Weekly Wrap Up - 10/21/16 and Tot School Weeks 6 and 7

This is a combined post because I'm in a crazy busy period of work. Still lots of learning going on, just not as much documentation! Random colds have been floating in and out of our house too, so set school work hasn't happened as normal.

The girls took part in their first Cookie Blitz. Most of Guides funds come from cookie sales. This Blitz in particular ended up sold out!

Paramedics came to Olivia's brownies to teach them some basic first aid. Olivia was thrilled to bandage her friend's "cut" arm. Even better (in Olivia's opinion) was the fact that they let her keep the gloves. She wore those things for days!

Brianna's dad is really good about me homeschooling her and has never questioned my wishes in it. Occasionally He gives her assignments. This one was of the history of the company that he works for.

Life Skills! We got new blinds this week and I had Brianna hang them. Now she knows why I hate them lol

Random pumpkin craft with LOTS of help from Joshua.

Brianna did Joshua's schoolwork with him. He loves telling everyone letters.

This one was more a lesson of sharing and taking turns. Something Joshua is completely not fond of.

Joshua woke up this week with a swollen face, complaining of pain. A doctor's visit showed nothing wrong. No ear infection, no tooth abscess, no strep, nothing. Just random swelling and pain. Now it's gone. I guess Joshua just likes to be special.

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschooler, Hip Homeschool Mom and Homeschool Creations.

Dad Bashing Sucks

My aunt posted this article to her Facebook ( <--- it's a good read, read it!). It's 110% true.

While I openly tease Lee about being my 6th child, he knows (because I tell him verbally, not just cause I assume he knows) that he is an immeasurably important person in our house.

He is a great parent. He is allowed to succeed and fail just as much as I am. I am not the queen of mommies and he's just a lowly dad. He changed as many if not more diapers than I did. He got up in the middle of the night. He gave baths. He picks out the kids clothes (usually with better taste than me!). He stuffs cloth diapers. He washes floors (on his hands and knees!). He IS an equal parent.

Too often I see moms not "allow" dad to pick clothes, do hair, snuggle baby when they're upset, ect... Then, those same moms complain that dad doesn't "get it". How could they? They're not allowed to be parents. They're sperm donors who get to live with their kids.

Society says that dads only babysit. They say that dads are bumbling fools. Look at most sitcoms. Dads are either idiots or assholes. Sure not all dads can sit through the 64th episode of Caillou (hell, neither can I!), but does that mean they suck as parents? Hell no! It means they're human, just like us moms.

ALL parents excel and lack in various area of parenting regardless of what's in their pants.

Father's Day

I got one of those Father's Day surveys for kids (and I'm a bad blogger and totally forgot to mark down where I got it, so if it's your design, please let me know and I'll credit you!). I thought Olivia would be the perfect age for funny answers. I was right!

She couldn't think of how old he was saying "well, he's not 5" I said "no, he's a bigger number." "100 is a big number! He must be 100!" And does she ever know her father in "My dad likes to talk" LOL Lee will talk your ear off and he doesn't care if you're his best friend or a stranger!

Our oldest, Dylan, came for a visit with his mother in the afternoon. Brianna was with her father for the day, but at least the little kids got to see him

The best pic we could get with a completely un-cooperative almost 1 year old lol

10 Years

I slept through the actual event though dreamed of it. I woke up to horror in the real world. It played out like a movie, but CNN doesn't play movies. I went to my sister's house where my poor newly 4 yr old nephew thought it was his fault because it was his birthday (it took several years to have a happy birthday again). We watched in disbelief of what was unfolding in front of us.

Even here in Canada, all government buildings were evacuated just in case the next plane came here. My then-fiance worked as a janitor in one of those buildings and his boss would not let them leave. Threatened to fire them if they did. I was livid. Thankfully he made it home safely unlike so many others.

This morning I watched the "live" footage of that day with Brianna. It was like seeing a movie I've seen before with someone who's never seen it. Through her questions and comments, all I could say was "keep watching". I watched in as much awe and silence as I did 10 years ago.

In my thoughts are the people who lost their lives that day and the many since who have lost their lives fighting in the subsequent war.

Homeschool Mother's Journal

In my life this week… Money sucks. With Lee laid off and all the bills coming in at once, money just plain sucks. But we'll get through, we always do!
 
In our homeschool this week… We had a shorter week with Brianna's father coming into town, but still got to get a lot of work done and Brianna got to show off her work to him.

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing… with it being Easter, we saw LOADS of family on both sides.

My favorite thing this week was… seeing Brianna (who is SPD/ADHD and only 8) behave a heck of a lot better than the several years older children we were with in church for my nephew's communion service.

What’s working/not working for us… Spell By Color. Or at least it seems to be working! We just started it last week, but Brianna's enjoying it!

Homeschool questions/thoughts I have… How far ahead do you collect HS material? I've been picking up pre-school stuff for my not even 2 yr old and DH looks at me like I'm nuts. Same with Brianna, she's roughly 3rd/4th grade level and I have stuff for a few grades ahead.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…

Our color changing celery that Brianna's all excited about

 Come check out other Journals at The Homeschool Chick!

Weekly Wrap-Up

Monday -Today we started a few experiments for science. The food coloring/celery one and sprouting seeds in the windowsill and cupboard one. For the seeds we decided to expand it a little further by using 2 different kind of seeds in each bowl. A green pea seed and a black eyed pea seed.

We also compared nutritional labels of household foods. I had Brianna pick any 5 items (before telling her what we were doing). She picked peanut butter, tuna, cereal bars, Zoodles and diced tomatoes. We compared the serving size, calories, fat, sodium, fiber, sugar and protein. We then discussed whether we needed a lot or a little of each. Then she checked off which food items "won" in each category. Tuna won for the healthiest item and Zoodles got the loser award. Brianna was surprised about the Zoodles, which I knew she would be. So we discusses why these seeming "healthy" things are only a once and a while food and why it's important to read the nutritional labels so you really know what you're eating.

We also started a new spelling program. Brianna's an odd speller. Some super easy words, she spells wrong, then there's words that are several grade levels ahead of her that she spells right. I had wanted to get All About Spelling for her, but with Lee laid off, spending money on curriculum items is out of the question. Then I was pointed towards Spelling By Color. It's a FREE program that was developed by a homeschooling mom for use in her own home and she has shared it with the world. We've only done the first week but it's going great! Brianna's loving it! I'll review it further as we get more into it.

Tuesday - As busy as yesterday was, we had a quieter day today. We went further into what vitamins and minerals and water can do for your body. We had to do some google research to find answers, which Brianna thought was great.

Wednesday - More Health class... Fiber today. Brianna had to make a menu for a whole day that included enough fiber for a child her age. Her age group needs 25g of fiber. Her menu had 32 so I'd say she did pretty good!

Thursday -We did some plant life cycle work today for science. Brianna was surprised at how so many plants only live one year. We also learned about biennial and perennial plants.

Friday -Last night she spent the night with her father who was in town for the weekend. Today we ended up having no school because by the time she got home we were well into working on our back yard renovations. Instead she went to a neighbour's house and did some bead necklaces. She did however show off a bunch of her school work to her father, like her lapbook and a recent math a spelling test that she got 97% and 100% on. He was quite happy that she seems to be doing well with homeschooling.

Check out other weekly wrap-ups at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers!

French Food for Thought

Brianna's father gave her a set of French food word magnets this weekend. All day she's been randomly standing in front of the fridge making little French food sentences. 

I wish my phone/camera/computer would cooperate together so I could post pics!

Homeschooling and Divorce

I have read several things the last couple days that make me realize how lucky I am.

My ex and I don't have a custody agreement at all. It's verbal. When I told him about homeschooling the only thing he had to say was could *I* handle it (being having Brianna home all the time with her current behavioural issues). He didn't question whether I had lost my mind or that there was no way I could teach her, just whether I thought I could handle it.

I'm now seeing how much problems he could have caused but didn't. He's even purchased curriculum for us and helps with Brianna's French (his family is French, I am very much not). If I'm having issues with Brianna dawdling or whatever, he speaks on my behalf to her rather than telling me just to put her back in school.

As funny as it sounds, I feel very lucky to have divorced the person I did. 

Official Virus/Spyware

So my computer is officially dead :( Thankfully I'm now able to use mom's laptop. It's not ideal cause it's old and has issues, but it's better than being offline! I gotta figure out how to hook up my printer to it too. And of course I don't have all my awesome HSing bookmarks cause they're on the dead computer, but that's ok, I have some sites I wanted to check out written in my notebook.

I sooooo can't wait til we start HSing!!! Brianna got kicked by one of her bullies this week. Left a good sized bruise too. Did I hear about the incident from the school? Nope, found out about it from Brianna hours after she got home from school. So done with PS!


We're working on finishing up her old workbooks now so we can start on fresh ones with the beginning of homeschooling. Her father picked me up a Gr. 3 English book so now we're set to start up. There's still several workbooks I *want* to pick up, but nothing we'll be even opening til the new year so no hurry to buy them yet.

I Read Too Much

Finished another book today.... Homeschooling The Middle Years. Pretty good ideas. I can't wait to get a new ink cartridge tomorrow so I can start filing my ideas into lesson plans! Yes, I know I can hand make them, but I found a template for them that will make it so easy, so I'm printing blanks to fill in.

Brianna and I went to the library again today. I finally found her a homeschooling book from a kids perspective! It does have some religion in it, but it's just about prayers which Brianna knows about from going to church with her cousins. Otherwise it's a pretty cute book based on a 9 yr old. She talks about the positives of homeschooling compared to going to school which I'm trying to impress upon Brianna right now.

Picked up a couple more for me too, including a Canadian one finally! It's the only Canadian based one that the library has. Thankfully I have the internet to back me up on the rest. I wonder what more recent books there are for homeschoolers though since the newest I can find at the library is 2003. I also discovered that in the reference section (which unfortunately means I can't take it home) there's a activities for homeschoolers book. Apparently it has over 500 things to do with homeschool kids from 3-12. I'll have to peek into it frequently!

Also discovered that the teen section at the library isn't just fluff! I found loads of educational DVDs, videos and books there. Some are out of Brianna's range, but loads are within it! 


Talked to Brianna's father today about moving up her homeschool date (was originally after Christmas, now approx Nov 15th). He seemed ok with it once I explained it would be easier on me and the school to do it like that. He ask if I can do it. I told him of my worries, especially for French, but told him that was why I didn't just pull her out today. I want to have the time to feel more confident in our new route.