Hungry, singing, Mexican jumping bean!

In a nut shell today was like trying to teach a hungry, singing, Mexican jumping bean. But that’s just the way God made him. I think I said the word "focus" as many times as he said "hungry." But we would consider it to be a very successful day!

Our devotion today was on James Hudson Taylor. He was a Missionary in China. He did this for 51 years. He often said, “If I had 1,000 lives, I’d give them all for China.” Then it said, “The truth is, each of us will have only one life to live. What will you do with yours? Would you willingly devote every day and hour and minute to God’s glory and spreading the Gospel of Jesus?”

Then we moved onto 40 Day of Purpose Driven Life where we learned to see life from God’s point of view. The study said, “Life is a test” used to test our character, faith and obedience. Then it said, “Life is a trust..“ Meaning everything is God’s and I am entrusted with it.” Some people use the life metaphor that life is roller coaster or a race. I used to think of it as a rollercoaster. There ups and downs and it goes by really fast. Then at the end you just wasn’t to do it over again. Now I know that my character, faith, and obedience are being tested. This home school is a HUGE test. Thank God, He’s equipping me with the strength and tools to endure it.

The math lesson was finding the “greatest common factor.” This is when the sleepy Jonathan transformed into Senor Juan. (Juan of course is John in Spanish.) He was moving around so much it made me dizzy. Then he started singing about 2 times 32 = 64 (sometimes in Opera) and then add to that he started singing about being soooo hungry. Apparently the egg he cooked this morning was nasty and the toast didn’t satisfy his breakfast hunger. So my thought was, well I can’t shove bowl after bowl of junk food in front of him…what to do? I peeled and sliced an apple for him. He scored well on the quizzes.

We did not do “word bank” today because he BEGGED me to let him to do Language Arts. (What? Is this Jonathan? Jonathan Hyder?) At the end of the lessons there is a quiz called “word herd.” It’s in the form of a game show. I was up washing dishes and he guided himself through two lessons and two quizzes. He scored a 63% on one and 100% on the other. Part of the 63% was my fault (communication and content error) so we retook the test (a couple of times) to bring up his grade. During these lessons he was excessively moving but remained quiet to listen to the lesson. I gave him silly putty to squish while listening. It really worked well.

The journal entry today was “Why I like home school.” We listed 6 reasons why he liked home school and then he rewrote the cursive I dictated. All six reasons included the word “fun.” My teacher is fun. Lunch is fun. The class pet is fun…(OK really?) So this was yet another teaching opportunity. We pulled out the Thesaurus and looked up the word “fun.” Now we've got descriptive sentences. I have a kind teacher. The lessons are enjoyable. Lunch is pleasurable. (Whew…) During this lesson he was envisioning the 12-12:30 History lesson fully equipped with his army guy map holder full of maps and letters during WWI and WWII. (When did this book worm slip into my house?) So as you guessed it he was completely distracted, moving about the room and hungry again! So I put the map holder aside, let him move about the room, and provided a hearty salad. I checked on him ½ hour later and only the topic sentence was written. From that point on I had him tell me what letters he was writing. There were points of confusion when he came a cross certain cursive letter that he didn’t recognize. This turned out to be homework.

We stopped for lunch and skipped recess because he went straight to playing the organ. After a few minutes he realized we skipped recess but went right back to playing the organ. This totally amazed me because he plays by sound and not by reading notes. He started playing "Oh come all ye Faithful. "I was floored. I researched the internet for playing his way but found nothing. So I moved to plan B which was plugging up a keyboard that he received two years ago. It hooks to the TV and he can learn that way. Before you knew it it was time to quit and finally move on to history. Of course while playing the organ or keyboard he was all over the organ bench and floor. (He looks a bit like Stevie Wonder, only he moves front to back, not side to side.

The history lesson continued with the Mexican-American war and the dispute over land. Jonathan enjoyed it and participated.

My student did very well today. If I can get him to settle down a bit I think we’ll be ok with this Concerta dosage. It was a joy teaching my hungry, singing, Mexican jumping bean today. Although, he got hungry again at 4, 6, and 8. How am I going to keep my cupboards stocked full enough to fill him up?