Going back to work, homeschooling, and life

I decided to take a part time job to earn a little extra money for my upcoming trip to Haiti and to pay some debt. It's been a rough transition going from homeschooling blogger to working 30+ hours a week.

I have had little time to blog or for the internet at all. I took my son to a sitter, worked, picked up my child, tried to spend time with him and then went to bed with throbbing feet. I have plantar fascitis. I thought my flip flops helped cure it but in actuality it was probably my sedentary lifestyle. My feet are so tender and throb so bad at night that I couldn't sleep and the thought of going back to work the next day brought tears to my eyes. I am back to doing feet exercises and stretches. I've bought two separate inserts for my shoes, but I'm probably going to have to go back to the foot doctor.

Homeschooling while you're working isn't hard if your child is self motivated. Mine is not. He has a laptop that he can take to the sitter and so his work but he had so much fun today at his Nanny's that he didn't do it so I had to be the bad guy and tell him that he was going to do it when he got him, yes I realize it's going to be 6pm but those are consequences of goofing off while I am at work.

I know eventually we will get in a rhythm and be able to balance homeschool, my blog, my social media responsibilities, and work.

I am also looking for a more long term job that has better pay and benefits so prayers are appreciated!

Update on incorporating baked milk and baked cheese

It has been a few weeks since Drama passed the baked cheese oral food challenge. There was some resistance on his part to try new foods with cheese, just like with the baked milk. Would still love to see a paper done on the psychological effects of food allergies. It's very hard to go from life threatening food allergy to growing out of it and learning to eat it again.

He is still learning. Trust is a huge thing. He continually asks me if I'm sure he can have it. It makes my heart skip a beat to tell him yes, I am sure you can have it because what if he was to have a reaction? He would never trust me again.

So far he has had pizza, Mac and cheese, pizza rolls, and taquitos. His allergist suggested he eat baked cheese at least 3 times a week to build up his immunity. Then in September we can do another immunocap test to see if it would be safe to try uncooked milk.

It's been a long and sometimes hard journey but in the end it will be worth it to knock Milk off his food allergy list. I am hoping we can start the baked egg test in September. Then we will have another year of doing the same thing.

Keep Drama in your prayers! Thanks!

Review: Grapevine Studies The Ressurection

I always try to do a bible study for Lent. I was very excited when this review came around from Grapevine Studies. The Resurrection is the perfect Lent or Easter bible study. I received a digital download. The first thing I did was print out our books. I printed the multi-level traceable student workbook. Usually these are for younger kids, but my son has fine motor problems and doesn't like to draw so to make things easier on us I just picked the traceable. The multi-level Resurrection study is good for ages 3 and up. My son is 11 and thoroughly enjoyed it. I really like that it is non denominational. They leave it up to you to use the version of the bible you prefer. They call this teacher-directed doctrine.

If you are not familiar with Grapevine bible studies their tagline is "stick figuring through the bible". Students listen to the scripture and then you use a white board to draw the stick figure scene and they copy it in their notebooks. Older kids can use their imaginations.

The Resurrection is a study of the events from the last supper to the ascension of Jesus Christ. The lessons are: The Last Supper, Gethsemane, The Religious Trials, The Civil Trials, The Crucifixion, The Death and Burial of Jesus, The Resurrection, The Witness and The Ascension. At the end of these lessons there is a final review. I like the reviews because you can see how much the student retained. If you are using this study in a discipleship or Sunday school class you can give out candy for correct answer. I love bible trivia and kids are competitive and they will listen more if they know they are going to get a sweet treat at the end.

I love the Teacher Workbook! It gives you a schedule. You can use the study daily or weekly. We chose to do it weekly. When we do another grapevine bible study we will do it daily because there is a lot of material to go over at once and doing it daily will spread it out. It really just depends on your schedule. They give you so much information and resources that even a beginner teacher will feel comfortable teaching this study. I had a lot of fun teaching it and learning things myself.

The first thing we did was fill out our timeline. I love the stick figures. I am a visual and kinetic learner so drawing the stick figures and seeing the scenes help the lessons stick into my mind and I hope Drama's. I also like the lesson review. It is one thing to read a study it is another thing to have a checkpoint to see how much the student was listening and learning. We also loved the memory verse review. They give you the verse to write and memorize and let you use your favorite translation.

This study comes in two options:

Resurrection: Beginner: Kindergarten students will journey through the last week of the Jesus earthly ministry through 11 weekly lessons or 22 daily lessons.

Resurrection: Multi-Level: 11 weekly lessons(at 40 min once a week) or 40 daily lessons(at 15 min a day).

Even pre-school kids will have fun listening to the resurrection story and tracing the stick figures. My niece will be three next year and I know she will love this study. She loves listening to bible studies and using her big crayons.

I highly recommend this study! You will be surprised at the end how much your student knows about the resurrection.