Yikes

So the flu hit AGAIN

A few things we have discovered in the last few weeks...   

Genevieve just finished all the free videos on brain pop, I think I will get a subscription

Genevieve has started ixl - she loves ixl

Nathan has started dreambox and is enjoying it yeah!

I had to figure out something different for math as Nathan was not engaging at all, I realized he was bored.  I needed to let him work at his grade level, but we need to work on his basic math facts.  Nathan can not answer quick enough.  So we are now using dreambox for at grade challenge and we are doing math games everyday.  This seems to be much easier and Nathan can see he does need to get better at math facts.  I will be restarting math u see soon as well.  

We have started a unit study on the lion the witch and the wardrobe.  It is from beyond the page, so far it fits well for us. Chilliwack cultural centre has the lion the witch and the wardrobe play on November 22.  I am hoping to go to this with the kids.  

We are getting used to our routine...

Genevieve is putting in a consistent effort in piano.

Nathan struggles with piano for many reasons, his small motor control in his fingers and his confidence.   He needs help at the beginning if a new song, he doesn't want to play new songs as he says he's not very good.  Once I struggle and get him to play and practice hr likes it and is definitely proud he can do it.  If course he gets 2 new songs every week :).  So each week we start over again...

I am realizing that I think unit studies work well for our family.  I need to look at our plos and figure out how to incorporate these into our learning.  

I have so much I want to teach them, but I know I have to give Nathan some time to settle into this new learning environment we are in.  Genevieve is not having a difficult adjustment.  Nathan is doing pretty good but I know I am pushing him beyond his comfort every day. 

Wednesday October 9

Today was a great day in homeschool land.  Even though Wednesday is the busiest day for us, today was the first day I actually felt like we were getting all we needed to do to get done.  Not only school wise, but home wise too.  

We started off the day late!   I woke up close to 9!  So I quickly made the kids some yoghurt with fruit, chia, and crunchy stuff :).  They ate while we watched our math u see video.  We then went upstairs to do some math worksheets.  Nathan and Genevieve worked thru them fairly quickly. Nathan had trouble on the review sheet, he said I don't remember the 8 trick, but I'm sure he did, because he was able to give me answers.  He stresses so much about math, he had only a few tears today while doing it.  

We then got ready to go to physio.  I quickly cleaned the kitchen and put dinner in the crockpot.  I did not do the dishes last night, so there were a few :)

Had a good day at physio.  Nathan absolutely loves physio, he loves Janet and he really works hard at what he's asked to do.  

We then stopped at the grocery store and grabbed some thai curry paste (only ingredient for dinner I didn't have).  Got home about 11:45, and had left over quesadilla for lunch.  Genevieve practiced piano.   I finished up dinner.  

Out the door again at 12:30 to go to hockey and skating.  Kids had a good time.  I brought linkology with me for the 45 minutes she has to wait for Nathan to finish hockey.  Ended up 6 girls played with Genevieve, and another mom and I helped out and explained things as they came up. We had discussions on warm blooded/ what mammals are etc.  it was fun!

Then we raced out at 3 to run across town to go to the taiosi choir.  They do 1 hour of singing and then 45 minutes of ukelale practice.  Kids had more fun today, then their first class last time. 

Were then went home for dinner, which was almost ready, except for making rice and thickening the sauce. 

And after dinner we cleaned up the kitchen.  That feels pretty nice. 

So even though it was a busy day, it still felt balanced.  I didn't feel rushed, I felt like we accomplished what we needed to do, and now at 7 I may go to bed :)

Tuesday

Well my cold is in full swing!  November will be flu free right?

Math worksheet this morning, then piano practice.  Off to art class we went, then to piano.  While Nathan was practicing I played the new math game with Gigi and vice versa.  

Home we went for more piano from Gigi and Nate, and some reading.  Then Nathan mentioned he saw we had an IMAX movie on china.   Perfect, I've got a cold and I'm tired, they watched the movie about china and giant pandas.  We then had a discussion on ins angered animals and the different reasons animals become endangered. 

Next the kids went outside ride their bikes around, then played some street hockey with our neighbours. 

Monday October 14

We had a fairly good homeschool day today.  

Nathan was a little hard to get to sit still in his chair, but we made it through.   

We started with a fall themed notebook.  First up fall math sheet, it was a good review.  Next up poetry, we read a few poems and then thought of fall words, we then wrote down rhyming words for them.   I really thought Nathan would enjoy this one, but he wasn't into this today.  Genevieve came up with some pretty good ones though.  I plan to get them to draft a poem tomorrow.   

We played our new math game snap it up again today.  Nathan struggles with math worksheets, but he was quickly adding and subtracting up to 3 numbers at a time to try and see if he could come up with the answer.  It really showed me how much he hates sitting in a structured place, his math anxiety, and that he hates writting.  Not sure which one influences his dislike of math worksheets, but hopefully this math game will get him over it.  It is painful for me to get him to do math worksheets, but I know he needs the practice.  The game will also benefit genevieve as, she is a little slower at the game, she is pretty fast at worksheets though!

Next up was piano.  Nathan put up a stink about piano, his neck hurt too much to play, it hurt to sit etc.  I massaged his neck for 1/2 then insisted he play.  He practiced about 20 minutes, once he gets into playing you can see he likes it. 

Genevieve practices piano pretty faithfully and really enjoys practicing, I definitely don't have to ask her to practice, she practices several times a day.  

Thanksgiving weekend

Was relieved when I realized it was thanksgiving, and happy that classes were canceled on Friday!   I got Jeff's cold and the idea of 4 days off felt great.  I spent all day Friday and Saturday in bed, well almost :).  We didn't have any sports on Saturday either!  

Well 2 days of doing nothing and the kids were bored....   They started doing there own schoolwork on Sunday.  Nathan did geo puzzles genevieve drew a fish and a shark and inside them write about their differences.   And they played lots of games.  I decided I better be a little more active so we went for a bike ride along the vedder, I sure feel that today!  We brought some hotdogs to have a Weeny roast but the vedder was busy and we couldn't find a good spot.  So we went up chilliwack lake road and found a spot on chilliwack river.  It was really busy too! The kids gathered sticks and wood for the fire, and we cut down some roasting sticks.  And lit the fire.   It was such a perfect day...

Not sure what plos occurred here but it must be something :)

Thursday October 10

We had a great day today!

We had a friend of Nathan and Genevieve's over who just started homeschooling this year too.  We were going to go on a hike today, but Nathan was not up to that.  So we had our friend over to our house.  I quickly did some teacher prep before he arrived.  

We started by watching a movie on discovery.  The movie was sadly out if date, but the content was excellent!  I could see the kids thought it was boring as soon as they saw it was made in the 80's, but 5 minutes in Nate and Gigi were engrossed.  They learned about why deciduous trees loose their leaves, and how it happens.  

We then went upstairs to the dry erase board and we did some review of the movie.  Nathan and Genevieve also explained the movie to their friend as he had missed half of the movie. 

We then got on our shoes and went for a little walk/hike in the forest beside our house.  Our object was to collect leaves and observe how the trees loose their leaves.  First thing we saw was this picture

That little bud, goes intbetween the branch and the leaf, when the leaf falls off it protects the branch.  The kids thought this was pretty cool to see!

Oh when we were leaving the house Nathan exclaims oh my goodness I'm still in my Jammie's!  We told him it's okay, no one will see ya, they are all at school, I didn't tell him, his shirt was inside out too lol

When we got back we had lunch and then we used hammers on the leaves to make some art!

Nathan's masterpiece 

Now we only had one problem with this project, the paper got stuck to the concrete, I should have had them hammer on a piece if wood.  Better luck next time, Nathan was pretty disappointed. 

Next up was contact paper and leaves.  Both Nathan and Genevieve were excited about this one. 

Nathan's

Genevieve's 

The kids then had 1 hour if free time, Nathan played video games, Genevieve watched a Jane Goodall movie. 

Gigi then went to cheer practice

I purchased a neat math game from learning resources, we played it at dinner, and I think we will try to play this one frequently.  I will take a picture tomorrow.  

Tuesday October 8

Today we started with piano practice.  Nathan and Genevieve were even trying to make up their own duet to play :)

We then went to art class with Jessica.  Today the kids did a self portrait and made some apples from clay. 

Inspecting their apples

And here is a picture of Genevieve's painting she did last class.  Hers is the one on the end, but you can see how they were supposed to work all together. In the style if Monet 

After art we went to their piano lessons. 

We came home and played a few math games.  Genevieve finished her book little woman, and Nathan read a book to finish the afternoon too. 

Monday October 7

Today we went on a field trip to the honeybee centre.  Nathan and Genevieve both had a great time.  We carpooled with some new friends which was fun!

October 6 sunday

We went to see the Chinese acrobats at the cultural centre.  The kids had an amazing time.  We had read about them in our top secret adventures.  This was a great ending to our study on china.  I loved watching Nathan and Genevieve's reactions to the performance. 

I just wish we took pictures of us all dressed up!

Thursday oct 3

Well, we are all still feeling affects if illness.  Jeff managed to come home with a cold!  I hope we don't get plagued with colds in October.  We had a very relaxing morning with the kids playing with daddy, while I read a book.  Daddy and the kids played mousetrap (wasn't this everyone's favorite game?), watched a movie, and I am sure a video game must have been played.  

School was done this afternoon when my headache mostly subsided.  Genevieve when I had come down had already grabbed Nathan's computer, found the word processing program and began writting her story.  She was pretty proud of herself.  I loved how she was able to take the notes she made and make sentences and a story out of it.  If I had been there to help direct her I probably would have taught her how to decide how to group her ideas together more, like have the things that are alike together.  We would have printed but I just bought a new wireless printer yesterday, and it was really giving me a headache trying to set up eprint.  I know I didn't need to do this yet, but of course I have to do it now!!!   Nathan had decided  he wanted to read a book first, he then put up a little fight about not wanting to do anything else.  Fight then ensues, Nathan says we should go back to regular school because I'm not a very good teacher.   Ouch yes that did hurt :). Jeff talked to him, he came down grugenly and we discussed he can pick whatever he wants to learn about today.  Explained to him we have all these books, all these topics we can learn about together, we can do fun things to learn about them, but we need to try.  He grabbed a new linkology game called the human body linkology.  I LOVE these games!  I can not believe that in such a short duration we learn so many things playing this game!  Another thing I love about this game is that you never feel dumb while playing this game, if you don't know if a card you have will work you look it up!   We usually remember the next time, so in this way who wins is more a matter of chance, it is teaching it is okay if you don't know the answer.  Genevieve and daddy joined in the linkology game again. 

Wednesday October 2

IThis morning we worked on math, total of about 1 hour.  Nathan was wizzing through his math worksheets after starting off slow.  This gave me some time to review with Genevieve to make sure she was understanding these number concepts.  

Nathan and I went to physio, while Jeff and Genevieve did some school work, some math and working on her story. 

When we got back home it was supposed to be a quick lunch before hockey, Nathan was not feeling well enough to go :(.  So we ate lunch then Jeff took Genevieve to skating lessons.  Nathan and I stayed home and watched the bbc earth series life.  Nathan loved it we watched I think 3 or 4 episodes. This movie tied in nicely to our science we are studying classification of living things.  One episode was on amphibians, one about reptiles, and another about mammals.  Nathan loves these bbc shows and gets so involved when he watches, I really think he learns so much from watching them.  

I love that I can get these movies at the library, and free too!  Well free if I remember to return on time.  My last trip I owed $60 oops, I look at it that I am donating to a good cause every time I have late fees.  Good thing kids books don't have late fees, if you remember to use the kids cards!

October 1st

Well it's the start of a new month!  Yeah for that, I am glad to see September gone, it was quite the learning curve to get back into schooling!   We have been plagued by sickness and medical appointments.  

I have not been able to post in a week because guess what, I got sick.  We went to a wedding just before I got sick and we had a great time.  Genevieve and I danced the night away!   Nathan on the other hand moves like Jeff, we need to do some practising.  Nathan said he didn't want to practice at the wedding, we have to practice at home first.  So I guess this year we have to practice, so he will dance with his mommy at the next wedding.  

Last Monday, I was out with the flu, but managed to take Nathan to his ocupational therapy assessment.  Found out some interesting things, like he doesn't hear out of his left ear!  Nathan has managed to compensate like he does with everything.  We had an appointment with audiology this morning, which confirmed what we as parents already knew, Nathan has supersonic hearing.  So it's not the ear that's the problem, his ear hears fine, it's the brain!

So Tuesday was ophthalmologist for Nathan at children's.  Guess what we heard there again.  It's not the eye, it's the brain :).  She was very adamant we need to see neurology again.  She wants to recheck his visual field in six months, and would like me to bring in Nathan's medical binder, as she would like to review, to see if she can help in any way. She is a Neuro ophthalmologist :). I didn't bring the big binder with me as I feel some if his drs are looking at me like I am dr google when I come in.  

Genevieve stayed at my parents house Sunday Monday and Tuesday.  She played a lot of Lego!  That counts as something right?

Wednesday was physio,skating and hockey.  Then Nathan was supposed to go to soccer.  Instead we went to the er for a dislocated knee cap.  Don't I live an adventurous life :).  No damage to anything thankfully and he was walking the next day, and could run by Friday!  Today I think is the first day it has been pain free, at least he has not told me it hurts today.  

Thursday we had piano lessons this day, we also did some other work I don't remember ackkkkk.  Genevieve had cheer, and Nathan and I went to the library.  Nathan and I worked on some math and then he picked out some books. 

Friday kids went to school at tla. 

Monday we worked on our top secret adventures china, wow it's taking us a while, but we are learning a lot about china. We have read a few books on china from the library too.  Nathan had a soccer game as well

Tuesday Genevieve's assignment was to pick a bug that she would like to be and research the bug, so far she has a bunch of notes on the board.  

Genevieve went to art class (Nathan is at home sick), in art class genevieve studied the style of Claude Monet.  Jessica pauls (her teacher) read a book about Monet, and then she worked beside a partner to create a cohesive work of art. I wish I took a picture!  We then went to the library picked up a couple of books on butterflies and a couple on flies. (Nathan choose a fly). Genevieve then had piano lessons.  When we got home both Nate and Genevieve read their bug books.  Genevieve continued to work on her research and Nathan and I delved into math.  I think Nathan and I are finally making some headway in this subject, he shuts down every time we start it.