Holy Mercury!

Todays unforgetful memory will be...drum roll please...

I was having JD prepare the needed items for our science lesson to include the thermometer. When I went back to the computer after handing him the thermometer and saying you NEVER want to break a thermometer because its poisonous...I heard glass break and a stressed out child apologizing profusely. I went in and picked up two pieces of thermometer. From what I can see the mercury never made it out of the bottom of the thermometer. All I could do to “clean” the mess was wipe the floor with tissue. I did not see any mercury on the tissue.

I let JD know I was not mad at him. Accidents happen...Jeff's response...was "I’ve broken plenty of thermometers, at least it wasn’t a rectal one taking his temp… LOL"

8th Grade year has begun

The 8th grade year began for us on 20 Aug.  It was tough going from summer to school.  But we're managing just fine.  I marked our week down a "good" but that was being nice on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.  I have a 13 year old student who thinks he's 25.  Homeschooling is getting tougher by the day.

7th grade assessment week (2012)

I can't believe this year is already over and this is only the second post of the year. I've missed so many moments where I could have written stories about our days. I will tell you this year was extremely trying on both of us. This was the year of puberty meets frustrated momma!

21 May, 2012 – Day one of assessment week

After a quick review of the Reading Comprehension rules we came up with like: read carefully, find backup information, point to evidence, we started our 2012 assessment with the Practice Reading test. The practice test took 10 minutes.

After Jonathan got a peek at what was expected from this year’s assessment we went onto the real Reading/Language Arts assessment. There were 55 questions total and “generous allowed time” was 70 minutes total. However,

The Reading/Language Arts assessment was broke down into parts 1 & 2. We started part 1 at 2:00pm. During our assessment and old friend called and I talked with her for 10 minutes. Jonathan was busy again this year playing with hat and making small noises and tapping. He was also moving around in his seat a lot. Part one was over at 3:02pm. The book gave a suggested test time of 35 minutes and he took 52 minutes to complete 23 questions.

Part 2 was started at 3:07pm and stopped at 3:15pm for a snack I allowed him to have during the assessment. He was self distracted by eating an apple and Cheetos and he missed an easy question. I restarted again at 3:21pm and the assessment finally ended at 4:23pm. The book gave a suggested test time of 35 minutes and he took 70 minutes to complete the remaining 32 questions. The total assessment time today was 127 minutes.

There was a lot of reading today so overall I think he did well as far as test time. If he was slightly more focused and well rested he maybe could have pressed on faster and still would have been as accurate at answering questions. He was yawning a lot and complaining of being tired.

One of the passages talked about Black Holes. He was thinking that in the future Black Holes could be used as our landfills since according to the passage some people have assumed that things that enter the holes end up in another dimension.

This year as with years past I have been the person filling in the bubbles. This allows me to ensure Jonathan marks the correct answer. So he calls out A – Alpha or B – Bravo and I mark it. He was having fun guessing what letters A – J were. By the way they are: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, Echo, Frank, George, Hotel, I is missing from the assessment answers but its Indigo, and finally Juliet. Jonathan says: alpha, bravo, Charlie, dingo, echo, fart, George, heaven, institution, jay walker. It was fun to hear him call them out but I hope he learns them correctly before entering the Army. (Smile)

Possible and plausible score for this assessment was an 89% because he missed 6 questions out off 55 that I’m aware of.

22 May, 2012 - Day two of assessment week.

Today was math day. I HATE math day, especially when it says “Do not use calculators.” Today felt like everything we did this year and in years past to include last week’s review was dumped accidentally BEFORE the assessment. The frustrated and sad feeling I felt I will equate to our computer crashing and losing all the information we had from 2002 until present. While I thought about backing the information up I didn’t and the computer crashed before we backed it up.

Simply put I was ready to explode today. I couldn’t believe Jonathan was stumped by some of the simplest questions today. By question eight I was ready to blow so I emailed Jeff asking him to call here to talk with “Junior.” Prior to the call I told Jonathan I was taking away the mind rotting computer games and video games that he longed to play. Needless to say after Jeff talked with HIS child, Jonathan walked off crying.

Before a pencil hit any paper I went over the math rules I established for Jonathan. They were: read the questions carefully, calculate twice, write or list the problem out, ask yourself, “What do they really want to know?”, and finally do the inverse to check your work. Once Jonathan washed his face and returned from the call from his dad we finished the remainder of Math Section 1. The “generous time allowed” was 10 minutes for just 9 questions.

One of the questions that stumped him was -11(neg. 11)+7=?. He stared at the book and looked around, but never gave me an answer. Prior to the math assessment I handed him a clean 8.5” x 11” piece of paper and a two sharp pencils. After I saw him go into Jonathan Land I slowly drew him back with me grabbing a piece of paper and drawing out 11 hash marks on the left side of a circle and 10 hash marks to the right side of the circle. I started on the left side and counted seven to the right and got -4. I did this for myself but he saw it when I was quickly trying to hide it. Another easy question was North America is 25,349,000 kilometer and South America is 17,611,000kilometers. How much bigger is North America than South America? In hindsight I can see where the confusion began. The possible answers were: between 6-7 kilometers, between 7-8 kilometers, between 8-9 kilometers. But in order to even look at the answers he would have to perform a math function (+,-, x, or div.) He was truly stuck not knowing what function to perform. Then, I said between my teeth, “Write it out.” He wrote the sizes across from one another and not stacked. I corrected him and he quickly retreated to moving and looking around and not looking at the stuff he just wrote out. He finally got the right answer but it took 10 minutes!

I guess I shell shocked him by saying “Write it out” so many times that he even wrote out the most simple problems. On one problem what they wanted to know was adding what missing math function would make this problem true. He quickly figured it out with his first choice but still kept trying to solve the problem using B, C, and D’s choices; even though answer A clearly made the problem true and he calculated twice he still continued writing out other possible answers. All in all that was not a bad strategy; however, it was a complete waste of precious time.

I called Jeff around question 8 which was an estimation question. There were four problems to estimate and give the biggest sum as the answer to the problem. Jonathan actually told me he“FORGOT” how to estimate. WHAT!? I think my head was smoking and spinning around like a cartoon character.

Both of us felt beaten, defeated, drained, and strained when he answer question # 9 70 minutes after we started! (Oh, the agony!)

The next test of the day was Math Section 2. The generous time allowed was 30 minutes. (Crap triple that…is what went through my head.) Hopefully he’ll use the calculator and breeze through this like a knife in hot butter. There were 23 questions to answer and don’t you know he hardly even used the calculator. (UGH!) There was a lot of moving and tapping and humming. We started at 1:35 and stopped only 35 minutes later.

The last assessment of the day was Mathematics Computation. The generous time allowed was 20 minutes for 20 questions. We started at 2:22 and ended 40 minutes later. Hey that’s double the time! There was a thunderstorm outside and Tater was distracting Jonathan by whining at the door. During this portion of the assessment I said, “Less tapping please.” Jonathan said, and I quote, “Yes ma’am, but I just have to be moving. It feels uncomfortable if I don’t.”

Possible and plausible scores today were: 93.7% on the Mathematics portion because he only missed 2 out of 32 questions. Then he scored a solid 100% on the Math Computation portion of 20 questions.

23 May, 2012 - Day three of assessment week.

Today was vocabulary, language mechanics, and spelling day. We started out the day by joining forces and making zucchini bread for the Pastor and staff at our church. Jeff also had the day off because he had two appointments to attend. So I knew this day would be tough and distracting but I also had hopes that it would not be as tough as the Math day. The first assessment was on Vocabulary words. Jonathan has been reading a cartoon SAT book all year long but it did not come into play in this assessment. (Oh well…there’s always use for big fancy words.) Jeff arrived home from his first appointment just in time to open and close the refrigerator, rustle bread wrappers, and make lunch while Jonathan was attempting to start his assessment. I stopped the test and we broke for lunch early. Sorry babe…Jeff had fasted that morning, but I thought after his appointment he would eat breakfast out.

Since there was no review to conduct we jumped into our first assessment at 12:10pm and for 30 minutes Jonathan’s brain was rip roaring through those pages. The “generous time allowed” was 15 minutes. He was nervously fingering through his hair after the sample question used the word “marred” and he didn’t know what it meant. I talked him down from pulling his hair out and calmed him down. Some of the questions asked what one word fit’s it both sentences, find the opposite meaning, and find the same meaning. He did have difficulty pronouncing convenient and nonchalantly, but overall I thought he did great. His score of 85% backs that up.

We spent some time reviewing his prior answers before moving onto Language Mechanics. This is the portion of the assessment where he checks for punctuation, capitalization, and word usage. I had already conducted an extensive review with him earlier on all these items. We started the assessment at 1:15pm and ended only 25 minutes later. The “generous time allowed” was 15 minutes. Jonathan did a phenomenal job on this and blew it out of the water with an amazing 95%. I was surprised that sending or return addresses would be difficult for him. That’s what we get for email exchanges. At one point I asked if they split up Ohio and made a new state called Mansfield Ohio because there was no comma to separate them. Commas tripped him up this year.

I think Jonathan calmed down after we reviewed those answers or maybe he knew I was not concerned with the next assessment score. The last and shortest assessment of the day was the Spelling. He only managed to squeak out a 35% on this test, but out of fairness he did recognize MANY of the 80 total words as spelled correctly. Each of the 20 questions had four possible choices. I copied the sheets and asked him how he narrowed each one down and he was able to tell me where he had seen most of them. You won’t believe it. Some locations were from video games, TV commercials, TV show titles and network names, road billboards, and books. We started the assessment at 2:20pm and ended 10 minutes later. The “generous time allowed” was also 15 minutes. There were just two words he didn’t know how to pronounce and they were pageant and elegance.

24 May, 2012 – Day four of assessment week

We’re both breathing more easily today because there were only two assessments left. We did a short review on science related things and started the assessment at 10:30am and ended 40 minutes later at 11:10am. The “generous time allowed” was 25 minutes. This year’s science seems like a repeat. He needed to know the same things I taught him from both 5^th and 6^th grade. Some but not all of the things were: what animals pollinate flowers and how, food webs, desert environments and plant survival, rainforests, colors that reflect sunlight, light, solar eclipse, weather, ozone layers, farming, fields not growing, experiment process, three laws of motion, and fossils.

He scored an 88%. There was a lot of humming, tapping, and multiple comments from me that he needed to focus. He was like a Jack-in-the-box taking this assessment, but he was happy (and so was I.)

The Social Studies assessment was started just 20 minutes later. We discussed having lunch first but he wanted to press on. I was surprised at how easy this assessment was. We pulled down the huge bouncy ball we made into a globe and studies longitude, latitude, and degrees. Then, we reviewed polar, desert, subarctic, and tropical environments along with geographic features, plains, plateaus, mountains, valleys, and rivers. There was a chart to interpret and some ancient writings questions. We reviewed the constitution, branches of government and different types of old and new governments around the world. Luckily feudalism is in one of Jonathan’s games because he was able to tell me all about it and the fact that I mispronounced the name. The last thing we reviewed was populations and growth. We started the assessment at 11:30am and ended just a half hour later at 12:00pm. The “generous time allowed” was 25 minutes. He scored a 96%.

So there you have it. The 7^thgrade is complete and our boy passed with flying colors.

Mama's third law

Language arts lesson. Look up Big words. Apply mama's third law.

Day two of assessment week

As I sit here typing this blog I so want to add humor but I simply can’t. It was an extremely frustrating day for the math assessment.

Today we did a short review of complete sentences, simple subjects, simple predicates, combining sentences, topic sentences, and supporting sentences before the language expression assessment. JD ROCKED this test! I can’t be for sure, but I think he only maybe missed 2-3 questions out of 48. It took him 55 minutes to complete it. He was nervous again. He was rubbing his fingers through his hair leaving hair all over the assessment pages. He got up for a tissue and used that as a distraction tool. I asked him to throw it away. He was moving his legs back and forth so his pants made a rhythmic sound. He was also dropping his arms off the sides of his chair and swinging them back and forth. When he read aloud he did so in a British accent. He was so busy I’m surprised he found time to answer his questions. (LOL) I thought it was odd that he kept reading a sentence as “The farmer raises (it was raise) cows.” He kept saying raises instead of how it was written - raise. So he thought that answer was correct. Oh well. I also know I need to work on transitional words like: similarly, consequently, subsequently, furthermore, however, in contrast, and for example.

Now for the Math Computation assessment. Oh where do I start? Okay from the beginning. The assessment rules stated “you should not use calculators.” We started the simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division test at 11:58 am. Fourteen minutes later JD only answered 5 problems out of 44. (Oh this is going to take awhile.) The reason it took so long was because JD is apparently allergic to #2 pencil lead, or so it seems. I asked him to “pick up the pencil and write it out.“ I guess he thought he’d lost his right arm in a freak accident or something because it took him awhile to locate the bright pink pencil in front of him and then grip it. That’s also when all the drama began. The moaning and whining were ridiculous. I stopped the assessment after five problems and emailed Jeff so he could have a pep talk with JD. I think I’m extremely patient with JD during our school days and I really thought keeping my cool today was the best course of action for JD to complete his assessment today, but truth be told…I was furious and wanted to scream, “Pick up the stinkin pencil and write of the five little digits and subtract them, for crying out loud!” But I didn’t…

Take two…after a short dip in the pool with Sarah and the girls we came back in at 12:33 and started question #6. Thirty minutes later we finally reached question #21. I’ve said, “Write it out” so many times in the past 30 minutes I’ll be having nightmares about it tonight.

Take three…after a sandwich and another dip in the pool we started question 22 at 1:40 pm. I didn’t write down where we stopped at but another break happened at 2:10 pm.

Take four…We’re in the homestretch and I’m ready to start drinking hard alcohol! I let JD finish the remaining 15 or so questions on the calculator. (After all the rules said, “Should not, not do not.” During one of the times JD was writing out a math problem and figuring it out I went online and ordered "Arithmetricks: 50 Easy Ways to Add, Subtract, Multiply, and Divide Without a Calculator." JD will slowly work on this throughout the summer break. So an assessment that should have taken 38 minutes according to the rules took JD 1 hour and 45 minutes. As slowly as he calculated on paper he still got the right answer on all but two questions. Yippie.

Even after all of that math drama can you believe I thought I could squeeze in another short assessment? I tried to have JD complete the Study skills assessment but quickly realized the error of my ways when he just would not settle down enough to focus on finding the author on a library catalog card. I stopped the assessment and said to myself, “Well, the testing days will have to be extended from three to four.” Last year we were able to do 10 different assessments in three days.

So day two of the assessment week is finally over.  JD ended the day with, "Mama, I don't think God helped us out today." I laugh inside as I'm typing this because, Yes, Jonathan...God actually helped you to live another day my little friend."  His guardian angels were working overtime to cover my mouth from screaming at JD and having hours of crying and misery and he didn't even know it.  Thanks guys, I owe ya one.

Day one of assessments

We started day one of JD’s assessment at 10:40 am, after a breakfast of Chex cereal and Organic Fat Free milk. Sarah buys organic everything and JD accidentally poured it in his bowl and this set off his day. (Grr!) Before we started on the assessment I emailed Jeff and asked him for prayer that JD doesn't get stressed out.

The first test of the day was vocabulary. Twenty minutes into the assessment JD asked for a “Poop break.” He came back and completed the assessment in a total of 47 minutes. I even stopped the clock for this break. Last year it only took 20 minutes. It looks like he only missed three questions out of 40. He didn't know the opposite of slacken. (Resume, adjust, quicken, support). He was stuck on slacken "not even being a word." I said, “Is there a prefix or suffix you could drop to figure this out?” Next was fill in the blank. He missed “Prior to the development of more _____ machines, only certain coins could be used. (The possible choices were: automatic, authentic, methodical, and sophisticated.) He couldn't pronounce sophisticated so he didn't even look at it as a possible choice. He also did not know what bewildering meant. But that’s okay. He got all three of the Latin or Greek words correct and did great on suffixes and prefixes. He also did a super job finding a word that fit in both blank spots of two sentences. It was frustrating trying to get him to stop being ticked with me. I told him to read aloud all questions and possible answers so I could see he understood what he read. I also told him to keep sounding out words until they sounded like a word he has heard before. This made him mad and we struggled with him slamming his finger down to show me what was the correct answer. I put a stop to his attitude, but only for a short time. He laid his head down repeatedly and I asked that he sit up.

The second test was on comprehension. JD was still ticked because I had him read aloud all questions and possible answers. He tended to gravitate toward one answer before reading all of the possible choices. On a few questions he would say, “I don’t know the answer.” I had to say, “Reread the passage or story and find the answer.” He still maintained his attitude during this assessment. But he ROCKED it I don't think he missed any out of 50 questions! Though some are questionable even for me...JD spent 51 minutes on this assessment.

The third assessment of the day was spelling. JD bombed the spelling test, but I'm not worried about that. The majority of the questions were a list of four possible spellings of a word and he had to pick the correct one. Out of 30 spelling words he only got 13 right. I was amazed at how he got some really big words like: regulations, distribute, sympathetic, and influence right, but missed some smaller words. I admit, even I had to look some of them up in the dictionary. This assessment took only twenty minutes to complete.

The fourth and final assessment of the day was the language mechanics assessment. This was on punctuation and capitalization. I had to stop the assessment 15 questions in because JD was extremely fidgety and missed two in a row. He kept running his hands inside his pants to rub his thighs, he was jumpy, and he was pulling his hair out methodically. After our short break I was secretly entertained by JD beat boxing, snapping his fingers, and whistling. He didn't even realize he was doing it. (LOL) He missed 5 out of 36 questions on this assessment. He was again, not reading all of the possible answers and had his head down. I know now that I need to work on letter writing with him. This assessment took 40 minutes to complete.

Total testing time on day one was 158 minutes or 2 ½ hours. Thank goodness we are done for the day. Hopefully tomorrow JD will have a better attitude. I’m so over the age of 12! (Has puberty started? I think YES!)

A busy review week

Wednesday-Friday, May 18-20, 2011
We spent these three days reviewing all of the math lessons we did from August to May. UGH! That’s a lot of formulas to keep straight in our heads.

In between reviewing I was preparing the church ministry boards for various ministries.  The ministry fair is this Sunday and I'm heading it up. 

We had another game tonight. Do I really have to tell you how it ended?

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

It was another good school day

We did a devotion and then moved onto T4L. 

Our lessons in Time4Learning are now completed. We completed the last math and language arts lesson for the year. Now it's review, review, review.

The last math lesson that needed to be completed is now done. It was about writing algebraic expressions for word problems. Ugh! How frustrating. But were done now. JD scored a 100% on the quiz.

JD also finished up his last two language arts quizzes in T4L today. They were about comparing and contrasting stories and passages. He scored two 100%‘s.

So we went out after dinner tonight and bought some ice cream and fixings to have a Time4 Learning party.

Monday, May 16, 2011

A good day

It was a busy weekend.  Saturday we had the rescheduled Spring Fling.  That is the opening ceremony for baseball.  Then, Jeff had to go to the church to prepare a meal for the Daycare Appreciation meal.  Then, we had a baseball game.  We lost this one too.  (Sad I know.) 

Sunday was the AWANA end of year awards ceremony and Teacher Appreciation meal for all of my teachers.  Jonathan was awarded his two medal awards for finishing book two and three.  Jeff prepared the teacher appreciation meal too.  (Thanks Jeff, you're a real trooper.)

Our day was a bit mixed up today. We did science first. JD and I watched a live streaming of Space Shuttle Endeavour's last flight. Kids in school won't see it live, but JD will. It’s Endeavour’s last take off. It was cool until they showed the office in Houston. It was just a bunch of boring rocket scientists doing nothing but working on their computers. We just made up conversations for them because we couldn't hear any of their conversations.

We did our devotion and moved onto T4L. 

The math lesson today was frustrating. It was about combinations and permutations. A permutation is an arrangement of items in a particular order like: President and Vice President. If there are five people running for class president then this is a permutation. A combination is an arrangement of items in which the order is not important. An example would be winners of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place in a race. And of course there are more formulas to memorize. And we also learned the new term “factoral” today. An example of a factorial is 9. You would take 9x8x7x6x5x4x3x2x1 and that would equal 362880. (Really? Because I’m going to use this when?)  JD scored a 90% on the quiz. 

We did the T4L today for language arts. It was about the Author's Purpose. It was Quiz two from yesterday. JD scored a solid 100%. Then JD did a interactive guided lesson on Inferencing. And he took the corresponding quiz and scored another 100%.

The last school related task of the day was reading his magazine for thirty minutes.

We had another game tonight.  You guessed it we lost.  I wished these boys would stop having attitudes about not pitching.  It sure makes for a long game with all the whining.  One boy was benched for this game because of disrepect.  This is an ongoing thing with this boy.  And it spreads like a disease through the entire team. 

Probability...no problem

I got so far behind with my blogging that I missed a devotion somewhere between last week and this week. We did do a devotion today but I posted it under 12 May. I need to do a better job of blogging daily and not weekly.

Even though today was the scary day of Friday the 13th, we had a good school day.

The first math lesson was called “Using probability.” It gave us the formula for the number of ways the event can occur to the # of equally likely outcome. The dice rolling a 1 would be 1/6. Then we learned the compliment to probability. That is the opposite of the ways the event can occur. The dice rolling something other than a 1 would be the compliment and that # is 5/6. Then, we had to take to event like flipping a coin and rolling a dice and figure out the formula for (example) getting a heads and a 1 would be ½ times 1/6 = 1/12 of a chance. Confusing I know. But we finally got it today! JD scored a 100% on this quiz. The second math lesson was call “dependent and independent” events. Bottom line: Dependent means it does not affect the outcome and Independent means it does affect the outcome or you don’t replace a name from a hat or you eat the jelly bean. JD scored a 90% on this quiz. There are only two more math lessons left for the year! We’re having a Math party soon!

The language arts lesson today was the Author’s Purpose quiz. He only scored a 67%. I will have to spend a bit more time with him reviewing Author’s Purpose lessons with him. As a matter of facts I will review all of those comprehension lessons before the assessment.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

A tough math day

We had a good school day but the math lesson were terribly difficult.  The language arts lesson also threw JD for a loop.

The devotion was about Villains. It listed: Cruella De Vil, Jafar, Captain Hook, and Shere Khan among others. These were all characters that were mean and had murderous intents. A lot of people today claim that right and wrong don’t exist. However, right and wrong is not up to you and me, it’s decided by God. He has listed right and wrong for us in the 10 Commandments. God said we are to be self-controlled, “kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.”

The first math lesson of the day was called fair games and probability. It taught us how to use the formula to figure out favorable outcomes. Take a spinner numbered 1-6. The chances of spinning and even # is 3/6th or ½ simplified. Then the lesson taught us about fair and unfair events. A fair event would be as likely as unlikely. Like a coin toss. There’s a 50/50 chance of getting either heads or tails. A spinner with the numbers 1-7 would be unfair if we needed an even # because there are more odd #‘s than even. We missed two questions on the quiz and I still don’t understand how to get the answer. (Just like some fraction lessons…oh well.) So JD scored an 80% on this quiz. The second math lesson was extremely difficult. It was called “probability a compliment.” First, we learned that the outcome of a event can be written as a fraction, decimal, or a percentage. It can also be labeled as impossible, unlikely, half as likely as unlikely, likely, and certain. We learned about independent events and their outcome as well as their compliments. A compliment is the opposite of the way the event can occur. A dice rolling something other than a 1 would be the compliment and that # is 5/6. This was a tough lesson for JD and I to figure out. We only got a 64% together on the lesson. We pushed on through the quiz and scored an 80%. This is one of those lessons I end with saying, “I hope we don’t see that on the assessment this year.”

The language arts lesson today was the Author’s Purpose. The first thing he did was read stories and passages with an interactive guided lesson. He will take the quiz tomorrow. 

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

A busy errands day

I counted today as a school day even though we did not do any computer lessons because…I can! We did not do any school work because the day was filled with multiple errands. It started by taking Daniel to an interview in Fayetteville. Turns out there were about eight people in the waiting room with no interviewer there. I had so much more to do today than to wait for hours for someone to interview all those backed up people first and then Daniel. Daniel made the decision himself to walk out on the interview. (I was very thankful, because I also had to entertain the grand girls in the back of my Ford.

The next thing JD and I did after we dropped off Daniel and the babies was go to the church to set up the displays I made last night at midnight. Then, I had a small meeting with the pastor about the ministry fair.

We left the church for a bite to eat at Sonic before JD‘s afternoon appointment with his pediatrician for a Zertec refill. He grew ½ inch and kept off those three pounds from the last doctors appointment at Womack.

Once the doctor’s appointment was over JD and I rested at home for about an hour and headed back to the church for a skit rehearsal and a small party for JD and the rest of the kids that recently did a short play at church. (I have a closet actor here you know.) While JD was occupied I ran around the church politicking to fill those remaining ministry positions in the church. It’s tiring asking the same people over and over again to hand in their forms. I still have 21 people to corner, I mean to gently talk to them and coax them into handing me their filled out forms.

We had another baseball game tonight. You guessed it we lost again. It’s our lack of a good pitcher or pitchers.

A busy day

It was a busy day of double lessons and ministry boards. 

The devotion today was about self-control. It started out with a list of things that could make you lose your self-control. Even though some things get on our last nerve we all have the choice to ignore it and press on. That’s a tough choice to make for some people. Self-control is a fruit of the spirit. And Psalm 4:4 say, “Don’t sin by letting anger gain control over you. Think about it overnight and remain silent.”

The first math lesson today was about drawing conclusions and justifying our answers. It taught JD the term prediction. Basically that is making an educated guess and being able to justify why. Then we had to test his answer with reasonableness by asking ourselves, “Is the answer reasonable?” or “Does it make sense?” One example was 2n+5=13. First we did 13-5=8 and predicted that 2 x’s something equaled 8. So 2x4=8. The “n” in the problem equaled 4. Then we learned that distance on a grid always has to be a positive #. Example: -15 miles x 6 miles = 90 square miles. JD scored a 90% on this quiz. The second math lesson was called limited possibilities. It taught us how to use a sample space or listing all of the possible outcomes to an event. While that is effective it’s much quicker just to do the math. If you have 4 pairs of socks, 2 shorts, and 8 shirts you just times all of them together. Example: 4x2=8, 8x8=64 possible outfits. (time to go shopping now…) JD scored a 100% on this quiz. He was all over this lesson.

The language arts lesson was about Cause and Effect. It was an interactive guided lesson where JD read stories and passages to figure out the cause and effect of the situations presented. He scored an 80% on the quiz.

I was working on some Nominating Committee Ministry Fair displays for church. I finished an AWANA board, a Finance board, and a Baptism and Usher board to display tomorrow as example for the rest of the committees to follow. We’re hoping to sign more that 46 people up for all the various ministry positions around the church.

Monday, May 9, 2011
A doubly good day

It was a busy weekend and a doubly good school day.

The Pirates had a games Saturday. We lost but not by much; the final score was 8-6. Jeff had a prior golf appointment so I told the team, “Let’s win this for Coach Jeff.”  JD got a double at bat.  Yippee!

I hope all of the Mother’s out there had a Good Mother’s day. I know I did. I wish Mother’s day could last six months, but JD disagrees.

I received another FedEx package this morning before school even started. I have looked and looked and I don’t know what I have to drive to Raleigh for, other than a possible psychological appointment. I was already seen for PTSD about six months after retirement.

I decided this is crunch time for Faith Christian Academy. JD will only be doing math lessons and reading comprehension lessons until his assessment shows up. We will double up on both subjects until then.

The devotion was about breaking your usual way of thinking. There was an exercise with 9 dots arrange in row of three under one another. The object of the lesson was to connect all of the dots using four straight lines, without lifting your pencil. There really is a way of doing it you just have to literally think outside of the box. It’s just like getting to know God and His ways. The more you know the more you will begin to think in ways others just can’t understand. Accepting God as your authority allows you to know right and wrong and our thought and attitudes will change. With God’s limitless thinking, the possibilities are endless.

This first math lesson we did today was about distance on a line. We relearned the quadrants on a graph and plotting points. We used those plotting points to figure out the difference between the two points. The second lesson was about the terms horizontal and vertical lines on a graph. Then we learned the distance on a graph must be in “absolute value” or always a positive #. JD scored a 80% on the quiz.

The language arts lesson was on Interpreting Charts and Graphs. It was an interactive guided lesson where he read stories or passages that include some pretty tough charts, maps, and graphs. I actually sat down for one of the maps and I couldn’t figure it out. JD also took the related quiz and scored an 80%.

We had a long baseball practice tonight. Maybe the boys will remember all that they were taught and use it during our next games.

A play date day

Today was a short school day because JD had a play date with another baseball team player on his team. His mom home schools him too. This was enough motivation to get JD through all the lesson we needed to before noon. I need motivation like that everyday.

The devotion today was about a fable called The Farmer and the Snake. Aesop’s wrote about a snake he saw across the road. The snake was stiff and frozen from the cold. The farmer felt sorry for the snake and picked him up. As soon as the snake was warm again he turned around and bit the man. The farmer was a foolish man for even picking up the poisonous snake. Many people today do things just as foolish. The play around with sin and temptations. And they wonder why they can’t find happiness and fulfillment. Solomon from the bible says, “People ruin their own lives by their own foolishness and then are angry at the Lord.” (Proverbs 19:3) People who play with snake should expect to get bitten.

A FedEx surprise showed up on my porch today while we were on break. I have an appointment with the VA in Fayetteville for a general medical examination for left shoulder, fractures right toe, girl stuff, and headaches. While that’s not everything I claimed it’s a start. I mean after all it’s just been two years of fighting for an appointment they claimed I failed to make it to and I wasn’t even aware I had an appointment way back on Feb 2009.

The math lesson today was about Functions and Non-linear relationships. It was a continuation of yesterdays lesson where we had to figure out the value of Y by looking at patterns in the table and writing the rule that applied. Then we learned about linear and non-linear lines on a graph. Linear lines are straight. Non-linear lines are curved. We looked at those lines on the graph and figured out the pattern they would take if they continued on the graph. JD scored a 100% on the lesson.

The social studies lesson today was from Brain Pop. It was all about mapping skills. JD learned about the different types of maps like: physical maps, political maps, road maps, historical maps, and topographical maps. He learned that political maps change often. He relearned about the need for a legend, symbols, map key, and labels. And the lesson ended with teaching scale miles to real miles. JD scored an 80% on the quiz.

The language arts lesson was the Fact and Opinion quiz left over from yesterday. JD scored an 87% on it.

The science lesson today was about pollination. JD learned that trees and grass are often pollinated by the wind and flowers are often pollinated by insects. He also learned that insects are attracted to brightly colored flowers and use the nectar as food. He learned that honeybees and flowers have a mutually beneficial relationship where both parties benefit from each other. I guess I should have known this fact but human sperm cells and pollen both have male sex cells. Also another name for a fertilized ovule is a seed. I absolutely did not know some flowers were pollinated by bats. Those flowers bloom at night. JD did not score well on this quiz. He only got a 60%. I was cleaning while he was working independently. He must have been distracted by something.

JD did earn the right to have his play date. We met the other child at Mendoza Park and then drove both of the boys home. They swam and played in the pool until they could no longer swim. Then, we had a dinner of hotdogs and hamburgers. I called the friend’s mom and asked for the boy to be able to sleep over. She said, “Yes.“ That was a fun day for JD but I can see he needs to work on standing up for what’s right. That means telling his friend he’s a Christian and doesn’t talk or act the way the friend was talking. The friend said he went ot church, but if mom doesn’t go what is he really learning?

Happy Cinco de Mayo

It was a good day. I particularly like today’s devotion. It started out saying God listed many specific commands about what priest’s should wear, what old testament people should eat and not eat, and even what to do if they found a bird’s nest on the ground. Then, it transitioned into sometimes it’s not always easy to know what’s right or wrong. Sure murder and stealing are wrong, but often times there’s no clear line. It taught JD that if he’s unsure if the choice is right or wrong he is to: put off doing it, pray about it, search the bible for direction, and ask for advice from parents or from a Christian friend he trusts. If it’s still unclear…steer away from it.

The math lesson today was finding the value of Y using either subtraction, addition, multiplication, or division in tables that had patterns. There’s specific ways of writing the rules too. (Ugh!) Next, we used ordered pairs and plotted them on a grid. If the lesson already had them on a grid we had to figure out the pattern there too. JD scored a 100% on this quiz.

The language arts are lesson was on Fact and Opinion. Today JD read the interactive stories or passages looking for fact or opinions. Today he only did the lesson and not the quiz.

JD read for thirty minutes while I cleaned my client’s house. This was the first time she has been home while I cleaned her home. She likes to talk and it was terribly distracting to me because I fly around like a busy bee getting those rooms done. She kept trying to talk with me and pulling me over to her computer to look at this or that. And I kept telling her, “I’ve got to clean your house.” I did as much as I could in the three hours I was there.

A good short school day

Today was a good short school day.  We only did the devotion, math, and language arts.  We did not do science, social studies, or reading time today.  Instead we visited the child of a new couple who recently joined our church. Their three year old boy was attacked by a pit bull while at their friends house. The dog clamped from his chin all the way to his right eye area. Looks like Micah will still have his sight and the doctors did a good job of stitching him up. We only stayed for about 20 minutes and then I prayed with them and left. Jonathan and I took some time before visiting them to get little Micah a present or two.

The devotion today listed three bible characters that did the right thing but ended up in a worse place than before the decision like: Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, Elijah and Queen Jezebel, and Daniel and the lion’s den. Right choices are not always rewarded on Earth nor does it bring immediate benefits, but it does please God when we make the right choices.

The math lesson today was all about problem solving. We relearned the formulas for finding perimeters on a rectangle or a square (P=4s), the area on a square, triangle, and a rectangle. Each formula is different. (Ugh!) Then we learned volume on a cube or an rectangle. The last thing we learned in this lesson was circumference. Then all of a sudden the lesson changed to off the wall problem solving other than perimeters, area, volume, or circumference. Things like the # of years between 1953 and 1901, the number of legs on ants and spiders, and time/distance questions. The lesson used the acronym W.O.R.D. to help with problem solving. W = what do I need to do to solve this problem? O = Organize your information. R = Reach for your strategy. D = Did you check the question? JD scored a 100% on the quiz.

The language arts lesson was about the Theme and the Main Ideas on a fictional story or passage. Yesterday JD did the lesson and today I had him take the two associated quizzes. He scored a 73% on the first one and a 93% on the second one. I usually do dishes while de does language arts so I don’t know exactly what it was he didn’t understand about the first quiz.

We had baseball practice today from 5:30-7 pm. The team is really shaping up. Then we visited a child of a church member who was bitten by a pit-bull.  The last event of the night was baseball practice.

A good day

The devotion was about reputations. It listed fictional and factual names and characteristics like barbaric, brave, artistic. Then it asked, “If your name were on this list, what sort of reputation would your friends, family, and other identify with you?” JD listed: brave artistic, smart, athletic, and strong. The more important question was will they say you are merciful and kind. He answered, “Yes.”

The math lesson finally helped JD and I understand cylinders. The lesson was about finding the right formula for volume. We learned about rectangle (multiply the three sides), cube (multiply the three sides), and cylinder (too complicated to type) volumes. JD scored 5 out of 5 correct on the quiz.

I had JD sign onto T4l for the language arts lesson. He’s still in the comprehension lesson and will be for awhile. Today he did an interactive lesson on Themes and Main Ideas on fictional stories and passages. There was not a quiz today.

We went to Brain Pop for science today to learn about natural disasters. JD learned about tornados, hurricanes, thunderstorms, winter storms, tsunamis, and wildfires. All of these are relevant and possible in our part of the country. The lesson emphasized being ready for a storm, having a plan, and a safety kit. He only scored a 70% on the test.

We stayed in Brain Pop for the social studies lesson as well. Today JD relearned the continents of the world. JD learned that not everyone agrees on the number of continents. However, most people believe there are seven. The continent with no permanent residents is…Antarctica. Australia is unique because it is the only continent with only one country on it.

We had our Pirate pictures taken today. I should have them back within two weeks.

Monday, May 2, 2011

It was a short lesson day after a refreshing spring break vacation. We only accomplished three lessons today.

The devotion was about a man talking like he was blurred out on TV. He was speaking under the conditions of anonymity. He “borrowed” money from his boss and was a very rich man now. He was caught and promised to pay back all the money. The boss decided the employee was forgiven and did not need to pay back the money. In the reception area of the building this guys see a man that owes him $2000. He asks for the money and the guys say I need a little time. The now free from debt guy refuses his offer and demands his money. The big boss gets word of this and calls the million dollar “borrower” back into his office. The devotion ends with the million dollar “borrower” behind bars in an orange jump suit. The boss originally cut him a break, but when he did not give mercy to the other guy…justice was served. It’s sometimes hard to forgive someone when the offense seems hard, but look at all that Jesus has forgiven of us. If I tallied all my sins for just one day…

In math today we finished the quiz from the lesson on 21 Apr. It was about finding surfaces of objects. It only had five questions and JD scored a 100%. Then we moved onto wrapping those objects with wrapping paper. This lesson was extremely frustrating to me keeping all those formulas straight in our heads. And it showed on the lesson. Together we only scored a 64%. I had JD print two of the formulas so we could look at them during the quiz. I was extremely scared to take the quiz and it took a LONG time. We scored an 80% on the quiz.

I had JD continue with the T4L language arts comprehension lessons. We took two quizzes on the main idea and supporting details on two non-fiction stories. He scored a 93% on the first quiz and an 80% on the second quiz.

We had another baseball game tonight. JD played catcher tonight and he was the only player that got on base with a hit. Unfortunately, they lost this game. Their record is two losses, one win.

Spring Break week

Sunday, May 1, 2011, at 10:39 PM - Justice has been served

I finally have closure in the breaking news that Osama Bin Laden is dead. Because of him I spent 5 ½ months in a tent between Oman and Qatar in 2002-2003. All of you remember this is when Jeff suffered his series of heart attacks and I was sent back to the desert as my own replacement. In 2004-2005 I was deployed to another tent in Iraq for 41 days. And finally in 2007 I deployed to another tent in Iraq for 4 months. All those growing up memories missed with JD, missed Christmas’, birthdays, and wasted time…I finally have closure. I have a book of pictures filled with family pictures. I carried with me during each deployment. It was call “The Reason Why I Am Here.” That was my reminder that I was away from my family to protect them on the terrorist turf and not my own back yard. Am I overjoyed that died, no. Am I happy justice was served, yes.

Monday - Friday, April 25-29, 2011

Spring Break

JD had a wonderfully relaxing Spring Break with included sleeping in, watching TV, and playing in his pool. He’s getting pretty tan already.

I on the other hand worked my butt off. (Oh I could only hope…but my back was killing me the whole week.) I borrowed my neighbors pressure washer and cleaned the entire back deck, back of the house, sidewalk, and two thirds of the driveway. (That took two full days.) I also put one coat of stain on the deck. (Another full day.) We’ve lived here since February 2002, and we’ve never treated, stained, or varnished that deck. It really could use another coat of stain, but I’ll see if I can get away with just one coat for this year. I still need to varnish it though.

I also shovel tilled our garden plot again this year. (I figured I could use the exercise.) I also shopped around and located plants for our small vegetable garden. Last year I planted seeds and I was not happy about the growth.

I also planted more flowers in my flower garden and the boys dug huge holes for our three fruit trees. I accidentally bought two apple trees instead of one apple and one peach tree. Jeff also bought a plum tree. Fruit trees have a short lifespan in our yard. Between cars running over them, boys trampling them, and the knight in shining armor killing them with a sword…I’ll be amazed if these life two years. In years past we’ve tried growing them in the front of the house. This year we planted them close to the woods.

So besides a baseball practice my week was jam packed with work, work, work. I’m looking forward to school starting back up again. (Ugh!)

Monday, April 25, 2011

Pirates vs. the Yankees

We won our baseball game tonight because the Yankees had to forfeit. They didn’t have enough players. We had a scrimmage against them and technically they still won.

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Friday - Sunday, April 22-24, 2011

An Easter visit

Grammy and PaPaw arrived Friday for an Easter visit. And we loved having them. Unfortunately, they didn’t get to see any of JD’s baseball practice on Friday, 22 April. Spring Lake cancelled all practices because of Good Friday. But we had a wonderful day on Saturday. We all watched the kids on their Easter egg hunts. JD’s age group was separated from Suri’s and Isabella’s age group. Suri wasn’t really interested in the eggs until she realized there was candy in them. Oh those Hyder sweet tooth’s. Reuben showed up at church too so we got a family picture in the prayer garden.

Grammy and Papaw joined us for our Easter Sunday service and after lunch they were on their way back to Tennessee.

Museum of Natural Science

We had a field trip today.  We went to the Museum of Natural Science.  We saw the Grossology exhibit. On the way we were listening to classical music making up stories as they sang.  It was very entertaining.  I had to stop it once I got closer to Raleigh because it's difficult to navigate to the museum.  Last time we went we got "misplaced." 

Ever wonder why dogs sniff each other’s rear ends, why cows need four stomachs to digest their food or why cats spit up hair balls? We had our chance to find out! Animal Grossology, took us on an adventure that was unique and scientific.  We saw nature’s slime-making, vomit-munching and dookie-loving creatures.

The grossology exhibit was adapted from the best-selling Grossology children’s book series by author and science teacher Sylvia Branze.  It was oozing with disgusting science and entertaining hands-on learning games such as Blood Sucker Blow-Up.  We saw what happens when ticks and mosquitoes have too much to drink, and Chew Chew Express, a detailed look at the various steps of digestion in cows, one of the gassiest animals on Earth. We also learned how leeches are sometimes used after surgeries to assist in the healing process and why scientists are studying the slime produced by slugs and snails for clues in treating cystic fibrosis. Safety tips were dispersed throughout the exhibit, such as what to do if a jellyfish stings you and how to protect your food at the next family picnic. By the way, do you know what honey really is? How do you feel about bee barf on your biscuit?

The exhibit featured five thematic areas:

Blood Slurpers – Blood is very nutritious (high in protein) and many animals slurp blood for their meals. Sometimes, blood slurpers transmit infectious diseases. This exhibit helped identify those that can be a health hazard while providing information that may keep you safe from Lyme Disease, West Nile Virus and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

Dookie Lovers – Dookie comes in all shapes, sizes and textures, providing scientists with useful answers to many animal mysteries. We learned how some animals depend on poo for survival, and how others, such as the Scarab Beetle, prevent the spread of disease produced from rotting piles of dung.

Slime Makers – Slime is essential to some animals, serving important functions such as facilitating motion, aiding in digestion and acting as a defense mechanism. We explored a plethora of strange underwater creatures and their unique characteristics and we voted for the “King of Slime.”

Vomit Munchers – What has four stomachs, four legs and produces 200 liters of saliva daily? Ruminants, which also produce methane gas, making them belch and toot a lot. Some animals have to barf to eat, while others have to spew after they eat. We discovered how regurgitation is crucial for some animals’ survival.

Other Gross Stuff – We discovered some not-so-familiar animals, including one that lives in an intestine (a 60 foot tape worm.) We explored how animals use common scents for recognition, attraction and defense.

We missed you lots today Grammy.  The butterfly garden just wasn't the same without you. 

A good day

It was another good day for JD and I. I guess because we didn’t do all of our lessons again.

The devotion was about a slave named Androcles. He was hiding in the woods and stumbled onto a cave. He was sleeping in the cave when he was awaken by a roaring lion. The lion was hurt and Androcles went over and pulled out a thorn from the lion’s paw. The lion went out and found food for Androcles day after day until the Roman soldiers found him hiding. His punishment? He would be forced to fight a wild animal in the coliseum. The gate was opened and out came a huge lion. It was the lion Androcles helped. They rolled around in the dirt. Once the crowd heard the slaves story both Androcles and the lion were set free. Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”

Today’s math lesson was all about finding the surface area of faces, bases, and curved surfaces. The lesson unfolded objects to make it easier on us. (Yeah right!) There’s a formula for each one. And of course they are all different. First we found the surface area of a rectangle. Then, we figured out a cube and finally a cylinder. I don’t know why we didn’t complete the quiz today other than it was a frustrating lesson. I’m glad this lesson is over and I hope we don’t see it on the assessment.

I had JD sign onto T4L to continue with comprehension. Today he learned to compare and contrast stories through an interactive guided study. He did not do a quiz on this.

I also cleaned my clients house today along with my own because my mother-in-law is visiting this weekend. 

A very busy day

It was a very busy, busy day today. We had almost a full class load and I did many other things during and after school.

The devotion was about the Sesame Street song which one of these is not like the other and then we had to choose which one. The last question said, “Which one of these is not like the other, and listed Mercy, Kindness, Compassion, and Unforgivingness.” Many people fail to show mercy by refusing to forgive each other. Peter, one of Jesus’ disciple once asked how many times he needed to forgive someone and Jesus answered seven times seventy. The Rabbis of that day said three. This shows us Christians that we should never stop showing mercy to others.

In math today we learned about similar pyramids. It was not a terribly hard lesson. (Thank goodness.) There were two triangles next to each other with different size sides but similar. It was JD’s job to find the missing value by cross multiplying, dividing, and reducing. The hardest part of the lesson was moving the object in my mind in order to get them side by side with the corresponding angles. The quiz only had five questions and he got 4 out of five correct.

I combined language arts with the AWANA book today. JD completed challenge 8:7 which was to either talk for five minutes or write a full page on what he needs to know about God. It had to include the verses in the book (Matthew 28:18 and Philippians 2:9-10) as well as two other verses. We looked together and found Romans 13:1-2 and Joshua 1:8. I helped him type it up until the end where he had to write how knowing God affects his life

How he knows God helps him in his life:

1.) I need to read the bible more because god tells me to.

2.) I need to obey my parents more because god tells me to.

3.) I need to help others because god tells me to.

4.) I need to be my brothers keeper because god tells me to.

5.) I need to love everyone I meet because god tells me to.

JD has completed book three in AWANAs and will earn another award. He’s well on his way to earning the Citation award and scholarship money for college.

We did not do social studies today.

In science we learned about water. The lesson taught us about molecules again. They also told us about positive and negatively charged molecules. Did you know water is a universal solvent. I never thought of it like that but it’s true. They taught JD the freezing points of fresh water verse sea water. And JD learned about “hard” water minerals.

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

We put up our pool today.  It's getting hot earlier and earlier these day and a nice refreshing dip in the pool feels good.  I also built a mailbox flower spot and moved some of my flowers to it.  I cleaned my flower garden of weeds too.  The last task of the day...a baseball game.  Unfortunately, the Pirates lost this game. 

Whew I'm tired!

A much better FULL day

Thank goodness today was a MUCH better day. This enabled us to complete a FULL class load today. I think we’re both anxious for spring break.

The devotion was about the movie Hook. The one where Peter Pan is played by Robin Williams. Peter Pan had the motive and means to kill Captain Hook but didn’t. Peter Pan showed mercy. God values mercy. Both Nehemiah and Deuteronomy describe God as a merciful God.

I had JD finish challenge 8:6 for AWANAs and language arts today. He wrote six more reasons 1.) why he knows the bible is true 2.) things he knows about God, things he knows about Jesus, and things he knows about the Holy Spirit. And it looks nicely printed and spaced. He’s definitely getting better with writing.

In math today JD learned all about circumference and area on those pesky circles again. Ugh! The lesson reviewed the terms circumference, radius, and Pi (3.14). It taught JD to calculate the circumference by multiply the diameter. If the diameter was unknown it taught him to multiply the radius. Then, it taught him how to find the area for the circles. These formulas are making me dizzy.

I had JD go to http://www.yourchildlearns.com/europe_map.htm for social studies today. It was another interactive site to help him remember where each country in Europe is.

In science today we went to Brain Pop and learned about groundwater. JD learned about the system of porous soil and rocks, permeable or porous rocks, impermeable rocks, the zones of saturation, geysers, and hot springs. JD scored a 90% on the quiz.

I had JD continue reading the Louis L’Amour book.

A frustrating day

It was a frustrating day because I didn’t learn anything at JD doctor appointment, math was frustrating, and the AWANA and language arts took so long when it could have been written sooner.

JD had an endocrinology appointment today at 11:00am. The endocrinologist appointment was a briefing about the blood work that they drew 25 March. We did not see the same doctor this time. We saw an older lady that asking all the same questions I’ve answered three times already. Things like diet, exercise, and when this weight issue started. That’s our military medical system for you. The blood work came back with everything within normal limits. And thankfully they’ve ruled out Cushing’s syndrome. He has lost 3 pounds and grown 1 cm since his last appointment.

We got a terribly late start with home school today because of the appointment, so we had a short school day. The devotion today was about Mother Teresa who was nick named the “The Saint of the Gutters.” The devotion was loaded with all the merciful things she did and the mercy she displayed. I could list them all but I don’t have that kind of time. God made it clear long ago that mercy is right. Zechariah 7:9 says…“show mercy and kindness to one another.”

I combined the AWANA book lesson with the language arts lesson. In order to complete challenge 8:6 JD had to write eight reasons 1.) why he knows the bible is true 2.) things he knows about God, things he knows about Jesus, and things he knows about the Holy Spirit. He wrote two sentences for each topic today because he misunderstood my instructions.

The math lesson today was about estimating and calculating the area of polygons. In order to find the area of triangles and trapezoids we had to utilize the specific formula. Then we had to estimate the area of objects using a grid when the object was in net form or unfolded. We counted the full squares and partially filled squared divided by two in order to find the area. Then we relearned perimeters. And the last thing we did was find the area of a square inside of a circle or a triangle inside of a rectangle. See this is my problem with this type of math. At least teach things we’ll use daily.

We did not do social studies or science today.

I did have him read for thirty minutes though. He told me he completed “The 6th shot gun” in the Louis L‘Amour book. Yeah one down, many more to come.

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.