Well, we are halfway through the week. Literally, it is lunchtime on Wednesday here. It has been one BUSY week here so far.
Missa is plugging away in MUS Gamma as she has been. She's about halfway through the book now, so we are finishing up the basic multiplication facts with her.
Lydia took a Saxon math placement test on Monday and then on Tuesday started 5/4. She only needs part of the book before she can go into 6/5, but we decided to start at the beginning to make sure that she gets used to the different program with good review of things she knows already. Saxon is definitely a different animal from the Everyday Mathematics garbage they teach in the local public school, she's going to need a little time.
Kimberly is just working on her multiplication and division facts, then she too will start Saxon 5/4. I figure she'll start it about the same time her sister moves up to 6/5, so we're taking our time and working on things. I'm also having to re-teach her how to do some things that are basic concepts that the public school totally screwed up teaching her. No big deal really, although I do find it mildly annoying that I have to undo the damage from a poorly written math curriculum.
Jordan this week is working on greater than and less than in Math Mammoth. She is doing really well with this curriculum, and will stay with it until further notice.
Yes, I'm doing 4 completely different things with 4 kids in math. Mildly annoying that I've got so many different curricula going, but it is what works best so I juggle it.
We also started Apologia elementary Astronomy this week. I'm reading 1 or 2 sections out loud daily to the kids, as the youngest girl doesn't seem to have the attention span at this point for more. No biggie, we'll work up to longer time reading out loud as we go.
History is on hold until after Nathaniel is born at this point. I'm trying to be realistic in what our workload is with this pregnancy. Things are 100% textbook perfect for me with it, but I know how fast things can change in this area. I don't want to go from full speed to a dead halt suddenly because of hypertension issues again like we had to do last time, so we're going a slower pace.
The girls are also reading daily for a little bit. They pick the book, but they MUST read daily. It is working really well for us at this point.
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
Sunday, March 16, 2014
finally!
I think it is safe to say that we are all 7 well on the road to recovery from this horrible illness we had. Thanks public school..... That was not a fun ride for us, but after a diagnosis of strep for Missa, Jordan, and Preston complete with antibiotics, I'm pretty sure we got it on its way out of here finally.
Do you have ANY idea how difficult it is to keep track of antibiotics for 7, prescription antihistamines for 2, cough syrup for 4, fever/pain medication for 6, and breathing medications for 2 with the dosing amounts and times? I was about to borrow a trick for a lovely lady I know who creates a chart to log it all with, by creating one in Word and then printing out a few copies so that I could just get it going on. I think that the next time we have a major run of illness like this one, I will do just that. Maybe I should create a generic chart soon to keep on the computer, one that I can just open up and add medication names/categories to then print off.
Do you have ANY idea how difficult it is to keep track of antibiotics for 7, prescription antihistamines for 2, cough syrup for 4, fever/pain medication for 6, and breathing medications for 2 with the dosing amounts and times? I was about to borrow a trick for a lovely lady I know who creates a chart to log it all with, by creating one in Word and then printing out a few copies so that I could just get it going on. I think that the next time we have a major run of illness like this one, I will do just that. Maybe I should create a generic chart soon to keep on the computer, one that I can just open up and add medication names/categories to then print off.
Wednesday, March 05, 2014
Not the week I was expecting
So this is the first week of all the kids homeschooling again. I knew there would be bumps but this is just ridiculous. We are ALL sick.
It started with just Kim, and I took her in on Saturday morning to get looked at. She has bronchitis, joy and delight. I have her taking steroids, 2 different nebulizer medications, allergy medication, all the usual stuff to keep it from getting worse. I have to call the pediatrician tomorrow to get her in because the only difference so far is that her fever is gone.
The rest of the kids and myself, well we managed to catch the virus that she had that turned to bronchitis in the first place. This stinks.
By the way, if you didn't know this already..... I learned last night that if you smear Vick's chest rub on your feet (a good amount, none of this eeeeewwww as little as possible stuff here) and then put on socks to protect everything just as you are going to bed, it will work a million times better than anything else I've ever tried with that stuff before to loosen up my chest and sinuses. Unfortunately, Scott didn't appreciate sleep next to me last night, he said the room REEKED of that stuff.
It started with just Kim, and I took her in on Saturday morning to get looked at. She has bronchitis, joy and delight. I have her taking steroids, 2 different nebulizer medications, allergy medication, all the usual stuff to keep it from getting worse. I have to call the pediatrician tomorrow to get her in because the only difference so far is that her fever is gone.
The rest of the kids and myself, well we managed to catch the virus that she had that turned to bronchitis in the first place. This stinks.
By the way, if you didn't know this already..... I learned last night that if you smear Vick's chest rub on your feet (a good amount, none of this eeeeewwww as little as possible stuff here) and then put on socks to protect everything just as you are going to bed, it will work a million times better than anything else I've ever tried with that stuff before to loosen up my chest and sinuses. Unfortunately, Scott didn't appreciate sleep next to me last night, he said the room REEKED of that stuff.
Saturday, March 01, 2014
A new beginning
Things have been pretty crazy around here the last couple months. I'm finally in third trimester of pregnancy (will be 29 weeks the day after tomorrow) and the two girls have missed a decent amount of school due to weather. It has been one heck of a winter here in central Ohio, that's for sure. Currently the state is discussing if they are going to approve an additional 4 days that schools are allowed to close since the majority of districts have at least 1 or 2 days to make up now. There is another storm coming in this weekend that will likely close the local schools another day or two in fact, and they already have done one make-up day by turning a teacher development day into a student day. Yes, it has been busy times here.
However, we are entering a new stage now. Remember that please while I ramble a moment about several things.
January brought a good amount of snow, ice, and frigid arctic cold. That led to most of the snow days the kids had. It also brought me into a season of illness, as my own asthma decided that it did not agree with the frigid cold weather and I began a fight with bronchitis at the tail end of the month. I also started experiencing the first stages of the bile reflux that I always develop in third trimester, which has me now on prescription reflux medication and back on nausea medication. *sigh* Yes, I take a lot of pills along with having to modify my diet to work with it.
February brought its own set of fun things. I entered third trimester, which really helped to bring home that this is pregnancy is winding down. I'm now at the stage where I am growing a little bigger each day, and it is not funny. It also begins the stage that my husband enjoys most, that time when I start waddling and he gets a cheap thrill out of copying my waddle as it gets worse. Not funny, dude. It also brought us the tax refund, which is ALWAYS a welcome thing. It was deposited in our account just 3 days after we celebrated my 32nd birthday. Scott got me a new laptop as my gift, I'm totally loving it. We also got to celebrate Preston's second birthday. Yes, the little boy has managed to survive for a whole 2 years without any major injuries or killing himself or anyone else. I also got to experience the joys of the one hour gestational diabetes test, which I managed to fail by 8 points.
I took the 3 hour diabetes test the following weekend and passed it with great numbers. I figured I would, as I am hypoglycemic.
That brings us up to this past week. Our district has had some interesting things hit the news this past week, involving a teacher who is now in jail after a little inappropriate extra credit he gave some of the girls in the band (he WAS the assistant band director for the high school). As this case exploded through the week, Scott decided that it was no longer in the best interest of the two girls for them to remain in the local public school so they were withdrawn. Their last day was Friday (that's yesterday) and we will pick up with homeschooling on Monday unless the school calls a snow day. I'm going to honor the snow days and breaks of the district the rest of this year I think, just to keep up the schedule and routine that we've gotten used to this year.
Of course, withdrawing them was slightly interesting. Thursday I was the responsible mom and I personally delivered my notification and curriculum outline to the district administration office. The lady who handles homeschooling and attendance for the district was out that day for meetings, so the receptionist put the paperwork in her inbox to get it first thing the next morning. Friday, which is the next morning, I got an e-mail from this lovely lady who handles attendance and homeschooling. I had sent a note with the girls stating that it was their last day and thanking the teachers for a good year, and providing my e-mail address if they had any questions for me. My cell phone had decided to malfunction on me and not work all day, so I was down to just having internet communication for everything. No big deal really, and my phone is working properly again now. Anyway, the attendance lady hadn't gotten my notification and was informing me that I needed to either have them enrolled in a school or have notification to her before I could withdraw them. I replied with a simple, "I delivered notification yesterday to the administration office, it should be in your inbox there waiting for you." Yup, the receptionist forgot to put it in the inbox and it was still sitting on her desk. Got it tracked down, everything is in order now and she is sending out my excuse letters.
Hopefully there is nothing else interesting that happens with this. I don't know that I have the strength to keep going with any sort of real drama. I may just snap and tell people where to stick it and then let HSLDA loose on the district if anything else comes up.
So what is the plan? Well I have some math stuff that I'm going to be looking through tonight and tomorrow to find the specific spot each girl belongs at, and they will start it Monday. History, right now I'm going to just read daily from a history book I have here already and see if we can finish up the year that way. Science, I'm going to do the same with an elementary biology book I have. With both subjects, we'll also add in library books as desired, and I may add in some units from KONOS as I feel a need and desire to. All other subjects that are required by law (language arts, music, art, etc) will be incorporated into science and history by having them do research, projects, crafts, etc. related to what we're learning about.
Hopefully March and April go smoothly with this plan. I'll let you know on Friday how this week goes.
However, we are entering a new stage now. Remember that please while I ramble a moment about several things.
January brought a good amount of snow, ice, and frigid arctic cold. That led to most of the snow days the kids had. It also brought me into a season of illness, as my own asthma decided that it did not agree with the frigid cold weather and I began a fight with bronchitis at the tail end of the month. I also started experiencing the first stages of the bile reflux that I always develop in third trimester, which has me now on prescription reflux medication and back on nausea medication. *sigh* Yes, I take a lot of pills along with having to modify my diet to work with it.
February brought its own set of fun things. I entered third trimester, which really helped to bring home that this is pregnancy is winding down. I'm now at the stage where I am growing a little bigger each day, and it is not funny. It also begins the stage that my husband enjoys most, that time when I start waddling and he gets a cheap thrill out of copying my waddle as it gets worse. Not funny, dude. It also brought us the tax refund, which is ALWAYS a welcome thing. It was deposited in our account just 3 days after we celebrated my 32nd birthday. Scott got me a new laptop as my gift, I'm totally loving it. We also got to celebrate Preston's second birthday. Yes, the little boy has managed to survive for a whole 2 years without any major injuries or killing himself or anyone else. I also got to experience the joys of the one hour gestational diabetes test, which I managed to fail by 8 points.
I took the 3 hour diabetes test the following weekend and passed it with great numbers. I figured I would, as I am hypoglycemic.
That brings us up to this past week. Our district has had some interesting things hit the news this past week, involving a teacher who is now in jail after a little inappropriate extra credit he gave some of the girls in the band (he WAS the assistant band director for the high school). As this case exploded through the week, Scott decided that it was no longer in the best interest of the two girls for them to remain in the local public school so they were withdrawn. Their last day was Friday (that's yesterday) and we will pick up with homeschooling on Monday unless the school calls a snow day. I'm going to honor the snow days and breaks of the district the rest of this year I think, just to keep up the schedule and routine that we've gotten used to this year.
Of course, withdrawing them was slightly interesting. Thursday I was the responsible mom and I personally delivered my notification and curriculum outline to the district administration office. The lady who handles homeschooling and attendance for the district was out that day for meetings, so the receptionist put the paperwork in her inbox to get it first thing the next morning. Friday, which is the next morning, I got an e-mail from this lovely lady who handles attendance and homeschooling. I had sent a note with the girls stating that it was their last day and thanking the teachers for a good year, and providing my e-mail address if they had any questions for me. My cell phone had decided to malfunction on me and not work all day, so I was down to just having internet communication for everything. No big deal really, and my phone is working properly again now. Anyway, the attendance lady hadn't gotten my notification and was informing me that I needed to either have them enrolled in a school or have notification to her before I could withdraw them. I replied with a simple, "I delivered notification yesterday to the administration office, it should be in your inbox there waiting for you." Yup, the receptionist forgot to put it in the inbox and it was still sitting on her desk. Got it tracked down, everything is in order now and she is sending out my excuse letters.
Hopefully there is nothing else interesting that happens with this. I don't know that I have the strength to keep going with any sort of real drama. I may just snap and tell people where to stick it and then let HSLDA loose on the district if anything else comes up.
So what is the plan? Well I have some math stuff that I'm going to be looking through tonight and tomorrow to find the specific spot each girl belongs at, and they will start it Monday. History, right now I'm going to just read daily from a history book I have here already and see if we can finish up the year that way. Science, I'm going to do the same with an elementary biology book I have. With both subjects, we'll also add in library books as desired, and I may add in some units from KONOS as I feel a need and desire to. All other subjects that are required by law (language arts, music, art, etc) will be incorporated into science and history by having them do research, projects, crafts, etc. related to what we're learning about.
Hopefully March and April go smoothly with this plan. I'll let you know on Friday how this week goes.
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