Anna Update and New Maps

It's been a while since I've done an Anna update, so I thought I would fill you in on what's been going on.

We went to the St. Jude clinic in town for a second opinion on her treatment for her basal cell skin cancer. First of all, it was just so weird to go to St. Jude. I'm sure one day I'll be a-o-kay with this Gorlin Syndrome thing, but I'm not there yet. Anyway, the doctor was wonderful, and two really great things came out of the appointment. First, the doctor got us in with a local dermatologist - and soon! No more driving a couple hours to Birmingham to see our specialist. Nice! And the icing on the cake of our visit was that Anna was NOT the first person with Gorlin Syndrome that she's seen in Huntsville. Yes, there is someone else with this extremely rare disease right in our own backyard! The doctor called the little girl's mom, and she's going to call me very soon to meet up and compare notes, so to speak. And this new family goes to the same dermatologist that we'll be going to in town. How great is God?! He knew we needed this connection, and He always takes care of us. Thank you, Lord! I'm very excited about the seeing the new derm. because Anna has a bunch of new bumps, which I think are basal cell carcinomas (skin cancer), but I don't know for sure. Her treatment for her cancer spots is this cream that kills the cells, so I sure don't want to put that stuff on good skin. I want the derm. to tell me yes or no for sure on those new bumps.

So, that's the big update. Happy news for the developments from St. Jude, and not-so-happy news for new bumps. But, you know what? God is in control. And He is good!

In other news, we recently went to a Learning Expo at the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. I love that we live so close to this place!

The girls enjoyed playing with the fun stuff while we looked around. Pretty neat! CC had a booth right next to Anna's new school's booth! I really should have taken a picture.

Funday Monday was yesterday - woohoo! We reviewed some material before The Challenge. Mary loved the Gallon Man activity from Crecia's lesson plans at CCing it one day at a time. I laminated the pieces and added velcro dots.

One of the subjects we really need to work on is Geography. We were doing so well at the beginning of the year, but we slacked up during our long break. I dusted off our homemade review book, but we have two problems with it now. If you used the Map Friends Review Book that I made for Mary, I'm sure you've noticed that some of the locations are missing or have changed starting in Week 11 (sorry about that). Apparently, CC has changed up the memory work a little since the last Foundations Guide; I should have checked the maps better when making the book (again, my apologies). The second issue with the review book is that Mary can now read (yay!), so having the names of the places on the maps is terrible for review. I decided that we needed to revamp or beloved Map Friends book. I'm going to keep everything in the book as it is, but I'm going to add some maps I've pulled from C3:

I've laminated the pages and added velcro dots, so we'll still use our map friends. I'm going to take these pages and the original review book back to Staples tomorrow and have them put it all together in one new book. Easy cheesy! You can find these great maps on C3:

file name: Geography Semester 1 with blanks.pdf

file name: Geography Semester 2 with blanks.pdf

user name: kkillingsworth

Kkillingsworth also has some really great file folder games for the upcoming weeks. If you're looking for some fun review, definitely check out her stuff! We love it!

Speaking of maps and C3, thanks to the Knox family, we've discovered a new way to review Geography:

With paper clips!

(please excuse these sideways pictures... oops!) 

This is a handy little book with all of Cycle 1's Geography memory work ready to go for independent review. Yes, that's right, independent! First, you print out the maps, then you take a paper clip and punch a hole for each location for that week. Then you write (we used pencil so it wouldn't show through) the names of each location on the back next to the hole. Then you laminate and repunch (the hubs used the sharp end of a screw). I got the book bound at Staples for under $5, and viola! Your child puts the paper clip where she thinks the location is, then she turns it over to see if she was correct. How cool! Even my four-year-old can do it by herself! And playing with a paper clip is pretty fun for her. ;)

You can find this really neat set of maps on C3:

file name: C1_Geo4th_wk01-24_MapNPaperClip_WklyReview.pdf

user name: KnoxFamily

Here she is in action! 

Speaking of C3, I've pulled TONS of great stuff off of there lately. I'm so thankful that CC has made this resource available and that mamas are willing to share their wonderful creations! I'm actually going to put together a post of some of favorite C3 stuff soon. There is just never enough time in the day, y'all! And I still haven't gotten a chance to work on Mary's fairy review game again. Eeek! Soon, soon, soon. I have until our next Funday Monday to pull it together.

I know this post has been a little-bit-of-this and a little-bit-of-that, so I'm just going to throw one final thing into the mix:

My girls absolutely LOVE this - ha! Anna likes it the most, and she always asks to watch the kitty cat. Too sweet! She even sings along with Ginger! Love it or hate it, you'll have to admit it's pretty cute (but Ginger the Cat goes from cute to annoying speedy-quick, so watch sparingly.  ;)  ).

Good night, friends!