A short school day

Today was a short day at school because we had many errands to run. It getting very busy around here with school, church, and baseball.

I loved the devotion today. It was about a French doctor during WWII. He was concerned about babies in orphanages. He notice those that receive regular love and attention faired better than those that didn’t. He ran a brief experiment. He separated the babies into two groups. They all received food, diaper changes, and bathes. However, in the experiment one group received love and affection. Those babies that were cuddled and loved thrived. This experiment showed the doctor that humans need to receive love in order to thrive. This does not change as we get older either. God’s command to love one another can help us to become productive and useful in our knowledge of Jesus. This in turn makes a difference in our health and development (like the babies.)

JD and I did some bible reading for the AWANA book challenge 7:6. We were looking up the Holy Spirit’s “jobs.” JD found out the Holy Spirit guides us, makes information Jesus knew available to us, (he) leads us, teaches us, reminds us, convicts us of our sin, searches things of God and reveals them to us, and carries us along. (I’m thankful for this because sometimes we need carried.) JD also finished challenge 7:7 where the lesson said, “We don’t want you to do anything in this section, other than think. Think about the Holy Spirit being with you to help you, guide you, comfort you, and encourage you.”

The math lesson today was all about quadrilaterals. Those tricky squares, rectangles, parallelograms, rhombuses, and trapezoids. JD had to identify if they had right angles, congruent sides, opposite parallel sides, and opposite congruent sides (equal). Then he had to figure out the angles of each side. He did much better on that part than I ever could have. Geometry is his thing, he just doesn’t recognize that yet. He scored an 80% on the quiz.

Did not do Language arts, social studies, or science today. My plan was to go to Lowe’s and look for sulfur for science, but we didn’t find any. We did however find different kinds of manure to spread in our yard, but we didn’t purchase any. (Truth be told, I think the “dirt lesson is the wrong lesson to teach and I need to find something else.)

JD read his book for thirty minutes as we drove from here to there and back again.

First we drove to Lifeway to find communion cups for Sunday. (Jeff is cooped up in an office all day and I wanted to help him out.) Then, we met Jeff at Play it Again Sports to pick up a pair of baseball pants for JD. We have a two day baseball tournament this weekend. (We have only had four real practices…ouch.) Then, Jeff, me, and JD went out to Dinner at Smokey Bones. It was so good. So it’s been a busy couple of weeks and I finally caught up on my blogs for this week.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

A completely full school day

The devotion was about the happiest people in the world. Even if someone has power, prestige, and wealth they are not truly happy. The happiest people we know are those that show love to other people. Hate hurts us and love enriches us. Those people that act in love toward all those around them experience love twice - once when they give it away, and once when the receive it back again.

Today in JD’s AWANA book he learned he is sealed by the Holy Spirit. I love how they used a signet ring like the Kings used to own. Once it was sealed no one could mess with it. JD also memorized two bible verses to back up this fact in challange 7:5. 

I strongly disliked today’s math lesson. It was about identifying different angles of objects. We had to identify what the top, bottom, and side view look like. Seems easy enough but it’s kind of tricky. JD had to identify different views on prisms, pyramids, cylinders. JD scored a 90% on the quiz.

I had JD work in T4L today for the language arts lesson. I want him to become familiar with summarizing articles of reading. That’s what’s on the assessment. It’s so close to the assessment date. I can’t believe it. This school year went by quickly. JD did both the interactive reading and the quiz. JD did not do well on the quiz. He only scored a 67%. I’m not sure why that score is so low. I think he was distracted because he knows this stuff. Thank goodness because there are parents out there fighting with their children to teach them this concept. There’s another quiz on summarizing that he’ll do before school is out. We’ll see what he scores then.

JD read from the Louis L’Amour book for 30 minutes a day.

Today we did a fun science lesson. We tested three sand/dirt samples from the iris garden, the flower garden, and the vegetable garden. We had six containers filled with sand/dirt. Two were from the iris garden, two from the flower garden, and two were from the vegetable garden. We placed vinegar in three different samples. We were looking for bubbling or fizzing. We charted the observations. Then, in the remaining three different samples we watered it down and put baking soda in it to see if it bubbled or fizzed. Turns out we have alkaline soil. Maybe that’s why nothing significant grows in the iris garden and the vegetable garden. I’ll have to remedy that.

The social studies lesson was engaging. I had JD go to http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/euroquiz.html to take a 48 question quiz on the countries in Europe. The first time he got an 88 out of 144 possible points and the second time he got a 102 out of 144 possible points. I did it right after him and I scored about 100 myself. It gives you three tries to locate the country it asks for. If you miss the first time you only get two points. If you miss two times you get 1 point. So that’s why JD scored a 102 out of 144 on 48 questions.