A Week, Briefly (3/22/21)

 On Sunday we made the most of the sunshine and took a walk along Rock Island Trail.  
 



 
The last post in which I can find recorded miles for our 300 mile goal is 18.2.  We added 3.15 miles for a total of 21.35 miles.
 
The trail follows an old railroad.  It's a fairly new trail, and a lot of the trash from the railroad is still on the ground.  My kids began picking up bits and pieces, and eventually convinced me to let them bring their treasures home.  We did a little research, and the best we can figure is that these railroad plates and spikes are 117 years old. 
 
 
Whatever their age, these artifacts provoked a lot of interest in building and trains this week.

We couldn't stand to lose any daylight before the gloom came back, so we had an impromptu marshmallow roast in the evening.


We woke up to gloom that stayed until Friday again.

We did our best to add light and life to our days.
 
Baymax finished the first of 2 math books and has a good start on the second.  We're able to work fairly quickly through these books because he and Lola had already done so much work in the Rod and Staff Arithmetic 1 books.  The Rod and Staff were just moving too quickly for my "babies," and these The Good and the Beautiful books are full of games and pretty pictures and fun, and they've brought a lot of joy back into mathematics. 


And Nature Angel finished her entire math book for the year!!!

 
She has a long break before starting Algebra next school year!
 
Little Princess and Sugar Bear are studying the NASA website.  
 
 
Little Princess has been really, really, really interested in space.  She spends long hours looking up facts and figures then sharing them with the rest of us.  She's asked me to start astronomy up again (I haven't yet), and she's pulling books from the library about mathematicians and scientists that have contributed to the space program.

She says she'd like to work for NASA someday.  She's the kid to do it!

Youth activities at the church included knot tying for Beowulf.  He loved it!  He's been showing us awesome knots all week long.

He had a psych appointment at which his psychiatrist and I hammered out a long-term plan for him that includes getting off all but one med to get a baseline measure (that's what's going on now) and a massive panel of genetic testing (which will hopefully happen before the end of April).  She says we still have a lot of stimulant med options, and we will try them, using the results of the testing as guidance.

Poor Beowulf-the-guinea-pig!

We all wish there were a better way, but this is the best we have at the moment.

In the mean time, he's a lot less violent now, and he's doing his level best to cope and focus with our help.
 
Ladybug spent the week reviewing basic math facts, and I dared on Friday to re-introduce carrying.  She remembered after minimal instruction, and she was happy to do a few practice problems on the white board.

We enjoyed lot of light-hearted and mildly educational garden stories along with another Grandfather Ghandi book and a few other subjects.


During our evening read aloud time, we finished Number the Stars and started The House of Sixty Fathers.  It is stretching us in emotional ways, and we've ended chapters in tears after a lot of heart-pounding moments.  Baymax often has to leave the room and listen from a doorway in order to cope with the intensity of the drama.

Brother's new treatment plan is complete, and it includes a lot of new social-skill goals as well as a plan for transitioning out of services.  The transition could take as few as 5 months or as much as a year, and I suspect that at the rate he's reaching goals, it will be the 5 month mark. 
 
Sir Walter Scott has graduated from therapy and has received the all-clear for a return to driving and work from the OT, PT, speech therapist, neurologist and the ophthalmologist.  He's got a couple more appointments before the final all-clear can be signed by the supervising doctor, so it looks like he might be back to work the week after next!

In spite of the gloomy weather, spring really has come, and Little Princess captured this completely unedited photo as the clouds moved out.


And Nature Angel caught the apple tree coming to life.


I've made small steps in the dining room/homeschool room.  I made this built-in bookshelf from the 2 bookshelves we used to have against the back wall of the room.  It stands in the front corner next to the dry erase board and the bulletin board I customized with fabric and tacks.  The shelf stands 8 feet high and has plenty of room for school supplies where I need them during school time.


The bulletin board keeps all of our Morning Meeting scriptures, songs, and memorization projects right at hand, and they're easy to change out now that I can use push pins instead of tape.

But Sir Walter Scott and I are working on bathrooms right now.  With no babies in the family, the bathtub-only bathroom that most of the kids use needs a shower added which means plumbing, tiling, and all sorts of projects.  The master bathroom is getting some repairs it has needed since before we ever moved in.

Here's hoping there's a long enough break in the rain for the ground to dry a little bit and give us a chance for some more garden and pond work!!!

Comments

  1. Very cool railroad spikes and plates! I love the picture of the clouds! So glad to hear of all the progress of your husband. Quite an accomplishment finishing math so quickly! I keep telling my older children they need to be more motivated with their math or they will be doing it all summer long.

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  2. Wow! Century + old railroad debris sounds very cool! I should really try some of those Rails To Trails sites around here and see if we stumble across anything neat.

    Has Little Princess read Hidden Figures? It's available in 3 levels. I read the adult version last year, and Hannah read the teen version and Katie the kids version this year.

    Big congrats on SWS returning to work soon! Whew!

    I like your shelving unit.

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