First stop, the northeast region...

 We are homeschooling this year. There are many reasons that we chose this course but let's just say that online schooling in the spring was an absolute nightmare. Victor regressed to hitting and kicking, behaviors that we had not seen regularly for a long time. He learned very little during his Zoom sessions and spent more time changing his background, using the chat feature, and trying to figure everything else out than listening or trying to figure out what was being written on the whiteboard. 

For the most part, his year has been going very well. We have a great school district that allows him to come into school for both braille instruction and orientation and mobility. He is much more compliant and less frustrated than in previous years. Who knows if this is maturation, the change of environment, lack of school stressors and distractions, the change in medications, all of the above, or none of the above and something else entirely? But we are thankful. 

At the beginning of the year, I went to social media to ask out-of-state friends and family to send items representing their state. While people were gathering items and mailing them, Victor and I talked about our town. We mapped out our street with tracks for roads and blocks for houses. Then we talked about our state. Finally, we are on to our country and the regions of the US.

How fun to open all of these boxes! As we started with the Northeast Region, Victor was overheard saying, "I'm going to treasure this!"...

Not surprisingly, Victor found another use for granite - a drum pad!

"This is like an archaeological dig."...

Checking out maple tree taps, or spiles

Lucy and Victor were both excited to try out the maple popcorn

"Best experience of my life."...

Thanks to the generosity of friends and family from near and far, we've been able to explore boxes from Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York.

We decided Massachusetts must have a lot of creative, ingenious, entrepreneurial

types due to all the foods and businesses that originated there!

A basketball from Massachusetts

We opened the Rhode Island box and Victor declared,

"It smells like the ocean!"

Victor can now tell you a whole lot about maple tress and the process of making maple syrup, wildlife like moose and loons, museums like the Corning Museum of Glass, how sports like basketball got started and where, and natural resources such as granite.

Thank you! Next time: Southeast Region (but it will take some time to get the materials brailled before we start). Stay tuned.