Weekly Wrap Up/Tot School x2 - 11/4/16

Our neighbours had a family emergency last week, so Brianna had a short week of school while she took care of their kids so they could be at the hospital in the next city, an hour away. Add in yet ANOTHER round of snot in my house, it made for a fairly unproductive week.

I have my major show of the year this weekend, both days, so I've been spending 8-12 hours a day in my office making stock. Because I hand-make everything I sell, prepping for shows of any kind is very time consuming. I do love it, but I wish my house ran it's self while I was busy.

Because of me living in my office, school has mostly consisted of computer work (Time4Learning for Brianna, Reading Eggs/Math Seeds for Olivia) and unschooling. I haven't done set preschool with Joshua in a couple weeks, but we all know, learning continues even if there's no formal teaching! Joshua now counts to 20 and is working on dressing himself. Even my blog has suffered. I have like 13 draft posts with post ideas, but no time to write them!

While this huge show is exciting and I hope to gain loads of new contacts and customers, I can't wait for it to be over and life can slow down again!

Brianna has re-found our math help book and has been discovering how helpful it is to her schoolwork

One of the kids favorite shirts that I make is called a Candy Pocket. In our house though, it's a kitty pocket!

Cars are probably the most important thing to Joshua after food and snuggles

Sure, not the proper way to play with these monkeys, but still works on fine motor skills!

Brianna took a paint class last weekend and came home with this! I was super impressed. She is not good at drawing things or people, but is apparently quite good at landscapes!

Olivia's hand/eye coordination is amazing with this tape the tiles app. I'm amazed how fast she can go!

Halloween!

Joshua loves to watch Olivia do her schoolwork

Joshua is very determined in his independence

Brianna was was feeling particularly crappy so I told her to go take a nap. She refused and continued her schoolwork. Later, I looked over and found this. I guess I won... 

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers, Practical Mom, 1+1+1=1, Homeschool Creations and Hip Homeschool Mom

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.

Weekly Wrap Up - 10/7/16

We had a very slow week due to illness floating through the house *again.* There was a lot of Minecraft playing and YouTube watching.

I got Olivia an abacus to help with her math. She's working on time right now and was disappointed that her abacus doesn't apply to time so she just played with it. I showed her how it works to add larger numbers (which is so much easier than her counting out a zillion math jewels).

We started doing Lego challenges. They help with fine motor skills, patience and creative thinking. And hell, they're just fun! The girls each got 100 random pieces and had to create something that used every piece. It's a lot harder than it sounds! Sadly, I didn't think to grab a pic of their completed projects, but Brianna made a giant human powered/ride on robot and Olivia made a YouTube video making lab.

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and Hip Homeschool Mom

The Ultra Sick Week

As it's been all winter, everyone seems to be sick. I don't think we've had the entire house healthy since November.

I got slammed suddenly with the worst strep throat I've ever had. Friday, I was fine, felt like maybe I was coming down with a head cold by bed time. Sat morning I woke up and thought I was dying. I was sweating profusely like it was a heat wave in August, to shivering uncontrollably like it was -50 degrees. My thermometer battery is dead, but Lee says I had a pretty high fever. Went to the ER to get meds (we don't have regular clinics that are open on the weekend), dr saw I don't get flu shots and tried to insist it's the flu "because I don't get a flu shot" *roll eyes*. How about you LOOK at my throat, since that's my biggest complaint?? Finally convince him to look - oh! Looks like strep throat. Gee, really?? Other than going to the ER, I pretty much slept Sat-Mon. By Wednesday I was finally starting to feel slightly on the mend.

Brianna has had a horrible hacking cough. It has gone no where for weeks. It's not even getting better. She just sounds like she's going to cough up a lung several times a day. Otherwise she was fine. Wednesday she suddenly got very cold after she finished her schoolwork and asked to take a nap. We didn't see her again until about 10pm. Thursday and Friday she went up and down on fevers and bathroom trips.

Olivia likes to over-do everything and get multiple illnesses. On Sat, she developed this odd rash. Looked like simple hives, an allergic reaction. Except she's not typically an allergy kid and hasn't been exposed to anything new lately anyway. Then Sunday, starts popping up with an impetigo-like rash on her face (not surprising as a friend had it last week). Monday, starts having a "scratchy" tongue. *sigh* By Thursday her rashes we gone but she was still "turning into a cat" (since our cat, Bacon, has a scratchy tongue and so does she, she must be turning into a cat).

Joshua spent the week spreading snot everywhere and coughing on people (we are *trying* to work on nose blowing and covering his mouth).

Thankfully, mom and Lee seemed to be mostly spared. Lee got a bit of a cough but nothing else and mom seems to have escaped completely.

We did minimal school this week. A mix of the stuff even Olivia could do on her own and the stuff that she would allow Brianna to help her with. The basics for Brianna. Throw in a few movies (French for Kids, Dogs with Jobs (which was really enjoyed!)) and that was about it.

Daddy got to help out with schoolwork too

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

Weekly Wrap Up - Feb 12th

That's how most of our weekend/week was spent. Piles upon piles of Kleenex. Several illnesses in a row have floated their way through my house since Christmas. We're normally healthy people so this has been quite annoying.

Brianna did manage to get some schoolwork done but I had no energy to sit with Olivia to do hers most of the week.

We continued reading Our Canadian Girl: Rachel and Brianna watched a few more episodes of World War II in Color. Olivia started back on Khan Academy which she did really well with.

We seem to be all on the mend now, so hopefully next week will be more normal!

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers

Day in the Life

I haven't done one of these in a while (last one was here)

This Day in the Life starts at midnight, since I was still up, dyeing (is that a word? lol) and cutting my hair. Yeah, I'm a night owl. Thankfully though, I'm lucky enough to have a hubby, a morning person, who happens to get off work shortly before the other morning person (Olivia) gets up. Meaning me and the other not morning person (Brianna) can sleep in.

2:08am - I go to bed

6:52am - Olivia wakes up and calls for either me or Lee. Thankfully I hear Lee talking to her so I can go back to sleep

8:59am - one minute before my alarm goes off, the phone rings *grumble, grumble*

9:02am - ship Lee off to bed and try to figure out why Olivia shirt is sopping wet

9:04am - I sit down with a coffee and discuss with Brianna whether she's really still sick or if she wants to just play the DS again all day. Not having to go back to bed wins and Brianna finds breakfast.

9:13am - talk to my sister and find out the my BIL is driving Tanya to school today. He says they're leaving at 9:45... whether that's am or pm, who knows (my BIL is notoriously slooooow)

9:33am - send Brianna to get dressed and do her morning chores and eat a bagel. Olivia's curled up on the couch watching her shows.

10:02am - The girls sit and play the DS together while we wait for Tanya to get here. I get working on printing out school stuff

10:06am - Wooo! BIL wasn't as late as usual and Tanya is here.

10:08am - Olivia tries to bounce her face off the floor so we make things all better by "feeding" the ferrets (shoving bits of cat food through the cage bars)

10:15am - The girls settle down to fixing their longitude/latitude chart for their Mystery Class from last week. Olivia insists on doing her school work too

10:32am - Tot School is ditched for Toopy and Binoo

10:34am - tell the girls that they better get school done so we can go to our field trip (which probably wasn't the best idea cause now they're yapping about the field trip instead of doing school lol)

10:37am - somehow, they lapse into talking about Terry Fox....

10:49am - explaining to the girls about their Mystery Class journal page (in which they predict what their photo period graphs will look like at the end of the month) that that's only 2 weeks from now and not the summertime so they should make educated guesses based on the current photo periods and now much they would move by the end of the month (meaning we probably won't suddenly jump from 11.5 hrs of sunlight to 15 lol)

11:26 am - Finally starting the girls on other school work, Tanya, English and Brianna, math.

11:30am - Olivia demands a red crayon to do school work in her notebook then *needs* to show Grandma her sunglasses

11:40am - Handwriting practice talks about the Wright Brothers so we head off on a mini rabbit trail about the first flights.

11:48am - Hook Olivia up with a peanut butter sandwich and a bowl of yogurt for lunch, big surprise, the yogurt gets put on the sandwich

11:52am - my sister shows up to go to school (I live next door to her college)

12:04pm - set up the girls with their lunches and have them continue school work since they piddled around all morning taking 2 hours to do 30 minutes of work.

12:22pm - argue with Olivia that the sunshine streaming into her room at nap time isn't too dark, but too bright lol

12:28pm - Let Lee know that we're leaving and will be back before Olivia gets up so he can still lounge in bed.

12:36pm - Leave for the Invertebrates Workshop and the Ontario Power Generation Visitors Center

2:04pm - Back from the OPG center. The girls got OPG balloons and run balloon races through the kitchen.

2:13pm - Back to school work. The girls are finally done their review/assessment stuff and are working through actual curriculum.

3:04pm - random discussion on the difference between telescopes and microscopes (which has a lot to do with the math they're working on lol)

3:26pm - Olivia gets up and wants to wake up Daddy and have a snack. The girls hear about Olivia's snack and suddenly fall hungry

3:52pm - The girls each earned an extra page of school work for their dawdling

4:08pm - FINALLY onto this week's Geography

4:36pm - My sister comes back from school and we discuss her class while the girls screw around do their work

6:02pm - Tanya is finally done her work and goes home

6:06pm - Olivia's balloon pops and she's soothed by doing her dinosaur pre-writing page

6:13pm - Olivia switches to tracing her name and coloring Dora shapes and with Brianna finally done she plays with the Canada magnet set

6:22pm - Brianna and Olivia declare snuggle time before supper to watch Backyardigans

6:40pm - supper time!

6:59pm - I reply to an email from The Canadian Homeschooler about putting together a blog post about homeschooling in Ontario

7:03pm - Olivia suckered Lee into watching cartoons in our bed and Brianna slooooowly got started on her evening chores.

7:08pm - actually paying attention to the tv (when it's not Toopy and Binoo on) lasted about 3 seconds longer than it normally did and Olivia's off to the tub while Brianna takes 6 years to do a load of dishes.

7:14pm - discussing with Brianna what 30 minutes of exercise a day really means.... ya know, swinging your legs off a chair while you daydream doesn't count...

7:27pm - Brianna's turn in the shower, she's on a 10 minute time limit or she stay in there til the water runs cold.

7:42pm - after braiding Olivia's hair she wants to play her game (ReadingEggs). She's still stuck on a sounding out lesson  so we switch to StarFall.

7:58pm - Olivia's off to snuggle with Daddy before bed (and con him into watching Cat in the Hat lol) and Brianna is making up her own version of Go Fish!

8:31pm - Olivia come down for "one more kiss" and Lee puts her to bed.

9:03pm - Brianna decides that she's going to exercise before bed and starts running in circles in the living room

9:34pm - Lee leaves for work

9:39pm - I ship Brianna off to bed and explain to Olivia that it's supposed to be dark in her room and no she doesn't need a flashlight.

9:45pm - I sit at my desk to check facebook and try to find Tanya an English curriculum that isn't book based (while I think book based curriculum is great, I prefer ones that CAN be used with books instead of one that MUST be used with books)

10:43pm - No luck in finding more than 2 worksheets for Tanya so far, but I did find 2 French sites (here and here) and a Catholic site for my sister....

10:52pm - Give up for the night and work on some marking from last week

11:57pm - Organize pictures and links for today's blog post

12:52am - off to bed!!