Weekly Report Sept 5-9 , 2011

Such a short school week for us this week.  We took Monday off for Labour day, and then Tuesday I spent all day calling doctors, the lawyer, talking to the respite worker etc.  In other words very productive but not school work.  Wednesday we had a great school day.  The big kids worked through lesson 17 in Time Travelers Explorers of the New World and learned about Sir Walter Raleigh and John Smith.  That lead to watching a documentary from the History channel on YouTube about the Lost Colony of Roanoke.  The loved discussing theories on what may have happened on Roanoke.  That of course lead to a discussion on the theories of what goes on in the Bermuda triangle.  They also watched 2 science videos about the water cycle, One was a Bill Nye the science guy video, the other was one designed for classroom viewing.  We got both from the library.  Because they were loving the Bill Nye video so much they decided to also watch one on simple machines from Bill Nye. 

The Younger 2 kids worked on some fall leaf collages.  All the kids got out in the beautiful sunshine (and 30C temps) to gather leaves in the yard.

We also spent some time practicing skills on the balance beam

Thursday we had to go into the city to see the pediatrician for H to have his leg seen again.  In the above pictures you can see he is in the wheelchair in on and walking in the other.  Last week he had his cast removed but he still had a lot of pain.  When we are out of the home he uses the wheelchair but the house is too small for the chair so he had to walk to get inside.  This appt was to get a second opinion about the limb length, curvature and pain.  The pediatrician was amazing, listened carefully and took the time to really explain how H is healing.  He called the orthopedic surgeon at the children's hospital and got us in the next morning.  The Surgeon had new xrays done and realized that H's leg was not ready to have the cast removed, he still has a lot of healing to do.  So an air cast was put on his leg.  He will have this cast for the next 7 weeks.  The dr says to keep doing exactly what we are doing, walking only in the house, kept to a minimum, wheelchair out of the house for those 7 weeks.  Then he will get new xrays and we will see how he is doing.

Because we had to drive 2 hours to get to the pediatrician and then had an unexpected stay in the city over night followed by the long appt at the children's hospital and a 2 hour drive back we did no school for Thursday or Friday.  What we did do though was listen to audio books in the van while we were on the road.  We completed 3 BBC radio recordings of Black Beauty, Moonfleet, and Robinson Crusoe.  While not unabridged copies of the books they were very entertaining versions and gave the kids a nice introduction to those tales.  The kids also read graphic novel versions of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Julius Caesar, Frankenstein, and Treasure Island.  Like the above recordings it just gave them a fun introduction to those classic tales, and a desire to now read the actual books.

Lastly, Sweet I has spent all week practicing her princess poem from last week.  She loves this poem and takes pride in showing off her skills.  We ended the week with her creating a stage out of 2 stools and reciting the poem for us to see.

Considering the kids only had 1 formal day of school all week I think this week proved to be very full of learning opportunities.