tuesday sept 27 - September 29

Well this week is a little wacky for our schedule, so we have been doing things a little differently and going with the flow, a little unschooling happening this week.  I am actually enjoying this week and I think the kids are too, but I dont think I am an unschooler, and I dont really think the kids are either, but it is a fun break.

So Genevieve has her CSOPA auditions this week on wedesday, except it was cancelled because of a city wide power outage.  So she gets another week to perfect her audition pieces.  Genevieve has been working very hard on this and has struggled a little bit as her monologue has some challenges and she has never sung Capella before, and I guess the song she choose is quite difficult for her to sing this way, it changes keys a few times and is just challenging.

Tuesday Genevieve spent all of her school hours working on her audition for CSOPA as it was supposed to be the next day and she was not quite ready, I knew she would not have much time on wednesday to rehearse so she had to have it by tuesday.  Nathan worked on a typing program for a couple of hours,  and memorize academy chemistry.  He seems to have the first 20 elements down pat.  Genevieve went to cheer practice on tuesday.

Wednesday - Genevieve woke up and was able to have her monologue perfect yeah!  so she worked on adding expression, we worked again all morning on her csopa.  Wednesday was really weird though as jeff was supposed to fly out at 9 am, he kept on getting delayed in his flight until it was cancelled and he was put on a flight for 2 pm.  Now this 2 pm flight really messed with my day, as I was supposed to be at physiotherapy at this time.  So Jeffs dad came to the rescue and took Jeff to the airport for us.  Nathan and Genevieve both had physio with Janet and music with Kim.  Kim worked with Genevieve on her song for CSOPA which was fantastic.  And then the power went out.  It was like and appocalypse happened in chilliwack, it took over an hour to get home, when normally it is no longer then 10 minutes, and we were running out of gas!  We made it... Csopa was cancelled, even though Genevieve was ready she was happy to have 1 extra week to prepare.

Thursday -  Nathan woke up and starting making breakfast, without being asked, I helped guide him a little.  And today really was an unschool day!  We were sitting Nathan was just finishing up his typing program and Nathan asked, can I make the potato clock, and I thought why not, it was not what I had planned to do at all, but I thought hmm they could work on that bythemselves for a bit.  Well Genevieve said, well that does not really interest me, can I do something else sciency like study the human body, so I said sure, she grabbed a bunch of books and activities and headed into the other room.  So Nathan starts looking at the potato clock kit we have, then he has a million and 1 questions about how this is working, I know I cant just say the potato has electorlytes in it and electrons flow through.  I tried to find a video that detailed the science behind but nothing was great at explaining this, umm dont other kids want to know the science behind making a potato clock.  Ended up I looked in his text book, he was not happy to be jumping ahead, mom I am not there yet.  But I convinced him we needed to read a few pages on ions to understand how we are getting a positive and negative charge with the copper and zinc strips.  I think he was glad we read in the end, even if he was concerned about going out of order because he really did understand what we were doing in the end.  He then grabbed a bunch of other things to attempt to light them up or increase the strenght of his battery.  He ended up playing with this for well over 2 hours.  Genevieve looked at the human body stuff for about 2 hours then practiced singing.

We then delivered the papers, and Genevieve went to an extra voice lesson with Marlene to try and perfect her song.  I asked Marlene if she could fit Genevieve in, I thought since Genevieve has been putting in such a great effort the last few weeks I would pay for an extra 1/2 hour for her, ended up Marlene wanted to do it for free.  When genevieve was at voice, nathan worked on his chemistry lab that is required to finish chapter 1.  At first he was like what, I have to design my own experiment...  uggg, but the first one is well layed out and really easy for him to figure out, it was great to build up confidence.  I told him to trust me and that he was liking this chemistry and that in real life you design your own experiments, you dont have an experiment that is already layed out in front of you, if you are trying to figure something out.  I remember the first time I did this in university I was very intimidated by the process, I am glad that he will be miles ahead of me in this area.

filling in his chemistry lab at academy of music

this was one of the pages we read to understand ions, and what
was happening with the potato

Nathan enjoyed this, but what a cheap kit, I bet the
box cost more money...  I wish it came with a book
that explained the science behind the experiment

Genevieve and her human body, I am wondering if her recent
surgery experience has made her interested in the human body?
Maybe Genevieve with be our physician, or nurse?

And now Genevieve is at cheer, yeah for carpooling this year, and Nathan came up and made dinner without being asked!  I made sure to let him know how much this helps me, it really does.

Friday - we go to see Nathan's cardiologist for a checkup, so maybe some math in the car but that is it