1 week here

I meant to post some last week but the internet at the hospital hates most websites that are useful including blogger, facebook messenger, and a few very necessary kids clothing sites. This has been a rough week for everyone involved. The kids had never visited an apartment/townhouse/or anything of the sort before so they keep calling our apartment a hotel. They have no concept of neighbors being so close and talk to every single person that walks by our apartment. If they are inside, they stand at the window and wave. They are the 5 man welcome crew.

Weston is doing well but it hurts his feelings when all of the kids visit and then they all leave together so we are limiting group visits to twice a week. We are still figuring out an extra few days for Easton to go to the hospital. Adam and I are trading out more so that has helped tremendously. He has gotten to go on a walk around the CICU and take a real bath so those things lifted his spirits!

There is a really nice town close to our apartment called Media. I joke with Adam that it is where all of the sane people in Philadelphia live because it is a nice size town with lots of shops but nothing overwhelming-EXCEPT the 2, 2 story Targets that are just amazing. The YMCA there offers a homeschool group, dance classes for the girls, karate and swimming for the boys, and all sorts of arts and cooking. Because they work closely with CHOP, we will be able to enroll the kids in some of the activities for free. We also found Easton a Cub Scout group in Media. I hope this will help him make some friends.

Speaking of school, we will begin formal homeschool next week. We are doing things a bit differently this year because of our situation here in Philly. For Language, Phonics, and Bible, we enrolled Easton in Abeka Academy. They video stream and online teacher teaching. We are also going to use a few new multi-age texts. I am hoping to get a few years out of these books and involve the other kids more. I am going to use Spelling Power for Spelling. For Science, we will use Apologia. I really love Apologia. The books are bright and full of beautiful pictures. I got the lapbook cd to go with it so I am hoping for Easton and Weston to make more lapbooks this year. Lapbooks are 1 thing the kids really love. We are going to try Story of the World again for History. Now that we have done a year of homeschooling, I don't feel nearly as overwhelmed so I think Story of the World will be a good fit. The 2nd week, Easton will be making a mummy out of a whole chicken. I believe Adam will be helping more with that. We are using A Reason for Handwriting for printing and I believe Easton will start cursive this year with Abeka. Easton's Abeka won't arrive until later this week so I will know more then. For Math, we reluctantly bought Saxon again. Saxon is a great, hands on program but you constantly repeat what you just learned. It made Easton very frustrated but he loved the hands on elements.

We also ordered the K4 curriculum from Abeka Academy. Adam and I struggled with trying to decide whether to start Weston in true Kindergarten or have him take another year of preschool. Weston is very smart but with everything going on, I think another year of preschool will be great. There is no need to make him grow up faster than he already is. His birthday is in September so it is no big deal to do another year of preschool. I have read lots of studies saying that boys, especially, benefit from starting school a little later.

As much as I hate to admit it, there are a few things I love about Philadelphia. The very best thing about Philly is the fruit cart. Don't worry-I was scared at first too. Who eats fruit out of a tiny cart??? Well, the answer is, everyone who knows where to get good, cheap fruit! I am going to post a pic next time of how much fruit you get for 4 dollars. It is amazing. You could not buy fruit and cut it up for less than you can buy it from the fruit cart. My 2nd favorite thing is Trader Joes. LOVE LOVE LOVE this store. 19 cents a pound for bananas EVERYDAY. Great, great, great. And, last but not least, now that we have kind of settled, I have found some great homeschooling oppoortunities for Easton. This year may end up consisting of lots of unschooling because of all of the fun things we have found for him. I hope you all have a blessed Sunday!