Sunday, December 13, 2015

Week 28 - Web design, Random Acts of Kindness and Grandparents Day


I stopped working out for a few months now.  I have been feeling both the effects of being ill and also the effects of not working out.  So I have known for at least a month that I need to kick my butt into gear.  No one else is going to do it.  Plus I haven't been setting a good example for the kids.  I have to balance my workout so that I get a workout, but don't overdo it and cause histamine issues which in turn bring up my health issues.  I may have found it.  I probably won't ever get to do a 5K again.  But I have been working on my 3/4 mile walk/run this week.  Plus some crunches, squats and things like that.  I follow a workout plan on Instagram from www.sweetworkout.com.  She posts a daily challenge.  Well I am behind, but good thing I can see the whole month's challenge, even though it's already the 2nd week of the month.  I am proud to say I survived this week.  I am keeping it low key, but making sure for lots of movement.

It was a rough week though, increased exercise also meant that my histamine levels went out of whack, yet again.  Yes, you can really be allergic to exercise.  I forgot to take that in account with my diet this week.  I was enjoying higher histamine foods, and suffered greatly because of it.  I had a low-level migraine one night and some itching issues all week.  If it's not one thing, it is another.

We have a friend that comes over and is working on writing with us.  This week we did a fun project where we made cards for a local nursing home.  We also colored pages for Color a Smile.  It was fun.  I printed a bunch of options for Color A Smile, and Caty worked hard all week to color lots of pictures.  She really enjoyed this.  Anytime we were out, she packed a clipboard, coloring sheets and her markers.  We have a nice full envelope to send in and a big stack of cards to send to the nursing home.



The kids kept coloring all week.  They have finished several pages.  I hope to finish the stack up this week and get them mailed out.

The girls had American Girl club this week.  Caty wasn't exactly into reading the books, and I chose not to force her.  It's a chose my own battles idea there.  We discussed life in Josefina's time.  But Lydia did read all 6 books and really liked them.  Josefina has always been her favorite one.   This meeting was Trading on the Santa Fe Trail.  Such a cool idea.  The girls brought their own items to trade with others at the meeting.  Tables were set up and girls chose items to trade with others.  It looked like all the girls had a very good time.  Lydia made New Mexico Bizcochitos to share.  Everyone seems to like them.  They smell yummy!



Girls got their gymnastics progress reports and Lydia is going to stay in Level 2 another session.  This was her first time at this gym, so it didn't surprise me.  Plus the Level 3 girls are a lot bigger than her.  She seems to enjoy where she is at.  Caty is staying Level 1.  She has some trouble with some of the skills that need to be mastered.  She's making improvements.  Her cartwheels are almost flawless.  She can do the splits.  She doesn't enjoy the uneven bars though.

I have been really stepping outside of my comfort zone.  I am trying to figure out coding, HTML and all the computer stuff.  I figure out apps and how to run programs, writing them is something I haven't done since Commodore days....lol.  Yeah, I just aged myself to owning a Commodore 64 as my first computer.  We have been working our way through the Computer Science course at Schoolhouseteachers.com.  Slow but sure the boys and Lydia are making progress.  Right now they are working on writing a webpage using HTML.  This week we took the hour of code challenge and all the kids went on Code.org after our normal lesson and they played on the Star Wars, Minecraft and Frozen coding games there.  Brayden really liked it.





Our states this week were Florida.  We ate oranges and lemons.  Nothing fancy, I was a bit tired.  And our President was Martin Van Buren.

Caty

This week she and I have been working hard on her reading.  She has been flying through quite a few Bob books, still on Level 1.  She is struggling some, but we are working on that.  She also learned about orchestra's this week and the various parts.  We missed out on seeing the local orchestra.  I was sick, so we didn't get to go.  She is not a fan though of the orchestra.  She hated it the last time we took her 3 years ago.  So I guess it wasn't a big loss.

She finished up her review book for Math and started her Grade Level book.  We were doing some review skills for problems that she seemed to be struggling with.  She was excited to get started on her new book this week.


I printed this Candy Land Sight Word game and we played it a few times this week.  She LOVED doing this.

Working on coloring sheets.  She carried these everywhere we went with markers to keep coloring.  I didn't even suggest it, she did it on her own.


This week she finally got her hair cut. Caty has very thick hair and it's curly too.  So that meant lots and lots of knots.  Her hair would knot just walking around a room.  She so wanted Elsa length hair, but she decided to go short because it was hurting her.  She had fun getting her haircut and donating the hair to Locks of Love.


Caty has been having an issue of falling asleep mid-morning.  We are not sure why yet.  She is having bloodwork done Monday.


We also play Digging for Sight Words.  This is a sentence reading game.  I opted to make new sentences for Caty.  Some of the sentences were above her reading level and it frustrated her.  So I cut some index cards in half and changed the rules up a bit.  I made her own sentences from her Wilson reading level system and then she rolls the dice (also marked 1-3 dog bones) and we'll do it this way for a few weeks to avoid her frustrations.  Those will only lead to a dislike of reading and not a love of it.


Caty working on her cartwheels at gymnastics.  I need to get them enrolled in the next session.  They are so excited.


Lydia

Lydia sped read her Josefina books.  She really liked them because she sat and read for longer than normal.  It was amazing.  She starts American Girl Marie-Grace & Cecile this next week.  She is looking forward to it.  I didn't make up questions for all the Josefina books, so I am rushing to get some ready for the next set of books because she wondered why I didn't make them up.


I got them a small quad copter to play with on the Amazon Deal of the Day.  I wasn't expecting Lydia to want to learn to use it.  She loves it.


She also loves playing Chess with daddy.


 She is upset that archery classes are over for a few weeks, so I will be taking her to the Youth Archery in the evenings until the homeschool classes start back up.


It's so nice here, in December!!  They took the bag out yesterday and practiced.  Shorts in Ohio in the middle of December.  It's incredible.  Just two years ago it was near zero.  Wonder what El Nino will bring us next month?   This is the kind of weather we expect when we are in Tennessee in the winter.


Lydia worked on rounding through the millions this week in Math.  She has the concept down, so we'll we starting multiplying larger numbers next week.

Joey

Joey is proud that he is near finishing a grade level of math.  This is his worst subject.  He struggles so much with it.  So he is well below grade level and the dr said to never expect he will be able to do algebra.  So we are really concentrating on the basics and adding in life skill math.

This week was the first week that Joey tried to do almost all his subjects independently.  He started Bob Jones Grade level 9 science and History independently also.  We still discussed our president and state as a group.  I think he did really well.  This is a tough schedule.  He gets his notebook and needs to go through and study each subject.  He has all week to finish his assignments.  I try to check his backpack daily and remind him if he seems to be getting behind in an area.  This past week I didn't do that.  It was Thursday night that I realized he hadn't completed a few things, yet he had checked them off.  He finished them Friday am, so I was happy with that.

Joey was coloring some of the sheets this week also.  He will not volunteer to do it, but I suggested they work on them while watching their video for Aerial America - Florida this week.  And he sat and did a few.

As I typed this, I realized that Joey managed to evade the camera all week.

Brayden

Well it was Brayden's suggestion that the boys do science and history independently.  They were arguing with the girls to answer questions and it really got chaotic.  Brayden thought he could get away with not doing his work.  I mean he thought that I wasn't going to check and see if he finished his assignments.  He discovered that unfinished work gets punishment.  I mean no electronics...zero!  I threatened to make him Amish and do his schoolwork by candlelight.  He lied to me all week about finishing his work.  He had to sit all day Friday doing schoolwork since he didn't do it.  Friday's are supposed to be an easy day and no real assignments.  Yep...not for Brayden this week.

He started in Bob Jones science also.  I really like their material.  Packed full of information but not in a way that is overwhelming.  This week he read about minerals and crystals.  He started and experiment using epsom salt and one with borax.  We'll see how they turn out in a few days.  (Results posted next week.)


He was also upset that it's the last archery class for a few weeks.  He'll go for the evening youth archery for a few weeks.  He really LOVES archery.  First thing he has shown real interest in besides video games.



This Week was special.  They worked really hard on having Grandpa and Grandma over for a Grandparents Day.  Gave them a glimpse into what we do almost everyday in our house.  They each prepared a little memory that they have of them both.  Brayden told them how he loves to travel with them.  Joey shared that he loved going with Grandpa to Earth Day at his work and helping him out and also that his faith is because of Grandpa and Grandma's love.  Lydia shared that she has a love of cats because of them.  Caty shared that she loves cooking with Grandma and they all agreed that Grandpa makes the best BBQ chicken and smores on the campfire.

They made signs to welcome my parents.  (They live on the same property and can walk under a covered patio area between their house and our backdoor.)  So this greeted them.



We did some projects with them also.  We introduced them to Ozobot.


And the girls still had a science project they hadn't finished.  So we decided to do it as a group project.  We learned about Moon Phases.





And then we did an art project using water color crayons.  Grandpa and Grandma love flamingos, so they drew and "painted" flamingos.





Brayden and Caty peeled potatoes to make lunch that day.  They wanted to make potato soup.  They were peeling potatoes at 7:30 in the morning so they could cook in the crockpot while we did school.  Lydia made Grandpa's favorite oatmeal raisin cookies.  Joey helped clean up and do other things while they were cooking.


They all had fun with Grandpa and Grandma.  It was a nice time.

On Saturday we heard that Darth Vader and a Storm Trooper were going to be at a local bookstore.  We knew the kids would freak out, so we loaded up and headed over to meet them and have some fun with crafts and a scavenger hunt.  They had so much fun!












 ChewCaty....isn't it hilarious how her hair just works into the mask effect...lol


Hope everyone had a wonderful week!!!  Linking up with other moms at Weird, Unsocialized, Homeschooler

Weekly Wrap-Up





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