Procrastination and Fatigued a nasty combination!

I may be the world’s worst blog writer. lol(Am I allowed to use text speak in blogging?)

Another year nearly gone and I’ve done little to none on my precious blog.

More illness, more meds, more fun.

Oh but there was more fun! More homeschooling, including a new adventuring in taking part in helping to create a Charlotte Mason Method Co-Op! With all the riches of Composer study, Hymns, Artist study, Poetry and Nature study in a group of 30 kids! Including a day at the local Arboretum where we had a close encounter with a full grown female Moose!

The time of the year is coming for New Year’s resolutions something I’ve never been fond of mostly because I’ve never managed to keep any. Perhaps this is the year to do so.

Along with that Co-op has come the formation of a monthly Mother Culture group (A subject for an upcoming post). Something I hope will improve the odds of my new years resolution. Pray for me! lol

Blissful homeschooling

We are four weeks into our 2nd full year full year of homeschooling (we had half a year before that after we withdrew him from public kindergarten). So far it is is going amazing.

This is our second year using the Charlotte Mason Method to homeschool. Last year did not go as well as I would have preferred. We had many interruptions by both my illnesses and some other life circumstances. We of course met a “minimum” standard of the basics(good enough for public school) but it wasn’t my hope. Which is something that happens often with a chronic illness life.

Our school day essentially consists of reading great living books on our topics(such as history) and Torren narrating it back in his own words and thoughts. He can pick the parts of the literature that he thinks are the most important. I don’t correct his narrations but I will at times ask some prompting questions. It’s amazing how he has progressed since last year and by no doing of my own. It shows me how much he is changing and growing on his own. He looks forward to our readings, he requested we read our Shakespeare reading first the other week (it was Two Gentlemen of Verona). At the end he exclaimed…it’s over! Just today he asked me if we were going to listen to more Shakespeare, it warmed my heart.

Not only do we read great things we listen to great music (Beethoven this term) and study great art (Picasso for this term).  We have always taken T to art galleries since before he could walk and continued as he aged. We were at a great local gallery and he was able to meet and talk with an Artist whom he enjoyed the work of. She was very kind and enthusiastic that he enjoyed visiting galleries. She encouraged him in his own art and even gave him a small piece or her’s and signed it! I know he enjoys it because today while walking by that same gallery with Grandma he wanted to bring her in to show her all the artwork.

Another component of our homeschool is Nature Study. Hands on! As I have said in previous posts we love having my Sister along to share her knowledge but we fair pretty well on our own as well. We just picked up another great field guide for our collection. I also have the great Handbook of Nature study which is amazing.

I love being able to see the connections in his brain form and his understanding and interpretation of the world grow first hand. Something that I would miss if he was attending a Public School.

Homeschooling in the Outdoors

While we don’t exactly homeschool year round I do try to take advantage of as many opportunities to further our(because I tend to learn just as much as T does) education.

We had the opportunity to not only take a trip to Glacier National Park but with T’s Aunt(My younger Sister) who has a BA in Wildlife Biology. It’s amazing how much more fun it is for both T and myself to explore nature with her. It’s wonderful to explore nature on our own but it seems to be another level when you have someone with much  more knowledge there to either answer your questions or help guide your seeking of answers.

We stayed at the historic Lake McDonald lodge which was great but at $200 a night I would have preferred to at least get a discount on the breakfast. The food was amazing though. We stayed several nights and ate dinner at the lodge. The lamb chops were awesome.

T decided to take a dip in the freezing cold glacier and snow run off that is called Lake Mcdonald.

BRRR!

We wondered over to another side of the lake one day looking for a nice place to have lunch. What we found was an amazing view and a beach full of flat smooth skipping stones. Every stone was a perfect skipping stone. We ate lunch, skipped some stones and T set out on building a little raft out of drift wood. Which after setting a sail he proceeded in attempting to sink it with rocks from afar.

We went on an hour long horseback ride through Glacier’s Old growth inland rainforest. We had the superb luck of having an amazing guide AND being seated on a horse near the front of the line. He was amazing and interactive. Giving T a tour of all the different plants and discussions on how the rainforest is different from other areas of the park. He also put up to a bit of a scavenger hunt to count all the uprooted trees he could. This was not the first horseback ride that T had participated in so he was pretty confident on the horse which freed up his mind to engage in more education. I myself hadn’t been on a horse in close to 17 years. I was not as successful in absorbing all the great facts given. Since my Psoriatic Arthritis affects my joints I was dealing with a screaming body the last 15 mins while T was attempting to take a nap on the horse. A feat of which he would have succeeded had it not been for the guide’s and my insistence to sit up!
Sorry no pictures of the horse ride as camera’s are prohibited. Full attention on the horse and the trail please!

We also had the great pleasure of taking a tour on the vessel Desmet on Lake Mcdonald. It is a highly educational tour and fun as well! I definitely recommend it for anyone making a trip to Glacier.  We learned how the two sides of the lakes are much different forests. We heard about previous fires that went through the area and the Park’s policies on handling forest fires.

The Desmet was built in 1929 by Captain Swanson for the Great Norther Railroad. The railroad was attempting to increase the amount of people who visited the park. At the only way to get to the Park was via their trains. The Railroad built the Chalets and lodges commissioned Swanson to build boats to both transport visitors as well as an entertainment draw.  Desmet was the only way to reach the Lake Mcdonald Lodge until the Going to the sun Road was completed in 1932. The Desmet is 57 feet long and can carry 70 passengers. It is constantly seeking due to it’s age so it is equipped with pumps that constantly pump water out of the hull of the boat. An interesting tidbit to learn while you are sailing in the middle of Lake Mcdonald.

Desmet Docked up

Sunny day for a boat ride!

Due to our visit taking place in early June we were not able to drive the entire distance of the Going to the Sun Road. The plows were still working on clearing all the snow off the road. We did drive out and around to the other side of the park near Many Glaciers. There we decided to take an impromptu hike at Apikuni Falls trail. The sign says 1 miles what if fails to say is that you gain 500 feet in less then half a mile. I was determined to make it to the falls. I did make it to where we could see the falls.

We did not go all the way to the falls as we would have had to walk across a shale rock face. Something that I learned all to well as a child is not a fun thing to deal with. They are unstable, easy to slip and fall(and this one had a very nasty strait drop about 10 feet from the trail). They also have a great potential to cut a person as they are falling. Something that even my younger(and much healthier sister) said that she and her fiance did not want to attempt. It is also something I would never do with my child in tow.

I’m am still amazed by the memories of my mother taking her four children (another would follow soon after) hiking in Yellowstone and Glacier. I vividly recall a hike we did in Yellowstone that was quite literally on the edge of a great cliff. I remember my sister who was only a toddler at the time attempting to push her way past me (what can I saw she has always been the more adventurous one) and quite nearly falling off said cliff. I don’t know how she handled it without having a heart attack!

As with any wild adventure it is most important to be prepared. During our wonderful hikes we had not only water and survival gear(matches, first aid kit, some food) but BEAR SPRAY. Bear spray is a most important piece of gear when hiking in the outdoors. It could easily be the difference between life and death. Keep it with you, handy and know how to use it.

The unorganized homeschooler.

Obviously I am not as organized as I would wish to be(evident by my lack of consistent blogging). So my new “homeschool” year resolution is to work on my consistency and attempt to not let the craziness of life interfere with the goal.

We finished our first “year” of homeschool this spring and I can say it went amazingly well. Even with the added “bonus” of my medication(Simponi) failing. It seems my tricky little immune system manage to find it’s way around the meds. So I had to regroup and cut back on some of the homeschool outings but we made it through.

I learned a lot this year from homeschooling.

1. My child does not have to spend 6 hours of his day “learning” through school. We were able to accomplish everything he would at Public School(if not more) in only a few structured hours during the day. The rest of our time was spent playing(aka learning in disguise), many fun outings, and reading(mostly I to him as he still doesn’t feel to confident).
2. I do not have to follow any particular “curriculum” to be successful.
3. That I am capable of creating my own lesson plans.
   • This revelation came out of necessity. We were using lesson Pathways for science(which I love) and T(my son) began complaining that we were doing enough science experiments(something he is obsessed with). We had been studying the Oceans(and the animals/plants within it), the Continents and their various habitats etc. Subjects that do not lend themselves very well to at home hands on experiments. So I told him I would come up with a new subject and some experiments. We decided on a unit about Germs!
   • I already knew that there was a great episode of Magic School bus on Netflix that would work perfectly with the more Scientific structured learning that we had to do. So I began my research for kid friendly sites and ideas. We ended up with a site that was geared more towards Middle School students but that I was able to adjust the info to fit T.
   • Lastly we rounded it all off with an experiment to grow germs. We made a mixture of Gelatin and water for our petri dish base. We used clear plastic cups as our petri dishes. I then had him choose four areas of the home to swab with a cotton swab. He then took the swab and gently rubbed it onto the now set gelatin. T chose to swab, the kitchen sink, the toilet bowl(eww), his mouth and his cat Jinxy’s mouth. We covered our cups with saran wrap and prepared to wait. I think asked him to make a guess(a hypothesis) about which swab would grow the most germs. His response, “Jinxy’s mouth because she likes my tongue”. OK didn’t know that little tib bit was happening, but a valid thought on his part.
   • So as time went on we grew more and more germs and it turned out T’s mouth is dirtier(at least that day) then all the house, including the cat’s.
4. Despite my own fears and doubts that may have said otherwise, I didn’t screw my son’s education up. He came out of our first year just fine. We are now getting ready to start our second school year and entering 2nd grade work.
5. Lastly but perhaps the most important lesson…take the time to just enjoy T while he is little.

Homeschooling, Pain and a Cold!

I admit we didn’t get much done today. I waved the white flag for the day!

I’m tired, in pain and have a nasty head cold.

We did some reading and some math online. We talked about science does that count? Or perhaps watching the cold virus multiply in my body should count.

Oh he also do some writing practice while I “supervised” from the couch.

Any cold remedies tips? Leave them in the comments below!

Homeschooling with Chronic pain!?

As we close day two of homeschooling with chronic pain I have learned a lot.
1: It doesn’t really matter WHEN we start just that we finish most of what we set out to do by bedtime.
2: kindergarten is supposed to be fun and is largely so.
3: Be careful about including too much high activity and/or activities that require standing in a single day.

On day one we started more on the early side. I was feeling rested and eager to start. We began around 9 am with some reading. Found some great short reading material on this site. Thank you for the creator of that great resource as it has helped a lot!

We then moved onto some math games online for a while. Followed by a bit of writing practice with letters. Nothing to strenuous but hopefully fulfilling educationally. Then came the exciting part(for him) and the painful part(for me). Science experiments! I had started planning on only doing one or two short experiments from our kit(thanks to my brother), but we ended up doing about 5 related ones. That’s when things got tricky and I also forgot to pay attention to my inner alarm clock. I ignored the alarm to sit down and take a rest and instead hit the snooze button a few to many times.

This resulted in a more painful day two of homeschooling. We started today MUCH later. I don’t think we really began until well close to 1 pm. I just couldn’t get moving, both mentally and physically. Who thought a few simple things the day before would make so much pain, but atlas we began. First with some writing once again. Then some math problems; simple addition and subtraction problems put together by yours truly. Then we moved onto some reading, getting a bit more complicated in length and newer words. We skipped the science experiments for a day and instead went with some math games via the tablet as well as some rhymes. We did revisit the science via youtube and educational videos that corresponded with what we learned yesterday. We also ended the evening with a great episode on hulu about bugs in the Rain Forest.

All in all I think it has been a successful first few days of homeschooling. Yes I hurt but as time comes on I hope to learn to pay closer attention to my body and what it can handle.

We will see…

New Beginnings.

I have been gone quite a while. Been dealing with all the fun(yeah right) medical stuff, and a child starting kindergarten and new meds and Christmas..(tired yet?). As everything appears to be settling down it is beginning to be quite the opposite.

My wonderful little boy was not satisfied in kinder, as happens many times when a child just over the cut off point gets stuck in kinder a year later. The state of WA(like many other states) no longer tests students into an appropriate grade, therefore he was stuck in a classroom where he knows most of the curriculum. We decided to try it anyways to see how it went as we all know social learning is a big aspect. But at last he was bored and the school kept loosing him(how do you loose a 6 year old multiple times in a week?), so we will be embarking on the journey of Homeschooling with chronic pain.

Stay tuned for what is sure to be an adventure!