Last week of March

Already the end of March!   This past week, I think we all have enjoyed.

We have been working on multiplication, finishing mbtp, sign of the beaver, I just ordered the movie for our last lesson.  We also had a few extras we did this week as well

Monday we did some schoolwork in the morning that was self led.  Nathan read a bunch of books on genetics, watched a movie on genetics from brain pop as well.   Genevieve was working on her Germaine song, and multiplication.  We then went to rock climbing where both participated as Gigi's tumbling at twisters was later in the day.  I between twisters and rock climbing we went over to Tyler and Cody's house.  

Tuesday was a very exciting day for nathan.  I signed him up for a genomics workshop at ubc.  A fellow homeschooling mom of a gifted child interested in science organized the field trip.  It took a lot of convincing of ubc to let these students come to what they usually only offer to grade 9 students.  I think they were a little blown away with the level of understanding and participation of the kids.  The two instructors were grad students and amazing!   They really answered all of the kids questions and went off with them in their tangents or gently steered them back from quantum physics to genetics.  I stayed for the first two hours with nathan, Genevieve was with me.  I had originally planned on leaving nathan but all the other parents were staying.  I kinda felt horrible leaving nathan when everyone else had a parent there and he's the one with medical concerns!   I had talked to the teacher ahead of time though and given her a card with all of Nathan's info on it, she quickly turned it over and since she's in genetics, I'm sure she recognized eds diagnosis and offered me her number so I would feel more comfortable leaving nathan :).   So what they did, they had about an hour long discussion to start, nathan was thrilled, he has never been in an environment like this before, and he was loving the discussions.  I asked him why he wasn't answering questions as I knew he knew the answers.  He said he was enjoying hearing everyone else's responses, he knows what's in his head, he didn't need to hear it, but other people may answer differently, and spark conversation.  He was soooo into the lecture and discussion.  Next up we all spit in a cup.  We then headed over to the lab.  In the lab we learned what we were doing safety protocol etc.  Genevieve was very intent on the safety protocol, this seemed to be the most interesting to her :).  So with the spit they added SDS (super duper soap) to break down the lipid layer of the cells they collected from swishing saline in their mouths.  Next ethanol was added which made the DNA not happy as the charge was changed, so it formed strings.  We then sucked it up and put it in a vile.  

Gigi is saying can we go!!!!   You promised me something fun like an art gallery!

So Gigi and I left at this point it was break time.  I left nathan and he was totally okay with it!   He said just after I left he got a migraine and almost had to take a Tylenol I left in his backpack, but thankfully it was not severe and short lived.  After the break, they apparently did first year university work of isolating a typical human genome.  They also discussed the ethics of genetics, nathan really enjoyed this part as well.  From what I understand most of the kids thought the ethics were boring, but nathan thought this was one of the most interesting aspects.  They also discussed what it was like being a university student and what it's like at ubc.  Nathan said he would like to always live at ubc and wonders if he could be a student forever. During the lunch break, he went with another couple of families to view some art work.  He told me about it when I picked him up and he said it was okay I went right? And he gave me his reasonings for his decision, and why he thought it was an okay decision.  I love how he is able to make good choices on his own!  He can think for himself!   Apparently one of the boys and him had some great discussions at lunch and have asked for a play date, so they can discuss quantum physics some more.  So nathan survived a 6 1/2 hour day at ubc!!!   Who would have though he could do that a year ago?

Gigi and I took off to Granville island and had some lunch and some shopping, we also toured point grey and all the beautiful waterfront properties.  

We picked up a very excited nathan and decided to hit up the university bookstore, they were a little disappointed (nathan), but I think we missed the books for classes section, maybe he would have liked looking at that?  After our ubc fill for the day we went to the beach. 

We happened to end up at a dog park, yeah since we had ginger with us.  

Wednesday -  we didn't do much it was more of a recovery day from Tuesday for all of us.  

Thursday back to school, more mbtp, but I forget what we did, we went to physio, last appt for 4 weeks.   Poor nathan is not too happy to be missing out in physio, but we will continue to work everyday while at home.  He asked if he could do an extra day with jim, since he isn't doing physio.  I thought I would ask jim, since we had to miss a few days so I don't think we are at our budget yet. And what a difference riding has made for nathan.  

Friday- a few hours of school in the morning.  Nate and Gigi had to write a persuasive argument to Matt to try and convince Matt to either stay at the cabin or go with Attean.  What a difference dragon makes for nathan!   No arguments today about writing, I think he was kind of excited.  I did have to work with nathan to get him to expand on his ideas more, although I thought he had an excellent closing sentence.  Genevieve was finished hers so quick and I think some good writting.  She had some spelling mistakes but hugely improved spelling.   I did not make her correct spelling for this yet because I wanted to focus on content and the great content she presented.  

Saturday - Gigi had a play date with a friend from cheer in Abbotsford, I took them to the wave pool.  

Sunday- 1st interview!

We went to an open audition at a talent agency, it was definitely an interesting experience.  There were lots of people but we definately got their before the crush of people came.  Unfortunately right before they were taken in they decided to speed things up.  They took all the kids in their age group at once.  Once in the room they asked the kids to hold a pen and say "isn't this amazing".  Nathan and Gigi were pretty disappointed, they felt like there was no way they could be judged on such a little statement, they didn't get asked any questions or anything.  They said we waited 2 hours to say wow isn't it amazing :).  They still had fun though, and you can't tell me Genevieve didn't nail the over the top amazement of the pencil :)

After the audition we went to science world and had some fun there, and ended up for dinner at the old spaghetti factory.  

Gigi and I tried for 5 minutes to make these two pieces into a pyramid.  Nathan came over to the table after we had given up, looked at it for 3 seconds put it together, gave a chuckle and said isn't that neat.  

 

I think after seeing nathan do it it still took me a minute to get them together, and I though I was good at visual spatials.  

Genevieve is practicing her very first German song and is very excited about this.  I think we will be hearing this song for the next 3 months or so... I bought the level 3 vocal book from Royal conservatory of music, it has this song, and it comes with an accompany CD, which is wonderful for gigi to practice with.