Friday, October 11, 2019

The Three Weeks crossing September into October

Saturday we headed to COSI, the big science center in the city, for some fun. We checked out the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles exhibit, pet real turtles, explored the Ocean and Life exhibits, and found the WOSU broadcast studio tucked away at the end of a hall. The kids had fun filming themselves, using green screen, and more. 

Sunday started off with church. Tobias was wild and crazy leading up to the service, but settled down as the opening hymn was sung. After church was a quiet afternoon at home as a family. After dinner we headed to the cousins' house for a double birthday party and some jumping on the trampoline.

Monday around school I played chauffer for my mom and step-dad for eye surgeries. We will do that again next Monday too, for their second eye each. Daddy was home and working on his own school work, as well as doing a repair project in the bathroom upstairs, then visiting a surgeon of his own. He's got some testing coming up and then it looks like he may be having more surgeries. We don't know how long he will need to be off work, and to be honest, after 5 months off at the beginning of the year, we are hoping for short recovery times. We shall see!

Tuesday around school Mason and I headed to physical therapy to evaluate the new braces that were made. Unfortunately, they don't work well. Mason has some bone, tendon, and muscle issues in his legs and we are pretty sure that until the next round of surgeries is done bracing isn't going to work. We've decided to get back to physical therapy and focus on core and upper body work, no walking, until his x-rays and surgery plan appointment in 5 weeks. We will wait to try more adjustments on the braces until after surgeries/recovery, unless the surgeon's schedule is packed and we have to wait into 2020 for surgery.

We had a very laid back afternoon. Kids were busy building with legos, reading books, and playing games. I read, cooked, and read some more. It was a rare day with few kid arguments.

Wednesday we dove into all things Vikings. The kids had varying levels of familiarity with the topic, so it was fun to hear older ones sharing things they knew with younger ones, and everyone learning new things together. Caleb was fascinated with the idea of building boats, and his lego creations reflect that.

My middle boys have been very into coloring in the evening while listening to their audiobook. Sometimes they like to draw, but more often they want coloring pages. Today I took some time to print out a stack of new coloring pages for them.

Older kids also had the usual Wednesday night activities at church.

Thursday we had nothing on the calendar. These are my favorite days. No hurrying to get school work done before appointments, piano lessons, errands, or field trips. Just letting the morning work unfold at it's own pace for each child.

Friday we ended up with one sick teen. Stomach illness is never a good thing in a large family. Will they share it? How long will it last passing from person to person? Will we drown in laundry along the way?

********************************************************

It is now a week since I last took any notes. Life has simply been the happy and full life of a large family. We did not end up having the plague sweep through the house, which I was very thankful for. There was the usual steady pace of homeschooling, physical therapy, chores, church, youth activities, library trips, grocery shopping, piano lessons, doctors appointments, and medical care. This past weekend was General Conference, 10 hours of encouraging talks from leaders of our church broken up over several sessions. We are able to stream these live from home and our kids love it. Yummy food, drawing, coloring, note taking, music, and time together makes for a refreshing weekend. The kids also did a couple art projects, including watercolor trees or pumpkins, as well as painting actual pumpkins we were given.

This week was supposed to be the first week long school break of the 2019-2020 school year. Before the school year began I tentatively marked out our break weeks, with flexibility to adjust when we want to. As everyone is still working willingly, and we have several appointments and interruptions to our week next week, as well as two birthdays, we decided to move our break week to next week.

Monday this week we made a nature study trip after school was finished. We observed chipmunks, a variety of birds, a beehive, turtles, a variety of nature materials in a nature center, and then a rainy drive through the arboretum to see the beginnings of fall changes to our area. We visit this arboretum several times each season, sometimes hiking the trails, sometimes driving the auto trails. It makes for a wonderful way to watch the changes of each season unfold.

Tuesday there was nature journaling about yesterday's trip for the 6th grade and under kids. The nature journals varied, with drawings and writing, but several of the kids wrote about the turtles we saw and the things they learned about them. Math this week is pretty much the two ends of the spectrum - easy or hard - according to the kids. There was also language arts, geography, reading, and so on. Emma and Oliver mixed up a batch of banana chocolate chip muffins and put them in bread pans instead of muffin pans. It was a delicious lunch

Wednesday the kids woke up, ate breakfast, and settled into the school work routine. I asked some children to do a less favorite subject earlier in the day instead of putting it off to last, just to see if the subject went better while they were fresh. It went better for some of them, and one it went about the same.

History today was studying Marco Polo and putting him in our mental timeline in relation to other people we are familiar with.

There was also a lot of cupcake baking going on. Emma made 2 dozen blue cupcakes yesterday evening for a cupcake decorating class today. She made 4 dozen purple cupcakes today and iced them for everyone at home to enjoy.

Thursday if you asked my elementary science group what their favorite subject was, they would all say science. Today we took a few of our sunflowers and pulled them apart to harvest the seeds. It was fun and messy. The kids decided to put the sunflower seeds outside in the backyard where we often see birds and squirrels. Now they wander back to the windows to check for visiting animals.

Friday everyone woke excited to get school work done because after weeks of cancelling due to various families' illnesses, we were having Homeschool Book Club. In history we started talking about reasons for explorers to travel. We learned about a few different explorers and their discoveries, challenges, and how they influenced the explorers who came after them.

Our friends arrived midmorning to much rejoicing. Conversations, games, discussion of Archimedes and the Door of Science, and snacks filled our time together.

It is now Friday afternoon. Kids are playing games on their Kindles or watching an episode of Doctor Who. I am getting ready for an afternoon of phone calls and we are officially on our fall break. Yay!

2 comments:

  1. Yay! for fall break and being able to decide when it is best to take. I hope you all get to enjoy the coming week. Your family is so lovely.
    Blessings, Dawn

    ReplyDelete
  2. I can't help but be grateful that you had a rare day with no sibling arguments, and I believe you that your littles love science best! You're very good at science for your family!! I'm wishing Mason success with physical therapy and positive outcomes for his surgery to come. I'm also wishing you all a happy fall break!

    ReplyDelete

Please remember to speak kindly. Unkind or inappropriate comments will be quietly deleted.