School and Speech

We got a late start this morning.  No one seemed to want to get up...most likely because of the fun the boys had star gazing last night!  Michael pulled out our telescope and tried to peak past the clouds to see the stars.  He will watch for a clearer night and try again later this week!

In spite of our late start, the third school week began...and we started out with a little bit of redo from last week.  The boys hate spelling all around so it is not surprising that their scores from last week are not up to par.  I am going to need to get creative with this subject.  We also got behind in history and science...those afternoon courses that get away from us!  BUT, thankfully, the boys enjoy these subjects so it is never too hard to get caught up.

So, the game plan when these things happen in our school house, is to bring the student to the subject as if we were on track... in other words, stay in our regular routine.  If we are behind in a subject we try to double up on assignments until we are caught up.  This is not always possible but it usually works.  If we are redoing tests that do not relate to the next assigned lessons, I have them continue the current week's lessons.  Then when they have time, in between subjects, they are given time to review the topic and re-take a given test.  This is their responsibility and any grade recorded stays in the books until they decide to re-take the test.  However, if the subject matter effects their next week's work, we review and re-take tests before moving to the next lesson.  It seems to work well for us.  Sometimes we still get behind but I would rather have them learning then rushing to the next lesson.  It all seems to work out in the end.

The boys did get through the lessons today without too much trouble even with make up work.  The older boys were especially excited to have another science experiment.  Today we focused on air, which led to the understanding of the percentage of oxygen in the air.  I knew that there was more nitrogen than oxygen in air but I never knew how important it was to have this type of percentage.  Today we learned that the air has about 20% oxygen and if this percentage was at a higher level it increases the risk of fires.  This also would cause our bodies to increase the ability to burn energy!  This was demonstrated in an experiment in which we increased the oxygen in a jar with a burning candle.  The boys really enjoyed this experiment because they were convinced something might explode!  Thankfully, this did not happen and we got to have fun seeing the reaction of the candle to this oxygen increase.

We finished this experiment just in time to send Sean out the door with Michael for his speech session.  We have been very blessed with the program at the university.  Graduate students who need experience working with clients are assigned a student each semester.  These clients come from the community and there is a waiting list each semester.  We have been able to take Sean the last two years and he has made a lot of progress.  We have learned so much from the director of the program as well.

Michael and Sean met the rest of us at the park for our first 4H photography meeting.  To learn more about this adventure check out my 4H blog!

We got home in time for Sean to try his skills in the kitchen making Eggs Benedict!  I wish I had taken pictures!  He did a great job!