Sunday, January 9, 2011

blog break coming to an end

We start up with our homeschooling rhythms again tomorrow, so I may as well post a "close out" to my little break. We've had a lovely, somewhat short-ish winter break. We started back lightly this past week, reading chapters from "The Adventures of Robin Hood" by Howard Pyle, and starting up with one studio's dance schedule, and the Modern company's rehearsal schedule.


J started the week by taking a Hip Hop Master Class. (A Master Class is a one-time dance clinic with a 'master' of a particular style.) It's the first hip-hop he's danced since summer Dance Camp, and he found it very challenging and fun. He's looking forward to joining the all-boys hip-hop class at the studio, if his ballet schedule will allow for it this spring.

The boys also had their yearly check-ups with our Pediatrician. They are both at 50th percentile for weight, and Zoo Boy is at 50th percentile for height, while J is at 25th percentile. Which means that J did a bit of catching up over the past couple of years -- after having starting his life at the 98th percentile for his first couple years of life, he'd fallen all the way off to 3rd percentile at one point when he was about 5. (I think he had two years where he didn't even gain an inch of height!) I'm glad to see he's back on track with his growth, guess he just did a lot of his growing early on!

We were also told, not surprisingly, that it's time for Zoo Boy to be checked by an Opthamologist. Of course, HE insists that he sees perfectly and does not need glasses. Bad news, kid, you've got Mommy's genetics (and this is the exact age where I got my first pair of glasses). The Map Man feels that he's in need of reading glasses, so perhaps they will go see the eye doctor together.

I had a bunch of check-ups myself, put in my order for my very first pair of bifocals (which will be a HUGE relief to have!), found out that I'm way, way, way too heavy (groan), and got my mammogram. HAVE YOU HAD YOUR YEARLY MAMMOGRAM YET?!?!?! IF NOT, PICK UP THE PHONE RIGHT NOW AND MAKE YOUR APPOINTMENT-- IT ONLY TAKES A FEW MINUTES AND CAN SAVE YOUR LIFE!!!

J also started a new session of Homeschool Sports, this time at an amazing private family athletic center, which I will blog about next week (assuming I remember to bring my camera and take pictures!). Zoo Boy and I are walking on the track while J plays sports, so we're getting exercise too.

And the big news is that J will be starting piano lessons, in addition to his guitar lessons, this coming week. He is VERY excited and already shows signs at being a natural on the piano, after about 3 minutes of attention from his teacher last week. Will need to get some photos of that too.

We will be starting the week with a bit of math reawakening of place value, and more Robin Hood, and starting up again with practice work in math and handwriting. We'll be working with all of that for the next couple of weeks, then will start on a new Latin American block the last week of January, which I'm very much looking forward to -- I'll post more about that later, as that was one of my better "pay attention" moments lately!

In the meantime, plenty of football to keep us all happy....

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Any news about Zoo Boy's vision?

Harvest Moon Farm said...

d'oh! I meant to mention that!!

Am editing to include that in the blog post!

Karen said...

The boys may get lucky. My kids' dad and I are both very nearsighted, as are folks on both sides of the family. Both of the kids (15 and 12) are still slightly farsighted - they have glasses in case they're going to do a lot of reading, but the eye doc doesn't want them wearing them except for that. I think it was the lack of an early push for reading and close up work.