Monday Dabblings in Education

I find the "summer slide" to be so distasteful--taking the first two or more solid months of the fall just to get us back to a minimal routine--that I maintain light homeschool during the hot months . . . but it all came to a screeching halt with Thomas's diagnosis. Honestly, the kids have too much time on their hands, so this week I set a modest goal to have my seven-year-old start reading aloud to me 15 minutes per day. The reality is that just my adding that to the things I'm managing will be heard, which gives me heart palpitations when I think of the actual school year juggling cancer treatment and five grades with all their many school subjects.

So, I try to remind myself that today brings enough worries with it for the day, and just set a tiny goal: Joseph reading aloud to me for 15 minutes while I drink coffee. (Yes, extreme insomnia for a month got me back onto coffee.)

I brought out the Play-doh for the two-year-old and was tickled to see all six kids gravitate for it, so while they squeezed and squished, I read aloud from "Summer of the Monkeys."

In the afternoon, we watched "Creatures that Defy Evolution" (a 3-part series available on Amazon Prime--highly recommended). Thomas (4) watched for a few minutes before he sighed, as if a professor with a secretly much-treasured burden, and he mumbled to himself, "Well, I'm going to have to make a book," and quietly walked out of the room. I thought perhaps the show was too adult for him and he was bored, but he returned with paper, pencil, and set up a drawing desk.

Thomas proceeded to draw animals carefully from those being discussed in the television show--just like last spring he began illustrating the history chapters I was reading aloud to his older siblings.

I wrote the labels on this drawing, which Thomas told me illustrates, "A whale with bones is heavier than a car. An elephant is bigger than a tree but not as big as a house. A seahorse eats leaves."

My favorite is the bones in the whale! And notice the blowhole!

The Virgin Mary is photobombing our pic.

A lovely friend surprised me by dropping off a homemade meal, a gift of disinfecting spray and wipes (I've been unable to find those wipes in the stores for months!), and a whole batch of her homemade cloth masks, which, when we must wear them, I think will be much more comfortable than the hospital masks. God provides for our needs physical and emotional through the Body of Christ (friends and strangers alike)!

Having dinner already made meant that I spent more hours that afternoon loading textbook lesson plans into Homeschool Planet, still not knowing what adjustments I will make next fall, but at least the info is in there. I'd like to be working on that project all week before we start a new chemo cycle and I'm back on lots of Snuggling Duty.

Kiddos went swimming, Narnia was read, and I was invited for a girlie phone call with a friend which lasted for nigh three hours! We are a blessed family.