Another good full day

Today we accomplished another good full day. We completed all of our lessons. I even worked in another independant writing assignment.

The devotion was about a girl playing soccer and she nearly made the game winning goal. But she missed and lost control over her behavior. She even cussed. She apologized to her mom and her coach. Her mom reassured the girl that she loved her, but was disappointed, and more importantly forgave the girl. When we do something wrong we need to know God still loves us and is willing to forgive us. We just have to admit our mistake and ask for forgiveness. Then, trust him to help us make the right decision next time.

JD worked his tail off in the AWANA book today. He had to tell two people (Sarah and me) four reasons how he know the bible is true with four backup verses; as well as four things he needs to know about God with another four back up verses. (That’s eight reasons and eight backup verses.) And he recited the verses like a pro. He’s not ready for the Bible Bee yet, but well on his way. Then, he learned that Christ became a man so He could do what God had planned. Then, he memorized another two bible verses to back up that statement.

The math lesson today was fairly easy. It was all about circle graphs. First, it had JD mark the circle similar to a clock. The marks are 100%/0%, 25%, 50%, and 75%. Then, it had him place marks halfway between those four marks. They were 12.5%, 37.5%, 62.5%, and 87.5%. That way it will, be easy to tell what percent of a circle graph is covered. JD learned it very quickly. He scored a 90% on the quiz.

The language arts lesson was designed on the fly. It started because JD offered me a pencil that was wedged between his big toe and the one next to it. This after he ran around in the dog yard barefooted. I told him that was gross! (Can you imagine grasping that pencil with your hands and then rubbing your face? Gross!) He laughed about and I became infuriated. I quickly sent him to his room for safety reasons. When I called him back out he apologized and we made four lists on a piece of paper. They were named: boys like, girls like, boys do, and girls don’t. From that list I had him write five sentences about boys and five sentences about girls. He wrote…(Warning – some words/entries may offend you, but I wanted him to realize his behavior, at times, is disgusting and inappropriate to me as a woman.)
Boys and girls are very different

Boys like dogs and video games. Boys like action figures, explosions, and war. Boys like to pick their noses. Boys like to fart and burp. Boys like to play with slugs and snakes.

Girls like cats, diamonds, and dolls. Girls don’t like picking their noses, burping, or farting. Girls don’t like sitting in pee. Girls don’t like untamed boys like Mowgle.

I was reaching for and engaging and real world science lesson today. So I went back to NC Department of Education to see what 6th grade students in public school are learning this year. Turns out electricity and energy is a big study. I have touched on some forms of energy but not electricity. So we went out and did a meter reading from the side of our house. It didn’t look like the lesson showed a picture of so we just wrote the five digit number on the meter. We’ll go back out tomorrow to see how much electricity we used in one day. Then, I called our electric company and asked if they had anything on their webpage that shows how much appliances in our house cost per month. She said, “No, but I can mail you a sheet.” Then, I googled the exact phrase she used and found a chart. If the cost of Kilowatts Per Hour (kWh) is $0.078 then our AC alone is $70 per month. Anyone that knows Jeff knows the AC gets overworked here, so that number is probable larger. We looked at typical wattage, est. hours used per month, est. monthly kWh, and cost per month at $0.078. It was amazing to see what appliances burn the most kWh. For example: digital clock (3 kWh), AC (4500 kWh), clothes dryer (5000 kWh), and a coffee pot (1165 kWh). Ok so I picked on Jeff now I’ll pick on myself. That coffee pot has been replaced in the last year because I drink so much coffee. That pot stays on for nearly 12 hours a day. Sad I know. (What will I do in Europe?)

For social studies today we did a quick review of Scotland’s fast facts. First, we learned geography and the surrounding bodies of water. Then things like religion, currency, languages, and main cities. Here‘s a few interesting facts: there are 790 islands near Scotland and only 130 are inhabited, the official animal of Scotland is the unicorn (too much Scottish whiskey?), and a year JD will not forget is 1999. In 1999, Scotland elected its own parliament. Did you know the inventions of TVs, telephones, and video cassette recorders came from Scotland?

JD struggled to read his book Hoot. He desperately wants to see that movie.

A good day

Today was a good day.  I'm amazed at how well JD is doing on his independant writing assignments.  It's been considerable easier since he's been taking vitamins. 

The devotion today was about the umbrella of God’s protection. It asked JD to send two friends out in the rain. The instructions were to send one with an umbrella and one without an umbrella. The experiment was to see which one would get the wettest. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know the answer to that question. Nor does it take a rocket scientist to figure out that under the safety of God’s umbrella is the safest place for us to remain in life. Following His commands saves us from the unpleasant consequences of breaking a command.

Today in the AWANA book JD learned that God cares about him. He memorized three verses to back up that statement. Then, he had an AWANA challenge to write his testimony. I combined this lesson with language arts. The testimony page in the AWANA book had questions to prompt JD about what to write. He wrote: I was saved in Jan 2007. My mom and dad were with me. I got saved because I felt like I needed to. I wanted to be like my parents. (Three reasons he is glad he knows Christ as his savior.) 1.) Because I get to tell others about Christ. 2.) Because I am going to go to heaven to see Jesus. 3.) Because I am a child of God.

Next I gave him a very short writing assignment for a card came in the mail for our sponsor child in Africa. I had him write a short message to Happy on a pre-made Easter card that we just mail back to them after signing it.

Good news for JD…David, the AWANA missionary, wrote back to JD. He was very encouraging and I think having a “younger” guy telling him how to cope with the parts of the AWANA program he doesn’t like was helpful. David compared game time to pizza. He said, “Pizza is fun and tastes good, but you can’t live off pizza. (Bummer!)” Then he said, “Maybe council time is more like broccoli. It may not taste as good, but it’s really important to keep us healthy and over time maybe you start to enjoy it.” He also suggested JD say a prayer to God before AWANA’s to “stay focused on what you can teach me during the lesson. It’s hard to pay attention, but help me eat my broccoli.” (I like this guy!) I showed JD how the letter was signed…“Your missionary and friend”

The T4L website is finally closing out our math quizzes. Thank goodness. It was getting confusing for both of us to figure out where we left off and where to start. I had to go back and complete one quiz so it would close out the whole section. Today’s lesson was about changing a percentage to a decimal and back again. Then from a percent to a fraction to a percentage and back again. Why can’t I recall this information from last year. Typically, if it didn’t happen yesterday I can’t remember it. But let it be some stupid trivia like the number of noses a slug has, the first UPC label on a product, or the letters on a zipper and I can commit that to memory. (By the way…4…Wrigley’s gum, and YKK.)

Unfortunately, because of my routine doctor appointment for a medication renewal, we did not do science or social studies today.

JD read the book Hoot for his required 30 minutes. He keeps begging to watch the movie and I said, “Not until you finish that book. Once you finish we can utilize school time to watch the movie.”

After my afternoon doctor's appointment JD and I went toWal-Greens get passport pictures for my international driver's licence.  (We're going to Europe you know?) Thank you Lyndell. (Smile)  I also pick up a Calcium, Magnesium, and Zinc supplement.  We'll see if that tackles the hyper activity and impulsive behaviors like the research  shows. 

President's Day - no school

Today was President's Day.  Jeff was off work today so I let JD have this holiday.  

Raven Rock field trip

After looking at today's tempature (70's) earlier in the week I made the decision to take a field trip.  JD worked so hard all week (and with just his vitamins) that we packed up and went to Raven Rock State Park.  It's about a 30 mile trip to the park.  We walked on two different trails for about a 3.25 mile walk.  I knew JD would complain, but geesh...

Daniel, Sarah, and the grandgirls came along too.  We stopped by Subway and picked up a foot long sub.  We picnicked at the bottom of the Raven Rock trail.  We had to walk down 50 long steps and 100 normal wooden steps.  But it was worth it.  Here's a picture of Daniel and Suri looking at the map.   

Since we walked down 150 steps we had to...you guessed it...walk back up.  Ugh!

Cool roots



Us at Overlook

A picture of JD at Raven Rock.  Look at the roots of that tree. 

The next trail was Overlook. 

Throwing rocks

The next trail was Fish Traps.  The Cape Fear River was so low that we could walk on the rocks in the middle of the river.   We were not the only homeschool families out there.  One of the moms commented about our homeschool t-shirts.  Mine says, "Homeschool Rocks!"  JD's says, "It's ok to use big words, I'm homeschooled."

Coming back up the hill was NOT fun.

Around the first bend

Up, up, and away

 

More stairs

Another good day

I know I keep recycling the words “A good day” but I’m happy that they are good days and not frustrating days. Today was another good day.

The devotion was about steps we take in life. When we first started learning to walk we stumbled, but before long we all learned to walk just fine. Making right choices is not much different. The first step is KNOWING what is right and wrong. The second step is DOING what what’s right. We know what’s right but doing it is a lot harder. Letting the Holy Spirit control our lives is the ONLY sure way to do the right thing. That means submitting to his control every day. It means committing ourselves to follow his lead and finally staying in touch with him through prayer and obedience all through the day.

Today in JD’s AWANA book he learned that God is his authority. He memorized two bible verses highlighting this fact. I asked him who has complete control over the decisions he makes. He answered, “God.” (Easier said than done.)

Math was our next topic. Today we learned more about percents, decimals, and fractions. It re-taught us how to convert from one to the other. I’m so jealous of JD’s mind. My hand gets cramped writing the steps out and he just does it all in his mind. I asked him a couple of times today, “How did you get that?” He was able to tell me and I even understood it.

The next thing we did was talk about personal letters. I wanted to get him to write a personal letter to an AWANA missionary way back on 3 Feb, but instead he chose to write “I don’t want to write this paper” 27 times. We research some North Carolina missionaries until we found the “right” couple. We finished the rough draft where he dictated the letter; I typed it, and printed it. The next step for JD while I cleaned today was to retype it. I sent the AWANA missionary (David) an email explaining who I was and why we were writing and attached JD’s letter to him. David responded within five minutes. He was excited we wrote to him and promised to write JD back. In JD’s letter he introduced himself and told David a little bit about himself. It turns out David is an AWANA Citation Award recipient. JD expressed his goal was to also obtain that same award. Part of what JD wrote was, “I have two questions for you. How fun was AWANA’s for you? I only like game time. Music is embarrassing to me. Book time is distracting. Council time is boring and not much fun. Can you offer any advice for having fun in AWANA’s.” This makes me feel “great” as the current AWANA commander. JD’s main problem is he’s not comfortable reciting verses in front of other kids.

For science today JD and I played with his magnetic kit. We made the kit compass and labeled some round magnets with the applicable north and south pole stickers. This was fun because the magnets were true to nature and repelled one another and all 14 magnets were sliding all over the table. Then we played the target game it came with.

We did not do a social studies lesson today.

While I cleaned JD read his book called Hoot.

JD is still only taking vitamins and fish oil and doing just fine. He is still active and impulsive though. I don’t know if it’s just me or not but I think one of the side effects of ingesting 2,170+ Concerta pills, but JD’s teeth are getting whiter. Ever since he gained his adult teeth, they have come in yellowish. They got progressively worse over time. To the point that I had JD whiten his teeth with whitener. But over the last two weeks they appear to be whitening on their own. There are others out there questioning this same phenomenon.

A good day

Today was JD’s routine doctor’s appointment. I told his doctor that I cut the umbilical cord between JD and the Concerta. The doctor was impressed. I then told her I had JD on a multi-vitamin with iron and a 1000mg fish oil capsule. She thought that was a good idea. I asked her about the benefits of zinc, magnesium, and the B vitamins. She said to be careful to not overdose these. If given improperly it could be potentially toxic. I asked for a blood test to see if JD was vitamin deficient. She agreed t that request and added a liver panel, and I think she even added another thyroid test. JD had his blood drawn like a champion boxer. I have another appointment on 28 Feb to discuss the results of the blood work.

We left Pope AFB after we stopped by the bowling alley, only to find out it didn’t open until 11:00am. I thought a quick game of bowling would be a fun bonding time. But they were closed. (Sad face) When we got home I set the reading alarm on the stove. He’s still reading the book Hoot.

The devotion today was about precepts (instructions or commands.) They listed things like: don’t walk, merge right, refrigerate after opening, and tear here to open. These help us function more easily and comfortably. God has also precepts that we call commandments; 624 specific commands. These are not a bunch of do’s or don’ts; they show us God’s principles. God’s nature defines right and wrong. They help us live more easily and comfortably too.

Before we got started with math today I had to call Time4Learning to let them know about the problem we’ve experienced with the program. She appreciated my call, thought the developers fixed “that” problem, and promised to call the developers. Once we signed in we moved onto a lesson dealing with scale again. Today it focused more on distance on maps. JD was all over this lesson and scored a 100% on the lesson and a 90% on the quiz.

My friend emailed me a picture of a fictional character and asked for possible names. It was a simple character designed on the computer and it’s made of ovals, circles, and sticks. Once we emailed her back I thought, “I just got an idea. I should have JD design one and tell me about him for the language arts lesson.” So this is the character he He also typed 10 of the 14 sentences here.  

Oogy Aogy Eggy

Oogy is almost 2 years old. His build date was 26 Feb 2009. We share a birth date. He lives in Los Angeles, California. He was built by ARA, (Army Robotics Association). They were built to help American soldiers in war. He was also built for combat. He was designed to be a robotic soldier. His line of duty is an engineer. He is one of thousands of Operational On-line Geometric (OOGy) robots. He and his community of robots think they are human. Their human companions treat them like they are humans to. They play black jack with them. They also play paint ball with them.

Because of doctor's appointment we only had time for a half day.  We did not do science or social studies today.  With spring right around the corner I think it will be harder and harder to keep those full days. (smile) 

I forgot to tell you…yesterday I asked JD for an explanation of what he thought ADHD was or the characteristics of ADHD. Some of the answers are truly his responses. Some sound like things I’ve told him about. He explained ADHD as: hyperactive, more friendly, more caring, need more alone time, can’t get rid of it, controllable, a gift to some people, don’t want it, make good use of it, not too many friends, too young to control, and need an ADHD diet. The two things he didn’t say was lack of focus and impulsivity.

A good full and focused day

JD is nothing short of hyper but he IS focused on the lessons. It's a little like trying to homeschool an octopus on speed.  Dispite the movement distractions (for me) we managed all of our subjects.

The devotion was about a small boy taking his first airplane flight with his uncle as the pilot. He was full of questions about this knob or that circle on the panel. One of his questions was how do you see when it’s foggy or cloudy. His uncle informed him about the control towers job of safely landing them. Sometimes in life we get confused and things get foggy. One person tells us one thing and another person says something different. When things get fuzzy we should make a call to our control tower. That is God. We need to rely on his Word and wisdom. He’ll always help us safely to our destination.

Today in JD’s AWANA book we completed challenge 4:4 by reading multiple chapters of the bible in order to answer multiple questions. They were all related to trusting God, results of not trusting in God, and having speech that is pleasing to God. We also read Psalm 23 to find out what benefits God provides us.

The T4L website is messing up when we complete quizzes or sections. We got through a lesson and quiz yesterday but it doesn't show the quiz as completed today. It makes it difficult for us to see what lesson is next. It’s a good thing I keep such extensive notes. I did yesterday’s quiz again today and it's still not closing. (Grr!) We did another lesson and quiz today but it's doing the same thing. The lesson today was all about scale sized drawings and measurements. For example if 1 inch equals 3 feet we should be able to find the equivalent measurements for the real object. JD was all over this lesson. And it showed on the quiz when he scored a solid 100%.

Today for language arts I had JD decipher a code in his AWANA book. If the number 1 is the letter Z then the number 26 is the letter A. There were four coded sentences related to God’s authority and His word. He decoded all four. They were 1.) Let your conversations be always full of grace, 2.) Do everything without complaining or arguing (**that would be nice for a change), 3.) You shall not steal, and 4.) Let us behave decently.

I called JD’s Dr. for a routine follow-up appointment. It is scheduled for tomorrow at 8:40am. I want to talk with her about JD’s Concerta (or lack of) and a couple of vitamin questions. Like I stated yesterday JD is no longer, nor will he ever, taking his Concerta. Instead he is taking a multi-vitamin with iron and a 1000mg of fish oil. So today for the science lesson we researched vitamin deficiencies in children misdiagnosed as ADHD. This has happened to many children because the symptoms are very similar. We looked at the multi-vitamin label and research what each vitamin or mineral does for the body and where it can be found in the foods that we eat. After hours of independent research it looks like the multi-vitamin with iron and fish oil takes care of the focus factor. However, JD may need zinc, more B's, and magnesium to help control his impulsivity and hyper active behaviors. All of this new found information will be discussed at the Dr. office tomorrow.

The social studies lesson today was all about Ireland by reviewing some fast facts. We learned about geography, nature, history, people and culture, and government and economy. Some strange facts we learned under the nature category is: there are no wild snakes in Ireland. The sea stopped many animals common in mainland Europe from reaching the island. Also, there are only two wild mouse species, one type of lizard, and just three amphibians.

The last thing I had JD do was read for thirty minutes. That timer works wonders. I can’t wait for him to finish reading that book so we can watch the movie. He told me yesterday that they cuss in this book. When he was a little guy “stupid” was a cuss word. But he gave me enough clues to figure out what words are being used. Now I’m going to have to read that book when he’s not reading it just to see for myself.