Kid down!

On Wednesday night of last week, our little Chloe put herself to bed early and then woke up Thursday morning only to put herself back down for a nap after breakfast. I checked on her mid-morning and found she had a fever of 104! I put my shaking little girl in the bathtub and offered her some Tylenol. She got into some fresh jammies and went back to bed. And this is what she did for the next 48 hours. Her temperature went up and down between 100 and 103. Sometimes she would get out of bed to join us but soon become too tired and go right back to sleep. We sure missed her. Our dynamic just isn't the same without her.

Finally, on Saturday morning, she sprang back to life. Her temperature was down to 99 and she was eating breakfast and feeling good. Until around 11am when I heard her scream from the bathroom. I ran in to ask what the trouble was and she cried "My pee hurts!!!" and we were off to the walk in clinic for a quick bladder infection diagnosis and a stop at the pharmacy. I feel so terrible for her. Even with the antibiotics and loads of cranberry juice, she couldn't use the bathroom pain free until this evening. I'm looking forward to having us all together again tomorrow morning.

Curriculum Changes . . . Already?

We got about four days into school and I already felt like I had to switch a couple of things around. I posted my original curriculum on this page a couple of weeks ago. And here are the changes:

First, I had to make some changes to our reading program. Last year we used Teach You Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons and it worked out very well. But it seemed like right around Lesson 50, it took a giant leap in difficulty. And that was right around the time we stopped last year. When I picked it up again this year, Shannon became immediately frustrated and overwhelmed by the lessons. He would see it in his work box and say "Oh, no, not this. I can't do it". At first I was frustrated with Shannon's attitude but quickly realized that it wasn't working for him. So I busted out the Hooked on Phonics program that I got for super cheap at the beginning of summer. I meant to go through the kindergarten program over the summer but we never finished so I'm starting with kindergarten and we should be able to get through first grade by the end of this year. I have already seen a huge change in attitude with Shannon. He is gaining confidence and he is a sucker for a good progress sticker chart.

Chloe and I are reading the Hooked On Phonics readers together and using the sound cards to review the sounds of the letters. Basically I'm preparing to use the kindergarten program with her sometime in the future. I don't think she's quite ready.

We have also ditched the Writing with Ease program. Basically, this program focused on proper writing structure and grammar. At this level, Shannon is only expected to copy simple sentences and summarize passages that I read to him. The problem is, I already have him working in a handwriting program and Handwriting Without Tears has him doing similar copy work in his first grade workbook. And we are doing narration work in his other subjects so I just think at this stage, it is a little much. I will just shelf that text and maybe pick it up again if we finish HWT early this year.

Moving onto math. The problem with using a workbook, is sometimes I lose sight of what my goals are. The worksheets I had him doing last week were all addition problems, which is great, but he gets really frustrated with all of the writing. I think he is focusing so much on forming the number, he is not really learning any math facts. So, to the shelf with you, too, math workbook. I think this book will be useful later on but right now we need to focus on basic math facts. So, I laminated (with my awesome new machine) the flashcards I got with the manipulatives I bought from ebay and Shannon loves to write the answers in with a dry erase marker. It is a lot less overwhelming then staring at a sheet full of problems. We are also using the Cuisenaire Rods that came in the manipulative box. This hands-on approach is working out way better than the worksheets.

Hmmmm, I think that is about all for the big changes. We'll just see how it goes.

Notebook: Week 2

Shannon
Language Arts
   Spelling Workout Lesson 5
   Hooked On Phonics pages
   Handwriting Without Tears: some pages in the workbook and lowercase letters on the chalkboard
   First Language Lessons 4 - 6

Math
   Worked with Cuisenaire Rods and Flash Cards
   Math Facts of 0 - 5 memorized

Science
   Printouts found online - Animal Habitats

History
   Story of the World: Chapters 2 & 3
   Map Activity of Upper and Lower Egypt

Shannon, as the White Crowned King of Upper Egypt, and Chloe, as the Red Crowned King of Lower Egypt

  

King Narmer of Upper Egypt defeats the Red Crowned King and wears both crowns to unite the two kingdoms

King Narmer, hard at work on his map

Religion
   Catechism: Lesson 3

Other
   Lots of reading at bedtime. We always throw in an easy reader or two so the kids can read to me. 

Chloe
Language Arts
   Handwriting Without Tears
   Hooked on Phonics Readers
   Phonics Centers

Math
   MCP worksheets

Religion
   Catechism: Lesson 3

   Book of Saints

New gadgets, gizmos, and free furniture

While putting together my curriculum this year, I realized how nice it would be to have my very own laminating machine. This time last year, I put a few phonics centers together and it cost me twice the cost of a basic laminating machine to get them all laminated. And it was only four centers! So, I bought one of my very own.

Also, I invested in a continuous ink system for our printer. Between homeschooling, coupons, and other general stuff we . . . okay I . . . go through a ton of ink. The entire system only cost $35 on ebay and it came full of ink. That's already less then buying a couple of new cartridges. Sweeeeeeeeet.

We rearranged our downstairs so the kids now have a school room/play room. We used to have a small office with a ton of really bulky office furniture. We moved all of the office furniture out into two separate rooms to make things less crowded and used the old office as the kids' new room. We use it to do school in the morning and then they can play in the afternoon and clean it up again before bed. I wanted to get some desks for them but I was not thrilled about the price of those things. Any surface at the right height would work just fine but I had a hard time finding anything at a decent price. Until my granny was kind enough to find an ad for free school desks in the paper. So I was able to get two desks in really great condition and I grabbed four chairs while I was at it.

 Our old office, empty and ready for a new paint job

I realize how drab that ugly brown curtain is, but it is far more lovely than

the window behind it. One of these days I'll get a prettier curtain.

I know a lot of moms don't like the idea of school desks in their home school but after doing all of our learning at the kitchen table last year, it just was not working for us. I had to keep clearing the table every time someone got hungry. And in this high metabolism family, that happens a lot. And since I wanted to give the work box system a try, we would need more space.

One of these days, when my office isn't atrocious, I may post a picture of it. 

Notebook: Week 1

We started our school year last monday and I must say . . . it is going rather well. I am super impressed with the workbox system and the chore packs I put together. Our home has never been cleaner and school has never run this smooth. I realize we are only a week in but I have always been an optimist.

I plan on writing a post dedicated to the workbox system and the chore pack system so I won't go into that right now. I'll just scribble down what we covered this week.

Shannon
Language Arts
   Spelling Workout Lesson 1
   100 Easy Lessons 51 - 54
   Handwriting Without Tears: review of capital letters
   Writing With Ease
   First Language Lessons 1 - 3
Math
   MCP Lessons 2-4, 2-6, 2-7, 2-8

Science
   First Animal Encyclopedia - characteristics of animals

History
   Story of the World: Intro and Chapter 1
   Map Activity of the Fertile Crescent

Religion
   Catechism: Chapters 1 & 2

Other
Lots of reading at bedtime. Shannon has insisted on reading the words that he can sound out. And Chloe chimes in as well. We also read some books about archeology.


Chloe
Language Arts
   Handwriting Without Tears
   Hooked on Phonics Readers
   Phonics Centers

Math
   MCP worksheets

Religion
   Catechism: Chapters 1 & 2

   Book of Saints

I made schultutes to celebrate our first day of school. I stuffed them with some school supplies

and a couple of books. I didn't make them very fancy but the kids loved them just the same.  

Heart of the Matter Online Conference 2010

Heart of the Matter Online presents their main conference in the summer and a refresher conference in February. If you've been following along, I attended the virtual conference last February and reviewed it here. I decided to go ahead and attend the conference because the speakers were particularly interesting this time around. Also, when I paid my $20 to attend the conference I received a pretty handsome down loadable swag bag. I wasn't sure what to expect from a virtual swag bag but I was pleasantly surprised. I got several ebooks, some downloadable lapbooks, a ton of free downloads from CurrClick. I haven't even had time to look through at all of it yet. And I was entered to win over $2000 worth of prizes. So, all of that cool stuff alone was worth the $20. And now on to the speakers.

Susan Wise Bauer did a session called Literary Analysis: When, Why, and How Should I Teach It? She has some fantastic talks that I had purchased last year from Peace Hill Press. I have decided to use many of her curriculum materials this year so it was great to hear her speak again. Her talks are always very concise and organized and she just has a lovey speaking voice. This particular session was about when and how to introduce literary works to your kids. She had some great information. She went through the three stages of classical learning and presented approaches to take during each of those stages in teaching our kids about literature. Good stuff.




Dr. Stephen Guffanti did two sessions on ADHD and Kinesthetic learning. I gleaned a few nuggets from these two talks. I have done a lot of reading on these subjects but I still manage to pick up a little something from new sources. The interesting part was Dr. Guffanti is, himself, ADHD and dyslexic, so he was able to pull from his own experience. He even talked abut methods his wife uses when interacting with him. That was pretty funny. And he has created a phonics program, Rocket Phonics, that uses a multi sensory approach. I already have so much reading and phonics material but if I ever feel like Shannon, or any of my other kiddos, isn't getting it I would definitely give this a shot.




Melinda Boring's session, Adapting Curriculum for Struggling Learners, was another one I gained quite a bit of knowledge from. She has a great website that I will probably buy a few products from to help Shannon focus and keep him comfortable. For example, we've only been doing school for a week and he has chewed the erasers off at least three pencils. Then he goes to erase, forgetting he has destroyed his eraser, and tears his paper. I am either going to get him something to chew on while he works or maybe a pencil topper would do the trick. Once he started doing this, I had a total flashback of when I was elementary school and did the same thing. And even as an adult I have an oral fixation. Especially while driving my car I need to be eating something, chewing gum, or drinking something through a straw or I feel very unfocused. So, I feel for the little guy. I also think I am finally going to order an inflatable seat cushion. I've been thinking of this for a year now because Shannon can not help but shift in his seat or slump over his desk. He always looks so jittery. It can be pretty distracting . . . for all of us. I think the cushion will help to satisfy his need to move while still sitting in one spot.

Oh, my life would be so boring without Shannon in it.

Lee Binz presented Christian Homeschool Success in High School. She gave a lot of the ins and outs of high school record keeping and other options parents have when it comes to teaching their teens. Like online courses, tutoring, college courses, etc. This seems light years away for me but Lord knows it does go by quickly. I didn't think this session would interest me because my kids are still so small but I found it actually quite fascinating. She has a great website too full of useful information for your high school homeschool.





There were some other sessions that I will probably go back and listen to once I get the link to the MP3s.  Also, at that time the MP3s will be available for purchase at their website. Oh, I also should mention that when I was logged into the sessions, I was able to chat with other participants. That was nice for passing around ideas and such. Also, we could ask the speaker a question if we wanted to. It seemed like no matter what the speaker topic was, someone inevitably wanted to talk about whether or not we let our kids read/watch Harry Potter. So, there was that. All in all a good experience that I will probably take part in next year.

It's going to be okay

As I mentioned in my last couple of posts, my husband started complaining of stomach pains Wednesday night of Camp Mom. He was out of bed all night because he just couldn't get comfortable enough to sleep. The next day he called in sick to work in an attempt to get some sleep during the day. He started feeling better after not eating all day but after dinner, the same pain came on again. He attempted to go into work the next morning but came right back home. Again, he felt well enough in the evening to eat at the camp fire but then immediately started feeling sick again. Finally on Saturday evening, around 5:30, he headed into Spokane to the VA Hospital.

I tried calling him several times with no luck so after I got the kids to bed, at around 9pm, I called the VA Hospital and told them I had misplaced my husband and hoped he was there. They assured he was there and undergoing some tests. They ruled out kidney stones and moved to the next logical conclusion: appendicitis. At around 1:30am, they transferred him to Sacred Heart Medical Center for more testing and possible surgery. I had seen Stacey's sister, Steffany, pop up on facebook so I let her know what was going on and she told the rest of the family and now we had a whole gang of people worrying about him. This is where I'm not sure if I'm a bad wife. See, I was never worried. I asked our Lord for patience in waiting for a diagnosis and, of course, for the recovery of my husband. But I never once thought that something terrible could happen or that I had even a tiny reason to worry. I just took care of things around the house the best I could and arranged sitters for the kids so I could be with Stacey. I figured that it was either going to get better on it's own and remain a mystery or we would find out what it was and get it fixed. What became very obvious to me, was how blessed we are to have so many family and friends in the area who are available and willing to take our kids so I could hang out with Stacey in the hospital.

I was certainly frustrated at times with the lack of information we were getting from the tests and I really hated knowing that my husband was in pain. For the most part they had him on pain killers and he was pretty comfortable. On his first day there, he was feeling okay so he went off the meds and had lunch. Since nothing was really going on, Stacey said I should head home and take care of things around there and then come back. While I was away he went into a fit of pain. His sisters had stopped in to see him and he was in agony, waiting to be put on pain killers again. I, of course, was not there at this time. When his sisters called and told me what was going on, I did get pretty upset. I just don't like being helpless in the care of my family. I would rather be the one in pain because I feel in control. I like the fact that I birth the babies and Stacey provides loving support because I know what to do to help myself through the labor. I've never asked Stacey how he feels when I go into transition and have to work through those really intense contractions. Does he feel helpless? Does he ask God for help and guidance? Because that's how it was for me on my drive back to the hospital. Even during that time, I knew it was going to be okay. God would carry us lovingly through this and we would come out the other side.

So what the heck was wrong with him? This remains a mystery. His kidneys were fine, his gall bladder was fine, his appendix was fine. On Monday night they got his system all cleaned out and by Tuesday mid-morning, he was feeling a lot better. He was taken off pain medication and he tried eating a nice healthy lunch and nothing bad happened. He came home with me that evening and that was that. If this ever happens again, they would definitely do tests to figure out more, but at this point he doesn't have history of stomach issues and it might have been a one time thing. Crazy.