A fairly easy and smooth day

I absolutely LOVED the devotion today. It started out talking about Ellis Island and all the immigrants that arrived between 1892 and 1924. The immigrants were inspected for signs of disabilities or diseases. The Dr’s were looking for wheezing, coughing, shuffling, limping, and 60 other symptoms. After they passed that inspection they went to the next station. There the inspectors verified 29 bits of information, such as age, occupation, marital status, and destination, in order to determine “social, economic, and moral fitness.” Imagine if we had to go through an inspection before entering heaven. Thankfully, there is only one question that we need to answer when we arrive. Is Jesus your Lord and Savior? For, as the bible tells us, it is by faith in Jesus Christ, in believing that he died for our sins once and for all, that we gain entrance into eternal life. That’s it. Test over.

Today’s math lesson was easier than yesterday’s. It was about adding and subtracting fractions with like denominators. This lesson was also a quick one. Yeah, thanks for the math break.

Today we had more fun in science too. We did an experiment with Heresies Kisses to determine whether they endured a chemical or physical change when introduced to heat. One was in JD’s mouth, one outside in the sun, one outside in the sun on a sheet of aluminum foil, and one outside in the shade. Of course the chocolate in JD’s mouth melted quicker, then the foil, then the sun, then the shade. But it was fun do conduct the experiment. We completed three science workbook pages: page 276 (experiment instructions), 277 (record observations sheet), and 279 (chemical reactions.)

We’re so close to finishing the social studies lesson on the history of South America. Today we wrote notes on the “problems of the 19th century” after the wars of independence. One more day of notes and we’ll start planning our travel brouchure for one country in South America.

I cleaned my client’s house today and forgot to bring the language arts lesson. We also still have not gotten to the library so JD did not read today either.

A good Veteran’s day

The devotion today was about great sacrifices. President Woodrow Wilson said, “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nation.” Today is a day to reflect upon and thank those that gave up their lives for their country, for peace, for justice, and for the end of tyranny. We would find it hard to die for a cause that is evil or bad. Jesus didn’t die for just people, or even good people. He died for sinners - people who are weak, who ignore God, and because he loved us.

Math was pretty easy today. It was about estimating and rounding fractions to the nearest ½ or whole. Then, it moved to adding or subtracting rounded fractions.

It was a nice day outside today and hard to concentrate on the science lesson. We’re currently learning about elements, compounds, and mixtures. So we did page 278in the science workbook. It was an experiment asking which would freeze first - cold or hot water. We had to go to last years notes on recalling the steps to an experiment. We found them and I typed up JD’s hypotheses which was: Hot water will freeze first. We observed both cups every five minutes for one hour and the cold water froze first. (I typed “we” but JD became distracted by digging a huge hole in my front yard. It was easier for me to tell him what I observed instead of calling him in every five minutes. He was COVERED by dirt and sand.)

We did a short social studies lesson on the Wars of Independence in South America during the early 1800’s. I had JD take notes. But the information was so detailed that we found it easier to print a map and follow and label each country written about. This was much easier for both of us.

For language arts today I found another website JD used in public school. It’s called www.funbrain.com. I had JD do three different games to work on finding prefixes, root words, and suffixes. Then I allowed him to ready the comic strips for his reading time.

There was no school today

Public school will be out of school Thursday for Veteran's day.  So I took today as our day off because I had to drive to Laurinburg so my brother could install new tires on my Ford Explorer.  So no fun school related topics today.  Instead I'll just share two photos of the grand girls.

A picture of Suri "homeschooling."  She's quite content sitting on my lap with a notepad, colored pencils, and a calculator. 

Isabella has been known to stand on her own without support for seven seconds.  It won't be long now and she'll be toddling around.

A-lack-of-sleep-recovery-day

It was a rough night last night. Suri vomited late last night and JD was had two nightmares AND his tongue (bumps) were hurting really bad too. So Sarah and I were basically the walking dead today. Suri seems to have gotten better as there was no vomiting today. JD’s tongue calmed down. However, school was kept to a minimum today for recovery for both JD and me.

We started with devotion. I have learned in the past that if I don’t do the devotion and talk with God at the start of our day, Satan sneaks in as a disruptive student. The devotion was about Family Stories. The ones that start out “When I was your age…” or Did I ever tell you about the time…” We love telling stories in this family. It is always a great source of laughter and family bonding. Moses was told by God, “You will be able to tell wonderful stories to your children and grandchildren.” Telling God’s stories helps us to encourage people during difficult times, strengthen other’s faith, and builds trust in God. So if you’re a part of God’s family get our there and become a story teller.

The math lesson was easy but long. Both JD and I thought it was too long. It was about comparing and ordering fractions. JD did most of it in his head by wondering which one would yield the most pieces (of pizza or pie) to eat. And he was right most of the time. I on the other hand did it the mathematical way by finding the common denominator and working through my problem. Funny how God designed my little guy. (It sounds funny to type little.)

Speaking of being little, JD made mention today that he was sweating while sitting still. Can anyone say, “Possibly the beginning of puberty?

The language arts lesson today was looking at a rough draft from 4 Nov. called Tuesday’s Football Practice. He hand wrote it the other day and I typed it up today. I typed it exactly like he wrote it. With 9 spelling error, 5 capitalization errors, and 2 punctuation errors. He could easily see the spelling errors underlined in red and fixed most of them. We looked up the word “axadinteley” (accidentally) so he could see the correct spelling because of word processing had no spelling suggestions. So we edited his paper and printed out the final copy. I really think we made progress today and we did it with a positive non-criticizing way.

Because we were in lack-of-sleep-recovery-mode today we did not do science, social studies, or reading lessons.

Kick-off team



Football - Well what can I say? Our Tar Heels came to the end of their season. Tonight was the first game of the playoffs. The Tar Heels scored 7 points in the second half and the Raiders scored a total of 21 points on us. According to Jeff, “The offensive line just wasn’t blocking." JD did well on the kick-off team.  Even though the game was 21-0 the coaches (Jeff) started rotating the players in and out so everyone got a chance to play. JD went in and blocked the best he could and even made a tackle! 

Offensive team

Player down (Oh wait that's my child!)

A great (and busy) day

Overall, today was a great day. It was filled up school, cleaning, grandbabies, and an extra football practice for the Tar Heels. They play their first playoff game Tuesday night at 7pm.

The devotion today was called “Ample Time Day.” (Really? Because I think I’m getting shorted here…) The truth is out of the 24 hours God gives us there “should” be ample time to do what God wants us to do on any given day, according to His plan. Ephesians 1:10 says, “And this is his plan: at the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ - everything in heaven and on Earth.

JD did not read a book today because we forgot to go to the church library yesterday. So we went straight into math today. It re-taught us equivalent forms of fractions and decimals. More specifically, converting fractions to decimals and decimals back to fractions. It seems like we should remember this stuff from last year but it takes a reminder lesson to refresh our memories. JD scored a 90% on the end of lesson quiz.

Since we missed a couple of days of science last week I thought today would be a good day to catch up. So we did experiments to teach him emulsion and density. Emulsion is a mixture of two or more unblendable liquids. We took water and oil and shook them together. They pulled apart quickly. But when we mixed 10 drops of Dawn dish detergent in with them they mixed together like a big happy family. To teach density I had JD fill three cups with water: #1 was plain water, # 2 had 1 teaspoon of salt mixed in, # 3 had 1 tablespoon of salt mixed in. Then we dropped ice cubes in each one. The plain water ate our ice cube. But # 3 (with 1 tablespoon of salt mixed in) only ate the bottom of our ice cube. The conclusion: the denser a solution is, the more slowly molecules in it will move. Cool huh?

We did our social studies lesson today during lunch and beyond. We only watch educational shows during lunch so JD was watching the National Geographic channel and got stuck watching a show about the bordered between Mexico and the United States. He was able to tell me all about what he watched so I counted that TV show as a lesson. It’s amazing people would go through days of travel on foot to either cross the border or carry huge packages of drugs for a better life.

I forgot JD language arts lesson when I went to my cleaning job. But that’s ok with me because we had a great school day.