A More Positive Update

It's been way too long since my last post, and it wasn't a very happy one. Things got sorted out for us with the school stuff. The boys are now with Vermilion Home Schooling, and we are very happy to be there. Our facilitator is great and very happy to help me know exactly what we need to do to keep the boys parent-directed but still have them receive an Alberta Education High School Diploma.

John started his 4 day work weeks. We are very blessed and he has enough vacation and banked time saved up that we are covered for it until mid-June, at least. We were pretty worried that John would have to get a second job, and now he might not have to get one at all.

Last Sunday was our ward's Primary Presentation. Caleb pleasantly surprised us all and decided to take part in it, despite his anxiety about it. He and Ty did wonderful. Brettley was...very wiggly, ha ha. He moved around a lot, but apparently people who aren't his parents found it entertaining, so it's all good.

Not too much else going on here, just excited to start our daily activities that we have planned for December. My mum bought the boys an elf for this year. I tried to fight it for a few years, but I've found him to be a really easy way of getting the boys to do their chores and listen to what they've been told to do, so I'm loving that side of it.

I hope that everyone is doing well! Is anyone still here?

Not the Easiest Week

I apologize in advance. This will probably be a very random post and will, unfortunately, be influenced by the type of week that I've had. On Tuesday morning I woke up with pink eye. It's really sucky when that happens because I'm allergic to the OTC and prescription drops for it, so I always have to just ride it out. Then shortly after lunch my husband called to let me know that starting at the end of November, his office would be switching to 4 day work weeks. I immediately had to decide how to deal with losing 20% of our income. Believe me, I am beyond grateful that in our current economy my husband still has a good job. However, it was still a big stress and I immediately had to go to my problem solving head-space.

Just a couple of hours later, we got the oh so personal robocall that our kids no longer had an accredited school authority due to the immediate cancellation of accreditation of their board. As I've stated on Facebook, I have no desire to have an opinion on the allegations, but my kids were just left out to drown. So I moved on to the next major issue that required the use of my problem solving head-space.

We sent their registrations in to a new board yesterday and I am hope that their paperwork will be processed and that they will be officially accepted early next week.

With all of the news about our previous board becoming very public this week, I've heard a few things that have really upset me. One of the things I heard yesterday was the opinion that taxpayer dollars shouldn't be "wasted" on private schools . Our previous board was a private board. Our anticipated new board is a separate (Catholic) board. So I got information directly from Alberta Education and did the math last night. This year I saved the government (and taxpayers) a minimum of $13,969.57 by home educating my kids. That amount does not include the fact that one of my kids was expected to be coded this year, which would have cost even more. I saved them 73.6%. The only thing that I can logically conclude is that I am helping taxpayers, not wasting their money. Furthermore, we are taxpayers in this house as well. If you feel that your money shouldn't pay for the education of my kids, then why should my money help pay for the education of your's?

I also was told that alternatives to the public system shouldn't be funded when there are "fine public schools already". If you know my family at all, you know that we tried very hard for 4.5 years to make the public system work for us. We even had some very phenomenal teachers in there working very closely with us. It just did not work properly for my kids. Why should we be punished if the public system didn't work for them? How is that fair?

The last comment that really frustrated me was that someone didn't agree with home schooling because they'd seen it go so far wrong. Let's be real here. Both home education and public education have been known to go so far wrong and have also been known to go very well. I don't ever say that I don't agree with public school, let alone for the reason that I have seen (far more often) that it has gone so far wrong in some cases. I simply say that it didn't fit the needs of my kids and that home education works much better for them.

Again, I apologize for the negative tone of this post. I just wanted it to be real and to also get some things off of my chest so that they didn't keep festering there. So I'll end the post on a happier note now.

The boys finished their swimming lessons yesterday. Although Brettley didn't pass his class, he made great progress and didn't have much that he wasn't able to pass off. Caleb and Tyrell both passed their classes and are looking forward to their next levels in the new year. They loved swimming and all made a lot of progress. We have really learned to be better supports for one another this week and it has helped us to grow closer as a family, which is always a wonderful thing.

Swimming and School

The boys started their swimming lessons last week. They all have the same teacher, and we are at the pool for a long time (over 2 hours), but it's worth it. Caleb and Brettley have also had colds, but Caleb's is gone now and Brettley is improving.

Brettley's attitude about school has gotten much better in the past week (except for one day that he was the most sick). Tyrell has had a rough few days with staying focused and not giving up if something is difficult. Caleb is doing awesome. It helps that he is used to this routine. He is currently doing his novel study of Underground to Canada and he is reading way ahead of schedule because he's so interested in it.

Caleb also has started Cubs for the year. Tyrell is really excited to start it at the end of October.

Yesterday we went out and delivered flyers for the food drive we participate in annually. The boys love it and look forward to it. On Saturday we do pick up. They are curious to see how well we do this year.

Not too much else is new around here. Just still trying to find our groove for the school routine. Hopefully we'll get there in the next couple of weeks.

Home School Has Started

Yesterday we took the kids on their first field trip of the school year to the John Janzen Nature Centre. The boys loved it there. It was very interactive. Some of the things they got to do were touch a salamander, see honeybees about their every day life and do a nature walk. It was definitely a hit. We did the shorter trail, but Caleb asked if we can try the longer one next year. Definitely something to think about.





Today was our first full day of the school year. The boys have their subjects broken down into 9 blocks. After 3 blocks, they take a break to do 2 chores and have a snack. Same thing after the next 3 blocks. Today Caleb and Tyrell were done very quickly. Brettley took the longest at 3.75 hours, and that was because he was fussing about doing his English for a good 30 minutes. I guess it will take him a while to get used to a school routine. Their blocks are:
Prayer & Spiritual Thought
Reading
Math
English Language Arts
Social Studies
Science
Spelling
Health and Computers
Creative Time

Starting in the middle of the month, they will also be doing music on Fridays. Caleb's former piano teacher has offered to do music class for them once per week, which is a huge blessing for our family. They don't do an official gym class, but they start their weekly swimming lessons this week, which is for September and October. We'll take a couple of months off, and then do another round of swimming lessons in the new year. They get free outside time, and they're content with that.
 

 

Horray for Bretts

Hey! Not a huge update because I'm pretty tired at the moment, but I wanted to share a bit of exciting news. We had planned for Brettley to be doing Kindergarten level work next year because we figured he'd take a long to time learning how to read. However, he is excelling in that area and will be able to do grade 1 level work in the fall, so he gets to skip right by Kindergarten. We're so impressed with how quickly he is progressing.

Also, we had a celebration last week in our family as all 3 kids are now officially home schooled. They were so excited to set off a pop rocket, have a silly string fight, eat DQ ice cream cake and get their certificates welcoming them as students for the 2016-2017 school year. The next day, on Canada Day, we had a fun family water fight, which was a blast.

Anyway, hopefully I'll update better in a couple of weeks. I have a hard time remembering to go on to the laptop to update this.

Walking Like a Boss and Yummy Beverages

So about 2 weeks ago I went for my quarterly doctor's appointment (which happens when you take the meds that I do). He brought up the sleep study I did a few months back that came back negative and asked how my sleep has been. I'll be honest here, I've struggled with insomnia and poor sleep for as long as I can remember. Even at my healthiest this was always a problem for me. However, my doctor decided that I needed to exercise and eat less. While I'm convinced they won't actually solve my insomnia issue (I was very thin as a teenager and this was occurring back then as well), I acknowledge that I do need to make healthier choices. My doctor told me that I need to take at least 10,000 steps per day. I had waffled on getting a FitBit for a while now, but I figured if I was being required to watch my steps anyway, I may as well take the plunge, so we went and got me a FitBit Charge, which also tracks my sleep. Then a couple of days later my back got re-injured (which is a whole other story), and I wasn't able to walk lots for about a week. But I was back at it this Monday. It has been one of the best investments I've ever made (along with my new Asics, which make all of the difference). Today I got smart and remembered to use music while I walk. It was the best that I've felt in many months. I'm really looking forward to keeping this going. Instead of dreading exercise each day, I look forward to seeing how quickly in the day I can reach my goal. I also am eating a more appropriate amount of food. I make an exception 1 evening per week where I won't think about what I'm eating, as long as I'm not gorging myself or anything. As for my steps, I won't be worrying about them on Sundays. Whatever I get for a normal Sunday is whatever I get.

On a separate note, our sugar-free coconut and vanilla Torani syrups came today. I made myself a Dirty Coke Zero mocktail and it was amazing. I definitely wouldn't be able to have more than 1 per day, though, it tastes way too strong. You can find the link here. We had a really hard time finding the Torani syrups in the city, so we ordered them from Amazon.

Next Year's Plan

Two weeks ago we (all 5 of us) finally got to meet our home school facilitator in person. We felt that he's a very good fit for our family. Our visit made me very glad that we decided to stick with the traditional (parent-directed) style. It would have been hard to give up that kind of freedom. All 3 of our boys were officially accepted for the 2016-2017 school year. Brettley will be doing mostly Kindergarten level work, but is officially registered for grade 1, just because of when his birthday is and for funding reasons. I ended up changing a bunch of curriculum plans last minute after John and I sat down and talked some things out. So here is what we are doing for next year.

All of our boys will start the day with prayer together and a little reading from the Primary 7 manual (New Testament). Then we will do reading. Caleb and Tyrell can choose what they will read from and read for 15-20 minutes each day. Brettley and I will continue using all of his Bob Books to teach him to read. Eventually during the year he will move on to other phonics sets that we have, but Bob Books are his starting point. After reading is done the boys will do Math. Caleb will be using Switched-On Schoolhouse, which is a computer based curriculum from a Christian publisher. Caleb's best mark is Math, but he doesn't enjoy it, so we decided that if it was computer based he may find it more exciting. Tyrell will be using Complete Canadian Curriculum and Complete MathSmart, since he says he loves worksheets the best. Brettley will use workbooks from the dollar store and Walmart in addition to Brain Quest (and their Star Wars line) as well as using lots of different manipulatives.

The boys will then get to do their first 2 chores of the day and have a snack.

After the break they will do English Language Arts. Caleb is going to be using LIFEPAC from the same publisher as his math program and will read Underground to Canada for his novel. Tyrell will be using Complete Canadian Curriculum and Complete EnglishSmart as well as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for his novel. Brettley will use dollar store, Walmart, Brain Quest and Star Wars workbooks.
Next is Social Studies, which has been a big pain, in my opinion. There's no good Canadian curriculum sets similar to other programs. So Caleb will be using the Courage and Conquest Living History Bundle, Discovering Canada's Government and Canadian Geography & Mapping Skills. Tyrell will be using Complete Canadian Curriculum and Pioneers in Canada. Brettley will be using Brain Quest and online resources. We will be taking a field trip to Fort Edmonton Park.
Caleb and Tyrell will both be using Complete Canadian Curriculum and Complete ScienceSmart for their Science. Brettley will be using iPad apps, online resources and Netflix learning shows for science. We will also be taking 2 trips to the Telus World of Science and a trip to the Valley Zoo. Tyrell will be doing a trip to the John Janzen Nature Center, as well.

Then they will have a break to do their other 2 chores and have another snack.

Caleb and Tyrell will then do their spelling work from the Evan-Moor books. I haven't fully decided what Brettley will be doing during this time yet. Probably work on a Handwriting Without Tears book. After spelling is the Health/Computers block. Depending on the day, they will either do health activities, laptop games, a typing lesson or iPad games. We are using Canadian Health Activities and Canadian Character Education for health. Caleb will also do a unit study about Inside Out. I am still decided on our typing program, but I have it narrowed down to Dance Mat Typing or typing.com
Our last block of the day is Creative Time, where they are free to choose what they want to do, as long as it's something creative related. It could be a craft, drawing, colouring, dancing or something like that.

We should be done by lunch each day, as a few of these blocks will actually only take about 10-15 minutes. I am flexible about how things will work out each day, but this is our general plan, since Caleb and I are both people who require a routine. So that's our plan for next year. Caleb chose to give up French, and I wasn't going to push it. While we will be active regularly and will be doing swimming lessons in the year, we won't have a formal gym class. We aren't taking off nearly as many days as Edmonton Public Schools are, so we should be done the year around mid to late April. The kids were very clear that they'd rather have a longer summer break than lots of breaks during the school year. We are so excited to start!

So the schedule looks like:
Block 1 - Religion
Block 2 - Free Reading
Block 3 - Math
BREAK AND CHORES
Block 4 - ELA
Block 5 - Social
Block 6 - Science
BREAK AND CHORES
Block 7 - Spelling
Block 8 - Health/Computers
Block 9 - Creative Time
LUNCH AND END OF SCHOOL DAY

Decision Time

I'm seriously considering making a separate blog for my home schooling posts, where I could write happily about once per week and say what we've been up to and how things are going. However, I'm pretty worried that if I create a separate blog that I'll never have anything to say on here. Is anyone still reading this? Does anyone have any suggestions about this? Thanks in advance :)

But That's Not What It's Supposed to Look Like...

Surprisingly, this post isn't homeschool related. So for the past several months I have struggling with depression and anxiety. It was hard to take it seriously for quite a while, because it was nowhere near as severe as it was before I started taking Seroquel. Before then, depression and anxiety meant not being able to do even the easiest of household tasks, not being able to hold myself together when John wasn't here, majorly struggling with self-harm. This time around, I was still able to get the basic chores around the house done, I was able to function without John at home, I was able to be consistent with homeschooling and even feel excitement about it. Although I'm sure I will always struggle with the temptation to self-harm, I haven't given in for well over a year. So my life didn't look how I expected depression and anxiety to look, but it was there. I was almost ambivalent about Christmas, which is the opposite of how I usually am. I couldn't sit still with more than 10 people near me without having an anxiety attack (yes, that means I couldn't do church), and often was having anxiety attacks in stores. I was depression eating.

So this past week I decided to make some changes. I was willing to open up to a good friend and also to a bishopric member about what was going on. That was a huge step, I always try to hide when I'm struggling. I committed to only eating after supper once per week, which would eliminate most of my stress-induced chips and dip binges. I am committing to some sort of intentional movement every day that John works, even if it's just dancing to 2 songs one day. I started taking a multivitamin for women. I decided to take church 1 week at a time, and my goal for this Sunday is to sit in the hallway and be able to stay there at least long enough to partake of the sacrament. At any time after that, if the anxiety is too much, I'll go sit in the van and read Jesus the Christ until John and the boys are done their meetings.

Also, I made the connection that things really started going downhill right when I started taking birth control pills in an effort to help with PMS emotional issues. So since I just finished a pack anyway, I decided that the trade off isn't worth it, and I won't be continuing with them.

While things haven't been easy, I've remained optimistic that I will get through this rough patch, like I always do. I just need to pull out of it 1 step at a time.

Home Schooling Area

These bins hold stickers, my office supplies, learning manipulatives and things like that. We got them on a clearance sale.

The towers and their bookshelf were already there. We cleared out a lot of space from the towers (the XBox stuff is all in a storage bench now) and got the magazine holders to hold curriculum books. Our books have come since this picture was taken, so they are very full now.

The white boards now each have a sticker with the first letter of their name on them, colour coded to each boy's favourite colour.

Brettley's white board moved off of the window wall and is now beside the calendar. The seasons chart at the top of this picture is now above Ty's desk (far left). The desks were all on clearance sale from IKEA, score!

So here is our schooling space. We tried it out daily during Spring Break and it works extremely well for us. I love it and so do the boys!

My Latest Project is in Progress

A lot of people who know me well know that Tyrell has been asking me to homeschool him since Kindergarten. That was a rough year for us. His teacher (for 8 of the 10 months) was NOT someone I respected and we had a few situations that made me extremely angry with her. We nearly pulled him halfway through the year after one particular incident. Ty loved doing school in the afternoons at home for a while. He never forgot how much he loved it and would regularly bring up wanting to do 'Mommy School' instead of going to school. Since Caleb has started schooling at home, Ty has become more insistent (understandably, since Caleb ended up getting something that Ty has been asking for the past couple of years). He has ended up in tears about it a few times. So John and I went back to praying. Clearly, I am capable of planning a comprehensive curriculum and following through on it. When life happens and we get off track, we get right back on track and don't end up behind. We weren't sure if I could do this, but we trusted the answer that we got about Caleb, and it turned out to be incredibly accurate. Caleb is thriving! His emotions have become significantly more stable. I am becoming more patient with each day, which is something I've struggled with my whole life.

Well, we got another answer. Come fall, all 3 of our boys will be home educated. We are fortunate that Brettley's birthday is just within the cutoff date, and we are able to register him for grade 1 to receive funding for him, which is awesome! So I have been busy planning curriculum for Tyrell and Brettley, as well as our plans to keep learning over the summer. It was obvious that schooling in my room in the fall wouldn't be an option anymore, which we had been doing for the past couple of weeks. So we made a trip to IKEA, Staples and Walmart and began my latest project, which is making a dedicated learning space in half of our living room. We still need to grab another desk tomorrow, but so far we have 2 desks, white boards for each of them above their desk (I write their daily plans on them), organizers for workbooks and an open storage bin system for their different learning items (such as geometry set pieces, math manipulatives, Boogie Boards, stickers, etc).

It's not quite ready yet, but when it's done, I will post pictures of the space on here. It also includes their bookshelf, which was already there and 2 other 'shelf' units, which are for media as well as school storage. We are very much looking forward to this next adventure in our lives. The staff at the school, while expressing how much they miss Caleb and will miss Tyrell, have been incredibly supportive and respectful of our decisions, which I am very grateful for. We are truly being blessed so much as we seek for Heavenly Father's guidance in the lives of our children and follow the answers that we have been given.

Mostly a School Update

The past several weeks of doing home schooling with Caleb have been awesome. We get closer to finding our groove with each day. His behaviour has improved so much, it's awesome. Today we got his grade 4 and grade 5 novels in the mail, along with his grade 4 French book to do over the summer. He is reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe for grade 4 and Underground to Canada for grade 5. Of course, the planner in me has his novels picked out all the way through to grade 12, ha ha.

Over the past couple of weeks, I finalized his lesson plan schedule for grade 5 and got his Education Program Plan ready, so when his facilitator comes soon, we can get his registration for next year done quickly. I had originally planned to go with a different board in the fall and register him as aligned to the Alberta Programs of Study, but changed my mind for a couple of reasons. The first is that our current board was willing to bail me out mid-year when we needed a fast solution, and I am extremely grateful for that. Also, I enjoy being able to use whatever curriculum I want to meet our goals for the year, and don't want to have to potentially give that up by switching to aligned (it's dependent on the facilitator how much flexibility we would have). Our biggest expense for grade 5 will be his karate class, so we don't require more than what traditional gets for funding. We will be able to do quite a bit with our $835, and have included 4 field trips in that plan. Almost everything he will be doing will actually meet the Programs of Study, but we decided to focus on different units in science instead. In grade 6 I am hoping to water down the Book of Mormon seminary program to his level, and add that into our day. We are also planning to get him doing a typing program so that he is comfortable typing by the time he gets to grade 7.

We picked up a new laptop with our tax return, as our old one was several years old and I'd rather buy one when I have a few extra dollars than have it crash 6 months from now and not have money to replace it without using the credit card. Funny enough, the only laptop that met all of my requirements (and there weren't a lot, either) was HP's Star Wars laptop. I am really enjoying it. Now the boys can have the old laptop, which will be great when Caleb starts learning to type and has computers a few times per week come the fall.

Not much else is new right now, I guess. My life is very home school-centric at the moment. I am loving it, though. I am so grateful that we were led to this choice for Caleb and that it is working so well for him!

Realizing My Capabilities

We've been through a fair bit in the past week. First, my little Brettley turned 5 years old. Where on earth has the time gone? As an extra thought on this, when Caleb was 5 he seemed so big. Because Brettley is the youngest and a little short (or a lot short) for his age, he seems super tiny to me. He wears size 5 tops, but just got into size 4 pants a couple of months ago, so he is quite short for a 5 year old. However, he made up for his lack of height by losing not 1, but 2 teeth on his birthday! Caleb and Ty were both 6 when they lost their first teeth, so Brettley is ahead of the group in that area. Some of the things Brettley got for his birthday were a truck launcher he'd been asking for, 2 Paw Patrol toys and a Paw Patrol bedding set (comforter, sheets and pillowcase). He was a VERY happy boy, and he's finally keeping a pillowcase on his pillow for once.

On Friday, the stress of everything I've been going through the past couple of weeks sort of hit me really hard. John and I decided together a couple of things. First, that because we don't actually need the money I get from doing lunch at the school and because Caleb did straight out tell me that it disrupts his home schooling too much, I will finish working for February, but won't be continuing to do lunch anymore come March. Also, we decided that 5 filling appointments in a month and a half was way too much stress on both out time and finances, so we're going to do 1 filling each month until they're done. Also, we'll get Ty's all done before we start doing any of Caleb's to give Caleb more time to develop some skills to get over his big fear of needles. I felt so much better after we reworked these things to cut down on my stress level a bit.

I think I got into this mentality that because I can handle things a lot better than I could before I started Seroquel that I need to be able to handle everything. One of the first things my doctor ever said to me was that I need to be aware of what I'm capable of and work with that. I'm going to work harder to be aware of my personal capabilities and be more willing to say no when it's necessary.

John was able to have a 4 day weekend, and yesterday we took the kids to the Telus World of Science. The past couple of years, instead of getting lots of toys for the kids, we've asked my dad to instead just fund a family fun day for us. As I've mentioned before, our kids are the only grandkids on my side, so they kind of get spoiled rotten. The boys LOVED going to the TWOS. I was worried Brettley wouldn't like it too much, but he was right in there just as much as his brothers were. After we were done there we took the boys for lunch at Red Robins (their choice). Then we took them to Toys R Us and Mastermind Toys to each get something. Well, Brettley did get a lot since he had birthday money to spend as well. Caleb bought a paratrooper with a no-tangle parachute and a little science experiment kit. Ty got a little space gun, a singing Olaf toy, a Frozen pen and Frozen skin stickers. In case you couldn't tell, he is still quite stuck on Frozen, ha ha. Brettley got himself a grabber claw stick, a red Boogie Board and 6 Paw Patrol toys with badges. He only needs 2 more now to complete his badge collection (Zuma and Marshall).

That's about it for this week. I woke up with a sore throat this morning, so I got an extra day at home with Caleb and Brettley. Now Caleb is finishing up his math for the day and I'm drinking another herbal tea with honey. I'm very much looking forward to March when I get to have days like this (minus the being sick) far more often.

3 Days In

So today is officially day 3 of home school. Monday was kind of odd. It was the first day, we were figuring what works to begin with, and then I had to leave to work at the school, so my dad was over for the tail end of Caleb's work, which was the worst example of it. The last 10 minutes or so were hard for Caleb, he was feeling a bit done.

Yesterday was AMAZING! I didn't have to work because my class was on a field trip, so I didn't have to interrupt our day. I became more conscious of when he needs breaks and snacks. I ensured that he ate a good breakfast before we started. Caleb gets really 'hangry' as of late. It was an all around awesome day and he even helped make supper as well.

Today was a hard day. The day after Cubs is ALWAYS hard. It causes him to get to bed a little bit later than normal (his normal bedtime is 8:45) and has him extremely stimulated in the evening. Looking at how thing are today, I may switch it so that on Wednesdays he does his work in the afternoon when I get home from the school, instead of in the morning. Or split it half and half. We'll see how things go next week and continue to adapt from there.

Tomorrow I go back to working at the school, so our days will be messed up again. I'm REALLY glad that I won't be doing lunch supervision next year, it just isn't working well for us now. I agreed to finish the year out though, so I'm trying really hard to keep that commitment.

***

In other news, my baby boy turns 5 tomorrow! His cake is currently in the oven. He LOVES homemade German chocolate cake with coconut pecan icing. He's my only boy who still prefers for me to make his cake instead of buy it, so I'm going to enjoy that while it lasts :)

I would also like to say that I was super impressed with myself on Monday, that I was able to home school and work at all. The night before was really bad. I have struggled with major back pain since I was a teenager. It's been a lot worse lately since I injured my back at Christmas a few years back. However, that being said, the pain I had on Sunday night was hands down THE WORST back pain I've ever had. If it wasn't for several layers of Tiger Balm, an amazing husband rubbing my back and keeping me as calm as possible, I definitely would have ended up in the ER.

Next week we're doing our family fun day. John is taking Tuesday off and Ty is being excused from school. We're taking the kids to the Telus World of Science, going out for lunch to Red Robin (as the kids insisted) and then taking them to Toys R Us so they can each pick out a toy. This day is my Dad's Christmas present to the kids. They are super excited for it and so are we!

Or Not...

So our plan was to wait until September for Caleb to start home education. Then things started going downhill really fast. Before, Caleb came home from school about 2/5 days each week and was either distraught in tears as he walked through the door, or he'd explode in anger. I eventually figured out that the problem was that he'd tried to stay in control all day long and bottled up 'everything' and it would explode when he got home. Well, it started happening every.single.day. Caleb couldn't handle things. I couldn't handle things. The status quo was clearly not working anymore. So we made a big change, and decided to start home schooling ASAP instead. I found a board that was willing to accept him mid-year. I quickly figured out some curriculum, pieced together an Education Program Plan and sent in his registration information last Friday. On Wednesday this week, I heard from Caleb's facilitator. He was very nice and let me know that he's happy to be involved as much or as little as we're comfortable with. Then yesterday morning the official acceptance letter came. So today is Caleb's last day at the school. Monday he starts doing home school. It's a little bit sad. He'll miss seeing his friends so much. It's sad for him to leave the school he's been at since the first day of Kindergarten. But all 3 of us (John, Caleb and I) know with a deep surety that this was the right decision for Caleb and his specific needs.

For inquiring minds, we are only doing 5 subjects for the rest of grade 4. English Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies and Health. He was planning on dropping art and music next year anyway, so I wasn't even going to bother with that. He's doing level 1 French in grade 5 as is, so continuing FSL this year wasn't at all necessary. As for Phys Ed, we will still have opportunities for him to be physically active, it's just not an official subject for him for the rest of the year. We may put him in swimming lessons a couple of months down the road, but we'll see how things go.

So that's kind of everything that's been going on, for the most part. Most of my time went into dealing with this and getting everything ready as quickly as possible. I'm sure there are people who think I'm crazy for making this choice, but we got an incredibly strong answer from Heavenly Father and continue to get them, so we feel very confident going into this that we have made the best choice that we could for Caleb. I feel so blessed to be in a position to be able to do this for him, and to do it within a province that (in my opinion) is one of the best places in Canada to home educate.

In the way of other news, Caleb and Tyrell went to the dentist this week. They were both awesome, but they both need fillings, so we'll be doing that next month. Mostly nervous about Caleb, because he has a fear of needles, but we will be bribing him to tough through it. Also, my doctor referred me for a sleep study for sleep apnea, which I have do to at the end of the month. I'm really not looking forward to it, mostly because I have a hard time falling asleep as it is and I'm pretty sure that having a mask strapped to my face isn't going to help much in that area. Oh well, better safe than sorry. Sleep apnea causes a truck load of problems if not treated correctly.

And as a final note, I can't believe that the baby of the family turns 5 next week. In some ways it feels like he's still 2, but in other ways it feels like he's been with us for so much longer than 5 years. Two things are for sure though. 1) We love him so very much and 2) He is still the best surprise I've ever had in my life.

Post #2 For Today

I think I have done Caleb a bit of an injustice. I never saw him as a kid with special needs, I saw him as a kid who struggles with ADHD. As we met with his psychologist the other day and she had me list off what has been diagnosed and what I feel still needs to be diagnosed I had a realization as I rattled off this list:
-ADHD
-Oppositional Defiant Disorder
-Anxiety
-Sensory Processing Disorder
-Severe Desire for Structure and Routine
-Rage Attacks Caused by Above
Caleb is, in fact, a child with special needs. It certainly doesn't make him a bad kid, and it doesn't even make me a bad parent for not realizing this earlier. It just means that now we're a bit better equipped to make stronger and more effective decisions regarding Caleb.

I think of things like travel, which we will be changing how we look at. His psychologist reminded me that travel in particular is going to be a very hard thing for him. It's different at my mum's. She follows any routine I ask her to, Caleb is used to travelling there every couple of months, and it's only a 2 hour trip home if things aren't working out well. Anything more than that needs to be seriously evaluated. Caleb desperately needs structure and routine in his life, and travelling really throws a wrench into that. He gets overstimulated very easily at family gatherings, which triggers a lot of difficult reactions in him. Travel that takes any more than 2 or 3 hours to get back home from, makes it very difficult if he needs to leave earlier than planned.

I'm in the process of changing how I make him aware of my expectations, of consequences and how I wind him down at the end of the day, so that these things are clear to him, become a routine and are more effective for him. We are becoming more aware of making sure his needs are met, both in making accommodations and also in making expectations and consequences easier to understand.

Oil Love

We're still super excited about doing homeschooling next year. We changed his courses a little bit. We convinced him to keep French, and he will do French and Science online through our board and then the rest of his courses for the year will be parent delivered. It will be a very big change for us, but I can see a difference in the bond between Caleb and I even just having made this decision.

We had our first appointment with his new psychologist on Tuesday. It went well, I think that she'll be a far bigger help than his last one. We've made a few parenting changes since that meeting. John no longer plays games with a rating of T or higher while the boys are awake. I am getting a 'lot' better about keep a calm voice, even when I'm upset. The bedtime routine has changed as well. The boys are not allowed to have screen time within 30 minutes of their bedtime. The TV goes off with the first time, the older boys can use their iPods until their time is up. I also dim the lights downstairs at that time and turn on some relaxing music. It made a world of difference last night! We have a few more changes coming in the next week, that will make things even better in the long run.

Caleb and I have been borrowing an oil diffuser the past few days and testing out different oils. We love it and there has only been 1 oil that we didn't like so far. I spent my Christmas money and ordered myself my own diffuser and a few oils. So Caleb now has the Scentsy warmer that was in my room before. I have one in the basement as well, and told Tyrell that I'd try it out in their room and see how that goes. I'm transitioning them to sleeping with their big light in their room off, and the Scentsy warmers help a lot with that because they are like a nightlight.

Not a lot else going on here. Just the same old stuff, ha ha. Have a good one!

A Change Is Coming, and boy are we excited

What a busy week! We had a very huge decision to make. After toying with an idea for a few years now, we seriously prayed for an answer about whether it was the right thing or not. Our answer was overwhelming to make this change. So starting in the fall Caleb will be home educated. All 3 of us (Caleb, John and myself) are excited for this adventure. We have already talked to his current teacher and the acting principal and they both are supportive of this decision. I spoke with a registrar from the willing non-resident board we will be with yesterday and was very impressed with how friendly and helpful she was. We will receive his registration package in April and we are excited to get the process started. Caleb will be aligned to Alberta's Programs of Studies, but has decided that he will drop music and art (and French as a Second Language, if possible). This means he will be taking English Language Arts (done in 3 separate time blocks), Health, Math, Phys Ed (karate class twice per week), Science and Social Studies. He was very happy that he had the option of dropping music and art. Art in particular has never been his strong suit and is clearly not something he plans on pursuing. We picked out the books we'll use for his curriculum, and will fill in anything they may lack with worksheets from some awesome websites.

I have had some pretty awesome people to talk to as we researched and were praying for our answer. My good friend/family member who has home educated since her oldest was old enough for kindergarten was a HUGE help to me. We also have some members in our ward who switched from attending public school over to home education this past fall. I was able to speak to their mom and one of the older girls about what that transition was like for them.

So that's our big news for this past week. I'm still going strong with my 2016 commitments. It's hard to believe that January is already almost half over. Caleb's initial appointment with his new psychologist is this coming Tuesday, which will be great. At least we're not in a huge rush now for a full assessment, since we no longer have to worry about rushing to have him coded before April.

A Perfect Week

I made a goal for 2016 to study my scriptures using a journal as well as have at least one good personal prayer (preferably two) every single day this year. I am happy to say that I have successfully completed that goal for the first week of the year.

Our Christmas went well, we enjoyed another quiet year at home. I was spoiled with colouring things, starter calligraphy books and tools as well as a calligraphy quill.

This month we're looking forward to Caleb having his first appointment with a new psychologist and to hopefully start the process of getting him coded for school.
I hope you've enjoyed the first week of 2016!