Trailblazers Home School

Category: Family

If it’s family related stuff, you’ll find it here.

  • We are contemplating homeschooling our son.

    We are contemplating homeschooling our son.

    “Should we homeschool our son?”

    We are inviting you to share our experience of the hardships and concerns we face being a family of an autistic ADHD child and our journey into what seems like the inevitable homeschooling for our beautiful son Chris.

    BACKGROUND:

    We’ve been through three school systems and our son Chris has been hurt.

    This past year was the worst… he’s been exhibiting signs of depression and PTSD from the classroom. He’s chosen to stick it out because he doesn’t want to lose his friends. We have honored his wish.

    Now the school is threatening to hold him back over a test score. Chris stands to lose his friends. Our trust has been broken.. if he loses his friends, (or stands a chance to in the future), should we homeschool?

    The answer seems to be that we are going to do a trial run over the summer and make a final decision in September.

    Will this be “the best thing ever for Chris?” or maybe we want to continue the path we are on now. I don’t know but Julia wanted to share our journey with you and so we shall.

    Thank you for watching.

    Update: I was mistaken… He didn’t have a certified math teacher for MOST of the year, not the whole year. The replacement teacher was indeed properly certified since 2021. I don’t know if the website was down when I checked or if I was just straight up MISTAKEN but either way I needed to rectify this but too late to change the video. Sorry.

  • WE DID IT!!! WE FOUND SATURN!!!

    WE DID IT!!! WE FOUND SATURN!!!

     

    It was supposed to be cloudy all weekend but we caught a break.

    Chris was so excited.  Absolute amazement.  Just incredible how into this he was.
    Here’s some pics.  Sorry so short.  I need rest but I wanted to share this with you real quick.  I guess I’m just as excited as he was.

     

    We had just enough time before sun-up.
    Pic is pretty dark… IDK if you can see or not but Chris is on the telescope.

    Chris was so excited, he had to wake Mama up to come see.

    I shot this while he was inside. It’s awfully grainy but I was able to make out the planet’s general shape.
    And of course the two of them together.

    I’m a lucky man.

  • Fixing a bicycle for a friend

    Fixing a bicycle for a friend

    A friend of mine asked me to take a look at her bicycle.

    I was honored to be entrusted with her machine. 

  • Fix Julia’s Lamp

    Fix Julia’s Lamp

  • Trellis: Rip and coat the main pieces

    Trellis: Rip and coat the main pieces

    I got out and got those 2x4s ripped for the trellis.

    Chris joins me to learn about a paint sprayer

    Open the can like this, stir until no gobs at the bottom, load it the sprayer like so, this is how the sprayer works: turn this knob to do this, that knob to do that.
    Hold the sprayer about this far away. Yeah, that’s good.
    Don’t “swing” the gun, keep it perpendicular to the piece. See how it didn’t coat right because of the angle?

    “Yeah, I see.”

    I think he’s got it.

    after his hand got tired, we switched things up to ulitize our strengths.

    His speed running the boards, my stronger hands, easy peasy, we knocked the pile out PRONTO!  DONE!

    20 minutes later…

    Good deal. I’m impressed. Chris got it DONE!

  • UNC Science Expo

    UNC Science Expo

    Think “Science Fair” hosted by one of the best colleges in the nation where they had active demonstrations of just about every STEM topic imaginable.

    No way we would miss it.

    pressure dissapation

    Two Part Polymers

    hydrophobic coatings

    IMG_20240406_130257602

    statistics

    they had a stage

    they had food trucks

    they had microscopes

    and so much more! If you ever get the chance to go, definitely do it!

  • Statewide Star Party

    Statewide Star Party

    We were looking for an outing and we found this!

    We didn’t know what to expect but they said “Solar System Walk” and we were sold.

    So we packed our telescope and off we went!

    solar system walk

    If The sun is the circle behind chris on the tree,

    than this is how far out each of the planets would be.

    NEPTUNE’S NOT EVEN IN THE PICTURE!!!
    Each card had fun facts and how big they would be if to scale. Neptune’s the size of an O, Mercury was just a speck of dust!

    did you know it would take 5000 years to drive a car to neptune? I didn’t.

    Heck, I got tired just walking.

    They had neat gadgets, tons of freebies, and a ROCKET BUILDING AREA. Now how can you go wrong with a rocket building area? WIN!

    here’s a video of the family just being family together and the foot powered rocket launcher they set up for the kids.

    It was uncommonly cold so we had to skip the telescope for tonight.

    final thoughts:

    It was such a great experience, I think they lit a spark in us as a family.  Chris really enjoyed himself, Mama made me promise to pull out the telescope for Chris after weather improves, and I’m considering looking up a local astronomy group because I don’t even know the questions I have yet.

    Thank you so much to NC SCIFEST for hosting.

  • Ground Temperature = 60 degrees

    Ground Temperature = 60 degrees

    Ground temperature = 60 degrees. It’s time to plant.

    Before
    After

    Chris and Mama planting corn

    They got fifty planted.  Two hundred will go in, staggered over six weeks to hopefully give produce from mid-summer into fall.

    Corn is still tricky for me so who knows?  If I get one meal out of it, I’m happy 😛

    while planting potatoes we hit a big root.

    The root won.  We lost.

    Hey, we tried 🙂

    Chris’s first time with a weedwacker.

    He liked it so much he asked if he could do it again on our second day.

    I’m proud of him.  He was a big help.

    a Pepper Plant grown from the shop

    Yup!  There’s a hydroponics area in the shop and it’s filled to the brim.  Seeing this beautiful pepper plant makes me feel like I’ve accomplished something from all the trial and error over the years.

    Do you see the wild strawberry in the pic?

    “Wild” as in “The chickens planted them here”. 

    I’ve got a soft spot for strawberry so I painted lines where Chris was NOT ALLOWED TO WEEDWACK, then painstakingly weeded these guys by hand and moved them over to the North Side Strawberry Patch where they can live “happily ever after”.

    I lost so much time doing this, but definitely for a good cause.

    end of day:

    Babes are all tucked in, asleep as I write this.  

    22 bell pepper,
    20 Exotic peppers (Carolina Reaper, Candy Cane Bell),
    30? Potato
    30? Onion
    50-100 carrot
    50 Corn

    And so much more left to do.

    Progress is good.  Progress is on time.  

    Look at my man go.  Hard to tell it’s only his second time with the unit.

    See how he’s got the head angled to really get in close?  I taught him that. 

    Proud Dad right here.

  • Dinos Alive

    Dinos Alive

    Spring break. dinos alive, 4/1/2024

    I was going to put up a bunch of pictures like usual but the video is so cool that the pics just don’t stack up compared to the video.

    Turn the audio on if you able to.