A good day

Today is not the official day this year to file your taxes. The date this year is 18 April, because Washington, D.C., will celebrate Emancipation Day on April 15, a day earlier than normal, since April 16 falls on a Saturday. In observance of the DC holiday, Tax Day will be moved forward one business day, this year landing it on Monday, April 18.

The devotion listed types of trees and types of fruit or nuts. It asked JD to match them up. Apples come from apple trees and walnuts come from walnut trees. No matter how hard it tries a cherry tree could never produce apples. That tree just doesn’t have what it takes to produce that kind of fruit. Making right choices is the same. Because we are sinners we don’t have what it take to produce the fruit of the Spirit without God’s assistance. The Spirit lives in everyone who has trusted Christ for salvation. It’s only by praying, reading our bibles, and loving God can we make right choices.

What a coincidence…the AWANA book and the devotion match up. Today we learned the last three characteristics of the fruit of the Spirit and they are: faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These all deal with our behavior. JD completed challenge 8:5 by memorizing 2 Peter 1:5-8. That was a HUGE string of verses, but he did it!

Today’s math lesson was about circles. We relearned the terms: diameter (across the middle of a circle), radius (from the center to an edge), chord (a line between two points), circumference (the area around the entire circle), and pi (the # “3.14”). The lesson was pretty easy for us or so I thought. There were only five questions on the quiz and I had to answer a phone call in the middle of it. I instructed JD not to turn in the quiz until I looked at it. I’m glad I did. JD multiplied and divided by “3” and not “pi - 3.14.” Once he understood that he did well. He changed three answers and scored a 100% on the quiz.

We’re still working on comprehension in language arts. JD went to T4L and did an interactive guided instruction. He read a passage and had to answer questions about the main idea and supporting details on a non-fiction story. This lesson was not scored.

For social studies today I had JD do another type of interactive map game on Europe. He went to http://www.ilike2learn.com/ilike2learn/europe.html and didn’t score as well as he has in the past. BUT they added countries (or different names) that we did not study. This was good to know just in case the assessment asks something similar.

For science today we went to Brain Pop and watched a video on soil. It was a cool little video that taught us about the zones of soil. They are: horizon A (top), B (subsoil - rocks mineral, and clay), and C (soil not yet broken down.) We also learned about humus (organic matter in soil), weathering, erosion, and leaching (or draining.)

JD did not read today.

We left after school to pick up the Pirate’s uniform’s. They got everything correct except one boy‘s shirt. I got a bit distracted by the beautiful weather so I went out back and planted grass where Tater and Levi (my part time tenant) tore it up. I totally forgot to make dinner. So I ran to KFC and picked up a bucket for the family. We rushed eating and headed out for our Baseball practice.

Another busy day

Happy Birthday Gene!  It was another busy day. I had many calls and emails to make for baseball. But we managed a pretty full school day.

JD totally surprised me during the devotion today. He was able to tell me where the “Black Death” originated. China. He knew this because of a documentary he watched. (Go T.V.!) The devotion told us about the 1334 Black Death epidemic and the flu epidemic during WWI. Then it told us about a different kind of epidemic, more deadly than the bubonic plague or the flu. It’s threatening 5 billion people. It’s called sin. We’re all born with a sinful nature and make wrong choices. There is a cure for this epidemic and that was the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. He conquered sin and DEATH! By praying to Him and admitting we’re sinners, believing in Jesus, and confessing our need for Him we can all be cured!

Today in the AWANA book we discussed three more characteristics of the fruit of the Spirit.  The characteristics were: patience, kindness, and goodness.  Yesterday we learned love, joy, and peace deal with our relationship with God.  Today these characteristics deal with our relationship with others.  JD memorized two bible verses to back up challange 8:4.

The first part of the math lesson was easy. It was identifying objects that had the following changes: translation (move or slide), reflection (horizontal or vertical), rotation (turned). The second part was the dreaded graph with objects placed on one quadrant asking us to move it to another quadrant by using translation, reflection, or rotation. It took both of us to figure this one out, but we managed. JD scored a 100% on the quiz.

The language arts lesson was in T4L again. Today JD did the second lesson on plot, character, and setting. I was slightly disappointed with the 73% on quiz number 2. I’m getting a little scared about his comprehension level. But there were short people distractions today. I need to work on this a bit more because yesterday he scored an 80%.

I’m slipping lately. We did not do social studies or science today. But JD did read his Louis L’Amour book for thirty minutes today while I cleaned. He read outside on their porch.

We went out for dinner since we had to pick-up the team’s uniforms. Turns out we left the park before they arrived.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011
It was a very busy day.

It was a very busy and distracting day today.  I was cleaning the house while instructing JD. I was expecting Daniel’s mom to bring him home today from Tennessee. So we busted through our lessons so I could take JD to Gamers Guild. It was some type of fantasy game he got into while in Europe.

The devotion started out saying, “God did not create everything.“ And then it listed many examples of what God did make. Then it told us God did not create truth because he is truth. Truth is part of his nature. Moses said, “He (God) is…a God of Truth.”

In the AWANA book today JD learned on challenge 8:3 that the fruit, not fruit(s), of the Spirit are love, joy, and peace. (They only covered three parts of the fruit today. These three characteristics of the fruit explain our relationship with God. The visual example they used in the book was an orange slice in half where you can see the individual sections of the orange. Then, he memorized Galatians 5:22-23 that says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

Luckily the math lesson was fairly easy for JD. It was about similar figures (same shape, not he same size), congruent figures (same shape and size), and symmetry (where you can fold it and it’s exactly the same.) He went through the lesson easily. Then he scored a 100% on the quiz.

I was vacuuming the living room while JD did the T4L language arts lesson on plot, character, and setting. He scored an 80% on quiz 1. Maybe I should have held off on the vacuuming. I was in a hurry to get our lessons done to head off on errands.

I had JD go to http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/euroquiz.html for social studies today. He took the 48 question quiz on the countries in Europe. He scored a 139 out of 144 possible points. Yes!

JD read his Louis L’Amour book for thirty minutes today while we were out running errands.

We did not do science again today.

We left the house at around 1:30 pm for errands. I dropped of dry cleaning, and then went to a florist. I’m trying to figure out what type of plant I had outside for the last two years. It didn’t come up this year and I’m sad about it. I have a picture to show florists and plant nurseries, but the nurseries around here are closes.

I promised JD I would take him to Gamers Guild if he did all his lessons today. I brought in my bible and started reading while he talked with the guys. (Have I mentioned all the “guys” are NOT wearing wedding rings?) They are self admitted geeks and nerds according to one guy. Two of them were building and painting. JD went over to look and I suggested he start building his characters. The guys helped him cut, file, glue, reshape, etc. These guys really took him under their wings and love the fact that he’s into this game so young.

I raced off from Gamers Guild to get JD to baseball practice. He loves the team and the coaches. The team is shaping up, but they’re not super stars. Saturday is our first official game.

An interactive day

Today is the 50th anniversary of the space program. (Boy that makes me feel old.  They walked on the moon the year I was born.)  It was an interactive school day.  We shared lots of thoughts and time together.  So yep, it was a good day.   

The devotion was about two boys riding on the roller coaster. One boy figured out a way NOT to lock the bar down and left it that was as the roller coaster took off. The boy without regard for rules felt like the bar would cramp his style and spoil his fun. People today look at God’s rules the same way. They think that rules are meant to be broken and those people that break the most rules have the most fun. Truthfully, God’s rules are a safety bar for our lives; for our protection. Those that break the most rules may look like they’re having the most fun, but looks can be deceiving.

JD finished challenge 8:2 in his AWANA book. JD had to read John 1 about John the Baptist and the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus. Then, John 14, where Jesus was talking with his disciples about he councilor that will come to teach us. And lastly, Acts 2 where everyone was speaking in their own language to show that the Holy Spirit had come. JD is so close to finishing his third AWANA book.

The math lesson was a bit more difficult today. It was about similar (same shape not the same size) and congruent (exact size and shape) figures. Then we relearned terms like: dilation, reflection, rotation, and translation. JD only scored a 70% on the quiz but that’s still ok with me.

Today JD worked in T4L for language arts. He read passage and worked on summarizing questions. He scored a 100% on the quiz. This was the same type lesson he scored a 67% on Thursday. He must have been highly distracted Thursday.

For science today we researched making our own compost can. We watched a U-tube video by with Danielle Lessovitz, took notes, and went shopping. We bought a huge trash can with a lid. Then JD sat in the garage and drilled 30 holes in it (for oxygen). We added equal parts of brown and green compost items. Brown items are carbon rich and include but are not limited to these items: cardboard, junk mail, newspapers, and wood shavings. Green items are nitrogen rich items and include but are not limited to these items: fruit peels, grass clippings, tea bags, and coffee grounds. (I’ve got coffe grounds covered - smile.) We soaked it down with water and rolled it around. Now we don’t have to water it or roll it for one whole week.

We learned more facts about Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, and Croatia in social studies today. JD is getting much better understanding Europe’s social and political system and the location of the countries.

JD read his Louis L’Amour book for thirty minutes today.

Fun loving moments

It was a good day filled with lots of learning and fun loving moments.

The devotion asked would you believe if someone told you they were a trapeze artist if they were afraid to climb a ladder? Or would you believe if a guy said he was a race car driver if he could back out of a driveway? Probably not. Their actions don’t support their words. It’s easy to say we love one another but do we SHOW it? The apostle Paul wrote, “It is by our actions that we know we are living in the truth.”

Today in JD’s AWANA book we learned that the Holy Spirit is a deposit or down payment. Meaning he is our “Now promise” that all the rest of what God has planned for us will someday be ours - in heaven. JD memorized two bible verse to back up this fact. I also signed off challenge 6:7 where he had to do something to be a good example to others. We baked cookies for the first VBS leader meeting. (The recipe was GREAT by the way. YUM!)

Today’s math lesson was pretty easy. It was about finding patterns in shapes and numbers. JD breezed through it. The only term that was unfamiliar to us was tessellation. It’s when a series of 2-dimensional figures, that covers a plane with no gaps or overlaps on that plane. Imagine looking at a honeycomb flattened out. That’s a tessellation.

Today for language arts I had JD work in T4L. We’re preparing for the assessment now. I had him do two lessons called Think Aloud. That‘s where he reads the story with the reader and bubbles pop up saying I wonder why he did that, etc. He worked on level 3 and read two passages that were fable and non-fiction stories. This was not a scored lesson.

JD totally surprised me at lunch today. I left to run to the gas station while he started cooking tomato soup. When I got home there was some soup in a bowl for both of us and he cooked HIS grilled cheese for both of us and put it on a plate. (JD’s recipe: toast bread int eh toaster. Place cheese between the toast. Microwave for precisely 19 seconds. FAT FREE “grilled” cheese. Yippee.) JD even counted out eight crackers for both of us. He went on to tell me how he multi-tasked stirring and getting bowls, toasting and going crazy making our lunch. He's so sweet.

For social studies today I copied and pasted more countries to a new word document. Today we learned about: Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Romania, Bulgaria, and Montenegro. Most of the countries that end with “A” are countries we don’t want to live in. They are new countries still struggling for independence and are volatile countries with political and social problems.

We did not do science again today.

JD is captivated by the Louis L’Amour book. He read for thirty minutes today.

The last task of the day was making sugar cookies for the first VBS leader meeting. JD measured and stirred and I baked. They all raved about how delicious they were.