It Was A Long Day!!!!

Today was my mother's appts. We left for Atlanta at 8:15 and didn't return home until 5:30. She had lab at 10:15 that went off without a hitch then the chemical oncologist at 11:15. We were not put into the exam room until 2:00. Then the doctor didn't come in until 2:25. Once he arrived we had lots to discuss. My mother still has 1 confirmed nodule and 2 other possible nodules in her neck (recurrence of thyroid cancer). This is her 8th year of treatments and they have finally decided after many surgeries and radiation treatments to go with chemo. This will not be your traditional chemo treatments. She will be taking a chemo pill twice a day every day for the rest of her life as long as she tolerates the medication without too many side effects. Mom is not to keen on this especially after fighting this for 8 years. Please pray that when she does start the chemo that there will be few side effects. The doctor did say that this medication had great success rates with stopping the growth of the cancer and sometimes shrinking.

Fun Day

I decided today would be kind of a hands on day. We did go to Trinity this morning and Grace had her normal classes of choir, drama, and handicrafts. After lunch we starte putting together a solar system kit (mainly painting), her father will have to finish it with her tomorrow while I am in Atlanta with mother for doctor's appointments. While we were painting we watched the last three episodes of Liberty Kids and finished the entire series. Took about 8 weeks getting all the discs from Netflix. Once we were finished with those two endeavors we made bird suet, it is all in the freezer, we will be able to put one out tomorrow. Now Grace is playing online on Horse Isle and tonight she still needs to read. All in all I think it was a pretty educational day even though we did not do any book work. I am thinking sometimes maybe we should have alot more of those. My mind wonders to unschooling very frequently these days.

Free Science Unit

Here is a link to a free science unit a fellow blogger showed me, it looks very interesting: www.eequalsmcq.com/classicsinfo.htm.

Composer Co-op Today

Today's class was about Bach. I created a poster with images from the Baroque period so the kids could get a grasp as to what happend during that time period. We read a short bio about Bach and his family. The music I choose for us to listen was played on the organ and violin. While we were listening to the chosen pieces of music I had a art project for the kids to work on.

Sunday

On Friday Grace started this puzzle of Lewis and Clark's Expedition. With help from a friend she finished it today. Today was a typical Sunday. We went to church this morning and back again this evening for small group. I cleaned for a little this afternoon because we will be having co-op here tomorrow afternoon. I am on day 4 of the diet and I guess it is going okay. I am thinking about food all of the time but hanging in there. I am trying to get the diet thing under control and in a couple of weeks start with some sort of exercise program. I will be taking my mom back to Emory on Wednesday for more appointments. Here biopsy came back positive for the thyroid cancer which was expected. Will have to wait and see what the chemical oncologist says we are to do next. This has been an ongoing process for the past 7 - 8 years.

Raining Again and a Flea Market Visit

Okay, its raining again. Today we have already received over three inches to add to the 11 inches we got last week. If you haven't seen the pictures in the news some parts of Georgia got hit pretty bad with flooding. Our plans were to get up this morning and go to a flea market in Athens (the largest in the state) but part of it is outside and with the rain that was a no go. So instead we head to an indoor market. Not exactly the same but still fun to walk around. Grace was able to get three beanie babies and one webkinz for eleven dollars. I of course being the homeschool mother that I am got books. Two art books, one about the US capital, one for Bible, one about mammals, and one about the State of Georgia for our history project and all for eight dollars. Tonight Grace and hubby went to the monthly dodge ball game at the church and I am sure are having a blast. Me, I decided to stay home and play on the computer.

School Today

Bible - read about how Jesus and the discples came together.

History - read the first chapter from Back to the Beyond which is about Lewis and Clark. We are also putting a puzzle together that shows were they went. Grace really likes Lewis and Clark and will enjoy this one.

Science - read the first chapter from our Solar System book. Today we just looked at the solar system as a whole and about the orbits of planets and rotations. We also watched a short video about the solar system. Also read a small part of a book called What do you Know about the Solar System.

Grammar - we did a short worksheet about abbreviations in titles.

Typing for 15 minutes and reading for 30 minutes.

Math - two pages of large digit multiplication.

After we finished with school we went to a friends house for a playdate and the girls swam all afternoon. This may have been the last swim of the season. Tonight Grace is helping her dad make a cradle for her build a bear bunny.

Can You Find Me

Can you find me!

Here I am! Grace took these pictures today as we were going in to the animal hospital. Mr. Lizard was hiding in a rose bush.

It Went So Fast

Today that is. Alot was accomplished today. This morning we woke up and went to Trinity for Drama and Handicrafts. Didn't go to choir today because the group went to sing at a nursing home and Grace doesn't know the music yet she has only gone to one class. In drama we got our schedule for practices for Willy Wonka. All I can say is the next three months before performance are going to be hectic. Oh, I forgot to mention I started a diet today. I have gained 11 pounds in the past year and can't fit in to any of my clothes. All things considered I didn't feel too deprived. After lunch we did our own school work for the day. History, Math, Bible, Spelling, Creative Writing, Art, and Literature. After dinner we headed to my mother's house and we all went on a walk with our dogs. Hung out there for a while and then back to our house. Over the summer Grace had read the Illustrated Classics version of Little Women and just loved it. So for a treat, tonight we watched the 1994 version and she really liked it. Still was upset that Beth had to die. She thought maybe she wouldn't in the movie version. Tomorrow proves to be another busy day.

Last Night's Performance

Everything went off without a hitch. All the kids in the elementary group and high school group did a wonderful job. Only problem, I powered up my camera to take the first picture and battery went dead. Ugh!!!! So no pictures of the performance, you will just have to take my word for it that they all did a great job. Grace was very nervous before and couldn't eat her dinner so she ended up eating at 9:00 last night after we got home. Glad we got our first performance of the year under our bels. Thursday we get to start working on Willy Wonka Jr. and all the kids are so excited. This will be performed in December.

Yeah ! Sunshine!

After 8 days of rain and gloom we finally have some sunshine. Lots of flooding in Georgia the past two days. Of course they are predicating rain again tonight. But it is so nice to see the sun. Today was a pretty regular day. Grace started chorus today and we practice our skits in drama that we will be performing tonight. Luckily she is not nervous at all. Because of the three hours of fine arts classes this morning we did a shortened day of book work here at home. We finished our book about the skeletal system and will be moving on to space and planets. She also had Bible time, spelling, grammar, reading, art, and a liberty kids episode. Only one more disc of liberty kids and we can finally move out of The American Revolution. I think next it will be constructing Washington D.C. then Lewis and Clark. Looking forward to tonight - going out for mexican before the performances.

Rain Rain Go Away

It has been raining for 7 straight days. According to the weather reports we will have another 7 days of rain. I would love to see the sunshine about right now. But we do have a well and rain is great for wells. Won't have to worry about shortages for awhile.

This weekend was pretty typical. Nothing really special happened. Friday afternoon we went to a birthday party and ran alot of errands. Spent alot of money. Saturday went and got some art supplies and Grace drew and sculpted all day. Sunday was church and just laying around not doing much. Right now hubby and Grace are working with the clay again and I am cooking dinner. Nothing special, just pizza, salad and some leftover pasta salad for fellowship meal today at church.

Looking forward to a new week - except the rain.

Trinity News

The choir teacher at Trinity came to us today to ask if Grace would be interested in joining choir on a scholarship. She indicated that they needed more strong voices that could stay on pitch and she invited Grace. Grace is thrilled. She is really loving Trinity this year and loves being able to add one more fine arts class to her schedule. In drama today one of the skits was cut because two of the children didn't have their lines memorized and there was no way this could be polished by performance on Tuesday of next week. Grace was somewhat upset because she had a large part in this skit, but all is not lost they will be performing it during a Christmas performance. She still has one more skit that she has a bigger role in and is looking for to performing it. After our performance on Tuesday we will be able to start concentrating on Willy Wonka. Yeah! The drama group is looking so forward to doing this musical, the music is just great.

Wednesday

One of the items that we really need to work on this year is writing. I will be assigning 4 days a week of some kind of writing. Usually narrations, journal, or like today a story. I purchased this writing prompt material at a seminar about a year ago from Ruth Martin. She is local and works with GHEA in Georgia.

This is the story prompt we choose for today. You are given a topic, list of questions to prompt your thoughts, and a list of interesting words to use in your story.

Here is the front of the booklet. It has many story prompts in it to choose from. We will probably be using this once a week.

Pond Activity

Artist and Composer Co-op

Today was our first class about Artists and Composers that I am teaching at my house. I chose N.C.Wyeth as our first artist. Here is a few interesting facts about him: He was born in 1882 and died in 1945. Most of his work would be considered illustrations and he had his first illustration put in The Saturday Evening Post when he was 21 years old. Mr. Wyeth also illustrated alot of the old classics like King Arthur, Robin Hood, Kidnapped, and Treasure Island. His son and grandson became very famous artists also. Today for our class we looked at examples of his work, read a short biography about him, colored one of his illustrations, and tried to recreate some of his paintings through sketching.

Peaceful Weekend

I mostly stayed at home and did nothing. Some light housework, lots of movie watching and cross stitching. Oh and blog reading. One Saturday slept in. Once everyone was awake, clean, and moving Grace invited a couple of friends over for the afternoon. While they were doing their thing I watching Glenn Beck on Fox for two hours and cross stitched. Saturday night volleyball at the church for Grace and hubby, I stayed home and watched a movie and cross stitched. Are you sensing a theme here? This morning went to church, Grace brought a friend over for the afternoon and I read blogs on the computer in between trimming and bathing our poodle. Off to church again in about an hour for small groups. Grace is attending children's choir and a lesson time. The lesson time is what she truly looks forward to. The man that heads this up at our church, his gift is for story telling is incredible. The kids just sit in awe listening to him. Tomorrow back to the daily grind. Tomorrow afternoon is my first co-op for Artists and Composers. I will blog about that later.

Good Day

School was really good today. I have found that Grace is not a morning person. She is much more alert, receptive, and just down right friendly if we school after lunch. Most days this isn't a problem, like today. We woke up this morning and I really needed to run some errands but didn't want to rush through school to do them. So I told her that I would run my errands first then come home and eat lunch then start school. Of course she was okay with this. It made our day run so much smoother. She did her math and written narration without a fuss. She is even doing her 30 minutes of independent reading during school time instead of putting it off until before bed. Today we learned more about bones and joints for science and Ben Frankling for history. Before we can continue on with our Georgia History project I need to get my printer fixed. One more week before that happens. After we finished with school we went out for an ice cream and off to the hospital to visit a friend that just delievered a baby.

What Today Looked Like

This morning we started out with our classes at Trinity. In drama the class is really coming along and we will be performing 4 Christian skits in about a week.Grace really loves performing and is learning more as each day passes. In our handicrafts class we finished making our angel. Once we got home we moved right in to our school work. We had 8 of our 12 workboxes filled today. Here are some of the items we accomplished today:

History - started a new book about Ben Franklin, read one chapter and she did a written narration.
Science- read the next chapter in The Search for the Missing Bones. This chapter was about the bones in our feet. Grace did a worksheet labeling a skeleton.
Grammar- Went over run on sentences.
Reading- read 30 minutes of a book of her choice.
Math - went over one page of math that she missed a few problems on then did another page of mostly addition and subtraction with large numbers. We should be moving on to multiplication and division next week.
Spelling - continued working on wk 14 word list and sentences. This is a eash list so not very challenging.
Spelling Blaster Game
Went on Kidzui and played a geography game to pick out all the states.
Bible - read about Nehemiah and will finish tomorrow.
P.E. - Grace and hubby went to play Tennis again. That is three times this week.

Best Laid Plans

You know what they say about best laid plans. We were to do school after lunch today. Well, here is what happened instead. Today was food pantry day at my church. Me and Grace normally go and work there for about 3 1/2 hours. Hubby is still on vacation so he came and worked with us. We decided to go to lunch afterwards and then by the library. So we didn't get home until 2:30. At this point Grace is just not in the mood and tired. I made a deal with her. If she would read for 30 minutes, play a geography game online that has her naming the states, and play her spelling blaster game I would let her slide until tomorrow. Also I really needed to work on my lesson for tonight in youth at church. Of course Grace was game. I keep trying to remind myself that 1) Community Service - food pantry is school, and 2) we will be schooling all year this year so we have plenty of time to make up for lost time. I think she had plenty of school today, especially if you were unschooling. Unschooling is something that is always niggling in the back of my mind. But I just don't have the courage to go down that road. But I still read about it as often as possible especially from blogs of unschooling families.

What to do for Science?

I have been at a loss for what we want to do for science. As I posted previously we went to the historic town of Dahlonega this past weekend. We visited a store that had lots of used books. I picked up a Magic School Bus book (we just love Magic School Bus). The book is called The Search for the Missing Bones and it is about the Skeletal System. I thought this would be perfect. Something short and easy that I could add to. I picked up a poster of a labeled skeleton and a easy workbook for 5th grade health. Today was our first day and it worked out just fine. She is really likeing it. I know that the book is below her reading level but it is just something to get the wheels in the brain turning for future more in depth material about the human body.

Sunday after Church

Yesterday after church we went to Dahlonega which is an old historic town in North Georgia. Grace got to bring a friend. We did this as part of our Georgia History project. The building in the pictures is the old courthouse in Dahlonega. It houses the gold museum now. For those that didn't know, The Gold Rush actually started in 1828 in Georgia then on to California. Panning for gold and gem grubbing is very popular around here even today.

Clay Creations

Here are a couple of creations Grace has made and baked so far with the clay I have been putting in her workboxes. Usually she does this when she is watching Liberty Kids or at night with her daddy.

Lazy Saturday

Woke this morning, cooked breakfast and took a bath. Okay, that can still be construed as lazy. Baked a cake and made pasta salad. Washed all the bedding in the house and cleaned one bathroom. Now that doesn't seem very lazy. Well, the laziness started after all of that. Once I accomplished some of my projects I sat on the couch and cross stitched while watching a movie with Grace. Now I am checking out blogs and waiting to go to my sister's house for a cookout and volleyball. So I guess you could say the day is half lazy and half work. Maybe all our days should be more like that.

End of the School Week

This morning we have been tying some loose ends up. We finished our book about John Hancock and will moving in to Ben Franklin on Monday. Almost finished the 4th disc of Liberty Kids, only two more to go. So I guess we will be in Colonial/American Revolution until we finish the video series. After Ben comes George Washington then John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. After the series we will move on to Lewis and Clark. Continued with our Georgia State History project - hope to get in some field trips and pictures this next week since hubby is on vacation all week. I will be sure to share. Continued working on addition and subtraction with large numbers, finished our cursive handwriting book, she will read a comic book about The Boston Tea Party. For art she will draw a picture of a castle and she created a head from clay for a figure she is making. After lunch we are headed to a play date then off for grocery shopping tonight.

Auditions and Meetings

Not much bookwork today. Trinity was this morning with our regular drama class and handicrafts class. In drama we are working on short Christian skits to perform on the 22nd. After classes were over we held auditions for Willy Wonka. I am only a helper in the class but they wanted me to sit in on all the auditions. We auditioned about 15 kids. They were all nervous but did a good job. The kids were to come in with their top three choices of the parts they wished to play. Grace's were Veruca, the reporter, and Mrs. Gloop. She was very happy when she found out she got Veruca's part. Much practice in our future. We got home from auditions about 4:00 and headed to my parents for dinner at 5:00. At the last minute I remembered we had a meeting at 7:00 for our homeschool support group. I am on the board, so it is not like I can miss it. Back to the books tomorrow.

Lapbooks

I love the idea of lapbooks. Last year we purchased the super membership at Hands of a Child and recieved probably 14 lapbooks over that time frame that are sitting in my documents. We have completed exactly 3 - one from the Narnia series, one for Christmas, and one about Amelia Earhart. My daughter just is not interested. We are taking a break from our Flying Creatures science book and decided to start a lapbook about gravity. I am sorry, but I am just not digging it and neither is Grace. The lapbooks look so wonderful, but we just don't enjoy doing them. Alot of the ones I have are already printed out and ready to be used. I think what has happened is since we have completely switched over to Charlotte Mason a couple of years ago nothing else seems right when we try to use it. I really want to start using Exploring Creation with Astronomy but don't have the cash to buy the book right now. I have posted with my homeschool group that I would be willing to trade our Exploring Zoology with Land Animals for the Astronomy, but so far no takers. Maybe we will just read some books about science for awhile and decide what to do later. Probably in about a month I will have the cash to purchase the book and get it then. The remainder of the Flying Creatures book will have to be put on hold until Spring because it deals with insects which very soon will go away because of Fall and Winter. Much to ponder.