Been Awhile Since I've Updated About School

For anyone who reads this with any regularity, I apologize for not posting any school updates for so long. The past 6 weeks have been nothing but doctor appointments, vet appointments, and trying to just catch up on chores and the bare minimum of school work. At least that's the way it has seemed, although as I think about what we've accomplished with school, we've done more than I thought. Somehow, no matter what life throws at us, school for my daughters is always my #1 priority.

E is doing wonderfully in all her second grade work. She loves math, and is currently completing lesson 73 as I type this. She has vastly improved her speed on her addition and subtraction drills, has learned about half of her multiplication tables, and no matter how difficult the assignment she always gets As, and many days begs to do another lesson.

E's handwriting has also vastly improved, and I would even call it "pretty" some days. She is reading chapter books fluently now, both out loud to me, and to herself for enjoyment. She and I are working slowly through Phonics and Spelling. She does well remembering spelling rules and applying them to her assignments, but tends to forget when writing stories, cards, or in other assignments that spelling correctly is meant to be done ALL the time, with ALL writing, not just in a workbook.

E and I have begun reading, "Little House in the Big Woods" each day for History. We usually read about 20 pages a day, and she reads roughly a third of those pages aloud.

As for C.....she is still doing fine with math. She is becoming a little less lazy on her first go-round, which is earning her higher grades (A's) and less time spent re-doing problems she already well knows how to do. She is on lesson 77 today. She is working through her 7th unit for English, and this week through Thanksgiving week is researching and writing a Research Paper on an Historical Place of her choosing. C chose to write about Pompeii.

I have to really hand it to C. We have had so many unexpected interuptions in our schedule since the beginning of October, and without complaint she often doubles up on lessons to make up for days lost, so she isn't behind at all.

Both girls and I are still enjoying our Anatomy and Physiology course this year. We have completed the units on cells, reproduction, the skeletal system, muscles, the digestive system, and the renal system. This week we began a Health and Nutrition unit.

Coinciding with our anatomy study, C has been plagued by unexplained wrist pain intermittantly for the past few years. The past few months the pain has increased, in severity, duration, and instances. I took C to her regular pediatrition, and was able to get a referral to an orthopedic sports injury specialist. C has had X-rays, and yesterday, and MRI, and we await the doctor's verdict next week. I pray she won't need surgery, but the pain has increased to the point she often times refuses to play, and wakes up at night from a sound sleep needing ice packs. E and I were present for all of C's appointments, and I think the radiologist was pretty impressed by 7 year-old E exclaiming upon viewing the X-rays, "I see C------'s phalanges! And there's her ulna and radius! Wow! I can see her metacarpals, too!" If the radiologist wasn't impressed, she sure got a big chuckle at least. LOL

As for C's social studies...I have altered a bit from HOD's curriculum. I will still employ several of their books, and use their art, poetry, literature, and Bible, but I have incorporated more of our own "living" books, along with Story of the World Volume 2, and Mystery of History Volume III. The biggest change is that I decided to scrap the notebooking work, as C and I were both dreading the tedium and repetitiveness of it, and the hour and a half every day it was sucking up of our time.

That's about it for an update for now.....long story short...both girls are not only doing well....they are ahead, and we'll keep plugging away. Please pray for C and her wrist, and that she may be healed without surgery, but that if surgery is required, that it will all go safely and well, and as painlessly as possible.