Busiest Week

This was the busiest week ever!  Monday, Lily had her last Upwards cheerleading practice and then Tuesday was the awards banquet.  This is all the cheerleaders--we didn't have great seats.  I did type "Lily" on the pictures so maybe you can pick her out of the crowd.  :)

We also took the cat to the vet on Tuesday and picked her up on Thursday.  She is now recuperating from her spay/declaw.  It's been a little stressful to try and keep her from jumping off of things.  We do keep her locked up just because I'm afraid Nathan was kick her or something.  :)

Samuel had speech, like usual.  She is going through the process of re-certifying him for services.  He has masted the 'k' sound and is working on the 'f' and 's' sounds.  She will be testing him for language pretty soon.  Unfortunately, Samuel was not feeling cooperative this week and refused to speak at all for the last 15 minutes.  What can you do?!

Our supervising teacher made a stop this week to listen to the twins read.  I really wasn't sure where Hunter was with his reading level and he just has some obstacles to learning that make me feel the need to have a 2nd opinion.  After listening to both, she said my challenge is definitely in the vast difference between the 2.  They have strengths and weaknesses, of course, but this was specifically on reading.  The end result was that she gave me some awesome ideas on how to change up the reading for both kids.  She also gave me some resources to look over on how to help kids who learn differently.  Most of all, she told me over and over that Hunter is doing well and I'm doing the right thing with him.  She really is the best encouragement and support in this homeschool journey!  We're thankful for her!

Finally, on Friday, we ended our busy, busy week with a trip to a school musical.  My sister was directing Seussical at her school and we took everyone to see it.  The 3 oldest sat up front with my Mom but they seemed to enjoy it.  Brian and I sat in back with Nathan and he got into it, too.  :)  It was fun for everyone.

Some school accomplished this week:

Samuel was on 'y' and we HAD to do a 'y is for yellow' day because it's his most favorite color in the whole world.  :)  We used these cameras to go on a yellow scavenger hunt.  We found lots of things in the house that were yellow and Samuel actually really enjoyed this.  Yes, I am surprised.  :)

Some yellow painting.  This was fingerpaint but I know how Samuel feels about that so we used paintbrushes.  Later on this day, Samuel was digging in dirt/mud so it's not that he hates getting dirty all the time--just not with art.  :)

Someone that works with Brian sent home this giant pad of paper for the kids.  They've loved having it!  Especially Hunter, my artist.  

And the infamous art project.  We were drawing flowers flowers and then using beans to outline the drawing (there was some point to this but it's lost to me now).  Anyway, these were the projects I was attempting to hang up when I fell off the stepladder.  I am not sure how it happened--one minute I was reaching for the art clips and the next I was down on the ground.  Quite shocking for me and Lily (the only child in the room).  Thankfully, I didn't break anything (I was worried!) but I did somehow injure my calf muscles and now can't put weight on my leg.  No big deal.  :)

And this was my next good buy.  I have always loved grab bags and this is similar.  I peruse used homeschool sites for items I am looking for--love a good deal.  One day, I saw someone was selling a huge list of items for preschool-1st grade and it was really reasonably priced.  I received the shipment today--it was 2 boxes--and it was stuffed full of goodies!  I counted 30-some items.  So exciting to find some treasures in there!