Another good day

Yesterday was Martin Luther King day so we followed the public school calendar and did not have school either. To sum our day up I would say it was a good-long-fun-productive-frustrating-bonding kind of day. You’ll see why in the following paragraphs.

The devotion today was all about “Rules, rules, rules!” Most of the rules parents set in motion are for our protection. Likewise, God did not give us the Ten Commandments because he was having a bad day or because he liked the way they sounded. He didn’t make them up to throw his weight around or even to be a party pooper. He did it because he wanted to protect us and provide for us. He knows the surest, safest path to pleasure and fulfillment, and his commands are intended to help us get there. Moses in essence said to obey all the laws and to fear God for our own prosperity and well being.

JD read the beginning chapter in the book of Luke for an AWANA assignment in his book. He read the foretold stories of both John the Baptist and Jesus. Next he completed Challenge 1:6 proving God’s word is historically correct. He memorized two verses strung together (1 John 1:1-2.) Because he does so well memorizing bible verses I have looked into joining a Bible Bee for him. Yes, they really do have these. I still need to do further research on this matter.

The math lesson today was making tables to organize data in word problems. Honestly, I could save a lot of money dying my hair if I had less self control during math. I could just rip it all out and wear a hat for the rest of my life. Here’s one of the math word problems - I’m thinking of a number between 20 and 40. The first digit is less than the second digit. The number is divisible by 2, but not divisible by 5. When you add the two digits together the sum equals seven. What number and I thinking of. Okay computer program…I have one for you. If I drink one glass of wine, one can of beer divided into two glasses, and a margarita while figuring out your $tupid question, will I ever care what number you’re thinking of? JD did very well with this lesson, but he still would not develop his own table to organize the information. He scored a 90% on the lesson quiz.

The math lesson must have frustrated me so much that I decided I needed a break. Would I? Could I?…find a “better time” to run a fire drill? I learned somewhat from the last fire drill. I took my slippers off this time. My feet were cold outside but I don’t need physical therapy from my gymnastics this time. I warned Daniel’s family about three minutes before I called “Exercise, exercise, Fire drill, fire drill!” We all (6 people and 3 dogs without leashes) did a great job taking it seriously and getting out of the house to the assembly point. Not one of the three adults carried a cell phone out. Amazing! We decided the best thing to do was to go door to door at our neighbors houses to call 911.

I combined the language arts and social studies lessons together. We worked on JD’s colony paper. It was a very talkative time for us. I asked many questions to get JD to tell me about his citizens, their qualifications and occupations, and total population. At one point I took out 20 pennies to represent his population. Each penny represented 100 citizens. We talked out how he would divide them by male/female, young adult, adult, and seniors, and occupations while starting to build and live on his new found treasure. It was a lot of fun and I think it helped him understand reasonableness. Is it reasonable to have an 80 year old man in construction? Can a four year old help farm?

For science today JD and I completed our lesson on seed plants from 11 January. He’s quite proficient now when asked about both angiosperms and gymnosperms. He knows how new plants start; by wind dispersal, falling, being carried away by human and animals. We learned what it takes for a new plant to start growing like sufficient room, water, and oxygen. He also learned about the different parts of a seed and embryo. We even pulled out the microscope again to look at the embryo of a kidney bean.

I cut JD’s reading time down to 20 minutes today because he read so much in the bible during the AWANA book time. He’s of course still reading Hoot.