Oh what a week.....I have been experiencing a slump in emotions. Can't really describe it. It's a cross between depression and determination. I know I have to be strong because I am the adult and the only one the kids have at home. But it is so draining. All of that makes my mind stray and not stay on task. Which makes studying hard for me. Yes studying for me....I took the leap and I am working on my Herbal Certification. I am trying to find two days a week to concentrate on my studying on top of the Homeschool with Minecraft responsibilities and teaching the kids. No wonder my brain feels like it may explode...lol
Grandma spent a few days at a local nursing home after leaving the hospital. She is home now and we are very happy. She still has more surgeries to go, but she can build her body up for each one at home. The girls loved this small aviary they had at the nursing home. They stared at it everytime we went. I have to admit, I really thought it was cute too. Wish I had someplace to put this. I am working on where we could put one.
4H season is definitely upon us. I have been bouncing between the 3 older kids starting their projects with them. The difference between homeschooling special needs kids and "typical" kids is the hands-on work, especially on projects like these. Work that can be done independently by most is not done independently by them. They are completely hands-on, and I forgot about 4H season. Maybe in my mind it's kind of like labor, it's hard when you are going through it but then you don't remember the pain when it's over. You only see the joy. Well the joy on the kids faces as they earn their ribbons and certificates makes me forget all the hours of sleep and fighting to get the work done. Now I have been hit full in the head with it again.
Friday morning we woke up to a flooded basement. Turns out our catch basin to the road was plugged and overflowing back into our basement. Fortunately my brother was able to get us up and sucking again. He had to call a few people in to help fix the problem.
Friday we also went bowling with some friends. It was a nice reprieve from daily work for a couple hours. Our friend has younger twins and this was their first time bowling. The boys were so happy to help the girls out. It was just very sweet.
We did celebrate National Pancake Day. I debated about driving to Toledo and taking them to IHOP for Breakfast, but decided against it. They use Buttermilk and poor Joey wouldn't have gotten to eat any. So I made good ole' sprinkle pancakes for them. Caty loved them. They ate pancakes while watching Liberty's Kids.
This week we covered the 12 major steps that lead to the American Revolution. To go along with this we watched Johnny Tremain. I really like this classic. We had more discussion about guerrilla style fighting versus what the British army was trained to do. We also discussed how having drummers out front announcing where you were was probably not the best of ideas either.
We watched videos on Arkansas and Iowa. I really love the Aerial America series. We are not doing a ton of extra state activities each week now. But they are working on the state symbols and locating the state on the US Map. Our President this week was Andrew Johnson.
The girls had American Girl club which they enjoy. Some months both girls want to read the stories, but others they do not. Since we are not concentrating on the girls for our history this time round, I don't force it. This month was Kirsten and Lydia wanted to read them all. We brought a craft to make a yarn doll. And all the girls packed bags for a local women's shelter. Someone made crepes and another mom made a Swedish rice porridge for snack. Lydia also did a book talk over two of the books and even volunteered to tell about a 3rd book. Her comprehension skills are making me happy. She reads and 90% of the time remembers it. I only typed up what she told me too. That was the most I helped her on that. Next time she volunteers I am going to have her type it up. The girls had fun at the meeting!
In the girls science this week we learned the basics of the skeletal system. They learned the number of bones in our body, the largest and smallest bones and we focused on the skull and the backbone. We used an egg a couple different ways to look at things. First we talked about how tough our skull is and how it protects our brain the way that the shell protects the yolk and clear fluid in the egg. Then we used the egg to show how important the water around our brain is for cushioning. This was a fun project. They also built spines using Gummy Life-savers and Peach Rings.
Gummy Spine
The egg finally broke, but they were shaking it very hard. They also worked on marshallow people. They had to see how high they could stack mini-marshmallows with no help. Then they used toothpicks as "bones". Yeah....then it turned into artwork
Here are some of the girls science resources this week.....
They had fun with this sticker book. We're going to be keep practicing the bone names next week.
Joey worked on some of his bottle rocket experiments...
He made a hero engine. This one was one of his favorites. It was fun!
He learned about lift for a rocket engine and also for an airplane. There is a lot of difference.
He did a lot of balloon experiments. They were showing how rockets lift off and the reasons they are built that way.
Joey's water cycle is working well. Apparently none of our windows have enough direct sunlight to get it going. So we had to use a desk lamp to act as the sun. It's working now. He has a small sprout of lavender starting.
Joey and Lydia working on the Steps to the Revolutionary War poster.
Brayden kept presenting a challenge about his work this week. But He did do his reading with very little fight. Some days he would start his work and be on the couch, other days he spent the whole day struggling with me. He did try to be helpful though.
This week he worked on more of his Kitchen Chemistry 4H book. This week he worked on Acids and Bases.
I think he had more fun mixing the cabbage water into new colors. As you can see, only one of our tests was a base. Everything else that was purple or pink was an acid.
And Floating/Sinking...Do you know why an orange will float with it's peel, but not if it's peeled?
Our Cloverbuds are using the Kitchen Chemistry book. Brayden got to do a demonstration in front of our whole club and for the smaller group. He made ooblick for the whole group and then did a dancing raising project for the younger kids. He did a great job!
He also worked on an experiment with gases. We had to build this container to contain the gases from the baking soda and vinegar mixture. Then he saw how it would choke the oxygen out for the candle. We had one flop where the bottle exploded and sent the cork across the room. That was fun he said. But we got it to work.
And then Captain Helpful helped me put gas in the van.
Caty has no trouble starting her reading everyday, although the cat bugs her every time she seems to touch a book.
We are still plugging away through Foundations Level B. This week one of her activities was to illustrate a story. She thought this was a lot of fun.
Her 4H project this week was to realize people have emotions and they can show on their face. She created story masks which she had to show to me as I read her a story. So she had to decide what kind of emotion each character was having.
She loves building cup towers. She got a hold of the leftover cups from Brayden's project. She and Lydia have been building all week.
Lydia is working on seven 4H projects. Yeah....ready to lose my mind already. But she is doing really well on all of them. She made good choices. One of them is the 2nd year, since each book in the series is a two year project. My biggest challenge is just keeping her going and staying on top of her. I don't want her to get behind. She has almost completed 2-3 of them to the point of getting her project book ready.
She is loving reading and taking books with us wherever we go. A couple years ago, I didn't think I would ever see that happen. Anything to do with animals though she is ok with reading. That and the American Girl books. She had a rough day this week where she couldn't remember how to do her math. So we had to work around that. She completely forgot what the symbols of division were and added her whole math path. Was really upset when she saw what she had done. But we made it through. She is doing great on Math U See Delta.
We did have a few days of decent weather. We went on a bike ride that morning and I realized how bad Caty needed a new bike. Unfortunately the bike she picked out is pretty, but trash. So we have to return it this weekend and get her a better bike. But we had a nice bike ride/jog one morning.
We also rode another day down to the library and to get ice cream.
By next week, Caty will have a new bike
It was a busy week, and I went to bed exhausted every night. I just keep pushing through each day. And I keep my list close to me to get as much done as I can. I'm not getting it done daily, so I just keep carrying it over. I started this post on Thursday and it's Sunday am and just now getting to finish it. I tried last night and fell asleep at the keyboard. So had to delete a whole paragraph of k's....lol.
I hope everyone had a good week!!
Linking up with other moms at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschooler.....
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