Explorers LARPing Club-- Colorado Springs, CO

    Lucas and Vinnie love LARPing.  (live action role play). Lucas joined this group in September of 2021 and immediately found his people.  LARPing allows him to play act as a character of his creation.  It's basically a live version of Dungeons and Dragons.  He created a character with a back story and whole life-story and even dyed his hair to embody the character!  Vinnie was able to join this year because he turned 11 in August.  He's not as obsessed with LARPing as Lucas, but he definitely loves going!

Mrs. Dana Susan runs the group with her eldest son and husband.  She understands kids on the spectrum and is very open and understanding about food allergies.  Vinnie is completely comfortable being at her house.  I'm extremely grateful to Dana for creating a place where Vinnie isn't excluded and where he can be "just one of the kids" without having to fret about his allergies.  

    As the kids arrive (ages 11-18) they start playing sword fighting games and cooperative games in Mrs. Dana Susan's LARGE front yard.  Sam, her son, runs drills and teaches sword fighting techniques during this part of the day.  

    After the outdoor play part of the day is over, everybody heads into Mrs. Dana's house for snack time.  Each family brings snacks to share, Mrs. Dana Susan makes lemonade or hot chocolate for all the kids and everybody gets a nice time to fellowship together and make connections!  For teens, that relaxed time to just hang out is SO important.  

    After snack is done and as the kids are finishing up, things transition into crafting time!  Several times throughout the year, the group makes boffer swords.  Boffer swords are essentially the classic LARPing weapon.  LARP weapons have to be safe and effective at the same time.  Mrs. Dana provides all the materials and instruction and then the students are given time to customize and personalize their weapons.  

Other crafts that have been done throughout the last 2 years include making maps of their personal kingdoms, make shields and decorating them, making staffs, throwing knives, and daggers, and more.  Each session there is some kind of fun activity for the students.  

    After the craft time is over the students gather together in the sun room for Advanced Narrative Role-playing or ANR.  ANR is an oral version of a role-playing game that Mrs. Dana leads using stories that she has created based on Bible stories.  Each students plays either their character or one of the pre-made characters and during the story telling, Mrs. Dana goes around the group and gives each player opportunities to make decisions about what will happen in the story line.  

    Depending on the plausibility or outrageousness of the suggestions given by the students, Mrs. Dana will ask them to choose a number between 1 and X.  If its a simple request or idea then the number X will be relatively small, but if its a crazy suggestion then X can be a huge number, reducing the odds of the student guessing close to it.  Then, Mrs. Dana can continue the story telling with their suggestions included.  The students really enjoy ANR and have a good time contributing to the stories.  

    After each session, Mrs. Dana adds the stories to the web portal for the kids to be able to look back on!  

    After ANR wraps up, all the students head back outside to play some more sword role-playing games!

Students can be dropped off or parents can stay and observe or relax while their teens have a blast.  Some days allow siblings to participate and there are even special events.  

Lucas and Vinnie absolutely love going to LARPing and would love more friends to join them!  

 

Dyslexia/ Brain Games-- for Mom Brain Fog

 

In the early part of 2022, I learned about and fully embraced the "FunSchooling" method of homeschooling.  

We started out as "unschoolers" with Lucas & Vinnie both getting to unschool for most of their elementary years.  Then, when it was time for Vinnie to learn to read (because he wanted to and he was 8 years old) he struggled, so we started trying to find ways to help him.  Eventually we learned that he is profoundly dyslexic and started using curricula that would help him with his specific style of learning.  

When we moved to Colorado in late 2020, we started using digital school for both boys.  We had them work from the lowest levels of Acellus up, so that they covered any gaps in their learning.  Lucas really excelled with the online school.  Vinnie eventually maxed out around 3rd grade level, because his reading and reading comprehension were keeping him from being able to complete the work, so we quit it for him and moved to a paper curriculum.   Then, in the winter of 2021, the little kids broke our tablet and Lucas couldn't get access to Acellus any longer, so we needed something new for him as well. 

That's how we began to use the Funschool books to supplement our school! 

I invested quite a bit in the books and got the boys both set up with a nice curriculum to meet their needs and make school time fun!

Then in early March, the founder and author of Funschooling, opened up a Research Study for moms with symptoms of Brain Fog.  

Prior to using the brain fog books I had been dealing with issues replacing words when speaking and forgetting things quite often. It had been going on for about 6-8 months and my doctor could only assume it was from stress or fatigue. I'm constantly tired, since at the time I had Percy still nursing and co-sleeping, and Lucas and Sulley both don't sleep through the night.  I rarely get a decent night's sleep at night.  I'm fortunate to be able to take naps, but that doesn't replace night time 8-10 hour stretches of sleep.  

Within a week of starting the books (2 pages a day, for 6 days a week) my family began to notice that I was misusing words MUCH less frequently.  After 2 months using the books at the same frequency, I was almost never misusing words!  I did really well using the books all the way until we went on vacation in June & July and then I slacked off.  Within a couple weeks my family was complaining that I was using the wrong words all the time again!  So, as soon as we were home, I started back to doing 2-3 pages a day and the issue seems to be almost resolved again! 

I started Lucas and Vinnie with the brain fog books shortly after I began using them.  Vinnie loves them.  He enjoys doing the activities and the coloring pages.  He willingly completes his 2 pages a day, daily.  Lucas is not as much of a fan.  He has dysgraphia and such a writing strong program is hard for him.  I only ask him to do one page or even part of a page a day and even that is a struggle.  

BUT, both boys have showed a better ability to complete their school work and improved hand writing after starting the brain games books!  We are hooked and will continue to use our books regularly!