Weekly Wrap-up: Weeks of April 9 - 27

Josh's anaphylactic reaction to peanuts occurred on April 9th so that week, short of some reading and a few documentaries, was shot as far as our regularly scheduled school work went.  We did enjoy a VERY delicious recipe for homemade whipped cream!  It's a keeper in our house!  We plopped that on top of some homemade hot chocolate and enjoyed some documentaries on the Westward movement while the patient convalesced on the recliner.

 Walk away from the whipped cream, Jake!

The patient, Josh, enjoyed a lick from the spoon in his make-shift bed.  You can see his lips mildly swollen 2.5 days into his reaction and on round the clock meds.

He's going to kill me for putting this picture on here.  He'll say "my hair isn't done!" and "I'm in my PJs!".  Oh the horror!! :)

The following week, we hit the books again and jumped into our next chapter in anatomy, the heart.  We literally jumped into the heart!  After learning the inflow and outflow of the blood from and away from the heart (which can get a bit overwhelming to explain), I taped up the floor with 4 "chambers".  The top two being the atriums and the bottom two, the ventricles.  The chair on the right represented the pulmonary vein (one of four) that the blood travels into the heart from the lungs, carrying oxygenated blood.  So, the boys became the blood and traveled the journey of the blood!  They were squeezed out of the left ventricle with a hearty hug from me (which represents the force in which the heart must push the blood out in order to travel all over to our body and back)!  It was great fun and helped the boys remember how the heart works!

Chris took the lead on the heart dissection (well, let me be honest... he takes the lead on ALL dissections) and did a great job showing the boys the different parts of the sheep heart.  I just wished he would have used gloves! Eew!  Such a BOY!  (or maybe I'm such a GIRL!).

After the Santa Clara CHEA conference last weekend, I came home with a renewed spirit and a commitment to do more hands-on learning in a more relaxed style and work on instilling a love of learning, for real!  Last week was a great start to that as we did our school in the living room instead of the school room to give a more comfy feel.  We started each day with our Bible curriculum and devotions and the push back from the boys, as we moved through each subject, just wasn't there!  Yay!

Here's hoping for another great week of relaxed homeschooling!