Week two was a fun, but strange week. We had to move a few things around to get our work done so we could travel to Iowa on Thursday and then return home on Friday. We shifted things to get the majority of our work done. Homeschooling is so flexible.
We have been making the morning time work well! We read from Shakespeare's play, read a daily bible lesson, and talk about a character trait. This usually happens at the breakfast table. Afterwards Nate does some morning chores and then we head to the classroom.
This week we traveled to China!
We learned about China, built a Great Wall, practiced saying 'hello' and 'thank you'.
We had our friends over to make and eat Chinese Cucumber Salad, and we made lanterns.
We watched Wild China episodes and learned about animals that live in China.
We wrote our name in Chinese and Nate made a postcard at the end of our trip.
To top it all off we went to eat Chinese at a local restaurant. I could tell Nate was uneasy about this, but once he tried his sweet and sour chicken he declared we would come back anytime dinner wasn't thawed out from now on. I laughed so hard!
We did lots of other fun stuff too.
It was a good school week.
On Wednesday we had an appointment at the orthodontist. Nate had braces put on his front teeth, and got his headgear. When we put it on that evening he laughed and added Slap Shot glasses to make the look even more fun.
He handled the braces very well, only complaining once or twice. We had to go to WNL at church that night and he was really brave to go out with those new braces.
We have had questions about why we went with headgear. There is an appliance now that fixes the overbite with the equipment being only inside the mouth. The appliance looks awful! It is basically a huge hinge that changes how the jaw can open and shut. We had one prescribed at our first orthodontic consultation. But we went to another office for a second opinion and the doctor there thought about Nate being homeschooled and being a hockey player when he decided headgear would be better for him. It has to be worn 14 hours a day, and once you consider the hours spent asleep, there aren't that many hours left that it must be worn during the day. But since he is homeschooled he will be able to wear it longer, while we do school, and hopefully it will give us excellent results.
We are expecting a top appliance next month to expand his top teeth to make room for his big ol teeth. With the braces appliance, headgear, and future retainer life, nearly all candy is out now. He can pretty much have reese's peanut butter cups or plain m&ms. No chips, bagels, nuts, popcorn... it is a sad time.
With all of the new changes though Nathan handled the road trip like a champ. We did a little reading in our hotel room while we waited for puppy pickup.
As soon as we picked up Buddy we hurried home. I was worried about 9 hours with a howling puppy, but he was quiet the whole ride. He is pretty much Nate's shadow. When Nate leaves the room too fast for Buddy to follow he cries. It is the sweetest thing!
Doing school with a new pup isn't easy, we did it a few years ago when Lucy joined our family.
Wish us luck!
