Friday, October 12, 2018

2018-2019 Homeschool Week 9: Still Sick, Plodding Along

We had a wonderful General Conference weekend as a family, watching each session, taking notes, feeling the spirit, and having our testimonies strengthened. I have twenty four pages of notes with things I heard and inspiration I received as I listened to God's prophet and apostles teach and share truth. Now our family will study these messages alongside the scriptures for the next 6 months until the next conference!

The rest of this week has been a blur. We still have sickness wandering through the ranks, coughing, fevers, runny noses. We have simply slowed down and focused on essentials. We are doing 4 day school weeks for the next 5 weeks. The reason is simple - we have more than 30 medical appointments scheduled between the 12 of us in those 5 weeks. Those are eye checkups, dental cleanings, allergy appointments, orthodontist, post-surgery checks for Mason, and other specialists. Every Monday has at least five appointments. We will take a week break somewhere in there because we have already finished 9 weeks of school without a break.

The kids did just fine on their school work this week. Every day was the usual round of lessons, reading, and learning. We finished listening to Wonder and watched the movie as a family because our book club day keeps getting pushed back due to illness. It was a good book and we enjoyed the movie too. Mason's only complaint was that the movie left out a few parts from the book. On Friday after school was finished most of the kids spent 2 hours drawing together. We have a membership to Art for Kids Hub thanks to a grandma. While you can see most of their art tutorial videos on their YouTube channel, the membership keeps the videos in a safe website with no ads and no way to click into the seamy side of YouTube. It also includes printable coloring pages and drawing tutorials. I will link to the tutorials the kids did today on YouTube. Please don't let kids use YouTube without direct adult supervision!
They really liked the folding surprise ones. Basically, you fold the paper so that you can make a drawing with the paper folded and when you pull it open all the way the drawing has more hiding inside the fold. 

As much as I would love to write more, I have a baby to snuggle and a toddler to wrestle into using a tissue for his runny nose. Got to go!

6 comments:

  1. That is just way too many appointments! I can do nothing but pray for you all to survive this season! I'm glad you have fun art projects to do, and that you received so much inspiration during General Conference. I'm not good at changes and announcements, and I'm decompressing after what was an incredibly stressful weekend. I'm obeying the counsel, and I'm rewatching and studying the talks now that a little time has passed.

    But, oh! I just hope you all find joy in the midst of so much to do!!!!

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    1. I will be glad when we are on the other side of these appointments. It feels hectic on Mondays but taking the day off school helps. 5 appointments done today.
      I'm always a bit overwhelmed trying to picture how the changes will look in the day to day real life, but I'm aiming for enthusiastic beginnings.

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  2. Isn't it nice how flexible homeschool is? With all your upcoming appointments, what a blessing to be able to move your school schedule around to fit things in nicely. We will be taking a week off in two weeks to get our roof repaired from the hurricane, the deck painted, and all the weeding and mowing done for the winter. I am glad that we too can take the time we need when we want it to do these necessary things. Everyone else will be in school, but since we schooled during the heat of the summer, we have time off in the fall to take care of the things that were too hot to care for well in the summer.

    And wow! 42 pages of notes and lots of little kids climbing on and around you. I am impressed!

    I hope you have you all heal and enjoy another good week.

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  3. So many appointments. It sounds like you have a good plan to make it work.
    Blessings, Dawn

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    1. Yes! The yearly check ups and cleanings for vision/dental are crazy but getting them all done in as short a time as possible is good.

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  4. This is why I love homeschooling. When my twins were babies, one child literally had casting appointments for bilateral clubbed feet every week. She also had urology appointments as well. On top of that I had their well baby check ups and daily physical therapy sessions too. And there were post baby appointments for me and dentist appointments for my partner. In addition my oldest girl had her own appointments for her frequent eye pain. It was quite crazy really no doubt about that.
    Looking back now I am very happy that we made it all work. I found a way which was comparatively easy for everyone. Colour coding helped me cope immensely. For example for all casting appointment, I used the color blue. Urology appointments were always highlighted in the palest shade of blue I found. A light shade of blue denoted eye appointments and a deep blue meant that it was a post baby appointment for me. Well baby appointments were in turquoise and royal blue was used to indicate physical therapy sessions. Baby blue was for all church stuff including prayer meetings.
    And since I loved aqua that was my only choice of shade for formal play dates. Spanish blue was for our homeschooling events. I chose a relatively light blue for any road trips and any other stuff was in Celtic blue.

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