Homeschooling, Week 5

     This week started a little rough but ended quite nicely.  On Monday my Little Toughie had an appointment with her Urologist (whom she sees every 6 months) and there were many tests given.  Nothing unusual.  The appointment was much longer than I had expected (Three hours!) and then the doctor told us that she was severely constipated and needed to be completely cleaned out.  Without going into too many details, she had to go through a regimen quite similar to what an adult has to endure prior to a colonoscopy.  It was painful for her.  She's okay, now.  That was the rough bit.

     The rest of the week went smoothly.  Sort of.  Both kids had to report to the Principal this week for goofing off in the classroom.  He set them straight.  There were a few interruptions as well, like my daughter coming up to me during my prep time and wanting to make a banjo because apparently everyone needs a banjo!  It was a nice break and I didn't mind getting creative.

     We're 5 weeks in and I'm slowly building more into our curriculum.  Not a whole lot.  I'm just trying to reinforce some of the things we're studying.  For example, the Presidents.  If you ask either one of my kids to list all the Presidents by last name, they can and will (They'll either sing it or say it, depending on their mood.)  To reinforce this for my son, his copy work includes writing the Presidents' full names as well as the continents, since we're studying them in Geography.

What I wrote for my son to copy

His completed copy work

     If you've read The Core, you already know the importance of copy work.  For my son it's especially helpful.  He struggles with keeping his letters neat, straight and the same height.  It's because of his syndrome that he struggles with this.

     When he was first diagnosed we watched a video on Williams Syndrome and I remember they showed a girl, roughly as old as my son is now, and she was asked to name the parts of a bicycle, from the wheels to the seat to the handle bars, etc.  They girl could do it perfectly, no problem.  However, when asked to draw that bicycle, most of the parts were in the wrong place.  It was fascinating (and heartbreaking) to see how her mind just couldn't put it together.

     Now, my son is a big fan of cursive writing and we thank God that he can do it.  I wanted him to go back to printing first, to perfect that before completing his work for me in cursive.  As you can see in the work above, he's coming along very well.  There are days when he's in too much of a rush and I ask him to write it again.  He's not a fan of that, but he does it and understands that I expect him to do his best and that I know when he's not putting that forth.  My husband recently remarked on how much our son's printing has improved, so I know it's working.

     Our week ended with a trip to the Getty Villa.  Our first field trip of the year!  I'll have a follow up post on our excursion later on in the week.

     Enjoy your weekend!