A Week of Adjustments

We started the week off with tons of ice left over from a snowstorm. My kids are very aware of public school snow days now, because so many of their friends attend public school and are texting them, wanting to hang out or communicate online. As they get older, I am finding it harder to follow my own schedule for their schooling. Monday, I persevered and followed our normal schedule. Tuesday, our first year homeschool friend who we are teaching two days a week, canceled because of the public school snow day. Then she promptly got sick and our Thursday cooperative homeschool day was canceled as well. A game day event with another friend had to be postponed because of the weather. Dance continued as usual. You can always count on dance to be a stable force in our lives. All of these and more led to a lot of adjustments this week.

Our road Monday morning which is on a hill

Since our Tuesday lessons were messed up, I decided to throw in the towel and have a fun homeschool day. Tuesday happens to be the discount day at the movie theater, so we went to see Hidden Figures. It was AWESOME! We got two hours of American history and had a fun time as well. I highly recommend this film. Homeschool scientist has a unit study, if you want to make it extra educational. 😄

I mentioned last week that my wall oven died. I still have a working stove top, so all is not lost. I decided that spending $1,000 or more for a new wall oven right now was a very uncomfortable thought. I really do not want to use that much of our savings, so I started researching alternatives. I have decided to purchase a new 4.5 quart crock pot and a roaster oven that can bake cakes and brownies as well as roast up to a 24 pound turkey. Thanks to some great sales, I paid $72 total for both units!! Now that is a savings. I will be able to do everything I could have done with a wall oven. Thank you, Mother, for teaching me to live frugally when I was young. I cannot wait to get my new setup going. 

I am also doing a lot of adjustments with Dean's math. He is working in the Kumon Pre-Algebra Workbook I. He was getting frustrated with the way the problems were set up and started to get several wrong answers each day. I decided to reduce the amount of problems and just write a few onto a separate piece of paper. He immediately began getting all of the problems correct. He also started using the book, Are You a Math Genius?, this week. He is doing one lesson a day and is enjoying it. I hope this plan continues to work. 

I am also reading Smart But Scattered Teens. This is an interesting book that guides parents on how to help their teens build executive skills. This can be a real area of struggle for Dean at times. It comes with the territory of his particular special needs. The more I read it, the more I think it is a great tool for any struggling teen, regardless of their diagnosis. 

Overall, it was a good week. We didn't get everything done that I had hoped for and the house still feels out of whack. However, we did have productive and mostly peaceful days.

Blessings, Dawn