2018-2019 Homeschool Notes Week 19 and Beginning of Break

Rebekah climbing on Mason, 

who was reading Latter-Day Prophets

to her. 

Monday Notes:
It felt like a Monday. Ugh. Several people were not in the mood for school work, including me! We persevered and did school anyway. I think my favorite lesson was history today, we learned about Thomas Jefferson, read from his letters, from things his contemporaries wrote about him, and about the Declaration of Independence.

Tuesday Notes:
We had smooth sailing in the school department as is usual for Tuesday around here. Various math, language arts, reading, latin, science, and other lessons happened spread over the morning. Makayla spent the morning printing the first draft of the novel she just finished writing last night. Our printer survived the more than 500 pages of printing. I have to say, I love our printer. We bought it last December and it has printed nearly 4000 pages this year without needing the ink refilled. It is an Epson ET-2750.

Wednesday Notes:
Daniel has really struggled with math this week. For those who know Daniel, they know that is unusual. Learning pretty much always comes easily to him. The growing pains have been fierce. This perfectionist child would rather give up completely than struggle through understanding something. We're working it out but it has been a difficult thing. I finally looked at him and said that today was "the best day ever" because we were going to choose to have it be the best day ever. We didn't have to be grumpy with each other. We could choose our attitude. He thought I was crazy, but in the end he was willing to go along with his crazy mom. One reason? Before the week began I realized this boy-child and I need more positive interactions. I grabbed him and told him that I thought we needed something fun to do together regularly and offered a few ideas. He thought playing a game together most days was a great idea. We've played something every day since. Some days it is just me and him, other days a group of siblings gathers to play with us. It's a simple thing, but it has made a difference.

Thursday Notes:
We surprised the kids with the start of Christmas break. Why? Because we homeschool and so we can! It was a totally laid back day.

My favorite moment was when I found all seven of my sons playing a board game together! The game is Journey Through Time: Eye Found It. The board is 6 feet long! You can find it on Amazon here (aff).

 My least favorite moment was at 10:30pm when Joseph, who escaped last week's vomit fest, threw up. It was a less than fun night with a few more episodes before he was finished.

Friday Notes:
Today just reminded me how grateful I am for my mom! Mason and I needed to be at Children's Hospital an hour away to meet with 10 of his specialists all morning. She took over sick care for Joseph, kept the rest of the kids fed and happy, and I didn't have to think about a thing going on at home. I could just focus on Mason and all his medical appointments.

The appointments went fine, just a lot of talking, asking questions, answering questions, and so on. He had a bladder and kidney ultrasound (everything is stable), leg x-rays from hips to toes to check on the metal plate and screws in his right knee and the degree of valgus (angle) for both lower legs (11 and 18), and then we had to trek back to x-ray after the doctor visits for updated x-rays of his spine because I'm pretty sure his scoliosis is worse (the doctor will call after Christmas but what I can read on the radiologist's notes makes me think I'm right). Specialists he saw included urology, neurosurgery, physical medicine, orthopedic surgeon, physical therapy, occupational therapy, developmental pediatrics, and more. We also had enough time between doctors to read aloud nearly half of one of Mason's favorite chapter books: Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary.

Saturday Notes:
Grocery shopping happened. The Christmas toy cleanout happened (kids go through their drawer/bin of personal things to clear out clutter, pass things to younger siblings if they have finished with an item, or add things to the donate bag. Some of my kids are paper keepers and so they had a lot of papers to go through and decide what to keep and what to let go of.

Sunday Notes:
A quiet family day with a Christmas service at church.

Monday Notes:
Christmas Eve is here. Makayla and my husband both had to work today. I'm hanging out with the rest of the kids. I'm taking a social media break until the new year starting this afternoon so I wanted to get this post published, as well as one more, which will be up soon!