Homeschooling (Or not)- Through Illness

It's been a long time since I posted. We have had so much happening. Lily started High School. We found an online curriculum, because I was losing the energy to plan big unit studies for her. She was doing really well with her online homeschool curriculum. But, last February, everything changed.

Lily was always tired. Even if she slept all night, she would say she was tired. She said she wasn't sleeping well. I thought that it was because her mattress was old, so we got her a new bed. She was still not sleeping. In November of last year, Lily had a lump right above her collarbone. I took her to the doctor, and she was diagnosed with a lipoma. The doctor said that sometimes they get infected, and put her on antibiotics. I didn't really think much more about the lump after that, because it got smaller after the antibiotics.

Lily has really been into archery the past couple of years. Around the time the lump appeared, she started having problems pulling her bow back. She said it hurt in her chest, but she couldn't describe the pain. I asked her if it was a pulled muscle, or something else. She couldn't tell me. She started doing archery  less and less. I also noticed that she was getting thinner. Lily has always been a smaller girl, but her bones around her shoulders and collarbone were really showing. I made an appointment with her pediatrician.

 

The doctor ran some tests, and asked questions. She decided that the lump, paired with the weight loss was suspicious, so she ordered blood tests. 7 vials of blood were taken, and sent off. They also ordered a chest x-ray. She went in for the x-ray at 11am that day, and around 3:15, we got a call that would bring our world to a halt: "There is a large mediastinal mass showing on your daughter's x-ray. Pack a bag and go to the children's hospital."

We packed our things and went to the hospital. More tests, x-rays, scans and procedures are done. A few days later, we get the diagnosis: Stage 2 B Hodgkin Lymphoma. Lily was 14 years old. We were terrified. The doctors at the hospital were amazing, and came up with  a treatment plan immediately. Within 2 days of diagnosis, Lily had her first chemo treatment. After 9 days in the hospital, she was released. She went through 6 months of treatments, and in Sept, was declared in remission.

We did no school during the time that Lily was in treatment. The beauty of homeschool, is that you can put it on hold when life gets in the way, and that is what we did. We are 9 months out of her diagnosis, and are trying to get back into our school routine. Lily is having some brain fog, which is normal after chemo. It could last months, or even years. She has tried to get back into her online curriculum, but she has been in tears more days than not. It is time to switch gears again, and find something that will work for her. 

She has been really enjoying being around horses, and spending time volunteering at a ranch. Horses are so healing and theraputic, and I really think that being around them helped her get through her illness.

For now, we are focusing on her resting and getting her body fully recovered. We will try to find ways of getting learning in wherever we can, but I am not forcing a full school day on her by any means. I am on the hunt for some new and fun things to incorporate into our school days.

Five in a Row-Miss Rumphius

     Well, it's Spring, and here in Texas, this is the perfect time of year to row Miss Rumphius. :) We did a LOT of things relating to plants with this one. The first thing we did was to go strawberry picking. That doesn't really relate to the book, but it is strawberry season, we love strawberries, and they are beautiful plants. So, off we went!

We definitely wanted to plant something during this row, so we went to the nursery, and grabbed some seeds, dirt and flowers. We spent a morning planting some flowers for our front porch area. We discussed the difference between perennials and annuals. The ones we planted are annuals, so we will need to plant more next year.

Since Lily is almost nine, I have her read the book to me some of the time. She really enjoyed the story illustrations. 

After she read the story, we discussed the location. We decided that Miss Rumphius might have lived in Maine, based on the clues in the book. We talked about the different oceans. We talked about how Miss Rumphius probably lived more North, since there was snow on the roofs. We discussed the weather in different parts of the country. After that, Lily put together a Geo-Puzzle, and located the 5 oceans on a map.

We talked about the different far-away places that Miss Rumphius visited. We talked about where she may have tried the coconuts, and where she may have seen kangaroos. We talked about the deserts where Miss Rumphius rode a camel. Lily has actually ridden a camel before, and she thought it was funny that Miss Rumphius did, too. We got some coconut water at the store, and Lily tried it. She loved it! It is now her new favorite drink. 

One morning, I made Lily some oatmeal for breakfast, and we talked about how it is like the porridge that Miss Rumphius ate as a little girl. Lily wasn't too sure about the oatmeal. She decided that it was ok. I don't think she will be asking for it every day. 

We talked about how Miss Rumphius made the world more beautiful, and talked about ways that we could make the world more beautiful. Lily's Girl Scout troop had JUST gone on a field trip to clean trash up at a local park. Lily said that was one thing she could do.

We downloaded a unit from Teachers Pay Teachers, and there were a TON of great things in there. One of them was this little Earth, and a place to write down what we can do to make the world more beautiful.

The unit also had some great vocabulary and parts of speech activities. We worked on those while we listened to Calypso music. (Still going with the tropical island theme)

If you want to download the unit, it is here: Miss Rumphius Unit

We talked about Bushels and Pecks. I couldn't find  a bushel basket, so I tried to give Lily an idea of the sizes of bushels and pecks, but without the visual, I am not sure how much she got from that. 

We talked a LOT about seeds. We watched the Magic School Bus Goes to Seed, and Rock N Learn Life Science videos. We learned about photosynthesis, and the life cycle of a seed. We even planted seeds in a baggie and put it on the window so we could watch them sprout.

We downloaded another packet from Teachers Pay Teachers, and it had a TON of seed/plant activities in it.  You can find that one here: Seed Unit

We collected leaves and made Chlorophyll rubbings.

We also did an experiment to see how the plants absorb water and take it up to the leaves.

We talked about the different shapes of leaves, and how their shape determines how well they soak up energy from the sun. We did an experiment with hand positions to see which shape gets the most sun. 

For art, we branched off from what was in the manual. Lily goes to an art class weekly, and we decided to paint Lupines on some pots.

After we painted the pots, we decided to plant some Lupines in them. 

We talked about Miss Rumphius being a librarian, and about the Dewey Decimal System. We took a trip to the library to look a little further into that. We also needed to grab some books for our next row. :) 

We discussed how people used the sun to determine direction. We talked about the sun rising in the east and setting in the west. This led to a discussion of people using the sun to tell time, so we made a sun dial. It was fun, but it blew away not long after we got it outside. If you make one, make sure you weigh it down! 

Our last activity was to go out and find some Lupines! The Bluebonnet is the Texas state flower, and it happens to be a lupine! We read about lupines, and the Legend of the Bluebonnet. Then, we headed about an hour away to the bluebonnet fields. 

While we were in Brenham, we headed for the Blue Bell Creamery. That had absolutely nothing to do with the row, but-Ice cream! We HAD to go! We went upstairs to the observatory, and watched them make ice cream. The day we went, they were making strawberry, vanilla and rainbow sherbet. Lily wanted to try the rainbow sherbet. It was yummy!

And that was our row of Miss Rumphius! It was a fabulous couple of weeks. Lily had a lot of fun with it, and said she was having "Fun lupine days."  I'm still trying to decide on our next row. Too many choices! See you soon!