But when I went to get my tweezers and pull it out, I couldn't even see anything. I couldn't feel much, so I tried to go into denial about it (maybe it was already a half of a needle!), but a few hours later, I had a doctor pull this out of my foot.
I think this confirms my lifelong fear of needles. It took me a week to walk straight, after having the doctor dig around and stitch me back up after finding it, but thankfully it has healed well now.
Anyway, once I got that out of the way, I had to get things ready for spring break. I figured I would use that week as a test. We hadn't been able to figure out what to do for Tyler's summer school this year. Most kids regress quite a bit over vacations, but with Tyler, it is a bit more pronounced. We've really enjoyed summer school at Clear Horizons this year, but we just weren't sure it was in the budget this year. And even if we sent him, it would only last half the summer. While I don't feel capable of teaching Tyler at home year-round, I need to get a lot better at teaching him while he is home.
So for spring break, we had a week of homeschool at our cabin. I figured that we would give it a trial run before it was too late to sign him up elsewhere if it went poorly. And amazingly, it went really well. Not perfectly, but I like knowing that I'm not their sole teacher. I can be the supplement, and that makes me feel a lot better about my shortcomings.
Thankfully, I had a lot of great resources. Tyler and Kaitlyn's teachers were a great help in giving me a head start. And my sister-in-law gave me an awesome book years ago with hundreds of "center" activities we used to start our day out. That was my favorite part. We got a book from the library for each activity, and we had a lot of fun.
One day, we read a book detailing how to carefully pick a rock from the mountain to be your pet rock, and the kids loved going on a walk to find their perfect rock.
As a side note, I think we are the only people I know who went to somewhere colder for spring break. There wasn't a lot of snow kicking around, but some lingered in the more shaded spots.
Jasmine didn't know exactly what we were up to, but she loved going for walks. Oh, and wearing gloves. She is obsessed with "goves" right now, and when given her choice, likes to take off all of other clothing and just wear a diaper and gloves around the house.
The book instructed them to wash it in a clear mountain stream, but Jasmine figured throwing them in was much more fun.
Another center morning was all about animals, one was about making bird nests with chocolate and Chinese noodles, and one day we gathered twigs and leaves to make a tree out of. Lots of fun!
One reason that I am glad that I am doing this is that I get a clearer picture of where my kids are at, academically. Kaitlyn is actually doing really, really well. She can read chapter books now, and when I had her try a test online it said she had a Third Grade reading level. She also took to two-digit plus two-digit addition like a fish to water. We talked about why you "carry the one" and what that means, and off she went. She needs a lot more practice, but she can do it.
Tyler, obviously, is a different story, but that's okay. He is pretty good at adding and subtracting small numbers now, and he did pretty good at coins and their values. I was really impressed with his attention span. They usually do 15 minute rotations at school, but he handled 45 minute math sessions just fine. His main struggle is reading. It is just so hard for his brain to figure out what those words say! He actually spends a lot of our reading time trying to weasel out of reading. He'll interrupt to tell me he wants to hug me, he'll ask me to read it, or sometimes he will just make random guesses based on the picture. Anything to get out of it. Too bad, kiddo.
My wild card was Jasmine. I was worried that she would be a disruption to the whole thing, but she actually did okay. She was a part of center time, and we would involve her however we could on other things. Or just give her the Kindle and let her play by herself.
Anyway, I'm mostly writing this down because I always like to go back and see where my kids are at. The short story is that homeschool is a success, and is probably how we are going to spend our summer!
And when we got back to the valley after a week by ourselves, the weather down here was just lovely.
Tyler and Jasmine both wanted to play on the one swing, so I figured they could just share! Tyler was SO happy to hug his favorite little girl.
Okay, I probably should have brushed her hair. But I just love the happy little grin!
Oh, and I have to include a couple of forgotten pictures up here. A few weeks ago, our neighbor had a kids Zumba class in her backyard. And my kids had so much fun! Jasmine loves dancing, and I was impressed at how much Tyler got into trying it out.
And lastly, a picture taken quickly before she took off the cute hat.
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