Wednesday, August 25, 2010
First day at school!
We had an amazing first day of school even though it was cut an hour short by a dumb mommy who threw her back out. All week long we are working on learning the Letter A, the Number 1, Triangles, squares & circles as well as many other things. Our day is packed full of fun things, from music time where we play instruments and learn songs to Gym where we get a little workout to music. During our entire day I had music playing softly to keep Miriam interested and it worked wonders! We had a few little fits but they were nothing like she normally has. Whenever she would start losing it I would stop talking and start singing our lesson instead , it worked every time! Everything she colored or wrote I traced the day before in puffy paint so she could feel the edges. I also added braille to everything so she could learn the braille letters and words for things. I am so happy with how things went I just wish we could have finished the day!
Pics from our second day because my camera was not working on the 1st.
Today at school!
Oh and I forgot to show you our Bramlett Journal yesterday. I made the journal myself and once a week we plan on having some kind of tactile or sensory activity. Tomorrow we will be having a touch and feel scavenger hunt and recording our findings. We will put all kinds of "things" in the journal that we find on our adventures to make it not only a written journal (which I will translate into braille) but a tactile and sensory filled journal as well. All of these things are why she is at home. I feel so blessed to be able to give her a classroom molded to fit her needs.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Crazy week!
OK, I have two blog posts coming your way with pictures of the classroom and the first day of school but the camera has been having issues keeping charge, I think I need to buy a new battery. I had a little accident yesterday trying to catch up on things, I bent down to shove a little box under the bed and sent my back into a frenzy leaving me with a major back sprain and one serious bruise to boot. As a result we lost today because all yesterday I could not bend into an upright position and this morning was no better. I am feeling a little better now but am dreading going to bed for fear I will end up suffering for it. I am so bad about knowing when to do things and when not to do them and I hate waiting for other people. I have a serious problem with taking "help", which I know annoys the heck out of everyone. It used to be I could do anything but right now I am just not in good shape so the things I do seriously backfire on me.
None the less, I just love our classroom and so does Georgia. She is always telling me how much she loves it and always tells me "thank you mommy" every time she comes into it. I am so thankful that little girl is not disappointed because I know how much she was looking forward to school. Hopefully Miriam is equally pleased but with her it is hard to know for sure. Tomorrow we have a great day planned! I have been up for the last hour or so working on some alphabet, number and shape coloring pages for Miriam using puff paint to raise the edges. I have also brailled almost everything in this room. I even added pictures and braille to each girls seat (also added some velcro to Miriam's). My goal is to find our hand brailler and add braille to the furniture. I must say I think I could braille with my eyes closed now..lol
Anyway, I just felt like writing a bit. I promise to get back asap with the pics as soon as I get my camera to hold a charge.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Our Classroom!
Well, Tom and I have finally finished the classroom for the girls. It was LOADS of hard work but it is worth it. We decided to make our master bedroom the dedicated space since it has the access to the backyard and a bathroom. That way we do not get any wanderers during school time. The two of us built everything in the classroom except for my desk which was a couch table, I just added a curtain to hide my mess underneath. The kids table used to be an old desk that was falling apart I drew on the shape, Tom cut/anchored (it was too thick for me to cut with his ancient saw) and I painted. The bookshelf was an old upright that had rot at the bottom so I broke out with the power tools cut off the bottom, put it on it's side and rearranged the shelves. The calendar is not what I set out to make but it works. Everyday we come into the classroom, look outside to check the weather then we chose from the pictures in braille and add weather pics which attach with Velcro. We do the same with the day of the week , month and date. The rug was painted, it was an old stained kids rug. Eventually I want to add a big star in the middle but I ran out of steam..lol I even made the backpack hanger on the wall..lol The chairs in the room were an awesome and CHEAP Wal-Mart find (as was the mirror at only 5 bucks!). They are thick and hard plastic and I paid 5 bucks each for them which was a lot less than I expected to pay for chairs. The room turned out just like I had hoped. Because of Georgia it had to look like a real classroom. She has been looking forward to the day she goes to school for so long and believe me she knows what a classroom looks like!
Anyway feel free to click on the pics for a tour of the room. :-)
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Oh I forgot!
I also recently started a new blog dedicated to my love of Christ and how he works in our lives. I have decided that I truly want to dedicate my life to Heavenly Father in more ways that church, prayer and bible study and this is the beginning of that life!
In God's Shoes
Also , if anyone knows any parents who might be interested I have created a new support group on Facebook for those who home-school blind children. Please pass on the link so we can all share our ups and downs and learn together! Any blind or visually impaired young person with a facebook account is also welcome to join the website. Insight from those actual homeschooled would be AWESOME!
Blind & Visually impaired Homeschoolers
Busy, busy getting ready for school!
Since I had the appendectomy the week I was planning on starting school we postponed things until our local school starts which is Monday. Things around the house are a little crazy right now trying to get everything together to start a new classroom. We have books, school supplies, craft projects and ideas coming out the wazoo! My head is constantly coming up with something new to do. As a matter of fact Tom and I had a discussion about where would be the best place to have our homeschool and we decided to have a dedicated room. So we will be moving out of the master bedroom, into Sophia and Georgia's room and having the girls share a room until we move to Oregon where we will seek out a home with homschooling space. Miriam REALLY needs the contact because since we moved Georgia in with Sophia she has become such a little recluse and we DO NOT want that. We think this might help to solve the problem of her being antisocial. We chose our bedroom because of the access to the back yard and the bathroom. I think is would so be much easier to really focus on potty training Miriam during school hours if the bathroom was not down the hall. Miriam has a tendency to "roam" and in our room everything is easily accessible with no place to roam. We can also lock it off during the day and have more room to store supplies. It is kind of tough giving up our big old room for a small one but if it helps our kids to learn by having a dedicated space then we will live. We don't do anything in our room anyway.
Anyway, I am sad to say I do not have much else to report other than that..lol I have made our daily Curriculum. The activities will change daily but the schedule is set. I have to go buy a dry erase board so I can take this schedule and make it big. I will use velcro for the days of the week. I will be doing the same kind of thing with a calendar. I will seriously be implementing the braille embosser and I am excited to put my braille skills to the test!
Front:
Back (to be done during naptime, it is for Miriam only)
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Fun weekend!....NOT!
Since Thursday I had been having horrible stomach pains. Thursday we thought I had gas, Saturday we thought it was "other" issues. I even went to a movie by myself thinking it was nothing big. The pain I was having had calmed down and my stomach was sore from all the craziness with it the days before (so I thought). Sunday morning I got up to go to church however and the pain was so bad I could barely walk. I couldn't touch my stomach, sitting felt like knives going through me so naturally this Sunday it was my turn to go to the hospital. We got there , found out it was going to be a while because they would have to run many tests so I sent Tom and the girls home. No need for them to have to wait and suffer for hours because I had a tummy ache. A few hours later and a cat scan later Tom was getting a phone call telling him I was being rushed into Surgery before I keeled over and died. Apparently my appendix was on the verge of bursting. According the the DR. he wasn't a little surprised it did not burst days ago so it seems I have a little someone on my side up above who wants to see me live this life. He did assure me that a few more hours it would have burst and a day later I would have surely been dead. Which to me translated to my passing out cold while Tom was at work and my children having to live with their mothers dead body for hours being scarred for life. Needless to say I was SCARED TO DEATH! At the same time the DR. was telling me that my gallbladder was failing me and would eventually need to be removed as well but given the emergency situation they did not want to remove both at the same time. He did say that if the 3 rather large gallstones started bothering me that I would end up back in the ER prepping up again to go under the knife. I was told to change my diet drastically and lose weight immediately.
I spent 2 days in the hospital stuck in "Isolation" because that was the only room they had available on the surgery floor. I had no clue until my husband told me and once he did it certainly did explain why when the Clergy came in to "pray for me" she stayed on the other side of the room by the door ready to run at the slightest cough. And why cleaning staff wore masks to clean my floor and take out the garbage! I was assured people had been told I was not going to cough on them and kill them but it seems they did not believe the nursing staff. (maybe that should have concerned me? lol) For the entire 2 days I ate NOTHING. I had an IV stuck in my arm, some rather interesting broth that if you focused really hard you could pretend you were eating roast beef (which incidentally I am supposed to stay away from now that my gallbladder is "failing" me, lay off the red meat), yummy (sarcasm) sugar free vanilla pudding which if anything could have totally substituted itself for unseasoned hamburger meat..blech, coffee strong enough to kill Juan Valdez (or my husband which is saying a lot..lol), and lots of warm cranberry juice. By the time I left I had a bruise on my butt from the worlds most uncomfortable bed, 3 holes in my stomach, a massive headache, bruises in both arms from ill places IVs and Morphine to kill the pain from all for a lifetime..so hooray for that! It was the 17,000 dollar vacation of my dreams...or shall I say, nightmares!
I am so glad to be home with my wonderful family , sleeping in my own uncomfortable bed. My uncomfortable 6 year old bed has never given me bruises on the butt!
I would like to give a small Ode to my Appendix however. We have come a long way together, it has been a friend, a foe and...well...whatever the else appendixes are supposed to do it did that too. 
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Miriam's Rash!
When we woke up this morning to get ready for church Miriam's rash was just HORRIBLE. It had lumps starting to fill with puss so Tom took her to the Emergency room in Georgetown. Turns out she scratched her Eczema outbreak so much she gave herself a staph infection. Poor baby is now on several medications and in a lot of pain. I am so glad we did not decide to go to the pool yesterday. Not only for her sake but for the sake of others. now if only we could teach her not to scratch!