{SQT} The One Month Report of Homeschooling during Cancer Treatments

 

1. How Is School Going?

By the end of this week, we have completed four whole weeks of homeschool! I fear to say anything publicly in case school suddenly starts to crash, but, for the sake of any other blog readers experiencing medical crisis and seeking reassurance or ideas, I will share that homeschool is going well so far. I made some big changes this year due to Thomas's cancer treatments, and I think my changes have had positive effect.

Last year I had a great system going, but it required about three hours per weekend to enter all the data from the prior week into Homeschool Connections online, make adjustments, and then print out new assignment lists for the upcoming week. Right now, our homeschool cannot count on me to have three hours on any given weekend, plus a major theme this year is REDUCE MAMA'S STRESS.

This year, I have a standard check list for four grades, excluding Thomas's Kindergarten. Each week, I print them out without changes. If I have anything different to note, I write it down by hand for the child to read. The whole process takes a few minutes.

Over the summer, I made each child a Master Binder with Procedure Lists for each subject: that is where he will find the exact assignments. He will see on his Weekly List that he needs to do History four times each week, but he will open his Binder to read his History Procedure List to see what are the exact History assignments for the fourth week of school.

Joseph is in second grade and he has a list, but he only has to do school if I'm available (which, so far, has been three to four mornings per week). Shhhh, don't tell him yet, but after teaching nine years of homeschool already, I'm a lot more relaxed about second grade now!

Joseph's 2nd Grade Weekly List

The girls, in particular, have been setting an alarm for 6:00 a.m. to get in nearly two hours of independent school work before I serve hot breakfast. This is voluntary and due to their natures, not because I am Miss Homeschooling Mom of the Year. (Hardly.) The only thing I did that helped this along is that their task lists are exceedingly clear and readily available so the students can work independently. The girls have been finishing their school days by around 10:30 a.m. and, this week. For this week and last, they finished all their school for the week by the end of Wednesday, which is very helpful with our medical schedule.

I repeatedly take about one second to ponder whether this success means my school year is "just too easy," that "I'm failing the children who aren't achieving an amazing-enough education," that I need to add Latin back into their curricula, or do something to ladle on more hours of work . . . and then I remember CANCER. I remind myself repeatedly: I looked what constituted a level of a subject, I stretched it out over the academic year, and that is how I know what the weekly load should be. It is okay. The children don't have to be doing academics till late afternoon five days a week in order to fulfill their grade level learning.

Margaret's 4th Grade Weekly List

Mary's 6th Grade Weekly List

Our eighth grader's schedule is heavier and I do need to pay more attention to him, his schedule, and answering questions to tough schoolwork conundrums throughout the day. However, even he has been keeping up and usually finishing by early afternoon, thus greatly reducing stress in our family. If he has more time to go play street hockey in the cul-de-sac, all the better!

John's 8th Grade Weekly List

I am not yet doing a full Morning Basket Time at breakfast. I'm trying to cover one or two items per morning. We'll get there bit by bit!

This week we introduced the Word Up! vocabulary DVD, which is really fun and smart so far. The idea is to watch the DVD, then run some flash cards throughout the week.

The children are learning more than academics through this entire experience. For example, Thomas had some residual chemotherapy nausea on Monday, so I got pulled away from school simultaneously with Thomas thinking he might vomit and David needing a diaper change: as I walked away frustrated that there are not three of me, Mary (11) said, "Hey, Joseph, I'll dictate your spelling with you." She covered a subject for me by the time I returned! Lessons: keeping an eye attuned to what needs to be done in the surrounding environment, compassion, hard work.

Dictating spelling to her brother

I'm trying hard to learn how to be more relaxed and to identify relaxed moments for myself. One day I saw Thomas setting up a chess board and I thought to myself that that is valuable learning, he is learning to be an acute observer of patterns. People actually design entire workbooks of busy work for Kindergarteners to learn how to observe and imitate patterns.

Coloring covers actual Kindergarten skill sets: fine motor skills, identification of colors, study of images and patterns to copy.

One morning while I cooked, Thomas was watching Curious George when he started running about: independently, he gathered supplies and made a "solar cooker" like he saw on the show. Later, his siblings created two additional, much more ornate solar cookers and they actually made toast! Surely that is legitimate learning.

Thomas made a solar cooker by himself

Solar cooker made by Thomas and Margaret

Reading about Ancient Sumerians to the boys

The wonderful No Sweat Nature Study program kept releasing classes every two weeks all summer, but we only just got back to participating this week with a class on Hopping Insects.

11-year-old supervising the class for the little boys

Toy Cricket by Thomas (5)

Playdough Insect by Joseph

Invented Insect by Mary (11)

Class Notes by Mary (11)

Week #5, here we come!

2. Violin

Amidst the hectic beginning of a typical Monday morning, Thomas told me on the verge of tears that he wanted to learn to play the violin (crying as if I've been denying him violin for ages, ha!). When your five-year-old has cancer and wants to play the violin, he gets to play the violin!

We had an old 1/8 violin in the house, so I asked Mary to delay her school to give him his first lesson.

Thomas has been walking around the house for days now, "playing" violin, which sounds just exactly like a five-year-old let loose with a cheap violin and no training. Still, we all love it!

3. Half the Braces Removed!

John got the top half of his braces removed, although the bottom half seems to need six more weeks.

4. Thursday Clinic Day

Thomas and his Daddy went to clinic day on Thursday: it was meant to be just labs--in and out seeing nobody but the phlebotomist--but it turned out to be (surprise!) a complete clinic visit lasting two hours. Because Thomas's blood pressure was so frighteningly high last Saturday, they wanted a complete look at him and the oncologist wanted to chat with us. I was able to join them via video call and Chris and I came away feeling glad to have even more information from the doctor about possible treatment routes after the results from Thomas's scans next week.

Note: The above is one reason it is hard to manage child care. Normally I take Tom to clinic. I'm trying not to constantly hire babysitters ($$$), so I will gamble that Chris can take care of five kids while working for just a two-hour absence. But what if it turns out to be a four-hour absence because it became a full clinic visit instead of just labs? Or what if Thomas needs to receive a blood transfusion and now we will be there all day and we have no babysitter at home? These difficult childcare issues need to be juggled weekly, if not more.

5. Preparing for a Big Medical Week

Next week, Thomas has five hospital appointments in five days, so I am organizing and preparing like a general going into battle. At the Momcology cancer support group I attended via Zoom this week, the theme was Controlling the Controllable. There are many things that cannot be controlled in the world of cancer: How does one tell the difference and how does one control what one can control?

As I go into this coming week, I will:

• Make sure the house is packed to the gills with groceries, much easy food, and I've arranged for some meals to be delivered by loving friends. I will plan every meal, including breakfasts, so as to reduce any energy spent thinking each day.
• The house is all cleaned up. I will make sure there is no laundry built up.
• We are on track with school. This weekend, I will print out the new school lists for the kids so they can work independently of me.
• My husband filled my van with gas, filled the low tire with air, and vacuumed out the vehicle.
• I've made sure Thomas has all his prescriptions filled.
• I've lined up babysitters.
• I will be packing Thomas's big backpack of entertainment, which we will be hauling around all week.
• Our family and much of our community are praying a novena for Thomas.

6. Visit from Pop-Pops

Chris' father and brother joined us from Atlanta for Thursday night dinner. Chris will be joining them this weekend to spend some time with his dad after he so recently lost his wife and brother. I will be flying solo for four days . . . solo with six little chickadees!

7. Last Hockey Game

Friday night was the last hockey game of the summer season as well as the last game of John being in the 12U league before he will join the 14U/16U combined league. The two teams' were tied 4-4 games for the season, with John's team scoring 36 cumulative points against 35. I couldn't bear the thought of just asking another hockey parent to give him a ride for this special game, so I hired babysitters and took him myself. I do not understand hockey, but I watched intently in my ignorance and I took about 80 photos of my boy.

On to a new league, new friends, and new experiences next week!

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