Haiti and Earthquakes

Her Models so far in our Human Body study (above)

Skin Model (above)

Learning about Decimal Street and adding Hundreds (plus some spelling rule work)

Shelby's Decimal Street that she plays with her blocks on. (above)

This week for school we worked on our normal handwriting, spelling, phonics etc.

For Science we started off the week with Skin and the layers. Shelby informed me that I must have a lot of fat cells when we got to that part of our model. THANKS!

On Tuesday the Earthquake hit Haiti. We then shifted our attention to Earthquakes and where Haiti is on the globe. We have since been talking a lot about Haiti and natural disasters. Our skin unit is still going on but got pushed aside a little bit.

Math this past week we moved onto Hundreds in our Decimal Street. She really is starting to understand place value a lot more.

School is still going strong. I can't wait until after MDO ends in May though. At that point we really can focus more on school. I do not plan on returning next year to Mothers Day Out so that I can focus more on Matthew and Shelby's school work. Shelby asked me today when I will get to be with her everyday. She really enjoys sitting and learning about different things. On the days I do Mothers Day Out we do not have as much "class" time. Mainly she does work book pages or handwriting practice.

Staples are to hold the brain in

I can't believe I forgot to post this educational experience.

Last Tuesday night Matthew was jumping around the house like he normally does. I swear they shaved him as a baby and handed him to me (he really is a monkey). He was trying to give Abigail a kiss goodnight and climbed on the arm chair by the fireplace. He slipped and hit his head right on the corner. I thought I had this fireplace blocked with Abigails play yard and the chair but Matthew still managed to get hurt.

Matthew passed out for about 2 minutes and was bleeding. I went to him and thought he was just stunned (like his breath got knocked out). I grabbed a towel for the blood and had Shelby get the phone. I dialed my parents to have them come over to watch Shelby and Abigail. By that time Matthew was awake and screaming. The blood freaked him out.

I carried him to the bathroom and we cleaned up his head and my hands. I finally saw that the wound was not that big but probably would need a staple or two. When my parents got there we got Matthew to walk (he was not wanting to up until then). My dad and I drove to the hospital and my mom stayed with the girls.

At the hospital they got him back pretty quickly. The doctor looked at him and said he would need a CAT scan and one staple. He came back and cleaned Matthew's wound with a "squirt gun" (what I called the syringe with water) and then quickly stapled the wound. Matthew just said "That Hurt" and had no tears. Then the guy took Matthew in a cool Wheelchair to the CAT scan. "Princess Sarah" took him and laid him in the "space ship" for his "ride" (again a story I told him to keep him calm). The results of the CAT scan came back quickly and all was clear. We then signed him out and got to go back in 5 days to remove the staple.

Matthew told Daddy when he got home that he had a staple in his head to hold in the brains. At least the staple had a good purpose.

Matthew LOVED the experience and bragged about his space ship ride and wheelchair.

What we learned ... head wounds bleed a LOT, the skull is the bone that holds the brain in, staples don't hurt coming out but do hurt going in, CAT scans are cool but cost a LOT of money, and most importantly ... NO MORE CLIMBING ON CHAIRS!

First week of January

This week we started back to school after our Christmas Break.

Shelby got to start a new Explode the Code book and Handwriting without Tears.

We also started a Math Unit on Decimal Placement. We created Decimal Street with a "Units" house, "Tens" house and "Hundreds" house. We used our blocks and 10's sticks to understand what Place value is. Next week we will start with the Hundreds. Shelby really started to grasp the concept of Place Value. Before she would try to add the numbers together instead of seeing it as an individual number. Now she can show me with 10's sticks and units the number 38 (for example) and if I show her the number with blocks she can write the number 38 in an instant. We have finally broke through a wall she was having. Hopefully this will really help her with her addition and subtraction facts.

She also knows that there can only be 9 units before it turns into a "ten" and 9 "tens" before it turns into a hundred. WOO HOO. She did great on her test at the end of the week and was able to explain everything to me.

We also started back up our spelling words this week. As we work on them we review the rules that any of the words may be following. She got all of her spelling words correct and was even able to tell me that the words "but" & "and" are conjunctions. She also was able to explain to me that a conjunction connects two ideas.

We watched Linnea in Monet's Garden, Animal Planet video's "Growing up American Black Bear, Growing up Zebra, & Growing up Lion". We watched one Planet Earth video :Ice Worlds" as well.

We have started reading "The Borrowers" nightly.

10 years

This post will not really be about school but about our family and the past 10 years.

In the past 10 years Mike and I have been through infertility, the loss of grandparents, the loss of great grandparents and the loss of a mother. We have survived my years of depression, years of unknown sickness and hospital visits. We have survived the loss of jobs, being jobless and losing a home.

We overcame infertility and have three children to show for it. 10 years ago I pictured myself giving birth HIGHLY medicated, yet gave birth without meds twice (recommend it highly). I would have never imagined myself homeschooling, yet that is what we now are doing.

I am very proud of who I am becoming and though I still struggle at times I am proud of the things I am doing today. I am very proud of Mike for working with the same company for 5 years (even though there are times he hates it) and doing what he needs to in order to provide for our family.

I look forward to the next 10 years and what it will bring to our lives. ... someone remind me I said this when we hit the hormonal teenage years.

Shelby map work

This is a video of Shelby doing her Map work at the end of a day. We have moved from the schoolroom into the living room at this point. Matthew had come into watch TV and Abigail was trying to get my attention. Mommy was tired and trying to not get frustrated. Shelby got nervous with the camera and loss her place but you do get to see her read, know her North, South, East and West.

Week 17- completing school work

Here are some pictures of Shelby doing her schoolwork and finishing up some of her books. Abigail is sitting in her high chair "working" too. Abigail loves to do puzzles, play with stickers, color, work with beads and all sorts of fun things while Shelby does school. Abigail likes to feel like a big girl.

We will do one more day of school work before we go on Christmas Break next week. This is to catch up on some work we got behind on. Then we take a break for a week or two (depends on our mood).

Week 17 - Mothers Day Out Performance

This week the kids had their Mothers Day Out Performance. The video's are already posted for Matthew and Abigail. In the slide show are some pictures of the kids decorating cookies at home this week. We made several different kids for Shelby to take to her one day a week school.

We also FINALLY got up our Christmas tree. Mike again is working 12 hour days this week but I found time to get it done.

On Thursday this week Abigail and Matthew had their Christmas party at school. There are a few shots of them in the slide show. Abigail is next to her friend Natalie and Matthew is posing with his best friend Colton.

I will put Shelby's school day and work on another post!