The School Room

Our school room (schoolroom, school-room??) is a small, two-doored internal room with an awkward screened window facing the hallway.  I'm guessing it's one of those situations where it was originally an external wall (the window has bars on it!!), but at some point an addition was made onto the house, making it... quirky.

Since it's small (two twin-sized beds might fit next to each other in the small space..), we have turned it into a school room.  It's perfect for that function!  It gives us some space to work and unpack all our crafts and books without creating a disaster-zone in the main part of the house.

We moved into this house last October and were part-way through the school-year already.  So the room was functional for first grade, but not pretty.  One of my goals for this summer was to turn it into "The Schoolroom."  I really think it worked, too!

And now for all those pictures I've been trying to post...

The Front of the Room.  I turned the awkward metal-screen-and-barred-window into a magnet board.  I glued magnets to the back of pictures, clothespins, and mini-whiteboards to create a place to hang things in the front of the room.  The front of the room also holds all our books, supplies, craft materials, and chart-paper (on the back of the door).

The Back of the Room.  We moved our repurposed-world-map-shower-curtain to the back wall.  It also has a chair for me (you can't see it well from this angle), a table for my teacher's guides and materials, the printer, etc.  You can also see part of the timeline (at the top) that starts at creation at the front of the room and goes all the way around to the chalkboard.  Micaiah and I both really enjoy seeing it (thanks My Father's World first grade!!), so we are keeping it up! 

Micaiah's books/materials.  Well, for the first day anyway.  Second grade is going to be a big leap from first grade, where she had fewer hours and fewer subjects.  We are starting the first year of the 5 year cycle by My Father's World, and it's called Exploring Countries and Cultures.  Sounds like fun, doesn't it?!  We're also starting handwriting and spelling this year as well as consistently/daily doing fine arts (music or art) and science.

The Chalkboard!  It was supposed to be a half-wall board, but due to dripping below my "line," we turned it into a full-length board.  We love it, and it is quickly becoming the focal point of the room!  

A close-up of part of the board.... see that little note from Micaiah?  If you can't read it, the part below "welcome to second grade" says "I'm exited" from Micaiah. :)  .... we'll be working on spelling this year (excited, not exited)... but it sure has been fun to leave each other little notes as we gear up for second grade!

I hope you enjoyed the tour of the schoolroom!  

-JLR

The Chalkboard

This took me an hour and 45 minutes to load... it's likely the only one I'll have up here for some time!  But at least you can (hopefully) see part of our fun and exciting new chalkboard!  Our gardener started painting it last week.  I finished it because the drips were well outside the lines I had drawn, so instead of a board from waist up, we have a full-length, almost full-wall chalkboard!  It's bigger than I envisioned, but it's really grown on me.

Tim's family sent some beautiful wall stickers that we ended up using to decorate our chalkboard.  Laura came over and helped us arrange them and decorate our board.  Now it has a "garden scene" accented by some big butterfly wall stickers (that we got at conference) and chalk accents.  It's really cute and perfectly fits into our schoolroom! 

Of course, we expect our chalkboard to be functional, too, and I've already posted Micaiah's first spelling list for the year.  :)

-JLR

On to Second Grade...

The past few months have been crazy for us in terms of travel.  It is nice to be back in Mpanda now and healthy (a nice change, which you might appreciate if you followed our recent adventures, Wounds, part 1 and Wounds, part 2!).

The main thing I've been doing lately is preparing for homeschool.  We finished first grade with Micaiah (My Father's World) in May, and then Ally did a month of supplemental teaching with her-- sort of an extended Vacation Bible School.  You can read more about her trip on her blog or email me for a copy of her newsletter.

I also had months of records to catch up on!  We use HomeSchool Tracker Plus to log our lesson plans and hours.  Since we're from Missouri, we follow MO laws, which require 1000 hours of documented school hours (a certain portion must be in "core subjects").  HSTP is a great program, and I am indebted to a good friend in the US for her patient teaching as I learned the program!

I am nearly caught up on all of that and so we're planning for the new year!  This means changing out my bookshelves and boxing up my first grade stuff.  I've gone through the teacher's guides for the first week and prepared most of my lessons-- it's always tricky at the beginning of the school year when I'm not sure how long different subjects will take!  So we'll have to figure out some of that as we go along.

We also decided that the schoolroom needed a makeover.  It was functional but not pretty, so we spent some time envisioning how to best use the small space and moving things around accordingly.  I also got the idea from two different friends (one here in Mpanda and one in Langley, BC) to paint a chalkboard onto my wall.  It was a bit of an undertaking, but it has quickly become a great asset that is both functional/helpful and decorative!  I also discovered that on our awkward internal window (that has bars on it...), the screen is metal and strong enough to hold magnets!  So I spent some time gluing old magnets on the back of clothespins, pictures, and mini-whiteboards. 

I was hoping to post a few pictures of our schoolroom, but that will have to wait.  I'm too frustrated after sitting here for almost two hours now trying to upload them!  Our internet has been worse than ever lately!

Micaiah and I are both excited about starting second grade.  Hopefully we'll be able to post some pictures soon!

-JLR

Wound Update

I can't believe how many of you are following this boil adventure!  I knew there were a few crazies out there who'd be interested in hearing about the boil and my health issues and even fewer that would want to actually SEE it in pictures... well, I THOUGHT I knew, anyway.  I've gotten more hits on my past couple blog posts than I have ever gotten on any other post!  No kidding!

Ok, well, if you all are still interested, here's a bit of an update.  My neck/back are still a bit out of whack, but I keep doing my stretches and at least I'm sleeping a few more hours consecutively each night.  I still wake up plenty, but the pain doesn't keep me up for hours at a time like it had been doing.  My boil is definitely on the mend.  The crater continues to ooze pus, but this morning I noticed that it's a bit smaller.  I think it's starting to heal around the edges, which is encouraging news.  The skin around the boil is still pretty raw from all the tape and trauma of the whole fiasco, but I'm pretty sure it will improve in the coming days.  I can also see the shape of my knee again, which is nice!  There is still some swelling and general soreness, and I have a feeling it will be a few weeks before I'm fully back to normal.

The real challenge has been that Micaiah three small spots that could be boils.  They're small, and could actually just be spider bites.  So far it's been super-mild compared to mine.  We're not even positive that they are boils, but given all that I've been through, we don't want to take any chances!  So for the past three days now I've been on a cleaning rampage.  EVERYTHING is getting washed.  Floors, door knobs, door frames, bathrooms, sheets, towels, buckets.... from what I've been reading, boiling water is one of the best cleaners, so we'll be washing all our linens in boiling water for a while.  And dettol is my new best friend. :)

Any tips on how to eradicate any lingering bacteria in our house?  Any key spots that I need to be sure to check?  Light switches, door knobs.. that sort of thing?  I know that boils just sometimes happen, especially out here in the tropics.  They're super common and so many of our friends and neighbors have shown me their scars (which I could have done without in some cases...) and assured me that these are normal for this area. Even the doctor and nurse at the clinic were quick to reassure me that my massive boils were "normal."  I don't think I'd go that far, but still, it was comforting that they've seen these before and weren't phased by it.  I could have given the infection to Micaiah (especially early on before we knew what it was!), but it's also possible we just got it from a common source.  No way to tell, really.  But we're doing our best to rebuild our immune systems, get enough sleep, eat healthy food, and keep stress to a minimum (!!).

Anyway, that's the update.  Here's a picture for all you crazies out there who like to see the progress visually.

-JLR

Wounds, part 2

**DISCLAIMER** 

This post may make you violently ill!  Please do not view these pictures if you are eating or plan to be eating in the next couple hours or you might not keep your food down.  You've been warned... proceed with caution.

I'm calling this Day 1.  It is not the first day of the boil, but it's the first day I went to the clinic-- once I realized that this thing was out of control!  This is the boil.  It doesn't look like much more than a big zit in this picture, but you can see in the second that my leg is quite swollen. 

This is one of the best pictures I have of the swelling (also Day 1).  My thigh, calf, and ankle all swelled up to about twice their normal size at their largest. 

Day 2.  This is the first day it was "squeezed" at the clinic.  It hurt so bad and I could not walk on my leg-- the pain was too intense!

Day 3.  This was after it was squeezed the second day.  You can see here that there are at least three centers within the boil.

Tim dressing my wound (also Day 3).  His facial expression is completely justified-- I myself gagged everytime I looked at it!  Glad we brought those gloves and even more glad we took that First Aid/CPR class! 

Day 4.  The "tissue plug."  It was nasty.  I don't want to keep talking about it because I don't want to keep thinking about it.  Oh, and you can see my blackened toenail in this picture, too!

 

Day 6 (sorry, I apparently didn't take any pictures on Day 5).  The tissue plug came out, leaving a big crater in its wake.

 This picture shows the crater really well (also Day 6).

 

Day 7.  This is today.  I'm regaining some mobility, the swelling is starting to go down, and the crater continues to ooze greenish-yellowish goo.

Enjoy your lunch!

-JLR