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!