Another busy day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We did not do science again today.

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

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

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

An interactive day

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fun loving moments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We did not do science again today.

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

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

A short school day

Today was a short day at school because we had many errands to run. It getting very busy around here with school, church, and baseball.

I loved the devotion today. It was about a French doctor during WWII. He was concerned about babies in orphanages. He notice those that receive regular love and attention faired better than those that didn’t. He ran a brief experiment. He separated the babies into two groups. They all received food, diaper changes, and bathes. However, in the experiment one group received love and affection. Those babies that were cuddled and loved thrived. This experiment showed the doctor that humans need to receive love in order to thrive. This does not change as we get older either. God’s command to love one another can help us to become productive and useful in our knowledge of Jesus. This in turn makes a difference in our health and development (like the babies.)

JD and I did some bible reading for the AWANA book challenge 7:6. We were looking up the Holy Spirit’s “jobs.” JD found out the Holy Spirit guides us, makes information Jesus knew available to us, (he) leads us, teaches us, reminds us, convicts us of our sin, searches things of God and reveals them to us, and carries us along. (I’m thankful for this because sometimes we need carried.) JD also finished challenge 7:7 where the lesson said, “We don’t want you to do anything in this section, other than think. Think about the Holy Spirit being with you to help you, guide you, comfort you, and encourage you.”

The math lesson today was all about quadrilaterals. Those tricky squares, rectangles, parallelograms, rhombuses, and trapezoids. JD had to identify if they had right angles, congruent sides, opposite parallel sides, and opposite congruent sides (equal). Then he had to figure out the angles of each side. He did much better on that part than I ever could have. Geometry is his thing, he just doesn’t recognize that yet. He scored an 80% on the quiz.

Did not do Language arts, social studies, or science today. My plan was to go to Lowe’s and look for sulfur for science, but we didn’t find any. We did however find different kinds of manure to spread in our yard, but we didn’t purchase any. (Truth be told, I think the “dirt lesson is the wrong lesson to teach and I need to find something else.)

JD read his book for thirty minutes as we drove from here to there and back again.

First we drove to Lifeway to find communion cups for Sunday. (Jeff is cooped up in an office all day and I wanted to help him out.) Then, we met Jeff at Play it Again Sports to pick up a pair of baseball pants for JD. We have a two day baseball tournament this weekend. (We have only had four real practices…ouch.) Then, Jeff, me, and JD went out to Dinner at Smokey Bones. It was so good. So it’s been a busy couple of weeks and I finally caught up on my blogs for this week.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

A completely full school day

The devotion was about the happiest people in the world. Even if someone has power, prestige, and wealth they are not truly happy. The happiest people we know are those that show love to other people. Hate hurts us and love enriches us. Those people that act in love toward all those around them experience love twice - once when they give it away, and once when the receive it back again.

Today in JD’s AWANA book he learned he is sealed by the Holy Spirit. I love how they used a signet ring like the Kings used to own. Once it was sealed no one could mess with it. JD also memorized two bible verses to back up this fact in challange 7:5. 

I strongly disliked today’s math lesson. It was about identifying different angles of objects. We had to identify what the top, bottom, and side view look like. Seems easy enough but it’s kind of tricky. JD had to identify different views on prisms, pyramids, cylinders. JD scored a 90% on the quiz.

I had JD work in T4L today for the language arts lesson. I want him to become familiar with summarizing articles of reading. That’s what’s on the assessment. It’s so close to the assessment date. I can’t believe it. This school year went by quickly. JD did both the interactive reading and the quiz. JD did not do well on the quiz. He only scored a 67%. I’m not sure why that score is so low. I think he was distracted because he knows this stuff. Thank goodness because there are parents out there fighting with their children to teach them this concept. There’s another quiz on summarizing that he’ll do before school is out. We’ll see what he scores then.

JD read from the Louis L’Amour book for 30 minutes a day.

Today we did a fun science lesson. We tested three sand/dirt samples from the iris garden, the flower garden, and the vegetable garden. We had six containers filled with sand/dirt. Two were from the iris garden, two from the flower garden, and two were from the vegetable garden. We placed vinegar in three different samples. We were looking for bubbling or fizzing. We charted the observations. Then, in the remaining three different samples we watered it down and put baking soda in it to see if it bubbled or fizzed. Turns out we have alkaline soil. Maybe that’s why nothing significant grows in the iris garden and the vegetable garden. I’ll have to remedy that.

The social studies lesson was engaging. I had JD go to http://www.lizardpoint.com/fun/geoquiz/euroquiz.html to take a 48 question quiz on the countries in Europe. The first time he got an 88 out of 144 possible points and the second time he got a 102 out of 144 possible points. I did it right after him and I scored about 100 myself. It gives you three tries to locate the country it asks for. If you miss the first time you only get two points. If you miss two times you get 1 point. So that’s why JD scored a 102 out of 144 on 48 questions.

A good day

It was an extremely busy school day and errand day.  But it was a good day

The devotion today repeated this statement, “It’s supposed to be hard. If it weren’t hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great. This is talking about loving those unlovable or extra grace required people. It is hard to love those folks, and not everyone can do it. But loving them makes it great! Love isn’t right only when it’s easy. Sometime it seems impossible but you’re not alone. The Holy Spirit fills our hearts with his love. He’ll help us do the right thing.

Today in JD’s AWANA book he completed challenge 3:7. It required him to do three things this week to show others how much he loves the lord. He’s been working on this for about a week and completed it today. He also completed challenge 7:1 where he had to recite 3 questions, six answers, and six verses. He’s my little preacher I tell you!

Today in language arts I had JD rewrite the AWANA assignment. He was to provide one answer and one backup verse to the following questions. How do I know the bible is true? What do I need to know about God? And what do I need to know about Jesus Christ? It was a tough start getting him to write that much but after a short break and a bribe of a Kinder egg he AMAZING finished a great looking paper. It was a completely full page.

Today in math JD relearned the following terms: face, vertices, and edges. Then he relearned the names for shapes of polyhedrons. They were rectangular prism, triangular prism, triangular pyramid, cone, cylinder, pentagonal prism, and hexagonal pyramid. He remembered the lesson from last year. (Better than I did.) And he blew the quiz out of the water with a solid 100%.

JD nutritionist called me back from last week. I was curious about low calories counts. I was not anticipating a 1200 and two 1600 counts but they happened. She said, “Yes, those are low. You want to keep close to 1800 calories.” So far we are just maintaining a steady weigh. He weighed 31 Mar and weighed 131.4 and this morning he weighed 131.2. This makes me happy. This is what the nutritionist wanted for him too. At this point we just want him to maintain his current weight until he hits his growing tall stage.

This reminded me to try to contact the endocrinologist again. So I did. This time I tried email.

After school we ran out to feed the cats we’re sitting. Then I ran into Spring Lake to pick something up from the church. I turned around and drove back to the cat sitting job because I clean her house once a week. I cleaned and sped to the house to change for baseball practice. Must sit down now…

A busy day

It was a busy school day and we had fun during our social studies tag team game of the European facts.  

The devotion today was about our life being a TV show. If your life was a TV show what would the title of the show be? Mine would be “The Amazing Race” I think, because I'm always on the move. If Jesus’ life were a TV show it would be Love. John 13:34-35 says, “A new command I give to you; Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” The center of everything Jesus did was love.

In the AWANA book today JD completed challenge 7:4 where JD learned that the Holy Spirit helps him pray. He also learned to pray for things that are in God’s will; not his. And that just because he prays in Jesus’ name it may not come true for JD’s sake; rather only if it’s in God’s will. That’s a hard lesson for all of us I guess. He also memorized two backup verses.

The math lesson today was on polygons. Those are objects like triangle, quadrilateral, pentagon, hexagon, and octagon. He scored a 90% on the quiz.

For language arts today I had JD do three short lessons in T4L. He worked on antonyms today. He learned: comply, routine, laden, tedious, and corrupt. He scored and 88% on one quiz and 1 100% on the other. Then, I had him do a Think Aloud guided lesson on an informational article.

We did not do science again today.

For social studies today we looked up basic facts about various countries in Europe. There are so many we only focused on: Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Liechtenstein. This in itself seems excessive but we had fun talking about each one. We decided we want to visit Iceland (beautiful), Germany (family heritage), Luxembourg (size), and Liechtenstein (because it’s so small, that Switzerland once accidentally invaded the country, by simply taking a wrong turn during a training exercise.) We however do not want to visit the Netherlands because it’s going to fall off and sink. Much of the Netherlands is under water and half of the rest is only 1 meter above sea level.

I asked JD if he was bouncing around in the stories he’s reading from the Louis L’Amour book. In fact he is, but he’s reading thirty minutes a day. I just wish he would complete one story and then move to another after telling me what he read.

I got a call from Pope saying JD’s blood work results were in, but I had to contact Womack. I also called JD’s endocrinologist. Still waiting for the results.

We're still cat sitting and JD is still visiting them with me twice a day.  Today he scooted to the house twice.  That 3 miles of scooting and walking today!  Yippie.

A very short school day

I needed a bit of extra sleep last night because I was up until midnight working on some church nominating committee stuff. So, we did not do devotion, AWANA book, social studies, or science today. I hate Mondays. So it was a short school day. We did however, get the Isuzu re-inspected today, and it PASSED! Whew…wouldn’t want to get pulled over with expired tags.

The math lesson today was about Pythagorean theorem. It’s complex to explain. It took us a while to learn ourselves. Basically it was using a formula to figure out TV screen sizes or computer screen sizes. (I think if I need to know that I’ll read the box it comes in - LOL) JD scored a 90% on the quiz.

The language arts lesson was in T4L. Today JD learned about antonyms. I didn’t write down the words so I can’t share them with you. He completed two lessons and did not have to do a quiz.

I also started a cat sitting job Saturday and JD goes with me twice a day to check on them and play with them. He actually rides his scooter during one of the trips both ways for a total of 1.5 miles round trip.

I called Womack again for blood work results. They called me back to tell me to call Pope.  I had to leave a message with Pope.  Grr!