Showing posts with label infection. Show all posts
Showing posts with label infection. Show all posts

Homeschooling Math When You Have A Major Illness

I had written this post way back in March and never posted it. So here goes, I hope that it encourages another homeschooling mom that is struggling.

Now lets do some homeschool math here peeps.
Illness + surgery + anastomotic leak + infection [people asking if the child is behind in school to the 10th power] I can't figure out how to do Exponents on my keyboard. = X
 Here is how you solve for X.

Illness = preparing our child/children ahead of time by teaching them to work on their own.
Surgery = having GREAT doctors like my wonderful GI doc that saw me in the hospital in 2011 and my WONDERFUL and AWESOME Colorectal Surgeon that knew just the right time to get that bad boy out of me. I had time plan school around the surgery, we skipped Christmas break so that school did not have to be done during my surgery and hospital stay.
Anastomotic leak = fever, chills, pain & a visit to the ER & then my surgeon calling us at 6:55am to say that I needed to pack a bag and get to the hospital by 4pm that day. to start IV antibotics.
Infection = always a possible complication, but I figured it would never happen HAHAHA!!!
School = people asking if we are behind in school (to the 10th power.)
X = Philippians 4:13 "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me."
 
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A Journey Through Learning Review

We have been given the opportunity to review A Journey Through Learning lapbooks. A Journey Through Learning is a company that was founded by two homeschooling moms Paula & Nancy, how cool is that? 2 ladies who know exactly what we do on a daily basis with our children!! Who better to create a curriculum for us.


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Our son is 7th grade but still enjoys doing some of the lower grade fun stuff. This is our first experience with lapbooks, I had seen them online over the years, but I was so focused on book work in the first few years that I overlooked lapbooking, "You can't learn from arts and crafts" I thought! Well our 7th grader took to lapbooking like a fish to water!

Stack of library books that became a part of the leraning process.
Click on the link Knights, Castles and Middle Ages lapbook, the lapbooks are available in the following formats:
Instant Download- $13.00
CD- $14.00
Printed- $21.00
We were asked to pick one of the following lapbooks.
Letters, Numbers and Shapes (ages 3-5)
The Earth (grades 1-4)
Knights and Castles (grades 2-7)
Astronomy and Space (grades 2-7)

Section 1, with drawings and cut outs.
We were given the instant download version to review. That worked really well for us even with very slow and basic DSL Internet service. I printed out the lapbook for the Knights and Castles; my son just went to town on it! He got some library books to read up more on the subject. He has been cutting and pasting like crazy. He watched the how to videos from A Journey Through Learning and picked right up on how to make the lapbook without my assistance.

Middle section of the lapbook.
We had all the supplies on hand already for the lapbook. If you have younger children you will need to work with them on this, I would say most 3rd graders could read the materials on their own, 5th grade on up could do the lapbook on their own with you checking up on them. I highly recommend watching the how to videos that I mentioned above, they were very helpful and explained things in very easy to understand terms.

Last section of the lapbook.
For the review our son picked Knights and Castles Lapbook with Study Guide which covered the Middle Ages. We liked the fact that the materials were from a Christian perspective.

Knights and Castles photo knightsandcastles_zps3e1f0ab1.jpeg What our son liked about A Journey Through Learning lapbook:

1) It covered the Fall of Rome, Middle Ages, this was all new to me.
2) Love learning about the castles, I learned that they are not very fun to live in.
3) Knights and armor
4) Loved doing crafts that counted as school work.
5) Liked how there were places to draw pictures.
6) This was so much fun!

What our son did not like about the lapbook:

1) NOTHING

What this Homeschool Mamma liked about A Journey Through Learning lapbook:

1) This was so much fun!
2) Easy for "On your own work."
3) Easy instructions.
4) Not too many supplies needed.
5) Did I say "FUN?"
6) BONUS!!! No outside materials needed for research, if you wanted to go more in depth there are book suggestions included. Otherwise you can just use what A Journey Through Learning provides for you.

What this Homeschool Mamma did not like about A Journey Through Learning lapbook:

1) NOTHING! It was totally awesome and even hubby thought it was a cool way to learn.

I am finding that lapbooking is great for those homeschooling days, weeks or months when a homeschooling mom has health issues. I've gone through a Sigmoid Colon removal surgery, had an anastomotic leak, and then an infection from the leak, which has made for an interesting end of the school year to say the least! lol. A Journy Through Learning lapbooks would be a great learning tool for those times that homeschooling is difficult on mom. My son worked on handwriting, cutting, reading, spelling, and history, all while I rested quietly as I recovered.

Come see what others reviewers have to say about A Journey Through Learning Lapbooks.
For those of you that have NEVER done lapbooking, it's so cool and I think we are hooked on it. Looking back now, I wish that we had done lapbooks from the very beginning, but ya know, you can't go back. So we are going forward and he is looking at what else he can lapbook. So all is not lost, but you know how our mommy homeschool brains work, it was sort of a sad moment thinking about how those fun little homeschool learning moments are fleeting. Enjoy your children and relax with the textbooks for awhile and try a lapbook out.


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GOTCHA DAY! Adoption Day!

This week we celebrated our son's adoption day, we call it GOTCHA DAY! In our home when it's your special day (birthday or Gotcha Day) you get to pick your meals. Our son picked cold cereal for breakfast, we normally have hot breakfast so this was a treat. Lunch was a favorite buffet restaurant and dinner was Subway. In the past we have spent the night at a hotel swimming,  gone to the zoo, played board games all evening long or find other fun stuff to do for his Gotcha Day! We had planned a fun field trip to tap maple trees for syrup but those plans unraveled. We got on the road by 7am with my sister in law (AKA favorite Aunt of the child) in tow and headed toward the forest of maple trees.

About an hour into the drive husband calls to say the field trip was cancelled due to weather. From the backseat comes a yell to head to the children's museum instead. OK, foiled plans are now made in to more fun plans!! It was cold (33 degrees) anyway and I think we were all a bit glad it was going to be an inside day. We decided to take a side trip to look at the baby chicks at the feed store, always a fun time. We now have BABY CHICK FEVER! lol. We will need to go to the doctor for that cause I ain't got no energy to care for baby chicks right now, though we only have about 4 chickens left in the freezer. We did buy a chicken hutch that was $119.00 on sale for $89.00. When I am up on my feet again we will get some meat birds to fill that up. YUM!!

Then we headed off to the museum, we get in free with our son's AOPA membership so that is pretty cool! Since I am not up for much in the way of walking around and expending energy since my surgery/leak/infection, I rested on a bench, then sat for a few hours in the lunch room. I brought the Kindle Fire along with me to watched an episode of the Duggars show 19 Kids and Counting, if you want to know exactly what my only child is like, he is a carbon copy of the Duggar boy that is interested in cameras and photography, I will have to ask our son what that boys name is. If anyone knows post the name, I know it starts with a J . . . hahaha, but I can't come up with it, post it on my blog please. Josiah is his name!

After the children's museum we headed off to the mall since I needed some new pants, none of mine fit anymore since the surgery, my stomach is still swollen, though this morning I did see a bit of my large incision, so the swelling is going down some. We walked around the mall and sat down a few times. Son treated his Aunt to a chair massage, they both liked it. I thought it might be too much for me so I just watched. Did not buy any clothes, but got talked into being a model for a fashion show and I will get 40% off my purchases that day. I'm thinking it was the pain meds that made me do it!  Otherwise I would NEVER consent to being a fashion model. But for 40% off everything that I buy, well I'm thinking I can do this. And the child was going nuts about it, so I said "YES!"

After all this they wanted to go to a bookstore, I conceded and headed out to the car to recline. I napped and ate some egg salad (what other type of sandwich would you eat when you raise chickens?) and chips. They enjoyed themselves and Auntie thought she would never get the child out of the bookstore...hahaha, she was getting tired and there are no chairs in this particular book store, I guess they don't want you to sit around and sample the books before you buy.

We arrived home around 10pm, I was pooped (pun intended after my intestinal surgery. . . LOL), the next day I did NOTHING but breathe, sleep and eat. I am for sure not ready for a day out like that again for awhile.

There is a silver lining to all this.
After all the stress of my illness and added responsibility that the child has had over the last 6 months, remember I broke my foot, ended up on bed rest with it, then was hospitalized in December (Diverticulitis), then again in January (surgery), then yet again in February (infection). Now my recovery phase (should be back to normal by summer, but really what is NORMAL. . . hahaha.) It's been a really long ride for all of us. So this comment from our son really threw me for a loop, it got me thinking WOW I guess love is what it's all about (the love of the Father first and foremost) and you just do what you have to do to make it through. I think this has all been a HUGE learning experience for our son, in watching how Daddy takes care of me and how our marriage vowes really come into play with something like this, especially when your spouse is not able to function for months on end, you have to take on household responsibilities and new financial responsibilities (my medical bills just for 12 days in the hospital + all the extras of tests, co-pays, prescriptions etc. are well over $100,000.00 and insurance is fighting $48,000 of that saying it was not medically necessary for me to be in the hospital for the infection and IV antibiotics. Prayers would be appreciated in this area. I am thinking that there is an insurance coding glitch or something since I was very ill and I don't think I would have fared very well at home in the condition I was in, there is no way I could have functioned at home.

I pray that our son will remember us getting through these times when/if his wife or children should ever become ill. I look at this as a time of growing for all of us, and WOW what opportunities I had to share through the course of my illness, to God Be The Glory is all I can say! As I feel up to it I will share more things that I encountered through my illness.

Visiting Mom in the hospital. I look much better now!
I will leave you with the comment from our child the night before his Gotcha Day, he says to me "Mom, I am so glad that you adopted me." I said "Why?" He says "Because I get to grow up in a Christian home, I get chickens and I get to have a dog." I told him "Thank you and also be thankful for your birth parents, they made a really hard decision in placing you for adoption."

How does your family celebrate Gotcha Day!?

 
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I'd like to welcome Heather to my blog.

Nice to see you on here Heather!!
I'm working on getting better   :O)     
Doctors say they want to keep me comfortable for about 6-8 weeks and get me healed up so that they can run some tests on me. They say it's far too dangerous to do any scopes on me right now. So all they can go by are CT Scans and MRI. So I am trusting my Lord, holding my dh and ds tightly and enjoying the ride!
Take care,
Moe

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