WOW! AMAZING!

It's been a great day! I was enlightened during math and amazed during music. I am humbled to be in the presence of such a brilliant young man. Jeff and I used to say, "If one one teacher would just understand JD it could change his life." (Thank you God for having the confidence in me when you selected me as that "one teacher" that finally “gets” JD. I am certain this will make a difference in his life and for your Kingdom.)

The devotion was about the love of money. The first sightings of paper money was during the Revolutionary War. But it wasn’t until 1892 that the government issued “Legal Tender Notes.” People often put their trust of security in money. After all we understand and speak the language of money in our culture. But wise King Solomon recognized the money trap. The people were depending on money instead of God to meet their needs. (I know something about that. We became a one income family in January and God is taking care of our “needs.”) We have definitely added to our spiritual bank with the prayers of thanks to God for what he’s doing in our lives.

The Purpose Driven Life was about “Using What God Gives Us.” Mr. Warren warned us about doing something different from what God designed us to do. He compared it to trying to force a round peg into a square cutout. (Ouch.) Next, we are to discover of shapes. We can begin by assessing our abilities and gifts. Just because we think we’re good at something, wait until someone confirms that suspicion. Then, he talked about serving FIRST to discover if you’re good at it. How can you say you’re not a good teacher if you’ve never taught? (*Side note… Have you ever written a spiritual journal? I have and it is very enlightening. I can see where God was molding, shaping, and preparing my life. I just did the journal last year and oh the changes he’s made in just one year. Thanks God.) Unlike my body shape we are to enjoy and accept our specific “SHAPE’s” for God’s service. The book also warned about trying to be like someone else. Remember also, if we don’t exercise these gifts they will be lost.

I took 1 ½ pages of notes on the math lesson called “Perimeters of a Polygon” and JD took…you guessed it…zero notes. He EXCELLED at this topic. I think what amazed me most was the sheer number of numbers and steps he could keep in his head without writing a thing down. It wasn’t a hard lesson to do but the lines of numbers to add together, then multiply, then simplify…(My fingers are sore from all the writing I did.) A polygon can be a triangle, pentagon, octagon, or any shape with any number of sides. Most of the ones we looked at today were odd shaped and not symmetrical. I found out that when JD looks at a 3D picture of a rectangle or square that it upsets him and throws him for a loop. Why? Because the back keeps coming forward and the front keeps jumping to the back. Visual Spatial kids can see in 3D pictures in their heads. But JD let me know today that he did NOT like that picture. Here are two examples of what problems he kept in his head 1. There’s a shoebox that measures 6 1/5th” x 11 ½”. So what’s the perimeter of the box? He did EIGHT steps in his head: find a common denominator, times the top numbers to get them correct, add the whole numbers, add the fractions, get answer, times it by 2 for the other two side of the box for an answer of 33 and 14/10th, improper fraction - convert to proper fraction, final answer was 35 2/5ths. (Meanwhile I’m still trying to multiply my top part of the fraction so I can add the numbers…) 2. The shape was really odd looking but we knew the total perimeter was 40 feet. The dimensions went as follows: 3, 5, 5.4, 5, “x” (unknown) 5, 4.3, and 5. Before I could get that string of numbers written on my paper JD had them added and gave his answer for what “x” equaled.

There were more times today that I had to stop and ask how he got the answer but I couldn’t translate it well. I did ask how he kept all the numbers of the perimeter in his head and all the steps in the right order. He said, “The perimeter is an Army base.” (Ok makes sense to me.) The numbers are kept in files in my mind and one guy calls from inside a box for another guy to pull and slide the numbers into a thing like church signs. They slide all the numbers and “+“, “-“, “x” and division signs too. The guy in the box tells JD the answer. If there are more steps the files keep coming. The files are numbered like this: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3. Whole numbers are kept in one, fractions in another and so on. (All I can saw is astonishing. What an imagination.) He moves the numbers in his head sort of like pointing and clicking in the computer with the mouse. It’s kind of cool to FINALLY get to see inside his mind. At the start of home school he was unable to tell me ANY of this. It was as though I had to earn his trust or something. All I do now is sit back and let him moves his eyes and before you know it he has an answer. I have NEVER caught him looking at my paper to cheat either.

The word bank lesson was fairly easy for him to do but he found everything he could to do before doing the writing. This gave me time to do stuff around the house. The words today were ritzy, stupendous, and Utopian.

I had JD start his superhero comic book again. There was about 20 minutes before lunch. He must have sharpened every colored pencil in the cup before he started coloring with only black. (Ugh.) He only completed a little bit today and I told him it was now homework.

We took our usual lunch break. I say the morning prayer where I ask God into our school day and for strength, wisdom, and patience and such. JD says the lunch blessing. It’s usually only, “Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for this food , and let it be used for the good of our bodies, and our bodies for the good of your Kingdom, Amen.” But today there was a pause before Amen, and he said, “…And…thanks for letting math be fun today, Amen.”

Before the music lesson I went online and found “free piano lesson” sites. I showed JD the song “Brother John” and “London Bridge.” They both taught him how to use both hands for playing. He said, "That's not London Bridge. That's Mary had a Little Lamb." It took him all of a minute to figure out “London Bridge.” I wrote it down for JD so he could play it for Jeff when he gets home. I asked that he try to figure out "Amazing Grace." Within a minute or so he did part of it for Lyndell and me. I was on the phone with her telling her about the previous song. WOW! is all I can say.

We were suppose to do a social studies yesterday, but I accidentally did history instead. So today we will back track and do the social studies lesson. We looked at major cities across the USA and taped them to the map in our classroom. Then we did the flash cards on the state capitals. We did not score well. (By we I mean JD. If I had to give him a hint then I marked them down to be memorized. But there were still quite a few that I didn‘t know.) He missed 36 out of 50. So I wrote ten down on an index card and posted it near the computer. We’ll study and memorize them and work on another ten later.