Homeschool Week 17 and Week 18 Notes

Week 17 - I popped in on the blog last week to mention that we were taking off the entire week of Thanksgiving. It was great! We had many things that needed done, a full work schedule for the teen, Thanksgiving with extended family, a trip to see Christmas lights, and kids beginning to come down with a cold.

Week 18

Monday started us off with a solid day of learning. Math lessons happened for everyone. The high schooler also had Latin with mom and did history, literature, and chemistry on her own. The middle schoolers had math, science, and grammar with mom and did history and literature on their own. The elementary schoolers did math, grammar, beginning reading, and science with mom and did writing, history, or literature on their own (different kids had different things scheduled here). Oliver and Caleb also started a math facts practice to really make sure those addition and subtraction facts are solid. I was just going to do this with Caleb, who is ready to move up to Math U See Beta, where you dive into multiple digit multiplication and subtraction up to very large numbers. Oliver is already ahead of that level into Gamma, which is multiplication. However it never hurts to review facts and Oliver and Caleb like the idea of working together on this, so I ended up with both boys.

Other things that happened today: Makayla got a bank account complete with debit card, and plans to set up direct deposit for her work checks this week. Daddy had physical therapy. We played Righteous: A Book of Mormon dvd game as a family in Family Home Evening. My husband's work schedule got changed to a weird 2nd shift-ish thing, which made me want to cry. I'm blaming it on pregnancy hormones. He'll leave at 11:30am and get home sometime after 9:30pm each day. Ugh. It complicates things like me being Cubmaster (and having 5 little children ages 7 and under who need watched while I'm doing scouts every week), medical appointments (when we're gone for 4+ hours those are a big deal leaving 8 kids behind), and even childcare for Mason's upcoming surgery.

Tuesday was a lot of trying to get things done before daddy headed to work. There were phone calls to make, a trip to the store and to mail a package, homeschooling, school work for daddy, dropping Makayla off at the vet for shadowing, and so on. After Daddy was off and gone for the day we had lunch, did Mason medical care, and then it was time for piano lessons. We have a sweet friend from church who comes each week to teach piano to the kids. Then it was simply survival while we all missed Daddy and tried to make it to bedtime with sanity intact.

Wednesday was life school. Meaning the kids could study anything they wanted while momma and Mason were gone for a morning appointment in the city before Daddy needed to go to work. When I got home I did some research on a vehicle we would like to one day move to (Ford Transit 12 Passenger Wagon). I was trying to figure out the cargo space and if it would hold a larger wheelchair as Mason grows. (Yep!) Now if only it wasn't $50,000+.

Wednesday afternoon the kids helped me gather supplies for tonight's Cub Scout Pack Meeting. It's a service project night and we're making fleece blankets for Project Linus. *Updated to add that we finished 5 blankets in one hour tonight! We had more fleece donated than we could finish so the rest will be a project for another day.

Thursday was back to the usual morning of school work after breakfast. I worked with most of the kids but a few went to Daddy too. He got to listen to beginning readers, which is always a fun exercise in patience. Joseph and Emma had quick appointments at the orthodontist today. Joseph will be getting his expander off and braces on in February and Emma is almost ready for the expander, probably at the beginning of summer. Our morning kept rolling along with a porch shoe cleanup, crafting, reading, piano practice, and fun.

Friday started off with Mommy not feeling good (lightheaded, headache). I checked my blood pressure and it was pretty high, but went down after sitting for a bit. I'm going to monitor it. closely for a couple days to see what is going on. Daddy and I did two quick projects. We pulled the 3T clothing bin out of the attic and found Tobias new long sleeve shirts because he has outgrown his 2T shirts all of a sudden.

The second project was changing out the toys in the living room cubicle. The little boys love when we do this, things seem all new again. This time we have out wooden food (one small bin), tools (half a bin), and Imaginext (two small bins). We try to be sure we have out few enough toys that the little boys can pick them up easily within 5 minutes or so.

After toys had been changed I sat at the table to be available for anyone needing help with school work. I quickly had several children around me with math work 'just in case we need you Mom'. Everyone worked steadily and finished by lunch time.

I made a phone call to one eye doctor to order replacement glasses for Daniel, whos frames haven't held up. Then I was called by surgery pre-op for Mason and answered a hundred questions for anesthesia. Currently Mason is on the schedule for surgery at 9am next Friday. We'll find out the evening before if his time gets shifted around at all.

It's mid-afternoon now. Makayla is off to work. Kids are watching a show on Amazon Prime (Dino Dan) or reading joke books to each other. I am going to get dinner cooking and read for a little while before the chaos of evening crankiness descends.