An ants in the pants kind of day

Apparently I’ve started a homeschool trend at my church. There are now two home school families. The other mom is one of the 5th grade teachers I sought advice from last year. So pray for our small homeschool community.

The devotion was about all the cartoon characters that worked show after show to get their enemies. Cartoons like The Roadrunner and the Coyote, Tom and Jerry, and Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny. Why were we glad that these murderous intentions all failed? Because we know life is beautiful and murder is ugly. God planted that awareness in us. God is the author of life itself, and he commands us to be like him in our respect for human life.

Today in JD’s AWANA it wanted him to construct a game that involved the eight reasons how we can know the bible is true. He designed a wonderful game where you simply work your way around the outside of the board. The rules are:

If you land on a “Action” sign you perform that silly action on the yellow card and stay in place.

If you land on a “Pitchfork” you have to move back 2 spaces.

If you land on a “Bible” then you have to read a blue card (with a bible verse on it) and decide which question it answers from the board. If you answer it correctly you have two choices…

You can move yourself ahead two spaces or

You can choose to move someone else two spaces closer to God. (I was so proud of my kind hearted boy for even thinking this one up. An eleven year old gets it!)

If you answer incorrectly you stay in place.

If you land on a “Harp” that is a safe zone. You do not move ahead or back.

If you land on a “Halo” you get to move ahead 2 spaces.

We’ll try it out Sunday night at the AWANA club meeting.

The math lesson was frustrating me and probably boring JD. It was about finding the area and perimeter of rectangles and parallelograms. JD was acting like he had ants in his pants and he was extremely unfocused. Twice I had to refocus him and have him take a break to shake the ants out of his pants. (Which he literally tried to do. How can a mom stay mad at that?) His quiz score reflects the level of active participation he had. He scored a 70% even though I knew he could easily find the answers with the correct formula. Oh well, 70% is still passing.

JD read his book called Hoot today. Those thirty minutes concluded the days lessons. I’ve been feeling pretty drained lately. I think it has something to do with the bug at the other side of the house. Luckily, JD, Jeff and I have escaped any major symptoms.

It was a busy day

It was a busy fast paced school day. Then I cleaned for 2 ½ hours. The last part of my day included hooking up the Wi-Fi connection. It’s kind of cool to sit on my bed and post blog or search the net.

The devotion today was about learning respect. The grandfather was teaching the grandson how to cut wood with a hand saw. The golden rule to this is “measure twice, cut once.” The grandfather taught how to hold the wood and the saw. He said, “Above all keep your fingers away from the saw” as he held up his hand two fingers were significantly shorter than the rest. One of the reasons God gave us parent and grandparent is so we can learn from their experiences. That’s why God commands us to honor our parents. He knows their experiences have taught them a thing or two. Respect is important to God because it’s a part of who He is.

We did not do anything in the AWANA book today.

Today was another day to skip the lessons and press on through the quizzes. The first quiz was about reasonable customary measurements. JD scored a 90% on that quiz. We did another one on customary time and temperatures. He scored a 100% on that one. Not bad for one day.

JD did T4L today for language arts. He did two lesson and two quizzes on the following homophones: stares/stairs, pairs/pares/pears, right/write/rite, idol/idle, patients/patience, ferry/fairy, and cite/site/sight. He scored a 100% on one quiz and a 75% on the other when I walked about to fold laundry. But he know how to spell most of them. (Smile)

For social studies today we started watching a show on the History channel about the possible location of Hell on earth. The show took us to different locations around the world to show us legendary volcanoes, geysers and fault lines found in Iceland, Mexico, Greece, Italy and Japan. They appear to descend into another reality -- an underworld deep within the earth. In some cases, they have been seen as 'hell mouths'. They investigated each of these places and revealed the geological reasons they evoked such fear and awe. We didn’t watch it very long. JD asked me a very unusual question after watching about Hell. He asked, "What happens to Siamese twins when they die, if one is a Christian and the other is not." Truth be told I told him I would research it and get back to him. I finally responded with, "The body is left here on earth but God takes care of the souls. The soul of the saved Siamese twin would go to heaven while unfortunately the other goes to hell." What the History Channel focused on was the pain and torment that goes on in Hell, but failed to mention the eternal separation from God for not accepting His son as our savior. I made sure JD knew that would be the worst part of Hell.

I cleaned my client’s house today and JD read his book Hoot for thirty minutes.

Sick day

Today was a sick day for Faith Christian Academy.  There is yet another virus running rampid throughout the house.  Thus far it has claimed Isabella, Suri, Sarah, and I think it got JD yesterday. 

Today JD camped out on the couch.  He's not feverish just sluggish and has some head congestion. 

Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.   

Busy lesson day

It was a good but busy lesson day.  Looks like ANOTHER viral bug hit the babies, Sarah, and JD.  This time it's another head cold with associated symptoms.  UGH!

The devotion was about two boys talking at their lockers about what each one would be doing for the weekend. One boy didn’t have any plans and the other one was looking forward to Sunday. The boy looked forward to the Sabbath because they are a special day of the week set apart by God for man. His family did stuff together, played games, and ate a special meal. The other boy just noticed more newspapers gathered in his house. I can relate…

In the AWANA book today JD completed challenge 3:2 where he learned God offers the ultimate gift. Then, he completed challenge 3:4 about honoring God by not making idols, misusing the name of the Lord God, and remembering the Sabbath day. (See what I mean about things lining up and duplicating? Sabbath day…)

JD was such a superstar during the math lesson. We got out of the three day metric system lessons yesterday. Today we started and completed all three of the customary measurement system lessons. It was a repeat of last year where he learned about ounces, cups, pints, quarts, and gallons. Then, he learned about lengths. The last thing he learned was weights. We trotted through the customary conversions lesson and quiz with a score of 100%. Then I said, “Go straight to the proportions and reasonableness quiz. If we bomb it we’ll go through the lesson if not score!” He was able to breeze through the quiz with a 90%. I had him go straight to the estimating quiz too. He scored a 100% on that quiz. So we tripled our math time today yeah!

JD used T4L for language arts today. He did two lessons on the prefixes (inter, dis, and over) and two lessons on the suffixes (tion, al, y.) I’m really not a slave driver…he begged for the fun lessons and just kept moving onto the next lesson. They were all set up like an old games show. He loves those lessons because there’s a lot of humor in them.

We did T4L today for social studies. I’ve been all over the place with social studies this year but JD is interested in so many things. Today we learned what life was like for in the 1800’s for the homesteaders. We learned about the dugout and soddie houses, farming, school, housekeeping, and basic living routines. I so want to be back in the 1800’s again. Sure life was tough, but there would be a lot less distractions for me to walk with God.

We did not to science today because I was going to take a technology trip to Dell to look at the Dell “Duo.” Jeff found it the other day and showed it to me. I loved it! It’s a hybrid laptop/tablet, has a touch screen, and applications like the phone Sarah has. The video showed a picture of a globe that you can spin around like a real globe. Those type of applications would greatly benefit our visual spatial learner (and possibly our spring trip.) I also wanted to ask them questions about Wi-Fi and routers. Sarah’s dad hooked up a router here in Nov 2008 so Sarah could go Wi-Fi. This whole time since they moved to IL and TN I thought it was with Daniel and Sarah, but it’s been under my nose the whole time. I found it today. Sarah and I tried for over an hour to hook it up and crack the user id and password combination. We were unable to crack the password. So going Wi-Fi won’t happen for a couple more days. Sarah’s dad sent another router with instructions. So this spring JD and I will be able to take our laptop outside in the warm sunshine to do our lessons on a cozy blanket.

With the whole trying to connect the internet to Wi-Fi thing I got distracted and did not have JD read for thirty minutes. I did remind him twice before dinner but he did not read today. He did ask me today if he could watch the movie Hoot today. I told him not until he finishes the book. He questioned why. I told him, “I want you to see the difference in details from the book to the movie. Books are always better.” (Or so I’ve heard from others.)

A good day

Today I woke up and JD was already awake. It was a little loud in here for awhile.  But, not having to wake him up and remind, beg, plead, and remind cut out a lot of morning frustration. So it was a good day! (From now on when you see T4L it will mean Time4Learning the website I use the most for our curriculum.)

The devotion talked about Charles Barkley and how he has his name associated with Pepsi and Reebok shoes. Celebrities want their names linked to good products like the product makers want the celebrities to endorse their products. God is also concerned about how his name is used too. In His commandments God told people not to misuse his name. He does not want his name associated with anything evil or false, or even to say “omigod.” Those things offend God’s holiness.

In the AWANA book today JD completed the Challenge 2:5 reading about the prophesy involving Jesus. Then, he completed Challenge 2:7 about the opportunities to tell others the “good news” about the Lord Jesus Christ.

Today in math JD finished up the third lesson for the metric system. It taught JD how to estimate and measure exact length, mass, and capacity. It was pretty easy. He scored a 100% on the quiz.

We used Time4Learning for language arts today and it taught him to “follow the Directions!” First, we wrote clear and very detail instructions on how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Then we did a worksheet that read, “Listed below is a list of instructions. Before beginning, read through the whole list to make sure you understand each instruction. Then follow the directions exactly.” There were 10 sentences in all. JD figured out pretty quickly that the worksheet was “one of those” worksheets and went straight to the bottom and read….“Complete only questions one, five, and six on this worksheet.” I was glad he followed the directions, but a small part of me wanted to see him “blink his eyes five times, do ten jumping jacks, and make a paper airplane.” but he was too clever for me.

Today in science we went back to “Characterizes of Plants” in T4L. We learned more in depth about vascular and non-vascular plants. We learned things like the environment they grow in and different types of each plant. Apparently we moved through it too quickly because together we pulled together a 70% on the quiz.

I had to go cleaning today so we did not get to social studies. My client informed me today that she will be cutting me back to only Thursdays for cleaning. She warned me this would be happening. She plans to submit her resignation soon and needs to take more responsibility in her own home.

JD took his book to my client’s house and read Hoot for thirty minutes.