An Early Weekly Report
One of these days, I’ll have to wade through all the drafts I have saved here, and post some of them. I’ve noticed that I often start a thought, but then set the post aside and never go back to it.
This afternoon, I’m flying down to Anaheim to attend Blizzcon, a convention held by gaming industry giant, Blizzard Entertainment. This is the first time I’ve been apart from my kids overnight in at least four years, so I have some anxiety about that. I’ve never left Declan alone overnight, but he’ll be in good hands with my dear husband.
This week we were all sick, except for Gene. Really, nasty, if it wasn’t so early in the season I’d think it was the flu kind of sick. We came back from Kansas City with this nasty bug, which apparently only affects women and children, as my husband pointed out. My mom, my sister-in-law, myself and the kids are all sick, but my husband. my brother and my dad seem to have escaped it completely.
Even so, the kids did well with school work. Some quick notes on each one…
Kyla is struggling with trying to balance her homework from her charter school classes with her academic work at home. She’s on the Yearbook staff, and is taking a physical science class in addition to her usual art history and drawing & painting classes. Art history requires essays and art projects each week, and science requires quite a bit of written work.
She’s on campus for 4 hours, two days a week, and so far, only history has really suffered. We’re still trying to find a balance, and she’s trying to learn some time management skills. Fortunately, she’s very disciplined and takes her homework responsibilities seriously, almost too much so. She gets very worked up about “only having a few days” to finish a written assignment that I know will just take her an hour or so.
Kiera did really well this week. I don’t often post about our ADD struggles with her, but we implemented some new strategies this year. I write out all of her assignments in an agenda book, so she knows just what’s expected of her. It seems to help her mental flow. Then I switched her math to MEP, a British developed math program based on a Hungarian model. (Or something like that.) I sit with her through the lessons, and the independent tasks that are assigned are very short, so she only has to sustain focus on her own for a few minutes at a time. We’re also keeping her lessons very short with ample breaks, and trying hard to keep Declan entertained during those times, so that he’s not distracting her.
Darien is a sweetie as always. He does his math independently and without struggle, and his reading is coming along now as well. He LOVES science, and I’ve dropped the ball on that big time. Next year, I think I’m going to try and buy something that has all the materials included. Otherwise, I just can’t motivate to do it, and nature study alone doesn’t cut it for this kid. He wants chemicals and mixing things, and microscope slides and getting your hands dirty type science. I signed him up for a science class, but he’s missed three classes between the wedding and being sick. Hopefully, I can get him there next week.
Declan has done well with his speech and OT. He still struggles to recall words, and his articulation needs a lot of work. This week though, I walked into the room, and he said, “You’re back!”* which is the first time I’ve heard him use that pronoun. He’s also started a little more imaginative play, with Mo-Mo, Squeakers and Monkey Paperwork, the three little toys he carries everywhere.
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* Edited to fix an incredibly annoying typo. Blame it on my “-itis.” 