Wordless Wednesday 13 March

Week 11 - Slow and Steady

LB learning about food in ancient Rome

CC still not feeling well, but still exploring ancient Rome

LB and I enjoying history

LB - Second Grade
We started reading the Oak Meadow book  of folk tales and started back where we left off in R&S Math.    Additional, we played lots of card and board games, watched a lot of Magic School Bus and went for long daily walks.   The VT exercises are still hard for her, but she is making  little improvements every day.  I also installed the new Classical Conversations Year 1 app on my phone.  I have a CC book and cd but have had trouble making the review a part of our daily routine.  Maybe this will help.

CC - Sixth Grade
Went back to the allergist Monday for a follow-up.  After a week of watchfulness and worry, she is still steadily improving from last week's systemic reaction.  The allergists have gone over her records and agreed that she should not have anymore allergy shots.  We're going back next week for another follow-up and to discuss an alternative long-term management plan.  I read a terrific post this week about anaphylaxis. 
http://familynature.wordpress.com/2011/05/09/the-epipen-long-time-owner-first-time-user/

Not a lot to report in school because it is terrific.  She's been learning about ancient Egypt, prepositional phrases, genetics, prime number factoring, and learning lots more Latin vocabulary.   Even though she's ahead of her orchestra class, she enjoys playing as part of a group with her classmates.   She was spending a couple of hours a day after school doing homework, but now finishes most of it during their afternoon study hall/ tutorial period which has been a big relief to her.  She still practices her cello most days for about an hour or until her fingers or arm hurts.

Last night while we were talking about school, she explained how much easier it is to do GCF using prime number factorization and asked why I didn't teach her to do it that way first.  Try explaining to a 6th grader that there is more than one way to do it, and that she first learned GCF in 4th grade which was way before she learned prime numbers.

We had a good week.  It was not exciting except our visit to the Pompeii exhibit.  We are in a slow and steady mode right now.

Week 10 1/2 - Art, Allergies and Vision Therapy

Last weekend we took LB's friend with us to ride

This is what LB wanted for her birthday

She's wanted to do this since she was "little"

We had perfect weather and a beautiful ride

This week CC had 2 days off from school so I'm only counting it as a half week.

Monday night I had one of those rare moments when I felt like I was a picture-perfect classical educator.  LB was tucked into bed listening to the audiobook of Moby Dick, and CC was stretched out in bed reading a summary of the Aeneid in her Latin book.   Of course the perfect moment didn't last long because LB was in chapter 135 and the whale was attacking, so it was much too exciting to fall asleep to which somehow led to her playing with green food coloring in the bathroom.  CC thought the summary of the Aeneid was shallow and left out too much of the story and couldn't figure out how to summarize such a poor version of a story she already knew.  Oh well.  I enjoyed my moment while it lasted.

LB had her first vision therapy appointment Monday, and we were given 15 minutes of homework to do everyday.  The therapist warned that because her eyes had such a large problem with tracking that she would only be able to work about a minute per eye at a time.  She suggested that we break up the work into 4 or 5 sessions throughout the day.  It sounds like a little bit of work, but it is taking up our whole day.  I was warned by other moms to scale down school expectations during therapy. She gets tired eyes after the first session of tracking exercises.  After the third session, she gets a headache.  I think it will be a while before she can realistically do schoolwork and VT, but we've been playing lots of games.

When I first saw how much her little eyes jump around during the tracking exercises, I was shocked.  I can't believe that her eyes are that bad and that I didn't know.  I'm feeling pretty guilty.

Tuesday afternoon I was back to feeling pretty happy with the education my kids are getting.  When I asked CC what the highlight of her day was she said that it was that she got to touch a Van Gogh.  That is a really cool highlight.  I got to see the Van Gogh but not touch it.  A private collector brought his amazing collection of art to her school.  She loved hearing him talk about collecting it because he had such a passion for each piece that it became alive to the students.  He had even met Picasso and told the story of having dinner with the artist.  LB liked the Jackson Pollack and the Da Vinci.  I didn't get to spend nearly enough time looking at them, but I enjoyed seeing such a diverse collection.

Wednesday ended the school week.  CC is still doing great in school and thriving from the interaction with girls with similar interests and teachers that are passionate about their subjects.  LB is working hard at her vision therapy but having trouble sleeping this week.  I don't know what's up.

Since CC had two days off from school and her allergies have been better because of the weather, we decided to try another allergy shot.  She had been bumped down to the lower than low bottle of serum, and we expected to not have a reaction because of the dilution.   Of course, she had another systemic reaction.  Instead of a quick shot and a 30 minute wait to make sure there was no reaction, we spend almost 2 hours there.  The doctors are reevaluating and will call us with a new plan.  I don't know that I am a strong enough person to take her back for shots again, but she is terrified that if her allergies don't improve before spring that she'll spend the whole spring in the hospital. 

Week 10 - Catching up

Last week was hard.  The previous week was very hard.  My mom's surgery went well.  ICU was a hard place to spend a couple of days and so was the cardiac unit.  We brought her home on a Tuesday after a triple bypass on a Friday which was also really hard.  There were so many people watching her and taking care of her in the hospital that bringing her home was intimidating.  My brother was here from Michigan.  It was amazing to have him here.  I always think of him as my baby brother, but he was strong and steady.  All of us worked hard to make things as normal as possible around here.

After we came home, Mom got worse instead of better.  She started having irregular heartbeats so I took her back to the hospital.  They found a blood clot in her lungs and in her leg so she spent another 4 days in the cardiac unit.

We've spent a lot of time in the hospital over the past couple of weeks.  The girls have learned a lot about doctors, surgeons, nurses, cardiologists, hospitals, hearts, blood, IVs, heart rhythm -- things I really hadn't planned to teach this year.  We also got a good lesson in taking care of each other and rolling with what life throws your way.

My sister is here this weekend helping to get mom settled again and get all of her cardiac rehab, medications, followup appointments and such straightened.  I could probably do it alone, but it is so nice to have her here.  She makes me smile.

Through it all, we've mostly done our essential school work - phonics, reading, math, writing, music, dance, pottery.  The girls have picked up more chores to help out. --Notice I managed to put some school content in here.  We are getting back to school and life.

A picture of LB's work done for one day, between visits to the hospital.

Week 8 - The only thing that matters

I usually summarize my school week mixed with our life because homeschooling is part of our life, but sometimes that life overshadows the school.  This morning it doesn't really matter that CC likes her new math program or that LB loves writing sentences in cursive.  This morning what matters is what Missy the OR nurse will say when she comes in over the next few hours.

My mom, aka, Grandma around here, started having trouble breathing last week when we took a beautiful fall walk. She sat, rested, and dismissed it.  The same thing happened the next day. Monday, she was sure she might be coming down with something because she felt achy and couldn't sleep.  Tuesday, she woke up with pressure in her chest but finally went back to sleep.  Wednesday, I noticed she looked pale and was rubbing her chest certain she'd pulled a muscle.  Thursday, I finally convinced her to go to the doctor, and took her to the emergency room instead of a doctor.  She'd had a heart attack.

Right now, she is having bypass surgery and that's the only thing that matters.

Wordless Wednesday

Summer Report 7

Momma bear enjoyed our cottonwood tree before she took the cubs further away

Summer is starting to look more like school around here.  I finally pressed "Buy" on my Rainbow Resource order.  One thing was on backorder so it will be maybe two weeks before we get the last of the school books.   CC went back to fencing.  LB will start back to tap dancing next week.  We had our last summer park day with our friends. I've ordered an extra inhaler for CC to leave at her enrichment school and printed out the forms so she can carry one.  We also bought new shoes for school and started choosing fall clothes.  There's just been a bit more hustle and bustle around here.

Before the haircut and before BB went back to Japan

CC spent most of the summer reading Jules Verne books, but has switched over to Heidi for a change of pace and also read Stories from Scotland this week. I picked up some Max Axiom books to see what level they would be around here.  CC likes them, but I think the science content level is a little low for 5th grade.   She started reading a brain book that I bought to accompany our science unit and really enjoyed it.  She's almost finished with the MM geometry book that I'd printed out for her to use during the summer.  She wants to continue doing  geometry alongside LoF Decimals when school starts.  She also tried on her uniform and met her new teachers. 

I had counted the lessons in LB's ETC 3 book and marked when she'd start the school year so I could put the lesson numbers in my weekly plans.  When she saw the marks in her book, she decided that she should be doing the first grade work now and caught herself up to those lessons.  It is really good that she's ahead of my plan, but it kind of ruins my plan.  I guess I'll just remove the lesson numbers from my spreadsheet instead of trying to keep ahead of her.


Hubby and I took a day off this week to celebrate our birthdays and anniversary.  It was terrific to spend most of day with just the man I love.

A view from our hike this week

Where we stopped for a birthday lunch

Happy Birthday

Summer Report 6

Our Favorite Spot for Dinner

I guess we aren't the only ones that like this shady spot behind our house

No need for the book to identify those tracks, but it is good to double check

A lovely new path

A beautiful place to hike

It is hard to try to tell a story from this week because it was long and strange. Bears moved into the wonderful woody area behind our house. We hiked a wonderful trail that we'd never tried before. BB went back to Japan. CC went from long hair to a pixie cut. LB was sick most of the week. I managed to get a migraine the day I was getting over a migraine so I had the joy of two in a row. My BIG meeting at work was wonderful even though the migraines kept me from feeling as prepared as I would have liked. The weather changed from 90's to 60's then settled into the 80's.

We're still continuing our small bits of school work through the summer which have included math, reading, and phonics. This week, we started up science again with Mendelian genetics.  I replaced the ClassicQuest lab which used hair color with a Dragon Genetics Lab I had found.   The kids had a lot of fun with it.

It is always  hard to get into a rhythm after BB goes back to school.  It takes a while for a the old/new normal to settle in. 

Summer Report 5 - Packing up summer

The girls with their battle gear

I have always loved swings since I was little.  The one at the Ren. Fest. was HUGE.

Taking a break for a cold  treat

Can you imagine him telling his parents about his career plans?

Triumphant

LB teaching BB how to play the board game she created

CC creating with clay

We played Boggle last night with cookies.  BB taught LB how to play.

This week we've enjoyed the beginning of the end of summer. I finally made the last decisions on school stuff, ordered some clothes for BB to replace clothes he's just worn through while at school, ordered the material required for CC's enrichment school, made decisions on sports schedules for fall, and enjoyed the last of the Renaissance Festival for the year. In the next week, we'll buy BB a suit to wear for internship interviews and send him back to Japan for his last year of college.

This week at work, my boss told me that I had done a good job. I was told that I'm a valuable member of his team which made me feel good. And just because life is wonderful, I also received an evaluation of my job as homeschool headmistress. Last night before we played Boggle, BB sat down with LB and showed her how to play and helped her to start learning how to find words. We have special rules for early readers so she ended up outscoring me. It was wonderful to have BB initiate LB into a family game. Looking at them, I knew I have been doing a good job.

Summer report 4 - Things to do that aren't school

Climb down a tree?

Do a little research

Color with the baby

Make a water slide

Spray your sister

Walk the dog

Chase Rainbows

CC's favorite word this week is hyperbole.
LB's favorite word is hypothesis (or hypoposis as she says it).

Beach trip - the homecoming and 4th of July

After a week at the beach, we turned left and headed inland to the land of my youth and my family's family.

The Woods where I spent my youth

My Old House

Berries

Flowers

A Parade

Fireworks

Home

Beach Trip Day 5

BB being washed ashore

CC getting ready for more boogie boarding

My sister riding a wave ashore

BB carrying CC past the waves.

Thanks Surf Rescue

It was a good day at the beach.  Now time for a swim in the pool.

Beach Trip Days 1-4

After 1500 Miles and a detour through New Orleans for lunch, we're at the beach.

Gumbo and Po'Boys.  Yum

New Orleans

That is LB and my sister (she's the one holding LB above the waves)

 

 my niece is there too