Another enlightening day

The devotion today was about a fable writer named Aesop (ee-sop). The devotion says fables are fictional stories that tell a moral or teach a lesson. Some people think the bible is a collection of fables. They think the bible tells interesting stories and can even teach valuable lessons, but that they are not necessarily true. (I used to think that, before I was saved) Some of you grew up in the church since you were knee high to a grasshopper, but I was allowed to “pick” my religion. I know now, that the bible is true. And Jesus is the Truth.

We read two more chapters out of Exodus today. I’m glad JD and I are reading it together. This will means JD will be able 1. Say he’s read the bible when someone asks him and 2. Make informed decisions when unbelievers doubt his knowledge. JD is such a sponge when it comes to bible theology. Chapter 21 was all about the fair treatment of slaves and cases of personal injury. Each instruction came with a penalty; most were compensation; however, this is where JD’s eyes opened wide when I read “a life for a life, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth…” Chapter 22 was about the protection of personal property. Again, each instruction came with a penalty; most were compensation. Then, it moved to proper social behavior. JD and I had a long talk after reading these chapters. It would take too long to repeat all the information exchanged but I ended it with, “all those instructions were written for those people during that time frame. Today we don’t necessarily follow those instructions. We follow the laws written on our hearts. If you KNOW what you will do would be something that would disrespect God or bring dishonor to him, DON’T do it!” (I think he got it.) I also explained about the tabernacle and the time when Jesus died and the curtain ripped. That’s the point where we were no longer bound by that shopping list of laws and were allowed to approach God about anything.

I noticed JD was subtracting from the left to the right during the assessments and had questions about regrouping numbers when he borrowed from the number to the left. He also had questions about borrowing from a decimal number. So back to the basics we go. I copied three different house pictures and pasted them side by side. I told him the one on the left was Mr. Hundred‘s house and placed a $1.00 coin in it. Next, I told him the middle one was Mr. Ten’s house and placed 9 dimes in it. Lastly, I told him the one on the right was Mr. One’s house and placed 4 pennies in it. This visual seemed to help. I also taught him a poem I found online. “More on top? No need to stop! More on the floor? Go next door. Get one ten. That's ten ones more.” I also gave him an example of “194 kids in the neighborhood playing minus 15 kids who will do lawn work for the day.” The example 194-15 shows “more on the floor.” So you’ll have to go to Mr. Ten’s house and ask if his kids can come help do lawn work. I told JD Mr. Ten only gives ten kids as a bunch at a time (**for obvious safety reasons…) Even if you just say I only need 1 more he only give a bunch of ten kids. So when all ten kids move from playing in their yard to Mr. One’s house now there are those 10 from next door and the 5 already at Mr. One’s house for a total of 15 kids waiting to do lawn work. Meanwhile, Mr. Ten now only has 80 kids playing in the yard now. This visual and example worked out GREAT! Now that the concept was taught visually and I knew he understood regrouping or borrowing I gave him a worksheet filled with 24 problems ranging in difficulty. He only missed two! (This is one of those days where you actually get to see the light bulb go off and home schooling makes all the sense in the world.)

For the keyboard lesson I had him go to “Keyboard Climber” where the monkey climbs branches of the trees of you type the correct letter. If you do not find the correct letter he will get knocked in the head by a coconut. JD looked at his hands the entire time. I called him out and shortly there after he said, “I’m bored with this game.” So I had him close that down and type sentences. The topic was what will you be doing this summer. His first two sentences were: “This summer, I will have school and lots of it. I will have stacks of papers to do.” I stopped him and told him he was just mad that I was making him type sentences and that what he typed was hurtful because I am not a slave driver. I am only trying to improve his skills over the summer. I said, “Okay, type what you wish you could do this summer. He typed, “I wish I could drive a speed boat. I wish I could go water skiing. I wish I could go sky diving. And I wish I could climb a mountain.” (Wow! Those are pretty big wishes.)

This week for spelling I focused on the “Q-U” and “X-S” rules. Q and U are best friends. Wherever Q is U is right beside him. The next rules was X and S are mortal enemies. When they get close to one another they need a referee or mediator named E. JD admitted he did not study his words this week and missed one 1 out of 8 simple words.

A good day

The devotion today was about Lou Gehrig and Cal Ripkin Jr. holding the records playing in the most consecutive games. In 1941, Lou faithfully played 2,130 games and much later Cal played 2,632 games in a row. Their teams must have loved being able to count on them no matter what. God is also faithful like that. We know we can count on God to be with us, everywhere, all the time. We also need to remain strong and faithful, through all kinds of trouble.

We read three chapters in Exodus today. Chapter 18 was when Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, came to visit Moses. After watching the people swarm him in flock Jethro offered some suggestions. Jethro’s advice was to pick some elders to handle the little problems, and only bring the serious problems to Moses. Chapter 19 was when the Lord revealed himself to Moses. He gave specific instructions for all of the people not to pass the boundary. Chapter 20 was where God gave the Israelites were the 10 Commandments. The last thing God told them about was proper altar building.

The grammar lesson today was about the different types of punctuation marks of: period, question, exclamation, comma, apostrophe, quotation, colon, and semicolon. I reviewed all the different marks with him and then gave him 2-3 sentences for correction. He did really good on this.

The keyboard lesson did not go as planned. He’s been through the online lessons twice now, but refuses to practice without looking. My goal for this summer is to get him to get the thought from his mind to the keyboard in a timely manner. (It’s so much quicker to type than write.) I had him type 5 sentences about the new sword he got. (**Side note…no living plants or animals have been injured or killed…yet!) One of his sentences was “Oh, look a chicken.” (Funny guy)

I told Jeff this summer I would also be enrolling JD in the newest Faith Christian Academy course called “Home Economics.” Jeff prefers “Bachelor Survival.” So every time I have JD clean anything I start it off like this, “Jonathan, Bachelor Survival tip, please clean….” He’s a hard headed student!

The sword is here!

The devotion today was about a king or queen being crowned and all the hubbub that goes along with it. Jesus is called the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. That means he outranks all the kings, queens, presidents, prime ministers, and other national leaders. This means we need to honor and obey him. (Can you imagine how much more we would honor and obey him if he were right in front of us?)

We read two chapters out of Exodus today. Chapter 16 was all about the people grumbling and God providing quail and manna for them. There were still some that did not obey very specific instructions. Chapter 17 was about the water from a rock and the fight against the Amalek people, where Moses had to hold the staff up with the assistance of Aaron and Hur.

Jeff and all his infinite fatherly wisdom thought it would be nice for his 11 year old son also named “Hyder“ to have a fairly inexpensive metal sword to play around with. (Remember the whole “Sometimes as parents we make mistakes” blog?) Which makes me think of the time Jeff gave JD a small pocket knife that ended up in our truck tire, but that’s another story. So we‘ve been tracking the shipping on this WEAPON for several days now and today was to be the official arrival date. I tracked it at 10:00am and saw it was on a vehicle for delivery. JD has been watching the window like a hawk and every time a cricket farted he thought it was the FedEx delivery truck arriving. It finally arrived at 11:00ish. Great, now how will we get anything school related done today? I let him play with it after the math lesson. He had a hard time attaching it with a belt but quickly removed himself from the safety of our home to slay dragons or something. (*Thinking out loud* “It better not be any trees!”) CODE YELLOW! I must have a safety conversation with him. Because he is a male “Hyder” and for the preserved safety of the fruit of my labor (all living plants.) I told JD, "The sword will NOT be used to slice bushes, trees, and flowers." The look on his face said it all. (I was too late.) I followed that up with, "The sword will not be impaled into the pool or swimming floats, AND will NOT be taken on the trampoline." I asked if I had left anything out or left anything unclear. His response, “No.” Oh silly me...it will also NOT be used ON or NEAR our animals or other people. (Jeff, this was YOUR responsibility.) Why was I was too late? JD apparently saw a dragon in what I call his “giving tree.” He only slice a few leaves off. (Whew.)


Today for math I reviewed the analog clock. You know the ones with thee short hand and the long hand? Who knew technology (IE: digital clocks) could hinder education? JD missed an analog clock question on the assessment. That’s when I stepped in during the assessment and asked, “Are you sure?” His response, “Yep.” I rephrased the question for him and said, “If it’s 10:30 now, what time will it be in 40 minutes.” His response, “Ten.” That is what prompted this “time” lesson. He knows the numbers 1,2,3...counts for 5 minutes each. I showed him if we cut this “pie” twice we’ll have four pieces. Those four pieces are 15 minutes in time. I taught him to count by 15’s to get around the clock quicker; along with the phrases “quarter past the hour, half past the hour, and quarter till.” I told him each little dash in between the minutes is one minute. He already knew there were sixty minutes in an hour. This lesson seems juvenile for his age but I had to go all the way back to make sure he got the concept. First we made a clock with a paper plate and laminated long and short hands. We punched a hole in the plate and hands so they could move around. I also wrote 15 & ¼ by the three, 30 &½ by the six, and 45 & ¼ by the nine. We ran some drills where I called out the time and he moved the hands. He stumbled at first but got it eventually. Then, I had a sheet with clocks and hands showing a time. He was to write down the time under the clock. Finally, I gave him another sheet that had the time written on it and he had to draw the hands on the clock. This was just the beginning of the “time” lessons.

Today in English we reviewed sentences. It covered everything we’ve done over the last month or so. It includes : correct sentences verses fragments, the four kinds of sentences (declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory) simple and complete subjects and predicates, simple subjects and predicates, conjunctions (and, but, or), and finally run-on sentences. I either had him write a sentence or correct a sentence for review. This was tough for him, because I clearly wrote the in. Instructions and asked him to follow them. I told him next year he would need to work more independently. I told him I would be available for question, but he would need to read the instructions and follow them. Then I walked away. There was a lot of stagnate time where he was doing something other than writing or just sitting there wishing this was all just a bad dream. I had to remind him this task should take no longer than 15 minutes and if he would buckle down and do it he could go play.

Short days

From now on we will be on our summer schedule. I will rotate the following subject throughout the week: read 30 minutes independently, math basics, spelling strategies, basic grammar, and keyboarding. Total it will take 1 ½ hours a day depending on how quickly he gets his work done. These are subjects that either need improvement or a refresher course in the basics to make sure he has the concept down. Basic subtraction, multiplication, and division along with grammar were deficiencies during the assessment.

Our devotion this morning was about Captain James Lawrence when he exclaimed, “Don’t give up the ship!” During the War of 1812, he was mortally wounded but shouted to his men, “Don’t give up the ship!” Then it transitioned into giving up when the going gets tough. When it seems the odds are against us and were suffering instead of persevering. Paul wrote, “…we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance” Endurance develops strength of character in us, and character strengthens our confident expectation of salvation. So when the going gets tough…“Don’t give up the ship!”

We only read one chapter in the book of Exodus. Chapter was the song the Israelites sang after their rescue from the Red Sea. It only took them three days to start complaining again when a sufficient water source could not be located.

For math we took ½ hour to review the basic concept of multiplication. I used small bowls and pennies to represent 2 x 4 = 8. Then, we filled in the multiplication chart with all the numbers he knew without hesitation. We filled in the: 0s, 1s, 2s, 3s, 5s, 10s, and 11s. All the while he was busy telling me the rules for each one. He would say, “One times anything is still one” or “Ten times anything, just add a zero.” But for more difficult numbers we don’t have rules. I showed him a nines pattern and what do you know he also showed me a nines pattern. My pattern is: the left column goes up one number (1,2,3) and the right side counts back a number (8,7,6). He said, “18, 81, 27, 72, 36, 63, 45, 54. They mirror one another.” We’ll work on the 4s, 6s, 7s, 8s, and 12s another day. (I’m in no rush.)

It’s apparent when JD sounds out words that he does not hear phonics sounds like I do. That made this next task was hard to teach, but thanks to a couple of hippies from the internet I was able to get through to JD. He thought it was slightly embarrassing to motion the sounds, but he suffered through and it worked. The lesson was long and short vowels. The long vowels say what they are: A, E, I, O, and U. But those tricky short vowels say something completely different.
A says “aah” like a baby crying (whaa) (I had him cry like a baby.)
E says “eh” like an old man asking a question. (I had him cup his ear and say it rather loud.)
I says “ih” as if you sat in peanut butter. (I had him look behind himself and say it.)
O says “ah” the like when you drink cold water on a hot day. (I had him lift his glass and drink.)
U says “uh” like lifting a heavy table. (I had him lift the corner of the table.)
Then, I had him do two small worksheets to sort out the long and short vowels into two columns. The last part of the lesson I introduced two simple spelling rules. One was “Q” and “U” are best friends. They hang out ALL the time. Wherever you find Q you will also find U. The next rule was the letter “X” and “S.” I told him, “Unlike Q and U, X and S are mortal enemies. You will never see S follow X anywhere at the end of a word. They sometimes get close to one another, but they always have a mediator. That mediator is the letter E.” He will have only eight spelling words related to these two spelling rules. (I absolutely dread teaching I before E except after C because there are so many exceptions.) This lesson was also only ½ hour long.

The last thing we did for the day was his solar system models. We looked up Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn and made replicas. Once we have them all finished he will paste them to black paper to hang in the classroom. This only took about 15 minutes.

Crash course in science

28 May 2010 - Since taking the assessments JD and I have been taking it easy. The only school related things we did today were history and science. JD was held up in my room since his invasion at 12:53am after his night terror episode. He slept in my bed last night and I FINALLY moved out to the couch at 2:15am because he moved and kicked so much.

I was tired in the morning and let him hang out in my room watching the history channel. While I gardened and perfected the edges of our lawn. Then I came in a took a much needed nap.

I covered the “history” portion, but not the science. Later in the evening while sitting near my the flower garden I heard a very LOUD frog. While on the hunt to see this frog I noticed a mid-sized ecosystem happening in our very small pond. There were TONS of tadpoles!

Sometimes as parents we make mistakes with our children. Sometimes we have control over those mistakes and sometimes they are out of our control. Here was one of those times I made a mistake that had a chain reaction of events.
Mistake #1 - Telling JD about the tad pole infestation (I mean ecosystem)
Mistake #2 - Not being there to monitor his every step (and apparently his every thought)
Mistake #3 - Staying inside to do the dinner dishes while JD “played” outside.

Do I have your curiosity yet? WHAT HAD HAPPENED WAS…JD thought it would be fun to….or I could give them more room if…or I don’t know what he was really thinking…but I saw him dipping a small vessel into the pond and walking away to take the unsuspecting tadpoles on an “adventure.” I’m saying out loud, more to myself really, “Now what his he up to?” (CODE RED!) To spare any misfortune to the tadpoles lives I quickly change into my “Super Mom” costume and rapped on the kitchen window and saying while dramatically motioning, “No! Put them back!” (Whew…averted a disaster of massive proportions.) Earlier before dinner and while watching him he was pulling them out with his hand and into the fresh air to “name them.” (and I’m thinking…REALLY! Because one of the questions on the assessment only two days ago was…What does a frog do in stage two that it does not do in stage four? Um…breath air through it gills! I quickly refreshed JD’s mind on how they breath!

I finished up the few remaining dishes I had and promptly went outside. I asked, “How many tadpoles are taking swimming lessons in our pool.” I can’t really explain the look on his face. Maybe it was the “I’m busted” look or more like a cartoon face that you can see the bubble of thinking over their heads and he was quickly scrambling for a lie. His response was, “Two.” I sadly reported to him, “Well, those two will die. Because they are swimming in chlorinated water.” He genuinely looked distressed. Earlier, when I told him to drop the tadpoles from the kitchen window he was forced to change his mission from tadpole Navy Seal training to hunting the elusive pool bug. So after a couple of seconds of silence over the loss of two tadpoles he jumped to the pool and asked me to help him catch the pool bug so he could show daddy. (Just for future reference…the pool bugs are called Water Boatmen.) I dipped the pool net into the pool to catch a Water Boatmen when I saw a very small black thing swimming. Good thing I still had on my Super Mom costume. This enabled me to rescue the still living tadpole and return it to its birthplace. One down…one to go…was my motto from that point on. I’m not sure how many gallons are in a 16 foot by 42 inch pool, but searching that pool was terribly difficult with all the other things floating around in it. The saying “Like finding a needle in a haystack’ comes to mind. I enlisted the help of the bystanders to assist in mission Tadpole Rescue. My team included Jeff who can spot a four leaf clover in 10 seconds and JD who was already waist deep in the pool. Just when we were going to abort the mission JD spotted the remaining tadpole. And yes, it was still alive. MISSION COMPLETE!

After a brief lesson about ecosystems and different water types and a lecture about how to treat God’s creature’s JD promised to leave the tadpoles alone. Did you know in T-84 days it will be like the frog plague in the bible, right here at our house.

Time to wash the Super Mom costume. After all summer is just beginning and I will surely need it again.

Just relaxed

The school days are dwindling down. We did not to a school related thing today except to photocopy the answer sheet and mail it back to the assessment company for scoring. They say it could take up to 12 weeks to get results. Gosh, I hope it doesn't take that long.

I tried to nap today, but my body wanted to Go, Go, Go! So I went outside in the 90* weather and mowed our lawn today in sections. And in between each section I floated around in our pool.

So today was good...tomorrow will be better.

The final day of assessments…day 3

The devotion today was about daring to be different. There was a dare devil named Daniel “Spider Man” Goodwin who enjoyed the thrill of scaling huge buildings. Why in the world would he do that? Some people enjoy notararity and fame. Sometimes they just dare to be different. As Christians we are expected to be different from the rest of the world. We’re expected to be different in the way we act toward others, but more specifically the way we show love to others.

We read two chapters from the book of Exodus. Chapter 13 was the dedication of the first born humans and animals to God. Then the Israelites started their long journey of following the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night all the way to the Promised Land. They camped where God told them to. Chapter 14 is where Pharaoh changed his mind yet again and went in hot pursuit to catch up to the Israelites. What do you know God saved his people by opening up the Red Sea and letting them safely cross. But when the Egyptians tried to cross the waters swallowed them up and killed all of them. Leaving their bodies to rest on the shores.

Today was the final day for assessments. (THANK GOODNESS…I wish those aliens would abduct me for a week.) It was a HIGHLY distractible day. Socks went on hands like mittens, lots of mouth noises, and tags were ripped out of shirts today. Now for what JD did…just kidding…that was all him. The break down of today’s assessments are as follows: There were only 84 minutes of assessments completed today. (It‘s the shortest day thus far.) It took 24 minutes for study skills, 30 for science, and 30 for social studies. We did study skills before lunch and did a science review and social studies review and both assessments after lunch.

The study skills assessment. These are questions asking the student to read and interpret different sources or types of information. Basically, it is to gauge a students “school street smarts.” It includes the following sources: table of contents, map and key, dictionary, graphs, outlines, library catalog cards, and schedules and posters. He did better on this than I thought he would. He only missed 2 out of 30 questions for a possible score of 93%.

The science assessment. This was basic 5th grade Science questions about landforms, weather, force & motion, ecosystems, and the solar system. To the best of my 5th grade science knowledge I recognized only 3 questions as incorrect out of 40 questions. So that leaves him with possible score of 92%.

The social studies assessment. This was basic 5th grade social studies questions about Native Americans, important documents, studying and interpreting crop charts, and other history type questions. Again, to the best of my 5th grade social studies knowledge I recognized 4 out of 40 questions as incorrect leaving JD with a possible score of around 90%.

Test 1 Vocabulary -4 of 40 = 90%
Test 2 Compreh. -4 of 50 = 92%
Test 3 Spelling -13 of 30 = 56%
Test 4 Lang Mech -5 of 36 = 86%
Test 5 Lang Express -4 of 48 = 91%
Test 6 Math comp. -1 of 44 = 97%
Test 7 Math concepts -3 of 50 = 94%
Test 8 Study skills -2 of 30 = 93%
Test 9 Science -3 of 40 = 92%
Test 10 Social Studies -4 of 40 = 90%

Missed 43 questions out of 408 for a composite score of 89.4% WOW! I know I have less hair than Monday…too bad only the gray ones didn’t fall out.

Now we start out relaxation time…school is not “officially” over until 7 June. That will be 180 days of school for this year. But I will still have him working on a few things next week. Things I noticed during the assessments. (Bummer I know.)