A compatible day

Today was a compatible day for JD and I. We really enjoyed each other’s company. When I asked JD how he liked today he said, “It was awesome.”

The devotion today was about “The great blizzard of 1888.” The Northeast was buried in 46.7 inches of snow. Can you imagine the loss and chaos? Then it transitioned to the storm that hit the lake all of a sudden. Jesus stopped the storm and asked the disciples, “Where’s your faith?” Remember, in the middle of life’s storms, Jesus is with us and he can calm whatever storms we are facing.

Today JD read his book “Heroes Don’t Run.” I started reading his last book yesterday. I finished it today. The story was pretty good. I like the way Harry Mazer writes. That Adam is an angry teenager. Some of JD’s details in his book report were sketchy so that’s why I read the book myself. I NEED details. About the only big detail he missed from the book report was a character named Nancy. She is only Adam’s friend but he likes her. They even (*kissed*) Oooh. Maybe that’s why JD left her out of the story. (Smile) I did not do the Purpose Driven Life today.

Math makes me dizzy too…Math was a bit more complicated today than yesterday. Yesterday if you’ll remember was perimeters. That’s easy for me. Today was "area." That means the square number of centimeters, feet, yards, etc, INSIDE the perimeter. We learned (Ok I learned) what the terms parallelogram and trapezoid were. JD already knew. But today was multiplying sides, or widths by lengths, or lengths by height divided by height. (Does it ever end? AND…why do I need to know this information?)

We finally graduated from the lemonade stand lessons in civics. Today we learned about “taxes.” That’s a HOT BUTTON issue with JD if you ever want to get into a debate with him. Now he’s armed with more information about our “contributions” to the government. The lesson referred to our MANDATORY giving’s as “contributions.” (HA!) Forget the census information that will be coming in the mail shortly. I want the form that I can check the block “I would like to stop my contribution at this time.” JD also learned about the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Social Security Administration. I showed JD my social security card and my W-2 for taxes. He was amazed at how much I “contributed.“ The lesson gave JD an two examples of taxes. If he was paid $1.00 for allowance a week and $0.10 of that went to taxes over five years he would pay $26.00. The it increased the amount from $1.00 to $5.00 and the taxes stayed the same. He would pay $130.00 over five years. Crazy contributions.

The email/snail mail lesson time was used to produce more results on that superhero comic book. Those elves must have snuck into our school room and nibbled the colored pencil lead out of the pencils because before he got started today he sharpened ALL the pencils again. Oh and let’s not forget the bathroom break too. (Head shaking - I wished I knew how to get over this writing issue.) He worked on the book for about 10 minutes total. I finally told him to forget about the book and that together we would type the story out. We’re still working on it.

I had JD do two language arts lessons independently. I listened while I did the dishes. In the first lesson he learned about the different story elements like: plot, setting, characters, cause, effect, and such. The second lesson was teaching him how to write his own story using all the elements. That made him think about the book he wrote in 4th grade called “Turkey Wanted for Free for Lunch.” So I went and found it and we read it together. Then we found another one he wrote about the Army. His mind is so creative. Now if I could just get him to write it down. (More work needed there though.)

For science JD charted his observations from the dessert survey. There were 41 people surveyed. Here’s the list showing the first choice first:
Ice cream - 14 people
Cake - 8 people
Pie - 7 people
Misc (Brownie, cobbler, cheese cake) - 5 people
Cookies - 3 people
Candy - 3 people
Fruit - 1 person

I have completed one of the two assignments that Lifeway tasked me to complete to secure the second phase of my application. It was a tough article to write. Though it would seem like it shouldn’t be. It had to be 400-500 words long. Mine is 498 words long. (Whew, close.) The article is titled “Understanding and relating to children.” Good thing they didn’t say “your” children. I would just have to say to Lifeway, “Hey thanks for the opportunity, but I’ll just bow out now.” The second assignment is to write a Sunday school lesson to include four other activities to accompany it or a VBS lesson and four activities. I think I will do mine for one day of VBS. Total story time and activities will be 1 hour and 15 minutes. It will be based on Mark 2:1-12 where Jesus healed the man that could not walk. One hour and 15 minutes seems like a long time but with all those birthday party activities under my belt I think I can handle it.