So this was the week when my dad was in the hospital with a mystery illness. The super-frustrating part is he still has no answers, no diagnosis. I think I’m going to have to get rather insistent with someone at the hospital to tell us what is going on. They are talking about discharging him, but due to his swallowing issues, they don’t want him drinking anything; where is the logic in that??? But we did get some good news today: they have ruled out ALS (aka “Lou Gherig’s Disease”), which was pretty much the worst of the possibilities. VERY thankful for that.

But, even with hospital visits and stress, our school week went well.

Lindsey is still getting used to things at the new academy, but doing well overall. She loves composition, says Spanish is easy (since she’s had a little Spanish previously), but math is still pretty tough. We had to have a little chat earlier in the week about asking for help when she doesn’t know how to do something, rather than getting upset about it. For many years (before she joined our family), she didn’t feel like she really had help with schoolwork, and she tends to get easily overwhelmed. But I reminded her that she is not expected to know everything; that’s why we call it learning. Since then, she’s done better with asking for help and hasn’t seemed quite as overwhelmed.

Besides, she has the brilliant and curious LacyDog to help her!

Kathryn had her first chess class this week, and although she was signed up for the beginner’s class, she wasn’t completely a beginner since Ken has taught her the basics, and the teacher suggested we move her up to the intermediate class. That will work even better with our schedule and she’ll be in class with a boy she already knows.

In math, Kathryn is doing estimating, working with addition and subtraction of money, and doing some review. I like the spiral learning approach in Horizons Math, with just enough review in the lessons to stay fresh, but not so much as to get boring.

We have finished up a Christian Kids Explore Biology unit on birds, and have started on mammals. Kathryn is happy to get to mammals, because that gives her yet another excuse to remind me to take her back to see the puppies at my aunt’s house again!

Our history studies with Winter Promise this year begin with the Early Explorers and American Indians. This week, Kathryn and I watched “Part One” of the 500 Nations documentary: a totally fascinating look at native cultures including the Mayans and Aztecs. Much of the background music was Native American wood flute, which has totally inspired me to get mine out and remember how to play it — and to work on getting better at it!

Kathryn has been making some projects to include in the lapbook we’ll make for the Early Explorers study. Another suggested activity in this study was learning a bit of knot-tying, like sailors. Ken helped with that; he used to go sailing with his dad and loves this sort of thing. 🙂

We did NOT accomplish a nature study, did not start on hymn studies, and left out a few other things I would’ve like to do. But this is only our second week back to school, so we’ll get there. We did, however, make our basic Composer Study lapbook last week — our very first lapbook ever — and made another project to include in it this week. So yay for that!

Lindsey’s first Color Guard performance last Friday night was rained out. She was disappointed, but holding and spinning metal flag poles in lightning is just not a good idea. So we hope that today’s weather cooperates to let the football game and half-time performance go as planned.

Even though Lindsey didn’t get to perform last week, I did take a few photos as she went over part of her routine in our yard last Friday before she headed to the game. I love the enthusiastic expression on her face!

One of these days, we’ll have an uneventful week and that will make me soooo happy!

Jamie

Wife, mom, J-ma. Introvert who enjoys good books, sunshine, and authentic conversation. Often seen with a steaming mug of tea in hand – unless it’s lost yet again in the microwave. Read more »