Miss Optimism and Granola Girl to the paediatric pulmonary specialist bi-weekly or monthly.
  • Dancing Queen’s audiology – ear mould fittings every six months and going to pick up the new ear moulds, audiograms every six months, appointments for broken equipment which has been happening a lot lately
  • Dancing Queen to her specialists including ENT, genetic counsellor, paediatrician, psychiatrist, therapist
  • Einstein to therapy
  • Snuggle Puppy to psychiatrist, therapy, orthodontist
  • Regular appointments such as dentist, optometrist and doctor.

I also try to run my errands like going to the pharmacy plus the normal ones that other moms have to do like the bank and the grocery store on those appointment days. The grocery store is more of a challenge. Dancing Queen is too big to go in the cart or a stroller but has a tendency to wander off and has issues surrounding appropriate boundaries with strangers so a trip to the warehouse store can become a crisis or at least cause for panic in a hurry. I try to stick to going to one local store where they know us and know her and I feel much safer there. If she were to try to leave that store with someone who wasn’t me, there are many employees there who would know and try to alert me.

On appointments days (at least one a week), I need to plan for waiting rooms, lunch and snacks for the kids and those are days when I am particularly glad to have freezer meals so that I don’t have to worry about supper when we get home.

With our kids’ special needs, there is also a lot of paperwork. There are papers to apply for funding to help cover some of the costs, papers to fill out for respite, for community aid workers (don’t have that yet because I’m not done the paperwork), for their specialists, for their post-adoption workers, for the testing that needs to be done. There is literally paperwork for some of the other paperwork!

Never-a-dull-moment days.

The thing that I find most difficult about this is that I live everyday with the knowledge that any day could turn into one of these days. It’s like I can never fully exhale, never relax, and always have to be on guard. Even if I’m out on a date with my husband, the phone could ring. Even if the kids and I are having a nice relaxing day where everything is seeming to go well, things could turn at any moment.

There are two reasons that days can turn into a never-a-dull-moment day at our home. One is that two of our children have difficulty understanding cause and effect. This means that one of them may decided to jump off the back of a moving snowmobile not thinking about the possibility that her leg would get wrapped around the tread and break or one might jump from the playhouse roof over the trampoline net and onto the trampoline when her sister is already on the trampoline, thus landing on her sister’s head and causing a concussion. (both of those are our true stories and I could give many more examples) Both of our kids with this as part of their reality are improving.

When they were younger, they would run out into traffic or climb out onto the roof or find matches and light a teddy bear on fire or walk out into a field of cows at two or ride their bike through a glass panel on the deck. They still require more supervision and teaching than other kids their age might, but they are making significant progress. We now have less trips to the emergency room than we used to.

The other reason for never-a-dull-moment days is that two of our children have RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder) in addition to PTSD, ODD and other diagnoses, so when there is a trauma trigger for one of them (which can come from anywhere at anytime), things turn very quickly. So in our house on the never-a-dull-moment days, the result may be a trip to the hospital or worse. Also with two of our girls having severe asthma, that can also result in a trip to the emergency room. So there’s always the possibility of excitement around here.

As I used to ask my friends…”please pray for boring for me!” With the risk of the never-a-dull-moment type of day always looming, that leads to more worry.

I worry about their futures. I worry about their interaction with friends or lack thereof. I worry about how others will treat them, about how they will adapt to the world, whether we are making the right decisions for them. I worry about worrying too much because I know that I am supposed to be trusting God and that fear is not from Him which brings me back to the worry-pray cycle I was describing before. I also worry about all the things that every parent worries about.

Other than our never-a-dull-moment days and the amount of appointments and paperwork I’m describing, I have the life of most any typical mom except that everything in our life is taken to an extreme both because of the size of our family and because of the special needs of our kids. A lot of the behaviours and difficulties that our kids display are ones that typical kids also display. The difference is the frequency and intensity.

Frequency and intensity pretty much sums up the life of this special needs momma. Oh and worry of course, but I’m working on that one!

Join me for a free 5 part email series, Little Hearts, Big Worries offering resources and hope for parents.

I am pleased to have joined a fabulous group of bloggers to bring you this series on Parenting Special Needs Children. Be sure to read their stories on daily life.

How to Homeschool your Child with Special Needs | Natural Beach Living

Day to Day Life Parenting a Child with Reactive Attachment Disorder | Every Star is Different

Life with Trauma ~ Living in the shadows‎ | STEAM Powered Family

Why Special Needs Moms are Exhausted All the Time, But Will Never Ask for Help| Life Over C’s

A Day in the Life: A Blogging Mom and Her Special Needs Kids | B-Inspired Mama

Everyday Accommodations & Strategies for Kids with Hyperlexia | And Next Comes L

The Importance of Visual Schedules for Non-Verbal Autistic Children | Kori at Home

Recognizing the Signs of Reactive Attachment DisorderRecognizing the Signs of Reactive Attachment Disorder

Does my Child Have Sensory Processing Disorder? If you are wondering whether or not your child has Sensory Processing Disorder, this list of information and resources will be a starting place for you to find help.Does my Child have Sensory Processing Disorder?

Our Typical Homeschool Day

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While I don’t know that “typical” homeschool days happen often at our house, we do like to stick to a general schedule and routine. Years ago, I was more of an unschooler but my Special Needs kiddos really need structure so we have found that following at least a general outline works best for us.

Our Typical Homeschool Day

Here is our general homeschool schedule:

Devotions
Prayer (see how we set up and use a prayer wall)
Apologia Textbook reading – Who Is God and How Can I Know Him
memory verse
Brain Break

Story of the World reading
SOTW Review Questions
chapter in whatever book we’re reading
Science Textbook reading
Brain Break

Snack

Sight Words
Super Sentences (you can read how we do that here)
read aloud
Brain Break

After this portion of the day where I have been doing the reading and leading things, the kids transition to their workboxes. You can read a detailed explanation of how we use our workboxes here. I have pre-filled them with any map work, worksheets and activities that correspond with the lessons from the morning.

The workboxes also contain the kids’ Daily Grams, Handwriting, notebooks, journals, and rotating activities. The rotating activities include things like the Sensory Bin, auditory station, file folder games, educational busy bags, Math (because it’s on the computer) and hands-on activities. Many of the rotating activities are sensory stations.

After they are done their workboxes, there are a few kids that have things like reading practise or attachment work but generally, they are done “school” for the day.

We start homeschooling by 9 a.m. and are usually done by lunchtime but this is our first year with this science curriculum and we didn’t do science last year really so it may take until early afternoon to complete everything in our new schedule.

Planning:

I do try to plan as much as I can and be prepared by having photocopying done ahead and materials ready for any hands-on activities. I usually start off well with the planning at the beginning of the year and then it dies off a few months in. Things go so much more smoothly when I plan.

I also try to plan out snacks and lunches for school days so that I’m not scrambling. Lunches are really hard for me to think of so I have just started sharing them on my Facebook page and others are sharing theirs. I find that I’m getting good ideas this way and also staying accountable to actually thinking of something! If you’d like, pop over and share your lunch ideas.

I also jot out generally what is in the workboxes that week.

Here is a rough weekly schedule:

Mondays:

I try not to book appointments. Sometimes it can’t be avoided.

Tuesdays:

piano lessons in the morning (the teacher comes to our home so the kids take turns doing their lessons during our regular homeschool time)

Snuggle Puppy’s program for trauma and attachment

Jui jitsu for Snuggle Puppy in evening

Wednesdays:

in second semester, swimming lessons in the afternoons

Thursdays:

art classes in morning for girls/ outdoor survival classes for boys

Jui Jitsu for Snuggle Puppy in evening

Fridays:

every second week Miss Optimism has her injections

I still need to find a day that would work for Miss Optimism’s sewing lessons and also fit in audiology appointments for Dancing Queen, therapy for Dancing Queen and Snuggle Puppy, and speech therapy for Dancing Queen and Granola Girl.

This also does not account for any field trips. It’s busy y’all!

If you’re interested in finding out more about how we homeschool, you may find these helpful or at least somewhat interesting:

This is how a homeschool day in our house really looks.

Our 2014/2015 Curriculum

Our 2014/2015 Curriculum

How I teach history to multiple ages

How I teach Language Arts to multiple ages with special needs

How I teach Math to multiple ages with special needs

How I teach Fine Arts to multiple ages with special needs

Teaching Children to Pray

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  • Model prayer. This is the most important and effective way to teach your children to pray. Allow your children to see you pray. My best praying happens in the shower or in the van when driving alone or in bed late at night or early in the morning. None of those are places where the kids can witness me praying. Therefore, I have to make an effort to be purposeful about praying in front of my kids. It doesn’t come naturally to me. Neither does praying out loud, but I consciously do both to model a prayer life to my kids.
  • Teach them the power of praying in numbers. “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”-Matthew 18:20 If someone texts, e-mails or phones me a prayer request, I will often ask the kids to pray with me for that person or situation, explaining that it is more powerful if we all pray together. Sometimes we do this while in the van or while in the middle of an activity. I think the drop-everything-and-pray when used only occasionally is very powerful as it shows them that nothing is more important.
  • Keep a prayer journal or another type of record of answered prayers. When we pray first thing in our homeschool in the morning, I jot things down in my homeschool planner as they come up. Later, the kids and I look back on what prayers have been answered. This has been a good way to reinforce to them the power of prayer.
  • Have visuals. We use pictures. I call it our prayer wall. In our homeschool classroom, there is a corkboard and I add pictures of people we are praying for. We used to do this on our fridge. This gives the kids a visual reminder to pray for those individuals and it has been powerful to witness what God has done. We have helped pray home many children waiting to be adopted. Seeing their “before” pictures when they are in an orphanage or foster home and then being able to put up the “after” pictures of them with their new family has been amazing. We also prayed for our friends’ son who was in the hospital for almost the first two years of his life. He has just been discharged and now I will be able to change his picture to one of him at home and the kids will see visible proof that their prayers are at work!
  • Form habits. Just like most things in life, prayer is easier when it becomes a habit. By praying at certain times of the day, a habit is instilled. For our family, this happens in the morning, before supper and at bedtime when we tuck the kids in. This is a very effective strategy as now if we forget to pray before supper, the kids are the ones to remind us! On nights when we get home late and the tuck-ins are fast, the one thing that we cannot not do is pray.
  • Pray in all things. It can be easy to praise God when a prayer is answered or when we are desperate and crying out, but praying in the little things, in the in-between moments teaches our kids that God is to be our confidant, our friend, our Healer, our Redeemer, our Everything.

My Top 10 Must-Haves for Homeschool

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In no particular order:

1. Bible – we use this for reference, reading, scripture memorization, and devotions. I also use this Bible app on my phone (it’s free) and love it for being able to look up verses on the go or for reading the kids the verse of the day when they’re all piled in our bed in the morning!

2. Story of the World – our favourite curriculum

3. Paper, paper, and more paper – we often get free paper from workplaces of friends and family. We just flip it over and use the blank side in the printer or for drawing, doodling, and writing. We go through so much paper!

4. Simple Craft Supplies – glue, scissors, paint, markers, crayons, pipe cleaners, tissue paper, coloured paper, paper plates. We use a hanging shoe organizer to keep all of our craft supplies at the ready.

5. Books – all shapes, sizes, topics, and levels…WE LOVE BOOKS!

6. Imagination – something I try to nurture in my kids. When I find myself lacking in the imagination department, I look to others for inspiration (see #7).

7. Pinterest – this would have been a very boring year for the kids if I hadn’t discovered Pinterest! If you want to learn more about how it fits into homeschool, read my series on using Pinterest in homeschooling. As an added bonus, it’s free! Follow me on Pinterest to see what other projects we might try.

8. Patience – this is one of the top of the top must-haves for me. I don’t always have enough patience and some days, it feels like I have next to none and it feels like homeschooling takes every ounce that I have, but no one can successfully homeschool without it.

9. Prayer – our days always go so much better when we start together with prayer. Our prayer wall gives us all a visual and helps encouragement. And for me, a busy, sometimes stressed-out homeschool mom, prayer is everything.

10. Flexibility and Grace – the nature of homeschooling demands flexibility from year to year, day to day, and child to child. It is also necessary to give yourself grace. No one is perfect and us homeschool moms are no exception. I often have expectations of myself that no human being could live up to and am working on allowing myself more grace. I think grace is also a must for gifting our children with and for teaching them through action.

School at Home Sample Schedules

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Kids need the security of routine. Right now with everything in their world a little off kilter, they need it more than ever. I know that some of you suddenly find yourself teaching school at home unexpectedly. That may feel overwhelming and scary, but I’m telling you. You can do this. 
 
You were your child’s first teacher. You cheered them on as they took their first steps. You helped them learn their colours and shapes. You know your child best. I’m telling you. You can do this.Sample School at Home Schedules
 
I homeschooled for 19 years. Ironically, this year, most of my kids were in school and I now find myself with them all home again!
 
One of the things the most common questions I’m getting about schooling at home is how to set a schedule. This is obviously something that will vary by family due to circumstances, age of kids, and other factors. But I wanted to give you some general sample schedules to help you plan and find something that’s right for your family.
 
While it’s okay to relax and not keep a perfect schedule, right now, kids are needing some kind of a routine. With all the changes happening, one thing you can do to create a feeling of security for your child is to give them a routine they can count on. 
 
When school were first cancelled, I just assumed we would settle into some kind of natural routine because of all our years spent homeschooling. The first few days were chaos! There were lots of big emotions and little squabbles. It soon became obvious that we were not going to just naturally slip into anything positive. 
 
At the end of day three, we sat down and had a family meeting. We talked about the current situation and its challenges, acknowledged and validated everyone’s feelings, and laid out the new plan. We allowed the kids to have some input into the schedule and I wrote it up on the white board.
 
The next day went much more smoothly as the kids knew what was expected of them, what was coming up when, and they had the security of some structure. 
 
I’ve kept the time slots blanks on these sample schedules so that you can fill in what works for you. Some families are early risers and others, not so much. This is only meant to be a guide and jumping off point to help you create the best routine for your unique family.
 
It’s important to note that depending on their age, grade, and ability, kids only need between 1 and 3 hours of actual sit down schoolwork per day. You are not attempting to recreate a school in your home. Play and connection are still the most essential things you can provide your child with.
 
If you’re looking for information on how to help your kids learn during this time, check out Your Complete Guide to School at Home.

School at Home Sample Schedule:

Wake Up
Breakfast
 
Mindfulness          
Movement            
Reading              
Snack & Water
 
Schoolwork
 
Sensory Break      
Lunch
 
Chores                
  • include heavy work for mood and anxiety
Schoolwork
     
Play                    
Snack & Water
 
Art or Craft          
  • drawing, painting, paper crafts, art tutorial online
Movement
 
Dinner
 
Free Time            
Bedtime

School at Home Sample Schedule (religious):

Wake Up              
Breakfast
 
Devotions & Prayer
 
Movement            
Reading              
Snack & Water
 
Schoolwork
 
Sensory Break      
Lunch
 
Chores                
  • include heavy work for mood and anxiety
Schoolwork
     
Play                    
Snack & Water
 
Art or Craft          
  • drawing, painting, paper crafts, art tutorial online
Movement
           
Dinner
 
Free Time            
Prayer
 
Bedtime

Preschool at Home Sample Schedule:

Wake Up              
Breakfast
 
Mindfulness          
Music & Movement  
 
Snack & Water
 
Fine Motor       
Lunch
 
Chores                
  • include heavy work for mood and anxiety
Gross Motor        
Play                    
Snack & Water
 
Art or Craft          
  • drawing, painting, paper crafts, collage
Movement            
Dinner 
 
Free Time            
Bedtime

Preschool at Home Sample Schedule (religious):

Wake Up              
Breakfast
 
Prayer & Scripture
 
Music & Movement  
 
Snack & Water
 
Fine Motor       
Lunch
 
Chores                
  • include heavy work for mood and anxiety
Gross Motor        
Play                    
Snack & Water
 
Art or Craft          
  • drawing, painting, paper crafts, collage
Movement            
Dinner 
 
Free Time            
Prayer
 
Bedtime
To get printable versions of these sample School at Home Schedules, simply enter your email below. You’ll also receive our Parenting in the Pandemic email series designed to help you through these strange times.
 
 
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