Eight Great Resources for Parents of Special Needs Kids

#1 www.nathhan.org 

A lending library, family directory and discussion board are just a few of many resources here for families with special kids

#2 www.hslda.org  

Home School Legal Defense Association has counsel at their web site for parents of special needs children

#3 www.avcsbooks.com

Sharon Hensley has 28 years of experience counseling home school families with special needs kids. Her ministry includes book sales, a private umbrella school and counseling.

#4 www.help-with-learning.com

Help with Learning Neuroeducational Consulting is dedicated to helping children and adults reach their full God given potential.
They provide testing and a home program of activities to help children with a variety of disabilities.

#5 Homeschooling The Challenging Child

This book by Christine Field is one of my favorites for home schooling special kids. Full of practical advice, checklists and resource lists.

#6 Too Wise To Be Mistaken, Too Good To Be Unkind

Cathy Steere writes a memoir about helping her autistic son. It includes a good resource list as well as an overview of the neurodevelopment approach.

#7 The Out of Sync Child

Carol Stock Kranowitz writes this wonderful book which includes many exercises to help children overcome sensory difficulties. It includes helpful checklists.

#8 Healing The New Childhood Epidemics 

Kenneth Bock’s fascinating book which links autism, asthma, ADHD and allergies to toxins that children are exposed to. I especially appreciated the information about the impact food allergies have on learning as well as the nutritional information.

A Big Botany Field Trip

We have used the Apologia Exploring Creation With Botany textbook with our science co-op over the past school year and learned so much about Kingdom Plantae (that's fancy for plants). 

Soaring Beauties

To cap off our amazing year of exploring the world of green growing things we took a field trip, and since one of the last chapters in the book is about gymnosperms, otherwise known as coniferophyta (see all the big words we learned from our Botany Textbook!) we decided to head to the mountains to find some trees.

It just so happens that we live within driving distance of not just any conifers, but of some of the oldest and tallest growing things on the planet, the Giant Sequoias. We loaded up our van with our friends, our nature journals, and our picnic lunch and started the trek to see these towering trees.

This particular park had a lovely boardwalk that meandered under these soaring beauties and we moms had a lovely stroll with our little ones while the older students hurried ahead to see what mysteries were around the next bend.

Under the Big Trees

It was a beautiful day, enjoying God's magnificent handiwork both in our surroundings, and in the company of good friends. A little time spent nature journaling and enjoying lunch under the trees was the grand finale to a wonderful year of botany.

Happy Hiker