This year we are going to do things a bit differently for school. Our older girls really missed spending time with us and learning with us. We want them to always feel welcome and included.
With Mark being diagnosed with cancer back in April, we have been spending a ton of time at medical appointments and school has suffered. He was in the hospital for most of August and September. For the most part he has been doing really well, but there are moments when he has been so weak or dizzy that he has needed help with bathing, or someone to grab him a drink, or his meds. I ended up getting sick in September and ended up losing my voice for over a week so we ended up just working on their workbooks for school rather than having morning meetings and working on memory work.
One of our kids has ADHD and struggles to finish school work in the same amount of time as the others. This was causing trouble when I needed to cook meals and such. With Mark needing extra help, and with me needing to be able to be in the house to cook meals, and one of our kids struggling to finish in time for me to do that, we thought it best to move school back inside the house and turn the school house into a guest house.
Mark's dad visited us in October and stayed a couple of weeks which was wonderful and he got to be the first person to sleep in the newly redone guest house.
Doing school in the house allows me to be there any time he needs, and also allows me the freedom of being able to prepare meals while teaching.
We started school on Monday August 5th. We had a great first day and the days have been working on school as much as we can when we can. I found some beautiful study music that I have been playing during class to help the kids relax and focus. It seems to be working, I know for me, it is!
