Sonlight Core 1 week 5

Supplemental List Review Time!

OK, we are sometimes behind on supplements, since my library doesn't always get them out to me when I ask for them. So, some of these are from Week 4's list as well.

Water Buffalo Days: Growing Up in Vietnam by Huynh Quang Nhuong

This book is a really nice one.  It was supposed to Supplement Akebu to Zapotec's section on the Chut peoples in Vietnam.  However, this book in and of itself is interesting, and provides a personal account of living in Vietnam in early read-aloud format.  There are 16 chapters in total, and I would advise using this book as a read-aloud instead of a reader.  If you have very sensitive children, I would refrain from using this book at all, since a beloved pet water buffalo dies in the beginning of the story, is replaced by a new one, and the new old dies in the end of the story. In addition, there is an earthquake and a tiger attack.  But, overall a very fun look for children into another culture. 

Children of Vietnam by Marybeth Lorbiecki

Consisting of mostly photographs, a two or three paragraphs per page tell the story of various children who live in Vietnam, their families, and their lives.  While I think the text could use some improvement, I like the fact that the book focuses on children that live in the region rather than continuously focus on adults, as well as the photographs on each and every page. The photos help bring the above Water Buffalo Days book to life.

Charlie's House by Clyde Robert Bulla

This book is hauntingly touching, but I am using it as a reader, having pre-read the story for my six year old.  In typical Bulla fashion, it is a book on the 2 intermediate level of reading.  Another pre-warning for sensitive children here.  Charlie is run over by horses, temporarily unable to walk.  When he recovers, he works hard until he is twelve, and then makes his father mad by causing them to lose both a horse and a cow, causing him to have what sounds very briefly to be a stroke.  His mother then asks him to leave the house before his brothers try to hurt him. He flees, and winds up with a man who tells him he will buy him passage to America, but winds up in America as an indentured servant to a fairly nice man.  Well, nice, except he "loses" Charlie to his cousin in a card game.  Charlie is then sent to be a personal servant to a spoiled young girl and embarrassed.  He then is cast out one day, sent to work in the fields, gets punished for taking a drink of water, and is almost whipped until the girl decides she wants him back.  So, he decides to run away, and almost gets caught, but finally gets to his destination and is safe.  Like I said, hauntingly touching, but still written in an innocent enough of a way that even someone as picky as I am will give it as a reader. 

Volcanoes by Stephanie Turnbell

This one was to supplement our Night Animals book in Science.  It is another Usborne Beginners book, and I'll bet most of you can figure out what it is about.  I really liked this one for some reason, the colors just sort of draw your eye to it.

I'll continue to post more as we get through them.

We have finished up Trumpet of the Swan and have watched the video, and are now reading through Stuart Little in addition to Homer Price.  We will watch the Stuart Little video (and Homer Price for that matter) when we are done with them.

Does anyone else NOT buy their children an educational toy/item

because they know the child will likely outgrow it within a day or two?

Seriously. My mom bought my 4 year old four 24 piece puzzles. Within the day, he had put each one together about 4-5 times. The second day he played with them a couple times, and the third day, he touched one puzzle. Now, I got them out to show him again, he put one together in about 3 minutes, and then told me he didn't want to do anymore. So, I have these puzzles that are a waste of money, literally.



Then, my mom brought some Kumon workbooks for 4-5-6 year olds. He had them all done within a week. And wanted more.



She got him a shapes and colors book. He read it through the first time, told her all the shapes and colors, and then got down to go play with his Buzz Lightyear toy, which is the only thing out of all she brought that he still plays with.



My 3 year old got this sorting game. Tons of pieces to sort by size, color, shape, width, and type of picture. She loved it. For a week. Maybe. Maybe less. Then, she found it completely boring. She got a dry-erase trace the letters thing that she also loved. For about 2 days. She already knows her letters and their sounds and can write many of them without tracing.



They got a matching game. They really liked that. It lasted longer than some of the other toys. Took them about 2 weeks to outgrow that one.



They got a book about telling time, which showed what time certain things happened. Took about 3 minutes for my 4 year old to figure out how to tell time by looking at the hour hand, and about 4 times through the book to have the book memorized to the point where he didn't have to look at the clock to tell you the right answer.



I keep telling my mom not to buy toys for them for this reason. But, the problem is, she comes, visits, they still love the toys, she leaves, and toys are no longer fun anymore.



I've thought about different ideas to add to workboxes or activity areas or things like that, but it seems like my options are pretty much limited to items that fall into one of the following categories: items that would make too much of a mess without constant supervision, and would make me frustrated and less happy about teaching; workbooks that are either too easy and they would have finished in a day or less, or those that are so hard they need me there for constant supervision; items that would take 3-4 times as long for me to prepare as it would for them to do; items that they would enjoy, but I would continuously have to be coming up with/purchasing/changing on a daily basis, with little reusable power to them; or items that are really expensive, and those of us with CDO would worry and fret over every little piece to make sure it isn't lost.



Seriously, I don't by my kids toys. I really don't. I can't tell you the last time I bought any of them really a toy. Maybe a couple of years ago, I got some math manipulatives. And Leapfrog letters a little before that. But, toys, nope. They simply don't hold my kids interest for very long. Games, I buy even more infrequently.



Another issue that complicates the whole game/toy issue is that our house is small. We have no special school room. No special toy room or play room. We *often* have other children over. Foster children, children from church, visitors, cousin sets (I call them cousin sets, because they never come over just one at a time. It's Ruben's family with their 6 children, or Saul's family with their 3 children, or Maria's family with her 3 children, or Michael's family with their 5 children, etc., and to complicate things, the vast majority of their cousins are 6 and under) who want to play, touch, look at, dig through, explore the little bit of area we have in our house, and since they are family, I have a hard time declaring things such as pom poms off limits. I mean, seriously. But, that also means that things get lost, broken, destroyed, misplaced, scribbled on, slobbered over, etc. much more easily. And, letting them go outside and play is only an option during the summer. Yes, I try to watch them, but if you have ever been in a family with 4 children, and then had your sister's 3 children over and playing, and their cousins come over and play and you now have an 11, 10, 7, 6, 5, 5, 4, 4, 3, 2, 2, 2, 1, and under 1 year old all in the same house at the same time, sometimes sacrificing a few toys is worth it. And then, if your brother-in-law from 2 blocks down hears about it and wants to come over and visit and bring his 5, 2, and baby along. . . .



Anyways, suffice it to say that I see all these cute little threads about workboxes and activity trays and all these other things and I keep thinking to myself over and over again, that sounds great in theory. Really, it does. But, the amount of work that would go into upkeeping something like that is terrifying. Not to mention the amount of money that would go into it to keep it new enough on a daily basis so they wouldn't grow completely bored with it, is enough to make me consider the cost of $3,000 per year per child preschool a bargain, and let them deal with the missing toys.


So, I've been thinking what else I can do with them to keep them busy, and am trying to come up with new ideas.

Core 1 Week 4 days 5 and Core P 4/5 week 1 day 5.

We finished up week 1 of Core P 4/5 today. I'm going to have to work on some pictures. I'm not adding in a whole lot this time around for my two little ones. Well, not a whole lot, if you don't count the Abeka K4 videos with all the workbooks. Yeah, I tend to oversupplement, and I'm usually the first to admit it.

But, overall the day went well. We started working on next week's memory verse, since it is a longer one. They also are learning the Abeka Bible verses, so I'm not too worried. They both follow along pretty well. My little boy, however, keeps asking "are we done yet, so I can go play?" But he loves stories.

My oldest two finished up Core 1 week 4 days 3, 4, and 5 today. We were behind. Again. Somehow life just keeps getting in the way.

We didn't finish everything. For example, we skipped Akebu to Zapotec for the week. I don't know why, we just somehow missed it. With all my extra resources. We've been reading an Atlas-type book, called the DK Picturepedia Atlas of the World. We're reviewing one two page spread a day, so it's pretty nice. Lots of geography review. It's nice, because we'll be reading, and then within a couple days, in some other resource, we'll find another place that refers to what we are just reading.

We're also adding in the final What Lives in the . . . . series by Oona Gaarder-Juntti. I double-checked the spelling on her name. We use it as a guessing game book. They really are easy readers, but it's more fun to guess. There's one animal per two page spread. I cover the name of the animals, and all the info. They look at the picture and guess the name of the animal. Then I have them guess the class and then the location. Some of them have fairly easy locations. For example, the What Lives in Antarctica book features only animals that live in, yep, you guessed it, Antarctica.

But, each book tells the name, class, and location, and just a few details in easy reader format for about 10 animals.

A third fun book is called Animal Senses: How Animals See, Hear, Taste, Smell, and Feel by Pamela Hickman. It's fun, because it has simple "experiments" children can easily do for each sense. Very simple, but fun.

Also, Libraries by Lucia Raatma is another good book. It's an easy reader type book but with lots of big words. I particularly like the How Libraries started chapter about early writing materials and clay tablets in Mesopotamia and how papyrus was made, and Hadrian's Library in Greece.

We're also done with Charlotte's Web and adding in Trumpet of the Swan. We're on about chapter 7 out of 21, but I think we start a new book next week, so I'm just going to keep reading a little bit out of each chapter.

Zac-a-Potatoes and the Miraculous Lung Surgery Reversal Story

Someone on the forums asked me about my comment in my siggy, referring to a lung surgery reversal. So, I've decided to post the story so others can share it with anyone who is interested.

March of 2009, all 4 of my children caught a really bad cold. This was back when the swine flu was still only in Mexico, and people weren't hyped up yet. :) After 2-3 weeks of orange juice and cold medicine, my skinniest child, Zacarayah (who was almost 3 and weighed in at 22 pounds, the same weight he had been at 9 months and who still wore 12 month pants, because the 2 year old pants assumed children had diapers on and fell off) started getting a really fast heartbeat, over 200 a minute, and started breathing really fast, over 60 a minute, which I knew wasn't good. Plus, the whole Tylenol/Motrin thing wasn't doing anything for his fever, which was starting to hit 106 with more frequency, and the medicine was only helping for about an hour or so at a time.

So, I brought him and my second sickest child in to the ER because one of my good doctor friends was working ER that night. He gave Zacarayah a shot of Rocephin (antibiotic) and sent them both home with antibiotics and cough medicine, and enough to cover all 4 of my children.

Well, the next day, Zacarayah didn't seem a whole lot better. In fact, if anything, he was worse. So, I brought him in again. They did X-rays and say something that looked like a pneumonia. Since his fever was 106 at the time, combined with the x-rays, and the fact that the antibiotic hadn't even helped him a little bit, plus the super-fast heart rate and respiratory rate, they decided to keep him in the hospital for a couple of days on IV antibiotics.

So, they started 2 different antibiotics around the clock. Plus Motrin and Tylenol at maximum doses schedule around the clock. Plus IV fluids.

After 3 days, there were no improvements. So, they switched antibiotics and tried again. 2 days later, there were still no improvements, and the fevers rarely went below 104, even with Tylenol and Motrin. He had pretty much quit eating, which, for a severely underweight sick child, is not really a good thing.

So, they decided to send him up to children's hospital. We went up there, and he underwent just about every test known to mankind. He arrived on Friday afternoon, and they didn't have anyone there over the weekend to put in a PICC line, (really? Come on now) until Monday afternoon. So, 3 times a day they had to try to take blood from an underweight, malnourished, super-skinny, not eating 106 fever 3 year old, which was not fun. They quickly ran out of hands veins after vein after vein blew, and then started in on his feet, and then his ankles and then his legs. I'm not sure where they would have gone next, had they not finally got his PICC line in. Poor child was so traumatized by needles, because each time they had to draw blood, it almost always took 4-5 pokes to get enough.

They changed his antibiotics around, and added some antifungals, and then switched those around, and then added more, and then added TPN (IV feedings, since he had pretty much quit eating all food), and then switched everything around again. Still getting Motrin and Tylenol around the clock, higher doses than recommended now, and still the fever rarely even dipped below 104 or 105, and was up in the 106.8 range right before it was time for the next dose.

He started out with two doctors, a pediatrician, and a pulmonologist. By Monday morning, he was up to about 7 doctors, 2 surgeons, and a whole entire boatload of interns. They paraded in throughout the day to ask questions, poke, prod, examine, discuss, and otherwise check on their little patient.

My Monday afternoon, they had tested him for everything they could think of, and then some. Swine flu, bird flu, pneumonia, RSV, Celiac disease, tuberculosis, asthma, various types of fungi and bacteria and viruses, and kidney problems and lung disease, and cancer, and heart problems, and allergies, and the list went on and on and on. Some things made sense, others just had me wondering if they were just grabbing at straws.

So, as time went on, he was getting worse and worse. They were pretty sure that it was a pleural effusion of some sort, and the surgeons, who were increasing almost daily in number, were undecided as to what to do. We even had some surgeons from other hospitals come consult. About half wanted to do surgery, open up his lung, and remove the source of infection. The other half wanted to keep waiting, giving the antibiotics a chance to work, and encapsulate the infection, before doing surgery, or hope that the antibiotics alone would work.

The biggest risk was that they felt that a wet-type lung infection they suspected they were dealing with had a VERY high potential for systemic damage if they operated. The biggest risk of all, was that the infected area would just sort of disintegrate when they tried to remove it, so instead of having the infection remain in the portion of his lung where it was, it would literally send tiny pieces all over the place, spreading the infection even faster.

So, finally, they all agreed that the antibiotics weren't doing much. They were all pretty much agreed to doing the surgery.

Just before the surgery, one of the pulmonologists rechecked the Xrays and stated that perhaps he knew what the problem was, but he was unable to say for certain without doing the surgery.

So, we went ahead with the surgery. They were going to go in and remove as little of the actual lung itself as they could, although the infection looked to be taking up to over half his lung, and might wind up having to remove the whole lung, and hope that the infection wouldn't spread further.

He went in for the surgery.


The head surgeon told us it would take hopefully about 8-12 hours to do the surgery, perhaps longer, depending on what happened. I think he was out in under 4 hours. They had removed a large portion of the lung, and had 2 chest tubes draining the rest of the infection if there was any.

They moved him up to ICU, where they told us he would be for about a week, if everything went right. Perhaps longer, there was no way to tell. Just slightly over 24 hours later, they were moving him back to the floor. It would have been under 24 hours, but they weren't prepared for him to do so well, so they didn't have a room open, and had to wait for one.




They said the chest tubes would need to be in for 1-2 weeks, at least, to make sure all the drainage was out. One was left in for 2 days after we got out of ICU, the second was taken out the next day.

They told me to expect fevers still for several days after the surgery. He came out of the surgery without a fever, and didn't get another fever again for over 8 months.

They said that he would be in the hospital for about a month after surgery, perhaps more. He was out in about a week. Mostly because they kept wanting to keep him just a little longer to make sure he was doing well.

They said he would need to keep the PICC line in for about 6 months to a year after the surgery, and be on antibiotics for that long through his line, to make sure the infection was all gone. Two weeks after we were home, the doctors said it could come out, they had done all the precautionary antibiotics he would need for now, just to watch him.

They said that it would take him from 1-2 years to regain a lot of his strength, and that he would always get winded a little easier and be a little shorter of breath, but he should be fine as he got older. Just never expect him to be able to run a marathon or do heavy sports. It took him maybe a month to get back to fairly normal, and he can outrun any of my other children, and most of the children at church as well, even though many are bigger than he is.

The only thing they were wrong about in a not-so-positive aspect, was that they told me that he would start gaining weight after he started healing. He's 4.5 years old now, and he weighs, well, 28 pounds. Almost. And, that's with the 3 pediasures a day, high calorie meals, and high calorie snacks. But, I think that's just him.

So, all that still doesn't ex pain the "lung surgery reversal." Yeah, he recovered, but where the the reversal part come in?

Well, remember that pulmonologist I mentioned? The one that said that he might know what the problem was, but wouldn't be able to tell until after the surgery? Well, it turns out that his official diagnosis was called by the lovely short name of "Congenital Cystic Adenomatoid Malformation." In layman's terms, that meant that part of his lung didn't develop properly. He was born with the problem. A small portion of the lung just sort of developed into a little ball.

If it is noticed before it causes problems, it is always recommended that it is removed. The reason for this is that this area has a high risk of causing problems. Infections, abnormal growth, causing lung difficulties, and cancer. We got the infection one. Because the infection was localized to the area of the lung where the malformation was, it looked like a pneumonia or abscess or effusion. Because it was infected it was hard to tell what it was.

Now, this area of the lung can be a large portion of the lung, a very small portion of the lung that swells with infection, or a portion attached to the lung.

Upon removal of this infected portion, his lung reinflated to its correct position, and all signs of infection disappeared from his body. Except for a couple scars on his lung, and a couple scars on his body, you would never even guess by looking at an X-ray that the surgeon fully believed he had removed over half of his lung. His current x-rays barely show any change at all from normal, apart from the scar tissue. Basically, after all that, all they did was go in and remove an extra little sac that got really, really, really, really big, and then the rest of his lung went back to doing what it was supposed to do as if nothing ever happened.

So, once again, this special little angel became my "miracle boy." He's always been my "miracle boy." I probably never should have gotten pregnant with him, the pregnancy probably could have been lost 100 different ways, and he had so many complications at birth, it's hard to believe he lived and is 100% normal. In fact, according to his pulmonologist, who loves to make jokes, he's *more* normal now than he was when he was born. :D

Further information: Congenital Cystic Adenomatoid Malformation is very rare disease. Zacarayah's pulmonologist, who specialized in these types of disease, told us that they are so rare, that in all his 30+ years being a specialist, he has seen an "increase" in the number of cases lately. In the last 10 years, he has had exactly 3 cases. In the 20 years before that, he also had 3 cases. And Zaca's was the worst he had seen out of all of them. This is a doctor who spends his life working with children who have lung diseases which baffle the other specialists.

So, we are here, and still celebrating in this miracle.

These pictures are from the day after he came home from the hospital. PICC line is still in and band-aids are still on.

Core 1 Week 4 Day 1 (and Core P 4/5 week 1 day 3)

I've decided that I don't have enough on my plate already. Why not start a blog, then right?

We're doing Core 1 so far. I'm adding in a list of supplements my friend Stephanie and I came up with for this core. We are loving it, so far. Another time I'll post a list of all the things we are using.

But, for today, I think I'll share a brief story about how our day ended today. So you all can see how even those of us who have been doing this for six years can have "one of those days as well."

So, we started out great. Got through tons of resources, and everything was smooth. Did all of week 4 day 1.

Then, at the very end of the day, it was only 10:30 pm (we start late and finish late most of the time), and the kids have been going to bed around 11 lately, so I told them they could finish up the only thing left over from Week 3. The science experiments. I had wanted to wait until tomorrow when my new magnets came in the mail, but they wanted to do it tonight, so I relented.

My youngest was sound asleep by this time, so it was just Vaneza, Xzavier, and Zacarayah. We watched the video, and then the started to do the experiments themselves, out of order. The second to the last one was the one where they tried to figure out how to pick up a piece of paper, using only a nail and a magnet, which took them all of 2 seconds to figure out, even though I didn't let them watch that part of the video.

So, they each had a round magnet and a nail.

Then, we tried to make the little boats, using the corks, pins, tacks, magnets, and tape. So I had to dig through all the boxes for the things. Got them all out. Then, the kids couldn't find the magnets that I had given them. Never mind that it was about 20 SECONDS AGO that I last saw them have them. So, we searched all over, cleaning up school supplies while we were at it, and I was straightening up everything.

After about 10 minutes, we finally found them. They were hiding back in the school supply box. Well, by that time, my 4 year old had lost his cork AND his tack. So we had to hunt for those. Then, they wanted to color the paper sails to make them look prettier. So, they did that.

THEN, they couldn't find the magnets. Again. The same ones we had just finished looking all over for.

So, we found them, again. On top of the TV. I don't know how they got over there, it's way over on the other side of the room.

So, they start putting together their boats, and I tape the magnets on for them. They use the science boxes to balance the tray of water.

Then, I remember that I hadn't gotten the pins out for the boats. So, they take the tray of water off, spilling half the water all over. Get the pints, out, they the refill the tray BEFORE they put it back on, and guess what happened? Spilled half the water. Again.

So, now we had boats, which floated. OK, so time to pick everything up and put it away. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, so I'm going though the science supplies box lists and making sure we aren't losing ONE SINGLE ITEM.

So, I notice that one of the pins is missing out of the box. I ask my 6 year old where his pin was, and he said he never got one. I KNEW I had given him one, and told him so, but he insisted he didn't get one. But, there's this little empty space where a pin went, so I was pretty sure it wasn't me losing my mind. This time, anyway.

So, we go on a pin hunt. My kids had just finished reading the book "Mickey's Magnet" (don't you just love how books come to life) where a child had spilled a box of pins all over the floor and picked them up with a magnet (and I wondered how he was so sure he had gotten them all, and no one stepped on one two days later). So, they got out their magnets again, and went sweeping over the carpet on the pin hunt.

My 6 year old was the one who found the pin he insisted I had not given him. Right by where he had been standing. :rolleyes:

So, I told him "hold on to it for a minute, while I finish sorting out these boxes." So, I finished checking all the other stuff, and then told my kids to give me the pin and their magnets. To which my 6 year old replied "I already gave you the pin."

"No, you didn't."

"Yes, I did."

"I asked you to hold on to it for a minute."

"Yeah, but I gave it to you."

"Where did you put it?"

"Right here." Points to the inside open cover of the science supply kit, which, no surprise, is completely pinless (another new word).

Believe me, no one was LESS shocked at this discovery than I was. Mind you, they were going to go to bed at 11:00, and now it's 11:30, and I'm still missing a pin.

So, they go on a pin hunt. Again.

Find the pin. I take the pin and quickly put it away in the correct spot, and tuck it into. Then, after all this hassle, I got really side tracked in checking my boxes and had to recheck them.

"OK, I've got everything but the magnets. Give me your magnets, guys."

I get two magnets. I look up. Yep, still three kids. Check again. Two magnets.

"I'm missing a magnet."

"I gave you mine."

"I gave you mine."

"I gave you mine."

Three answers, in a big papa bear voice, a little mama bear voice, and wee little baby bear voice.

Things are NOT just right.

"I have two magnets, and I gave you guys three of them."

So, we go on a magnet hunt. Find the magnet. Put it away.

Boxes are now WAY up high, and I don't know if we're going to do science experiments this week again. I need time to recover.

But, of course, those magnets come in the mail tomorrow, and the kids don't know about them yet, so once they get here, they're gonna want to go check them out.

Remind me, WHY DID I ORDER THE SET WITH *24* WHOLE ENTIRE PIECES AGAIN?

Sigh.