Homeschool Discoveries

First, an update on my DH, Tony (read about his bike accident in last week’s collage post if you missed that).   Tony had a doctor visit with a specialized surgeon on Tuesday, who then performed the second surgery Tony needed on his leg on Wednesday to repair the larger of the two broken bones and to do final reconstruction of the ankle joint (the bones were broken just above the ankle).  This was even outpatient surgery!  Tony and I spent the whole day at a surgery center while the kids hung out with Grandma (my mom).  We’re thankful that after this second surgery there are no pins sticking out from his leg — just a couple of strong splints tightly wrapped up to hold things in place.

Yesterday was a rough recovery day for him with lots of pain, but by this morning it looked like things were improving.  We’re still looking at about 2 weeks of DH having his leg elevated, plus several more weeks of no weight-bearing on the affected leg.  Luckily, since it is his left leg, he can start driving back into work as soon as he is off the stronger pain medication (and he can work from home in the mean time as soon as he is feeling up for it!).

My plan had been to only take Wednesday off from school, but Tuesday ended up being almost a wash as well — Miss M completed her independent work, but between Tony’s appointment, a trip to the DMV for a temporary handicap parking permit, gymnastics class and a trip to Target for prescriptions, we ran out of time for anything else!

Prior to the start of the new school week, on Sunday afternoon, the kids and I headed to the Minneapolis Institute of Art for their monthly Family Day.  This month’s theme was “China” due to the opening of a traveling exhibit featuring some of the Terracotta Warriors from the First Emperor’s tomb.  This exhibit typically has a hefty ticket fee, but it was free for family day! Yay!

They didn’t allow photography in the actual exhibit (just of this replica chariot outside the exhibit), but WOW! It was cool to see six warriors and two horses in real life (we’ve read about them in several books in past years).   Plus there were many other smaller artifacts to see.  I’m hoping we can go back for a tour with our co-op to hear a tour guide give more information about the exhibit.

The kids also enjoyed sculpting their own terracotta warriors, making animal hats (I missed getting a picture of this) and going on a “gallery hunt” to find pieces of Chinese artwork in various museum galleries.  Baby J is so happy to sit in his stroller and take it all in.  I’m happy to have a 4th child who is content to do this!

A few other highlights from our week:

• We got out the math balance for Mr E (Kindergarten) on Monday, and whizzed through the three lessons that use the balance in RightStart B.  Both Mr. E and Mr. K had fun playing with the balance. We completed two additional lessons as well, for a total of 5 math lessons (not bad considering he really only did school work on three days!).
• Mr. E decided he wanted to read a “harder book” this week, so over the course of the week he read about half of Danny and the Dinosaur with me.  We did a bit of spelling review, and that was all for formal Kindergarten work this week!
• I worked with Miss M on three lessons in RightStart D this week on numerical patterns and adding and subtracting time.  She did some additional work on her own from some of the earlier lessons (review material she can complete without a new lesson from me).
• In spelling, Miss M took the test on lesson 16 and wrote a long story using this lesson’s spelling words.  Unfortunately, she only got about half of the words correct on the test for this lesson, and I’m not sure where the breakdown in her understanding is happening.   Miss M also did her usual science reading/notebooking with Sassafras Science, and read some assorted history books.
• We had our first real snow of the year on Monday.  It mostly melted by the end of the day Tuesday, but that didn’t stop the kids from donning their snow gear and playing on Monday.
• With Tony less able to help around the house, it’s the perfect opportunity to give the kids more responsibility.  I taught Miss M how to make pancakes and french toast, and she was able to make the pancakes with almost no assistance from me — I just needed to get out the griddle and turn it on!
• In contrast to last week, we did tons of reading this week. We finished a couple of history read-alouds,  worked on “Liberty or Death” by the Maestros, and started a new family read aloud read by daddy — James and the Giant Peach.  We decided that reading time was a good way to spend the evening when daddy needs to stay lying down!  Grandma also read many, many extra stories to the kids while she was babysitting.  Lucky boys get three stories each at bedtime when Grandma is doing the reading!!!

Have a wonderful weekend!

I’m linking up with Collage Friday and the Weekly Wrap-Up.