Weekly Wrap-Up: The Laryngitis Edition
* This post may contain affiliate links or sponsored content. *
I think the kids did a little happy dance this morning when they awoke to find that my voice was completely gone. I’ve had some sinus congestion this week and I could tell, last night, that my voice was going. When I woke up this morning, it was completely gone. I haven’t been able to speak above a whisper all day.
The poor kids didn’t realize that I don’t have to be able to talk for them do their math or handwriting or to listen to them read. And, Brianna does most of her work independently, so it didn’t affect her. When we sat down to begin our day, they wondered aloud how they were going to do their memory verses if I couldn’t talk.
Um, hello? They’re memory verses; you have them memorized.
The funniest thing to me about Mom having laryngitis is when the kids start whispering back. Maybe I should just whisper all the time; it’s been very quiet and peaceful around here. Then there was this exchange:
Josh (yelling from the living room): Mom, where’s Brianna?
Me (in the kitchen, maintaining complete silence because, um, I can’t talk)
Josh (coming up the stairs, but still yelling): Mom, where’s Brianna?
Me (motioning with my finger for Josh to come to me, then whispering): Can I talk today?
Josh (whispering now): No.
Me: Then, can I answer you when you’re yelling at me from the living room?
Despite the fact that I’ve been a bit under the weather this week, we’ve accomplished a lot. I think I mentioned the fact that next year I would not plan as much time off at Christmas as I did this year because the kids were restless and bored. However I have have felt very energized and productive ever since then, so maybe I will consider it again.
We didn’t do any major hands-on activities this week because, since I wasn’t feeling well, I didn’t get it together to get all the supplies we needed and, quite honestly, I just didn’t feel like fooling with it for most of the week. We did have some fun with preschool projects, though. I started two books for Nim that were a huge success: a number book and an ABC book.
I decided to take the simple route and “make” the books from some of the fifty or so spiral notebooks that I got for $0.10 each at Wal-mart during their back-to-school sales. I wrote, one per page, either a number or a letter (upper and lower case). We’ve done about two pages per day (and Nim would totally do more). I’m having her write the letter or number and add pictures to the page. For the letters, she adds pictures (cut from magazines) of things that start with that letter:
For the numbers, she’s putting that number of the same item on the page (i.e. two panda bears, five vacuum cleaners — gotta love those sale ads!) and the appropriate number of sticker dots:
She absolutely loves the activity and it makes great review as we go over what she’s already done before we add new stuff.
The younger kids and I reviewed contractions this week. I felt the need to throw one in there just because it’s incredibly important to us Southerners: y’all. As Shannon so eloquently stated, y’all is frequently misspelled, an affront to us Southern folks (except my mom who dared to argue with her English major daughter. I love you, Mom, but you’re wrong. And, no, I’m not really an English major; that’s just what my family calls me.).
Y’all is short for “you all,” not “ya all,” and, as any grammar book will tell you, the apostrophe goes in the place of the missing letters, in this case “ou,” resulting in the word “y’all” which is, by the way, always plural. So, there’s your Southern grammar for the day. 😉
We’ve been moving through history pretty quickly again, since we’re all anxious to get to what we traditionally think of when we think of the Middle Ages — king, queens, knights and castles. So, this week we moved quickly through the chapters on the rise of Islam and Muhammad. On Monday, I have plans to do a comparison of Muhammad and Jesus, using the Greenleaf Guide to Famous Men of the Middle Ages.
I’ll be honest and say that I almost skipped this chapter altogether since most of my kids are young and this isn’t an area of high interest for us, but there was some discussion of Baghdad in Story of the World and I thought that part was definitely relevant in today’s world.
For science, we’ve been discussing caves. I was going to have the kids make rock candy to simulate speleothems (cave deposits – stalactites, stalagmites, columns, etc.), but, well, that was one of the things that I didn’t quite get it together to do. We can always make it up later and use it for review. I may do it when we study crystals in the rocks unit. It would actually probably be more appropriate then. It just sounded like fun.
We added Arizona to our state notebooks today. Did you know that the bolo (or bola) tie is Arizona’s state neckwear? I have two bolo ties from my Boot Scootin Boogie days. Yeah, seriously.
I put my favorite on and wore it without saying anything (because I really didn’t have any other choice) until somebody — Megan — noticed. I let her wear my other one for being the first to notice. I was going to let the kids make bolo ties, but that, too, was on the list of things I didn’t get together this week. I decided that was really okay, though. I doubt any of them would have actually worn them, so it really would have been a waste of time and money.
Hey, I did remember to get the state flag stickers for our notebook pages! I did have something together this week. I’ve also started coloring my own copy of the pages that I give Nim to do for her state notebook. Then, I put them on our bulletin board for review throughout the week.
That pretty much wraps up our week. How was your week? Be sure to post about it and sign up with Mr. Linky. If this is your first time to join us, be sure to read the Weekly Wrap-Up guidelines.
**Remember, be sure to link directly to your Weekly Wrap-Up post so that others can find it easily when they visit your blog and be sure to post a link back here so that your readers can find the Wrap-Up and join us.
Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.
The first half of your post made me laugh. Too bad when I get sick Daniel’s pretty much off the hook. 🙂 I hope you’re feeling better soon. It sounds like you had a great week anyway. It’s so fun to read about what others are doing!
(I’ll try to be back sometime over the weekend with my post- we went visiting today after lessons so I wasn’t home to write about it!)
wow – which sales ad had the panda bears? You have much better stores down there. 😉
Hope you have a restful weekend and find your voice again. I might just have to take up whispering, I wouldn’t mind a few less decibels around the house.
Looks like you had an amazingly productive week even with a bit less energy. I enjoyed those notebooks. So simple, but lots of hands-on fun.
I like the idea of the notebook for my preschooler- it will keep everything handy and she can review whenever she feels like it!!
I still say that God’s gift to my dad is my mom’s annual bout of laryngitis!! I use the word “ya’ll” quite a bit in my writing and I’ve known it should probably have the apostrophe in a different spot, but it just looks funny to me. I’ve lived in WI for 12 years now, but I refuse to give up the word “ya’ll”. It’s entirely too useful!
I hope you start feeling better soon, it’s no fun to be ill!
I love your Letter and Number books, I may have to start one with Clay 🙂
@ Catherine — LOL That’s funny! Your mom may not think so, but I can relate. I could see where this could be God’s gift to my husband. 😉