Jaden:
Language arts was finished up for this year, except as how it will be used in his writing lessons. We worked on math money flash cards one day. Today we started on his writing lessons out of the Complete Curriculum book; he did three pages on nouns. And he did his two weekly Explode the Code lessons. Just one more lesson to go out of that book, and he'll just have two ETC books to go.
Trusten:
I've only done alphabet flashcards with him once since the last blog update, but I read him a book of his choosing every day, sometimes more.
Both boys:
*Daily chapter of Proverbs
*Daily reading from Bible Stories. Some of the things we've read over the past few days are about the "Sermon on the Mount," the healing of Jairus' daughter, the healing of the cenurion's servant, and more. I've had this book for several years now; I think it was a gift to both Nathan and me from my parents. I like it more than most bible story books, because it has real pictures off to the sides of the pages with captions telling about specific things mentioned in the stories. It gives facts about historical places, foods, and objects, for example.
*Annie's Manners: 2 pages of reading and coloring
*Social Studies: I tied a couple of the boys' play silks around their head to demonstrate how some African Americans wear turbans like their African familial ancestors.
*Prepare and Pray: We've read four chapters of Swiss Family Robinson now, and I've asked the discussion questions that P&P include for those. We dehydrated apples, made a solar clock using a stick and rocks. I really like the discussion questions. It has touched on things that Jaden has recently learned elsewhere. For example, he had to tell me about mammals. I also like going over the character qualities that are listed.
Swiss Family Robinson, for the most part, is good so far. My favorite things about it are the superb vocabulary (as most older books are....despite all the increased knowledge and technology of today, people overall sure are stupid now) and the morality. However, the family sure seems to delight in eating some abominable creatures like a penguin, bone marrow (it was insinuated that bone marrow had been sucked out by them in the past), and a gigantic lobster. Of course, if they were truly to the point of starving, I could see eating a penguin, but when there are coconuts and other things available, I don't see the necessity in eating such unhealthful (unclean) animals. So, it's kind of odd to me to read such high morale concerning some things while reading such abhorrent things mixed in. I really disliked reading about one of the big dogs (mastiff, if I remember correctly) chasing down a mother monkey and eating it and then being forced to give the baby monkey a ride on its back afterward!
*Bible Prayers for Bedtime: This book was also a gift; it was given to Jaden by my friend Keith. While we've read the similar book with bible stories, we'd not started this book about praying. I decided I wanted to start reading this right after my morning prayer with the boys. We started it today. It starts at the very beginning, discussing how Adam and Eve could talk to God, but after they were banished, people eventually started praying after seeing how doing all the wrong things was causing disharmony among people, so they needed to call out to God for help. It's going to go through and teach the different reasons for prayer and give examples throughout the bible.
*Youtube:
-how cat food is made, why most pet food is dangerous, how to make homemade cat food
-apple nutrition, breastfeeding benefits, antioxidants
-top 10 worst foods, whole foods vs. processed foods, digestive system problems and causes
*Gods Design for Life: The World of Animals: We started reading about amphibians.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Prepare & Pray, Hygiene and Nutrition, and Let's Drive Thru History!
When I left off last time, Jaden was out doing a scavenger hunt. I gave him a list of things to find and some other items to assist him:
One of the things I had him do was take his digital camera out to take three pictures of things he finds interesting and to give me an explanation of why he finds them so. Well, he took a picture of a rock with a fossil, which also happened to be another thing on his list, and a picture of the woods. The third picture was of that plant from which he'd taken that neat ice that he showed me. You should remember the picture I posted on here before. Well, the actual plant with the ice on it was even neater, but we need a cable to upload his pictures.
Jade learned how to write a book report (a short one), learned how to compare and contrast, and learned how to classify things. He's done four Explode the Code lessons (he does one every 1st and 6th day of the week), and he's still doing well on those.
I bought a good used hardback copy of Swiss Family Robinson. I found it for a penny on Amazon, and with shipping it was just $4.00, which is still a great deal. I'm enjoying it so far, and I think Jaden is. Trusten doesn't have much of an attention span, so he probably doesn't know much about the story. I do read it to both of them. We've so far read two chapters, and we're going through the Prepare & Pray curriculum along with it. I like the Toddler Tales, which are extremely short stories aimed toward toddlers (like Trusten) which teach good lessons. We also discuss character qualities of the characters in Swiss Family Robinson and go over discussion questions. Now, there are a lot of things listed in the P&P curriculum to do, and I don't do them all. I pick and choose which ones I want us to do. The main reason I wanted to get the curriculum and the second half called Blessed Assurance is because I wanted a Christian-based family preparedness program of study.
There are a lot of things that Nathan and I both have wanted to learn so that we can be self-sustainable if the need arises. People in our society have lost so much knowledge and ability to do things without our modern mechanical and electrical servants and our modern economic system. We want our children to learn these things as well. This curriculum will help me have an order of things so that we systematically get to everything we need to learn how to do. Of course, like I said, there are things that I'm skipping. There is a LOT of material. It's actually compiled in such a way to be the main curriculum for a homeschooling family. It's not going to function that way for us. However, I've already discovered that their approach to learning things greatly compares to my own. Anyway, from this point on when I update this blog, I'll just talk about what we did according to the P&P curriculum, but it's only the stuff I chose to do.
So far in P&P and Swiss Family Robinson:
*We learned about levers. It was mentioned in the first chapter, where father of the shipwrecked family made use of a lever to help him lift his homemade boat made of casks out of the ship and into the water. It was too heavy for him to move on his own. I located the physical science book and introductory chapter on levers in our God's Design for Science curriculum and read that lesson. I also demonstrated the use of a lever with objects in our home--ruler, rock, and cup--and we went over the terms: lever, effort arm, fulcrum, resistance, effort
*We learned that sundown near the equator happens quickly, and upon Jaden asking about the equator, I showed it to him on the globe and talked about it briefly. We also went over the term "hogshead," and I showed him pictures on Google Images. Hogshead ended up being one of the vocabulary terms in P&P, but I'm not using the vocabulary lists in there as part of our learning experience...only those things asked about.
*And we sang "Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us," a song which I've long loved. I played the music for it online.
The first day of last week Nathan went out into the cold dreary day to dig holes in the cold, hard, and rocky ground so that he could plant my eleven baby flowering trees that I received from the Arbor Day Foundation. I'm so thankful to him, as I'm not to the point where I need to be doing hard work like digging yet, but I'd wanted the trees. I hope I do a good job of taking care of them, and I hope to have more beautiful trees in a few years. The boys watched Nathan dig the holes and plant and water the trees.
*Math: One day I worked with Jade on adding and subtracting using our cuisinart rods, and I worked with Trusten on counting. Another day I had Jaden count to 100 using all pennies, then all nickels, then dimes, and finally quarters. I asked him why he thought it was necessary to have different currencies and asked whether he would want to carry 100 pennies in his pocket to pay for something that cost a dollar. I also had him count out to 25 of each coin set (except dimes, of course, and we went over why he couldn't do that with only dimes). I taught Trusten the difference between pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.
Jade and I played Bookworm (computer spelling game) one day while Trusten played with chalk on Jade's chalk board.
I'm doing United Church of God's sabbath school lessons with the boys again. I'd started to do that two years ago, but I stopped about as soon as I started. I like their format, though, so I will continue with this. I've done it two sabbaths in a row now. Each lesson includes a song, too, so I really like that. As far as bible-reading during the week, still a proverb daily. Jade sure knows the Proverbs well now. We've been reading them daily for around a year and a half now, I guess. For a long time I've stopped every so often in the reading so that he can fill in blanks (anywhere from a word to a whole verse), and he does so well. Trusten is now trying to fill in the blanks. I don't know whether I mentioned it the last time I posted, but I'm reading daily from Bible Stories to replace the bible reading (except Proverbs). That's working out quite well. I started this time in the new testament. We sometimes read from these other two new books Jade has at night before they go to bed. I almost always sing with them at bedtime: "This Little Light of Mine", "Jesus Loves the Little Children", and "Jesus Loves Me."
I'd been letting the boys watch a short bible video or other educational video during my prayer time (in another room where it's quiet w/o worrying about them getting into trouble), but they've watched almost everything we have, many of them numerous times, and my prayer time has been high-jacked over the past three or four months where it's not been so peaceful. Well, I decided I'd pick out something each day for them to watch on Youtube, and it may be something they've pondered about or if not, then something I choose. I was absolutely delighted to discover that you can make a playlist on Youtube and then set them all to play one after another (I didn't realize this before!). I love it! Last week the boys watched videos on levers, the atmosphere, hygiene, and fruits and vegetables nutrition. They learned, and I got peace!
I'd bought a couple dvds in the Drive Thru History series with Dave Stotts. They were on American History. Well, I liked them (actually haven't watched all the episodes), so I decided to buy more. I bought the four I know that he's done for world history: Ancient Greece, Rome if You Want To, Turkey, and East Meets the West. We've watched the entire video on Greece and two of the three episodes on Rome. I REALLY like these! Jade seems to think they're okay now...I'm hoping he'll like them more as he gets older. I'd been telling Nathan about the other two and said I thought he'd like them, too, so one afternoon he got home early, and we watched the Greece together. We watched most of the one on Rome yesterday. The apostle Paul was mentioned quite a bit, and I appreciated how Dave made the point that Paul was one of the most influential persons in history. Also, he made it clear that the bible should be the most trusted source of history. These videos are great; I highly recommend them.
Jade has just about worn out the chess-playing. He loves to play chess on the computer. He also loves this art site where there are so many activities to do. It's called The Art Zone. Between those two things and Clever Island (which I think has almost come to and end of serving its purpose for him), he gets plenty of computer time (but I do limit it!). It's time to get an Internet filter installed, we think. He can navigate the Internet himself, and I'm afraid of him accidentally getting somewhere he ought not to be.
Oh! I about forgot about all my flash cards. I was upset that Trusten had apparently thrown our alphabet flashcards out of the Jeep one day ( I found them one day at the side of the path in the woods, and they'd been ruined by rain). But, my mother in law had bought a whole set of different flash cards, and hey, there are some for the alphabet! Trusten still doesn't know his alphabet, which is no big deal, but he's showing signs that he really needs to know it, as then he'd understand things better. He learns most things later than Jade, but I think that's typical of the birth order. I'm excited, though, because there are flash cards on money and time and measure. Woo-hoo! I'm going to open those two this week or next to give them a try. I like flash cards.
That's it...for the kids, anyway. I'm always learning, and if I posted everything I'm learning on this blog...well, you wouldn't have time to read it. LOL! I'm sure most think these entries are too long as it is.
Jade learned how to write a book report (a short one), learned how to compare and contrast, and learned how to classify things. He's done four Explode the Code lessons (he does one every 1st and 6th day of the week), and he's still doing well on those.
I bought a good used hardback copy of Swiss Family Robinson. I found it for a penny on Amazon, and with shipping it was just $4.00, which is still a great deal. I'm enjoying it so far, and I think Jaden is. Trusten doesn't have much of an attention span, so he probably doesn't know much about the story. I do read it to both of them. We've so far read two chapters, and we're going through the Prepare & Pray curriculum along with it. I like the Toddler Tales, which are extremely short stories aimed toward toddlers (like Trusten) which teach good lessons. We also discuss character qualities of the characters in Swiss Family Robinson and go over discussion questions. Now, there are a lot of things listed in the P&P curriculum to do, and I don't do them all. I pick and choose which ones I want us to do. The main reason I wanted to get the curriculum and the second half called Blessed Assurance is because I wanted a Christian-based family preparedness program of study.
There are a lot of things that Nathan and I both have wanted to learn so that we can be self-sustainable if the need arises. People in our society have lost so much knowledge and ability to do things without our modern mechanical and electrical servants and our modern economic system. We want our children to learn these things as well. This curriculum will help me have an order of things so that we systematically get to everything we need to learn how to do. Of course, like I said, there are things that I'm skipping. There is a LOT of material. It's actually compiled in such a way to be the main curriculum for a homeschooling family. It's not going to function that way for us. However, I've already discovered that their approach to learning things greatly compares to my own. Anyway, from this point on when I update this blog, I'll just talk about what we did according to the P&P curriculum, but it's only the stuff I chose to do.
So far in P&P and Swiss Family Robinson:
*We learned about levers. It was mentioned in the first chapter, where father of the shipwrecked family made use of a lever to help him lift his homemade boat made of casks out of the ship and into the water. It was too heavy for him to move on his own. I located the physical science book and introductory chapter on levers in our God's Design for Science curriculum and read that lesson. I also demonstrated the use of a lever with objects in our home--ruler, rock, and cup--and we went over the terms: lever, effort arm, fulcrum, resistance, effort
*We learned that sundown near the equator happens quickly, and upon Jaden asking about the equator, I showed it to him on the globe and talked about it briefly. We also went over the term "hogshead," and I showed him pictures on Google Images. Hogshead ended up being one of the vocabulary terms in P&P, but I'm not using the vocabulary lists in there as part of our learning experience...only those things asked about.
*And we sang "Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us," a song which I've long loved. I played the music for it online.
The first day of last week Nathan went out into the cold dreary day to dig holes in the cold, hard, and rocky ground so that he could plant my eleven baby flowering trees that I received from the Arbor Day Foundation. I'm so thankful to him, as I'm not to the point where I need to be doing hard work like digging yet, but I'd wanted the trees. I hope I do a good job of taking care of them, and I hope to have more beautiful trees in a few years. The boys watched Nathan dig the holes and plant and water the trees.
*Math: One day I worked with Jade on adding and subtracting using our cuisinart rods, and I worked with Trusten on counting. Another day I had Jaden count to 100 using all pennies, then all nickels, then dimes, and finally quarters. I asked him why he thought it was necessary to have different currencies and asked whether he would want to carry 100 pennies in his pocket to pay for something that cost a dollar. I also had him count out to 25 of each coin set (except dimes, of course, and we went over why he couldn't do that with only dimes). I taught Trusten the difference between pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.
Jade and I played Bookworm (computer spelling game) one day while Trusten played with chalk on Jade's chalk board.
I'm doing United Church of God's sabbath school lessons with the boys again. I'd started to do that two years ago, but I stopped about as soon as I started. I like their format, though, so I will continue with this. I've done it two sabbaths in a row now. Each lesson includes a song, too, so I really like that. As far as bible-reading during the week, still a proverb daily. Jade sure knows the Proverbs well now. We've been reading them daily for around a year and a half now, I guess. For a long time I've stopped every so often in the reading so that he can fill in blanks (anywhere from a word to a whole verse), and he does so well. Trusten is now trying to fill in the blanks. I don't know whether I mentioned it the last time I posted, but I'm reading daily from Bible Stories to replace the bible reading (except Proverbs). That's working out quite well. I started this time in the new testament. We sometimes read from these other two new books Jade has at night before they go to bed. I almost always sing with them at bedtime: "This Little Light of Mine", "Jesus Loves the Little Children", and "Jesus Loves Me."
I'd been letting the boys watch a short bible video or other educational video during my prayer time (in another room where it's quiet w/o worrying about them getting into trouble), but they've watched almost everything we have, many of them numerous times, and my prayer time has been high-jacked over the past three or four months where it's not been so peaceful. Well, I decided I'd pick out something each day for them to watch on Youtube, and it may be something they've pondered about or if not, then something I choose. I was absolutely delighted to discover that you can make a playlist on Youtube and then set them all to play one after another (I didn't realize this before!). I love it! Last week the boys watched videos on levers, the atmosphere, hygiene, and fruits and vegetables nutrition. They learned, and I got peace!
I'd bought a couple dvds in the Drive Thru History series with Dave Stotts. They were on American History. Well, I liked them (actually haven't watched all the episodes), so I decided to buy more. I bought the four I know that he's done for world history: Ancient Greece, Rome if You Want To, Turkey, and East Meets the West. We've watched the entire video on Greece and two of the three episodes on Rome. I REALLY like these! Jade seems to think they're okay now...I'm hoping he'll like them more as he gets older. I'd been telling Nathan about the other two and said I thought he'd like them, too, so one afternoon he got home early, and we watched the Greece together. We watched most of the one on Rome yesterday. The apostle Paul was mentioned quite a bit, and I appreciated how Dave made the point that Paul was one of the most influential persons in history. Also, he made it clear that the bible should be the most trusted source of history. These videos are great; I highly recommend them.
Jade has just about worn out the chess-playing. He loves to play chess on the computer. He also loves this art site where there are so many activities to do. It's called The Art Zone. Between those two things and Clever Island (which I think has almost come to and end of serving its purpose for him), he gets plenty of computer time (but I do limit it!). It's time to get an Internet filter installed, we think. He can navigate the Internet himself, and I'm afraid of him accidentally getting somewhere he ought not to be.
Oh! I about forgot about all my flash cards. I was upset that Trusten had apparently thrown our alphabet flashcards out of the Jeep one day ( I found them one day at the side of the path in the woods, and they'd been ruined by rain). But, my mother in law had bought a whole set of different flash cards, and hey, there are some for the alphabet! Trusten still doesn't know his alphabet, which is no big deal, but he's showing signs that he really needs to know it, as then he'd understand things better. He learns most things later than Jade, but I think that's typical of the birth order. I'm excited, though, because there are flash cards on money and time and measure. Woo-hoo! I'm going to open those two this week or next to give them a try. I like flash cards.
That's it...for the kids, anyway. I'm always learning, and if I posted everything I'm learning on this blog...well, you wouldn't have time to read it. LOL! I'm sure most think these entries are too long as it is.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Spices, Hopscotch, and Spaceships
Since the last post....
We read about cloves, which are one of the spices I use in making pumpkin pie. Jaden wanted to know what the plant looked like. The flowers are a pretty red; the flower buds are dried when completely ripe and then ground. Cloves are very popular in food and drug use around the world. Something even I learned was that clove cigarettes were just recently banned a couple months ago in the United States. Our FDA is certainly ban-crazy...all except for the stuff that is really causing serious harm to people in the way of food and drugs. What hypocrites. What's most ironic is that the supposed reason for banning clove in cigarette usage, along with any other natural or artificial flavoring in tobacco cigarettes, is to reduce the number of young people getting hooked on tobacco. I guess banning tobacco usage didn't cross their minds (or the bribes the lawmakers receive from the tobacco companies are just too nice to refuse). Not that I think tobacco should be banned; I don't, although I'm not sure yet whether there is a real worthwhile use for it. I do know that it is terribly abused, and it's a rather poisonous-smelling incense.
We read about chili peppers. We went on a quick trip to town after last sabbath, which was my first trip to Rogers in six weeks or longer. I think Jaden saw a chili pepper on a sign, and he asked about them. Chili peppers refer to any peppers of the Capsicum genus in the Solanaceae family. I showed Jade what a cayenne pepper looked like fresh and told him what we have in the cabinet is the ground product from the dried fruit. Chilis are also used widely around the world for both food and drug usage. I learned something, too. I didn't realize paprika was any type of chili pepper ground. I had mistakenly thought that paprika was a species of its own in the Capsicum genus, but that's not true. Paprika is a general term for any sort of ground chili pepper, and so it naturally varies from mild to hot flavors. Different parts of the world use different flavors of paprika.
Jaden asked about hopscotch when I was reading one of his Berenstain Bear books to the boys. Sooo, I taught him how to play hopscotch. I wanted to teach it to Trusten, too, but he wondered off across the yard to his new tricycle. When he came back, I'd already explained the rules, and he just started walking through it. I constructed it out of tape in the rocky driveway, and we used a metal nut as a marker. I'd like to have a cement slab poured in the near future for a basketball goal, anyway, which will also be good for things like hopscotch, where we can draw it with sidewalk chalk. I didn't really make the squares big enough, but it was suitable enough to teach him how to play. He didn't play correctly at first; he didn't understand that he was to place both feet in the double squares, so at first he hopped in them each with one foot. He needs practice! (And bigger squares...my foot touched the tape borders just stepping in it.)
Jaden had learned how to write a story the week before last in language arts. Last week he learned to write: a poem, a description, a friendly letter, and a how-to. This week he will learn to write a book report; we just haven't done any language arts book work this week yet.
Jade asked me how fast a rocket goes when launched into space. The first thing I found was how fast a space shuttle flies when in orbit around the earth, which is 17,500 miles an hour! I finally found the answer that he really wanted, which is known as the earth's "escape velocity": 11.2 kilometers a second, which is about 7 miles a second!
Speaking of spaceships, last Thursday evening Nathan, the boys, and I went outside to watch the space shuttle (Alexandria, I think it's called) and the International Space Station drift across the sky. It's not something you see every day, and the boys sure enjoyed it!
Jade also helped me make bread last week. He watched, and then I let him do some kneading. I pulled the recliner over to the kitchen counter, and Trusten and I sat there together watching Jaden, until I decided I should take over.
Trusten was flipping through the Curious George book that has several stories, and he asked me about a page, and I saw that it went through the entire alphabet in an interesting way. I'd not known that was in there. Several of the stories in that particular book are the same stories we have in individual CG books, so I have never been through the whole book. It looks more enjoyable than any of the other alphabet books we have. And it's certainly something new. I haven't worked much with him in awhile with regards to learning the Roman alphabet, and I think if I get back to that now it will take no time for him to learn it. We're about to read this while Jaden is outside. I have just assigned Jaden to a scavenger hunt, which I will talk about in my next post.
Jaden LOVES winter fun of "busting ice" as well as playing in the snow when we get it. He's actually prayed for an ice storm before! (YIKES!) WE don't like ice storms, but for him it means ice, ice, and more ice for him to bust! Well, we haven't had an ice storm this year...yet, anyway. But, he's already started his ice busting and outdoors winter exploration. He asks me every morning that there's frost on the ground whether he can go out and bust ice, and he goes out to do that FIRST thing, before we even get to breakfast, because he wants to get out "before all the ice melts." Last winter (or maybe two years ago) I let him have our old purple plastic pitcher (b/c we only like to store and drink out of glass). He likes to put water in it and freeze it in our freezer so he can then take it out to "bust ice." He's been doing a lot of that, since there's been limited ice to bust outside, and he simply cannot wait.
His newest ice-busting tool is a piece of wood that was part of a board. Ooooh, no, Nathan was gathering logs last night to build a fire in the wood stove, and Jade happened to see him bringing in that piece of wood, too, that Nathan evidently picked up from the back deck. Will shouted, "That's my ice buster! That's my ice buster!" I'm so glad he caught him, because I'd have never heard the end of that. It would have been crying and wailing, "Daddy burned my ice buster!"
He brought inside a lovely ice formation a few days ago. It was made up of several thin layers of ice upon each other. He said that it grew on a plant:
He also drew a nice goat. His December issue of Your Big Backyard came in, and it sometimes has something to draw with those four-step instructions. There was a mountain goat in there this time, and he decided to try to draw one. I LOVE it! I told him that I really liked it, and so he gave me his drawing. I have it hanging on the fridge for now. Nathan told me privately that he really liked Jade's goat, too.
Nathan got an old non-working Mac computer, and it's been sitting on the back deck for many weeks now. Jade finally brought it in last Saturday evening, and they started disassembling it in the boys' room. Trusten wanted to be a part of it, too (naturally). Jade loves taking things apart. The bad thing about it, though, is that he likes to just start tearing up things, so it ended before it was meant to. Nathan said, "We're done. You're trying to tear it up rather than learn about it." Too bad. Maybe it will be continued later.
As far as Jade's computer time goes, he's been playing a lot of chess lately. He started playing that a few weeks ago, and he's obsessed, I think. He plays Clever Island usually when he gets out of the shower while I go shower and get Trusten clean. Chess has seemingly caused him to forget his other computer games.
I'll be updating the things we've been learning in science, the bible, and Prepare and Pray in the next post. After all, I don't want to write a book here, now do I? ;-)
We read about cloves, which are one of the spices I use in making pumpkin pie. Jaden wanted to know what the plant looked like. The flowers are a pretty red; the flower buds are dried when completely ripe and then ground. Cloves are very popular in food and drug use around the world. Something even I learned was that clove cigarettes were just recently banned a couple months ago in the United States. Our FDA is certainly ban-crazy...all except for the stuff that is really causing serious harm to people in the way of food and drugs. What hypocrites. What's most ironic is that the supposed reason for banning clove in cigarette usage, along with any other natural or artificial flavoring in tobacco cigarettes, is to reduce the number of young people getting hooked on tobacco. I guess banning tobacco usage didn't cross their minds (or the bribes the lawmakers receive from the tobacco companies are just too nice to refuse). Not that I think tobacco should be banned; I don't, although I'm not sure yet whether there is a real worthwhile use for it. I do know that it is terribly abused, and it's a rather poisonous-smelling incense.
We read about chili peppers. We went on a quick trip to town after last sabbath, which was my first trip to Rogers in six weeks or longer. I think Jaden saw a chili pepper on a sign, and he asked about them. Chili peppers refer to any peppers of the Capsicum genus in the Solanaceae family. I showed Jade what a cayenne pepper looked like fresh and told him what we have in the cabinet is the ground product from the dried fruit. Chilis are also used widely around the world for both food and drug usage. I learned something, too. I didn't realize paprika was any type of chili pepper ground. I had mistakenly thought that paprika was a species of its own in the Capsicum genus, but that's not true. Paprika is a general term for any sort of ground chili pepper, and so it naturally varies from mild to hot flavors. Different parts of the world use different flavors of paprika.
Jaden asked about hopscotch when I was reading one of his Berenstain Bear books to the boys. Sooo, I taught him how to play hopscotch. I wanted to teach it to Trusten, too, but he wondered off across the yard to his new tricycle. When he came back, I'd already explained the rules, and he just started walking through it. I constructed it out of tape in the rocky driveway, and we used a metal nut as a marker. I'd like to have a cement slab poured in the near future for a basketball goal, anyway, which will also be good for things like hopscotch, where we can draw it with sidewalk chalk. I didn't really make the squares big enough, but it was suitable enough to teach him how to play. He didn't play correctly at first; he didn't understand that he was to place both feet in the double squares, so at first he hopped in them each with one foot. He needs practice! (And bigger squares...my foot touched the tape borders just stepping in it.)
Jade asked me how fast a rocket goes when launched into space. The first thing I found was how fast a space shuttle flies when in orbit around the earth, which is 17,500 miles an hour! I finally found the answer that he really wanted, which is known as the earth's "escape velocity": 11.2 kilometers a second, which is about 7 miles a second!
Speaking of spaceships, last Thursday evening Nathan, the boys, and I went outside to watch the space shuttle (Alexandria, I think it's called) and the International Space Station drift across the sky. It's not something you see every day, and the boys sure enjoyed it!
Jade also helped me make bread last week. He watched, and then I let him do some kneading. I pulled the recliner over to the kitchen counter, and Trusten and I sat there together watching Jaden, until I decided I should take over.
Trusten was flipping through the Curious George book that has several stories, and he asked me about a page, and I saw that it went through the entire alphabet in an interesting way. I'd not known that was in there. Several of the stories in that particular book are the same stories we have in individual CG books, so I have never been through the whole book. It looks more enjoyable than any of the other alphabet books we have. And it's certainly something new. I haven't worked much with him in awhile with regards to learning the Roman alphabet, and I think if I get back to that now it will take no time for him to learn it. We're about to read this while Jaden is outside. I have just assigned Jaden to a scavenger hunt, which I will talk about in my next post.
Jaden LOVES winter fun of "busting ice" as well as playing in the snow when we get it. He's actually prayed for an ice storm before! (YIKES!) WE don't like ice storms, but for him it means ice, ice, and more ice for him to bust! Well, we haven't had an ice storm this year...yet, anyway. But, he's already started his ice busting and outdoors winter exploration. He asks me every morning that there's frost on the ground whether he can go out and bust ice, and he goes out to do that FIRST thing, before we even get to breakfast, because he wants to get out "before all the ice melts." Last winter (or maybe two years ago) I let him have our old purple plastic pitcher (b/c we only like to store and drink out of glass). He likes to put water in it and freeze it in our freezer so he can then take it out to "bust ice." He's been doing a lot of that, since there's been limited ice to bust outside, and he simply cannot wait.
His newest ice-busting tool is a piece of wood that was part of a board. Ooooh, no, Nathan was gathering logs last night to build a fire in the wood stove, and Jade happened to see him bringing in that piece of wood, too, that Nathan evidently picked up from the back deck. Will shouted, "That's my ice buster! That's my ice buster!" I'm so glad he caught him, because I'd have never heard the end of that. It would have been crying and wailing, "Daddy burned my ice buster!"
He brought inside a lovely ice formation a few days ago. It was made up of several thin layers of ice upon each other. He said that it grew on a plant:
He also drew a nice goat. His December issue of Your Big Backyard came in, and it sometimes has something to draw with those four-step instructions. There was a mountain goat in there this time, and he decided to try to draw one. I LOVE it! I told him that I really liked it, and so he gave me his drawing. I have it hanging on the fridge for now. Nathan told me privately that he really liked Jade's goat, too.
I have really enjoyed some of his recent artwork. I love art; I just do not excel at it myself. So, I love others' art; I just don't like to do art.
Nathan got an old non-working Mac computer, and it's been sitting on the back deck for many weeks now. Jade finally brought it in last Saturday evening, and they started disassembling it in the boys' room. Trusten wanted to be a part of it, too (naturally). Jade loves taking things apart. The bad thing about it, though, is that he likes to just start tearing up things, so it ended before it was meant to. Nathan said, "We're done. You're trying to tear it up rather than learn about it." Too bad. Maybe it will be continued later.
As far as Jade's computer time goes, he's been playing a lot of chess lately. He started playing that a few weeks ago, and he's obsessed, I think. He plays Clever Island usually when he gets out of the shower while I go shower and get Trusten clean. Chess has seemingly caused him to forget his other computer games.
I'll be updating the things we've been learning in science, the bible, and Prepare and Pray in the next post. After all, I don't want to write a book here, now do I? ;-)
Friday, November 20, 2009
Yet More to Post!
I have a few minutes to post a bit more.
I actually got out the microscope this week so that we could look at some insects that we collected, namely a Diana fritillary butterfly (female), honeybee, and yellow jacket wasp. I'm going to try to include them in the animal notebook in some way. I think I'm going to try using laminating sheets to put them down on paper. I'm not sure whether that will work or not. If anyone has a clever idea, please do share.
I also wanted to share some pictures of Trusten painting. He gets really excited about it. But, one of my programs apparently doesn't like the photos. I'll upload two of them, though, without that stupid program.
AND, we're going to start Prepare and Pray with Nathan. I'll talk more about that in my next post!
I actually got out the microscope this week so that we could look at some insects that we collected, namely a Diana fritillary butterfly (female), honeybee, and yellow jacket wasp. I'm going to try to include them in the animal notebook in some way. I think I'm going to try using laminating sheets to put them down on paper. I'm not sure whether that will work or not. If anyone has a clever idea, please do share.
I also wanted to share some pictures of Trusten painting. He gets really excited about it. But, one of my programs apparently doesn't like the photos. I'll upload two of them, though, without that stupid program.
AND, we're going to start Prepare and Pray with Nathan. I'll talk more about that in my next post!
Back to Work After Baby
While I had two weeks off of schooling after the birth of my sweet baby girl Liv, Will did some spelling lessons out of his Grade 1 Complete Curriculum book and some Explode the Code lessons. He's on a new Explode the Code book now, he's nearly finished with spelling, nearly finished with language arts, and he finished math this week.
I have energy returned, now that I'm no longer pregnant. We're not planning any more children as of now. I will concentrate on these three wonderful blessings that I have. And I want to get the FULL joy of mothering back that I had for Will's first two years. (Side note: I may use Jade/Jaden and Will/William interchangeably. I call him Jaden, usually, but I've been calling him Will when I talk about him to Nathan and others. Nathan calls him William, regardless of whether he likes it, which I think is his right, since he's his father and decides. Anyway, SAME fellow! :-) Anyway, it's just been one thing after another. We lost our son Asher in late 2005, when Will was nearly 2.5. I'd had a horrible third trimester of pregnancy, and then I felt great afterward until we dealt with his death a couple weeks after. When I was finally managing to get back to normal, I became pregnant with Trusten, and I'm never 100% during pregnancy (though I usually do well in the second trimester). Things were pretty good, though, again, for awhile...until he was born. I had the worst postpartum period with him. I hemorrhaged after birth and was white and weak for weeks afterward. I was also sleep-deprived, b/c he never slept well. He woke up numerous times each night for over a year, plus he was very difficult in many other ways. I survived it all, though.
But, I hold my self to really high standards, and I just did not function the way I wanted for so long. I started lacking in my mothering skills, lacking in cooking (didn't have as much time nor energy), etc. Now, Trusten got better as he aged, and he's now fairly easy to deal with (for ME, especially compared to what I dealt with in the past with him...he may still be difficult for others). But, I was pregnant again for nine months. I became somewhat grouchy during this last pregnancy. Okay...in my opinion I was just a bitch to my children many times. That is just putting it bluntly. That's just the way it was. I HATE that. I strive to be perfect in all things, but I certainly haven't felt perfect in that...just so different than what I have been like in the past. Now maybe the world still thinks that I've been a good mother, and maybe compared to the average mother that's true, but I don't live to the world's standards; I strive to live to higher standards. So, regardless of how I've compared to the average mother, it's still been bitchy in God's sight...and in my own.
With the birth of Liv, combined with returning energy levels and boosted confidence after so many times in prayer, I really feel like I can return to the days of extreme motherhood happiness that I had with Will during his first 2 to 2.5 years. Of course, it doesn't just happen. It takes effort on my part.
As I know I've mentioned in the past, I don't deal well with rigorous scheduling. On one hand, there are many things that I need to have a somewhat schedule for, and I even keep a planner. BUT, in the LIFESTYLE OF LEARNING, one cannot schedule everything. I don't wake up every morning knowing each and every thing that I will learn that day or will desire to learn. There may be some things that I pre-planned to learn about, but there are other things that just happen to come up during the day, and I then seek out what I need or want to know.
THIS is how it is...at least in my world. All the days of my life I've always been a person of study and observation. I love to grow in knowledge, and the only enemy is time. I believe a person is meant to grow in knowledge until the day he's no longer able to do so, usually at death. I've been asked by several persons over the past few years, "How can you do everything you do?" The truth is that there is so much more I'd like to be able to do and cannot because of time restraints or lack of knowledge or experience. But, to all those who wonder how I do everything I do, I think it's probably because I don't spend several hours each day watching doomsday news programs and vulgar dumbing-you-down sitcoms...or I guess it's the reality tv shows that dominate tv now. We don't have television programming in our home and haven't in several years. We actually went w/o a television set for 2.5 years and then decided to buy a new one to watch dvds of wise choosing. Because, you see, I often ask myself the following question: "How do people have the time to watch that much tv?" It's not that I have any more time than the next person. I'm under the same curse. It's just that my priorities are radically different. My priority isn't to be entertained with utter stupidity but rather to be enlightened with absolute knowledge.
Now, for the most part, as I've mentioned before and most people know, I hated the public school system. Of course, it was probably delightful compared to now. My early years weren't so bad, and there were parts I liked all throughout school, but overall I hated it. That system destroys the natural love of learning with which children have. Thankfully, I didn't lose mine. My time outside of school was spent studying and playing. I had a great imagination and so engaged in a lot of imaginary play and invented several games for my sister and myself to play. I liked to explore outside. I also loved to read and research. These things haven't changed.
I want my children to be able to live that kind of life ALL the time, because they do not have the enormous chunk of time stolen from them from the United States government school system. All I really want them to be concerned about is God's appointed government over them, namely their parents. I don't want to destroy their love of learning. Kids naturally want to learn! They ask what seems like a million questions every day! So, since I'm "back with the program" so to say, I'd like to spend most of our time just following their interests from day to day and teaching them the basics like reading and researching so that they can more easily find out what they want to know themselves.
What this means is that I'm probably about to can grade levels. Well, perhaps I shouldn't say I'm going to can them, but what I mean is that I won't say that A, B, and C need to be finished before a specified date. Besides, there are things that we've already done that already fall into that category. For example, the plant binder that we started this summer is an ongoing project. We'll keep adding to it.
Soooo...I'm glad about this. I'm sure my kids are, too. We've had some fun, but it's been mostly not fun the past few months, as I just wasn't in a "fun" mood during the pregnancy and just needed Jaden to sit down and do book work.
Now, to sum up what we did over the past week:
As I said, Will has finished a lot of his book work this year, and for math the remainder of this month (reckoned by the moon in this case and not Roman time, so in other words until mid-December) we'll be practicing adding and subtracting using rods, blocks, and other objects; practicing time on a play clock; practicing money and buying by playing "Store;" and practicing measuring by having him measure various objects around the house with a ruler, using both inches and centimeters.
We've been going through lessons in his animal science book in the God's Design series. Trusten participates in these lessons, too. We're finished with mammals and have started on birds. Will drew feet and beaks for several different types of birds, since God gave them different beaks and feet for different applications. We also learned about the different kinds of feathers: down, contour, and flight.
I made a cover for Jaden's animal notebook that we'll be working on together. I asked him what animal picture he wanted on front, and he said he wanted a picture of two penguins, so we found one. He has cut out some photos of animals from two or three old Wild Animal Baby magazines that were falling apart and that Trusten helped along. I'd collected the pages to save back for this. Here's a picture of the front of his binder:
We read the November issues of Wild Animal Baby and Your Big Backyard. One of the things discussed in the latter this time was the differences in antlers and horns and identifying deer by their different antlers. I thought this was interesting, since it was less than a month ago when I read to Jaden the differences between antlers and horns and let him play a game of matching horns and antlers to the correct animals. The game is found online here.
We baked a pumpkin so that I could make pumpkin pies. We even took guesses as to how many seeds were in the pumpkin, and then we counted them. I can't even remember the exact number there were, but it was just over 500. Will helped scrape the pulp out and put it in the food processor.
Trusten got to study the shells I keep in my kitchen while I helped Will with language arts one day. When Will was Trusten's age he asked me all the time to get the shells down for him so that he could look at them. When we talk about shelled animals, I'll get them down so that we can all study them closely together. There are several different kinds that I have.
I had bought a Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? game for William a few years ago. I decided this week that it was time to get it out and play it with him. Well, there was one part that kept messing up, and it appeared to be screwing up our computer! I decided to just stop before we lost something important. I told him he could try it in his computer if he wanted. LOL! Anyway, I told him I would try to find a download for the DOS original Carmen Sandiego game...the one I played as a child. That was one of my favorite games. I learned so much from that game. I love geography, and I love playing a detective. I was probably about eight years old when I started playing, and I taught myself. I would use our encyclopedias to look up what I needed to know. I found the game and was able to download it! Yay!
We're nearing the end of Matthew in the bible, and we're still reading a proverb each day...that doesn't change. ;-) Sometimes Jaden grabs his own bible and opens to where we are, and he sometimes decides to read a bit. Awesome! I have not yet ever made him read, but I let him when he wants to do so. He decides to do so himself. He does a pretty good job, too.
Oh, there was one day I was sick over a week ago...before I started doing any school again. I couldn't do a whole lot of anything, so the kids watched videos almost all day. They watched some Blue Planet, some Reading Rainbow, and then got on the computer and watched some "How It's Made" videos on the Science Channel website. Jade loves those, and he learns!
That's it for now. This was a LOOOONG post, and I couldn't even finish it in one sitting.
I'll end it with a picture that I like of Jaden William looking at a Wheels and Wings book (planes, helicopters, monster trucks, etc.):
I have energy returned, now that I'm no longer pregnant. We're not planning any more children as of now. I will concentrate on these three wonderful blessings that I have. And I want to get the FULL joy of mothering back that I had for Will's first two years. (Side note: I may use Jade/Jaden and Will/William interchangeably. I call him Jaden, usually, but I've been calling him Will when I talk about him to Nathan and others. Nathan calls him William, regardless of whether he likes it, which I think is his right, since he's his father and decides. Anyway, SAME fellow! :-) Anyway, it's just been one thing after another. We lost our son Asher in late 2005, when Will was nearly 2.5. I'd had a horrible third trimester of pregnancy, and then I felt great afterward until we dealt with his death a couple weeks after. When I was finally managing to get back to normal, I became pregnant with Trusten, and I'm never 100% during pregnancy (though I usually do well in the second trimester). Things were pretty good, though, again, for awhile...until he was born. I had the worst postpartum period with him. I hemorrhaged after birth and was white and weak for weeks afterward. I was also sleep-deprived, b/c he never slept well. He woke up numerous times each night for over a year, plus he was very difficult in many other ways. I survived it all, though.
But, I hold my self to really high standards, and I just did not function the way I wanted for so long. I started lacking in my mothering skills, lacking in cooking (didn't have as much time nor energy), etc. Now, Trusten got better as he aged, and he's now fairly easy to deal with (for ME, especially compared to what I dealt with in the past with him...he may still be difficult for others). But, I was pregnant again for nine months. I became somewhat grouchy during this last pregnancy. Okay...in my opinion I was just a bitch to my children many times. That is just putting it bluntly. That's just the way it was. I HATE that. I strive to be perfect in all things, but I certainly haven't felt perfect in that...just so different than what I have been like in the past. Now maybe the world still thinks that I've been a good mother, and maybe compared to the average mother that's true, but I don't live to the world's standards; I strive to live to higher standards. So, regardless of how I've compared to the average mother, it's still been bitchy in God's sight...and in my own.
With the birth of Liv, combined with returning energy levels and boosted confidence after so many times in prayer, I really feel like I can return to the days of extreme motherhood happiness that I had with Will during his first 2 to 2.5 years. Of course, it doesn't just happen. It takes effort on my part.
As I know I've mentioned in the past, I don't deal well with rigorous scheduling. On one hand, there are many things that I need to have a somewhat schedule for, and I even keep a planner. BUT, in the LIFESTYLE OF LEARNING, one cannot schedule everything. I don't wake up every morning knowing each and every thing that I will learn that day or will desire to learn. There may be some things that I pre-planned to learn about, but there are other things that just happen to come up during the day, and I then seek out what I need or want to know.
THIS is how it is...at least in my world. All the days of my life I've always been a person of study and observation. I love to grow in knowledge, and the only enemy is time. I believe a person is meant to grow in knowledge until the day he's no longer able to do so, usually at death. I've been asked by several persons over the past few years, "How can you do everything you do?" The truth is that there is so much more I'd like to be able to do and cannot because of time restraints or lack of knowledge or experience. But, to all those who wonder how I do everything I do, I think it's probably because I don't spend several hours each day watching doomsday news programs and vulgar dumbing-you-down sitcoms...or I guess it's the reality tv shows that dominate tv now. We don't have television programming in our home and haven't in several years. We actually went w/o a television set for 2.5 years and then decided to buy a new one to watch dvds of wise choosing. Because, you see, I often ask myself the following question: "How do people have the time to watch that much tv?" It's not that I have any more time than the next person. I'm under the same curse. It's just that my priorities are radically different. My priority isn't to be entertained with utter stupidity but rather to be enlightened with absolute knowledge.
Now, for the most part, as I've mentioned before and most people know, I hated the public school system. Of course, it was probably delightful compared to now. My early years weren't so bad, and there were parts I liked all throughout school, but overall I hated it. That system destroys the natural love of learning with which children have. Thankfully, I didn't lose mine. My time outside of school was spent studying and playing. I had a great imagination and so engaged in a lot of imaginary play and invented several games for my sister and myself to play. I liked to explore outside. I also loved to read and research. These things haven't changed.
I want my children to be able to live that kind of life ALL the time, because they do not have the enormous chunk of time stolen from them from the United States government school system. All I really want them to be concerned about is God's appointed government over them, namely their parents. I don't want to destroy their love of learning. Kids naturally want to learn! They ask what seems like a million questions every day! So, since I'm "back with the program" so to say, I'd like to spend most of our time just following their interests from day to day and teaching them the basics like reading and researching so that they can more easily find out what they want to know themselves.
What this means is that I'm probably about to can grade levels. Well, perhaps I shouldn't say I'm going to can them, but what I mean is that I won't say that A, B, and C need to be finished before a specified date. Besides, there are things that we've already done that already fall into that category. For example, the plant binder that we started this summer is an ongoing project. We'll keep adding to it.
Soooo...I'm glad about this. I'm sure my kids are, too. We've had some fun, but it's been mostly not fun the past few months, as I just wasn't in a "fun" mood during the pregnancy and just needed Jaden to sit down and do book work.
Now, to sum up what we did over the past week:
As I said, Will has finished a lot of his book work this year, and for math the remainder of this month (reckoned by the moon in this case and not Roman time, so in other words until mid-December) we'll be practicing adding and subtracting using rods, blocks, and other objects; practicing time on a play clock; practicing money and buying by playing "Store;" and practicing measuring by having him measure various objects around the house with a ruler, using both inches and centimeters.
We've been going through lessons in his animal science book in the God's Design series. Trusten participates in these lessons, too. We're finished with mammals and have started on birds. Will drew feet and beaks for several different types of birds, since God gave them different beaks and feet for different applications. We also learned about the different kinds of feathers: down, contour, and flight.
I made a cover for Jaden's animal notebook that we'll be working on together. I asked him what animal picture he wanted on front, and he said he wanted a picture of two penguins, so we found one. He has cut out some photos of animals from two or three old Wild Animal Baby magazines that were falling apart and that Trusten helped along. I'd collected the pages to save back for this. Here's a picture of the front of his binder:
I have planned for just Will and I to take some nature walks through our woods on a few sabbaths this winter while Nathan stays in the house with Trust and Liv. We'll take the camera to take pictures...including pictures of animals to add to the notebook, I hope! I've taken some pictures of squirrels over the past couple of weeks, as we see a lot of them. I got a couple pictures of a chipmunk yesterday. What a joy that was!
And check this out....
A hornet nest! Will spotted this and was so excited to show it to us.
We read the November issues of Wild Animal Baby and Your Big Backyard. One of the things discussed in the latter this time was the differences in antlers and horns and identifying deer by their different antlers. I thought this was interesting, since it was less than a month ago when I read to Jaden the differences between antlers and horns and let him play a game of matching horns and antlers to the correct animals. The game is found online here.
We baked a pumpkin so that I could make pumpkin pies. We even took guesses as to how many seeds were in the pumpkin, and then we counted them. I can't even remember the exact number there were, but it was just over 500. Will helped scrape the pulp out and put it in the food processor.
Trusten got to study the shells I keep in my kitchen while I helped Will with language arts one day. When Will was Trusten's age he asked me all the time to get the shells down for him so that he could look at them. When we talk about shelled animals, I'll get them down so that we can all study them closely together. There are several different kinds that I have.
I had bought a Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? game for William a few years ago. I decided this week that it was time to get it out and play it with him. Well, there was one part that kept messing up, and it appeared to be screwing up our computer! I decided to just stop before we lost something important. I told him he could try it in his computer if he wanted. LOL! Anyway, I told him I would try to find a download for the DOS original Carmen Sandiego game...the one I played as a child. That was one of my favorite games. I learned so much from that game. I love geography, and I love playing a detective. I was probably about eight years old when I started playing, and I taught myself. I would use our encyclopedias to look up what I needed to know. I found the game and was able to download it! Yay! It won't work on a Mac, so I unzipped it on our computer and then transferred it to a cd and burned it so that he could play it on his computer. It works! How fun. I have just recently started teaching him dictionary skills, so playing this game will aid in that, b/c he needs to use dictionary skills in order to use our set of encyclopedias. That's right. I'm making him use the hard copy encyclopedias. Regardless of our computer age, he needs to learn how to do it the old school way. Now, they are out of date, so we've had to come to this computer to access the Internet a couple times. But, I want him to use those first. I also showed him one of the atlases that we'd bought for him; it has all the flags for the different nations in the back. I'd used an encyclopedia for that when I was a child. Anyway, it's a great way to learn capitals, flags, and all sorts of other things about different countries and cities around the world. AND it's fun!
We're nearing the end of Matthew in the bible, and we're still reading a proverb each day...that doesn't change. ;-) Sometimes Jaden grabs his own bible and opens to where we are, and he sometimes decides to read a bit. Awesome! I have not yet ever made him read, but I let him when he wants to do so. He decides to do so himself. He does a pretty good job, too.
Oh, there was one day I was sick over a week ago...before I started doing any school again. I couldn't do a whole lot of anything, so the kids watched videos almost all day. They watched some Blue Planet, some Reading Rainbow, and then got on the computer and watched some "How It's Made" videos on the Science Channel website. Jade loves those, and he learns!
That's it for now. This was a LOOOONG post, and I couldn't even finish it in one sitting.
I'll end it with a picture that I like of Jaden William looking at a Wheels and Wings book (planes, helicopters, monster trucks, etc.):
Friday, October 23, 2009
Playing "Store", Plus Cooking More Pancakes and Fixing a New Moon PB Pie
Jaden has finished all his book work for this year on money, which was only counting pennies, nickels, and dimes. But, I've been teaching him a little about other currency. He'll have more book work on this next year and will be doing more than pennies, nickels, and dimes then.
I had planned to play "Store" with him this Wednesday, but my midwife had canceled my Tues. appt. and then called Wednesday to see whether she could come then, and I've gotten up late every day this week (soon to have this baby and been getting to bed later since Nathan has worked late to get a job done). So, I had to re-plan some things. Thursday I set up a bookstore. I took sticky notes and put different prices on them for different categories of books, dvds, and even lollipops! I then adhered the notes to the shelves on three of our four bookcases. I cut out the play money that I'd previously printed from Printable Play Money. And then I got some real U.S. currency coins out of one of our storage containers. I decided to give Jaden $10.27: a five-dollar bill, 4 one-dollar bills, 3 quarters, 3 dimes, 3 nickels, and 7 pennies. I then gave him one of our cloth grocery bags, and shopping he went, with his "child" or "kid brother" (Trusten) at his heels, whining for him to buy him a lollipop! It was so funny. Jaden did get them each a lollipop, but then he had to tell Trusten that he couldn't have it until he paid for it. Trusten was being impatient. ;-)
As Jaden moved to the second section of the store, he saw the most expensive book category. While looking at the price on the shelf and having a book halfway pulled out from the shelf, he pushed the book back in, while muttering aloud, "I guess this one is too expensive." :-) I got so cracked up! (Those in that category were $2.10, I think. That was the most expensive, and the cheapest store category were $.03 books.) He also took a science book down and flipped through it, just as a customer would do in a real bookstore. I was getting so tickled. He played the part of a real consumer so well, and his little sidekick played the part of a kid so well!
Sadly, my camera's batteries went dead, and the only picture I took of Jaden in the third section of the bookstore did not come out. I had to stop to get batteries just so that I could take pictures of his checkout experience. The checkout was at our computer desk, where I had my calculator ready. I gathered the tags throughout the store (lol) and sat down in the chair to tally his purchase. He placed his things on the desk, and it was so hilarious! As he placed one particular children's book on the stack, he got a puzzled look on his face and said, "Hey, I didn't want this book; I didn't get this." All I could do was laugh. We both realized, of course, how that book got in his bag. It was that kid, of course! LOL! I got such pleasure out of that, since I have, on two or three occasions, made it to the checkout only to take something out of the cart that I had not wanted but that a kid had snuck in the cart.
He wanted to help make the peanut butter pie the other day for the new moon. Trusten insisted on being a part of it. (I didn't take a picture of the pie until after I put the plastic lid on it [used premade graham cracker crust]....oh, well. So, that's what those little number looking things across the pie are all about.)
Jaden also made a beautiful art picture with water paints this week. I haven't taken a picture of it. He'd been talking about art, and Nathan told him about Bob Ross, and they watched some Youtube videos together of Bob Ross painting. Well, Jaden decided he would try to paint an evergreen tree like Bob Ross. He made an awesome picture of evergreen trees, plus a deciduous tree of some sort, a pond with a deer drinking, and then he and his daddy, and his daddy had a gun pointed at the deer. I think he did a great job. I have it hanging on the refrigerator.
Trusten is doing so much better on his colors, he can count a little, and he will proudly tell you his left from his right (especially his cute little feet). He spends as much time playing with vehicles as Jaden spends building with blocks. He likes looking at pictures of animals. I have a book I read to them about animals, so they're learning more about animals together (this is in addition to Jaden's main science book on animals), and it has really good pictures of all sorts of animals. They also each get their monthly subscription (from my grandpa) of Wild Animal Babies and Your Big Backyard. We all love reading those together each month. I enjoy them as much as the boys (or at least the Big Backyard one).
Jaden is doing well with his Explode the Code, his spelling lessons, and he really likes math. He doesn't much care for language arts, but I sit with him as he works on those lessons so that I can assist him when he needs help, and he does fairly well with it. He didn't do his animal science quiz the other day, so he has to do that today. We have not officially started Prepare and Pray...for various reasons. I think we're just going to wait until the beginning of next year (sometime in Jan. or Feb.). He will have a lighter load on his math, spelling, and lang. arts (but he'll have reading work added back), so it will be easier then. At some point next year he'll be finished with Explode the Code. He's only doing it twice a week right now, but I've decided to not make him do the remaining 1/2 books, which is just more practice for the main levels. I think I will use those books for Trusten and not buy the main levels for the 1/2 numbers I have left. It's just too much book work on top of the other stuff Jaden already has scheduled for him next year...in my opinion (and definitely in his). He's doing SO well with reading and becoming ever better with his writing. I can tell Nathan is definitely pleased in what he sees. :-)
I'm not sure whether I've mentioned it here or not, but I stopped reading the prophets to Jaden, and I skipped on to Matthew. Sometimes Jaden decides he wants to read some of it aloud. It won't be long until he can read the bible by himself, and then I'll have him keep a journal at that time. I'm hoping sometime next year he can start doing that. And of course, we're still daily reading Proverbs.
Since we're not doing the prophets, anymore, I will start reading the Bible Stories book each sabbath now, instead of only reading in it parallel to what we've read in the bible. Also now my friend Keith bought Jaden two children's biblical books, and so I'm reading those to the boys during the week. I haven't done so every day, but I'd like to make time to read them each night to them. So far they seem like really neat books.
We've not been doing Rocket Readers on a regular basis, but I'd like to finish those up soon. Oh, and then we finally finished Jaden's Choosing Obedience book lessons last sabbath. It took forever, b/c we didn't do it every sabbath. Now we will do Choosing Thankfulness.
I've written a lot, so I'm going to stop right here. This may be the last update until after I've had the baby, and I'll be taking a two week break from school. Jaden will be taking only a partial break. He'll still do the things that he can do by himself, like Explode the Code and his spelling lessons. I can go over them all after I take my break.
I had planned to play "Store" with him this Wednesday, but my midwife had canceled my Tues. appt. and then called Wednesday to see whether she could come then, and I've gotten up late every day this week (soon to have this baby and been getting to bed later since Nathan has worked late to get a job done). So, I had to re-plan some things. Thursday I set up a bookstore. I took sticky notes and put different prices on them for different categories of books, dvds, and even lollipops! I then adhered the notes to the shelves on three of our four bookcases. I cut out the play money that I'd previously printed from Printable Play Money. And then I got some real U.S. currency coins out of one of our storage containers. I decided to give Jaden $10.27: a five-dollar bill, 4 one-dollar bills, 3 quarters, 3 dimes, 3 nickels, and 7 pennies. I then gave him one of our cloth grocery bags, and shopping he went, with his "child" or "kid brother" (Trusten) at his heels, whining for him to buy him a lollipop! It was so funny. Jaden did get them each a lollipop, but then he had to tell Trusten that he couldn't have it until he paid for it. Trusten was being impatient. ;-)
Jaden proceeded to start packing his bag full of books and dvds. The dvds on the top shelf he needed assistance with from the bookstore owner (that would be me), because he could not reach them. Meanwhile, his kid or kid brother who was accompanying him on his bookstore visit was acting like a little monkey in the store.
As Jaden moved to the second section of the store, he saw the most expensive book category. While looking at the price on the shelf and having a book halfway pulled out from the shelf, he pushed the book back in, while muttering aloud, "I guess this one is too expensive." :-) I got so cracked up! (Those in that category were $2.10, I think. That was the most expensive, and the cheapest store category were $.03 books.) He also took a science book down and flipped through it, just as a customer would do in a real bookstore. I was getting so tickled. He played the part of a real consumer so well, and his little sidekick played the part of a kid so well!
Sadly, my camera's batteries went dead, and the only picture I took of Jaden in the third section of the bookstore did not come out. I had to stop to get batteries just so that I could take pictures of his checkout experience. The checkout was at our computer desk, where I had my calculator ready. I gathered the tags throughout the store (lol) and sat down in the chair to tally his purchase. He placed his things on the desk, and it was so hilarious! As he placed one particular children's book on the stack, he got a puzzled look on his face and said, "Hey, I didn't want this book; I didn't get this." All I could do was laugh. We both realized, of course, how that book got in his bag. It was that kid, of course! LOL! I got such pleasure out of that, since I have, on two or three occasions, made it to the checkout only to take something out of the cart that I had not wanted but that a kid had snuck in the cart. Jaden did a good job of counting out his money. His total came to $5.29. He apparently understands how the cash works, because he immediately laid down a five-dollar bill. And then I was actually a bit surprised that he laid down a quarter next, since he hasn't had a lot of instruction concerning those. He then carefully considered and then started correctly counting pennies on top of the quarter, until he got to 29. I was pleased. Oh, and the tot he had following him around saw the lollipops on the counter (the desk) and started asking for one again. Jaden said, "You have to wait until we get out of the store." I was laughing once again, as I've said the exact same thing to Trusten before!
I have kept the price tags to use again for future plays of Bookstore. I also plan to do Grocery Store (in the kitchen) and Toy Store (in the boys' room) in the future. This was more fun than I thought it would be. I had no idea that I would get so cracked up by this experience. Well, this is certainly better than public school!
Oh, yeah. Jaden gets an allowance every week. He's old enough now, and he has responsibilities. He has to keep their room straightened, his bed made each day, his shower/bath cups and things kept in his basket after his shower and his dirty clothes taken to the laundry room, and he vacuums the living room Sun. through Wed. and on Fri. (I vacuum the whole house on Thursdays, and no one vacuums on the sabbath.) I've taught him how to tithe and have given him a 32-ounce yogurt container to keep his tithe money in. He's encouraged to save and let him choose how much to save each time [which can differ from week to week], and he has his own savings envelope that we keep in the safe for him. Then, whatever he keeps for himself for spending money he puts in his piggy bank, and if we go somewhere, he puts his money in his wallet.
He wanted to help make the peanut butter pie the other day for the new moon. Trusten insisted on being a part of it. (I didn't take a picture of the pie until after I put the plastic lid on it [used premade graham cracker crust]....oh, well. So, that's what those little number looking things across the pie are all about.)One day Jaden asked me in the morning whether we could have pancakes, and I told him I did not feel like fixing them (I've had many days lately where I've decided we're having cold cereal, and I've also used paper plates for meals on some days). He said, "But, Momma, I'll make them." So, I agreed. He decided he would make himself a cat pancake, and he did a good job! (I've made him cat pancakes before, complete with blueberry eyes, nose, and mouth...as well as other fun food creations, but I haven't done anything like that in a while.)
Jaden also made a beautiful art picture with water paints this week. I haven't taken a picture of it. He'd been talking about art, and Nathan told him about Bob Ross, and they watched some Youtube videos together of Bob Ross painting. Well, Jaden decided he would try to paint an evergreen tree like Bob Ross. He made an awesome picture of evergreen trees, plus a deciduous tree of some sort, a pond with a deer drinking, and then he and his daddy, and his daddy had a gun pointed at the deer. I think he did a great job. I have it hanging on the refrigerator.
Trusten is doing so much better on his colors, he can count a little, and he will proudly tell you his left from his right (especially his cute little feet). He spends as much time playing with vehicles as Jaden spends building with blocks. He likes looking at pictures of animals. I have a book I read to them about animals, so they're learning more about animals together (this is in addition to Jaden's main science book on animals), and it has really good pictures of all sorts of animals. They also each get their monthly subscription (from my grandpa) of Wild Animal Babies and Your Big Backyard. We all love reading those together each month. I enjoy them as much as the boys (or at least the Big Backyard one).
Jaden is doing well with his Explode the Code, his spelling lessons, and he really likes math. He doesn't much care for language arts, but I sit with him as he works on those lessons so that I can assist him when he needs help, and he does fairly well with it. He didn't do his animal science quiz the other day, so he has to do that today. We have not officially started Prepare and Pray...for various reasons. I think we're just going to wait until the beginning of next year (sometime in Jan. or Feb.). He will have a lighter load on his math, spelling, and lang. arts (but he'll have reading work added back), so it will be easier then. At some point next year he'll be finished with Explode the Code. He's only doing it twice a week right now, but I've decided to not make him do the remaining 1/2 books, which is just more practice for the main levels. I think I will use those books for Trusten and not buy the main levels for the 1/2 numbers I have left. It's just too much book work on top of the other stuff Jaden already has scheduled for him next year...in my opinion (and definitely in his). He's doing SO well with reading and becoming ever better with his writing. I can tell Nathan is definitely pleased in what he sees. :-)
I'm not sure whether I've mentioned it here or not, but I stopped reading the prophets to Jaden, and I skipped on to Matthew. Sometimes Jaden decides he wants to read some of it aloud. It won't be long until he can read the bible by himself, and then I'll have him keep a journal at that time. I'm hoping sometime next year he can start doing that. And of course, we're still daily reading Proverbs.
Since we're not doing the prophets, anymore, I will start reading the Bible Stories book each sabbath now, instead of only reading in it parallel to what we've read in the bible. Also now my friend Keith bought Jaden two children's biblical books, and so I'm reading those to the boys during the week. I haven't done so every day, but I'd like to make time to read them each night to them. So far they seem like really neat books.
We've not been doing Rocket Readers on a regular basis, but I'd like to finish those up soon. Oh, and then we finally finished Jaden's Choosing Obedience book lessons last sabbath. It took forever, b/c we didn't do it every sabbath. Now we will do Choosing Thankfulness.
I've written a lot, so I'm going to stop right here. This may be the last update until after I've had the baby, and I'll be taking a two week break from school. Jaden will be taking only a partial break. He'll still do the things that he can do by himself, like Explode the Code and his spelling lessons. I can go over them all after I take my break.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Back from Feast of Tabernacles Break
If I know you, and you read this, you probably have already received an email with a link to our picture update, which details our feast week and includes pictures in addition to the above. If you did not receive such an update and are interested, please contact me.
Yesterday Jaden returned to his normal school work. He did an Explode the Code lesson and only missed one problem! Mondays are for lang. arts, spelling, math, and science. He is doing well in everything. He just started money today in math, starting with pennies. He's learning sentences in lang. arts. And we're still learning about mammals in science.
We're continuing to read Proverbs every day, but I decided to stop reading the prophets to Jaden and wait until later. I will continue reading where we left off, but instead of reading the prophets to him I've gone on to start the new testament books with him.
And that's really about it! There's really nothing big to report. I've started writing in my other blog again: Growing in Grace and Knowledge Nathan killed two deer Saturday evening, after sundown. Jaden watched part of the cleaning process, before he got too cold and decided to come in and go to bed.
Oh, Trusten is counting a little bit! I don't think I've mentioned that yet. It's so exciting.
Until next time...
Friday, September 25, 2009
Feast of Trumpets 2009, Starting School Again, and Cooking Pancakes
We started back on the books Wednesday, the 16th of September on the Roman calendar. I have a very simple schedule for the remainder of Jaden's first grade year, and it's been working well. On Sundays and Fridays he does a lesson in Explode the Code (for a total of two lessons a week), Mondays and Wednesdays he does a lesson in Spelling (usually 4 pages), a few pages in Lang. Arts (4-8 pages), a few pages in Math (4-7), and a lesson in animal science out of the God's Design for Life series. On Tuesdays, he does a lesson out of Spelling and a lesson out of Lang. Arts, and we go grocery shopping on this day. On Thursdays we do Spelling, Lang. Arts, and Prepare and Pray. Then, of course, every day I read to him a chapter out of Proverbs and then usually a chapter or two from where ever we are in reading through the bible (still in Jeremiah, and we're going through it s-l-o-w-l-y).
Oh, whatever day he wants to do some art, he does that in his free time. We'll go back to history and music next year. I have his math and language arts lessons pre-set with paper clips throughout the Complete Curriculum book. It's making it very easy and organized for me. When he's nearly finished (I have it set to last around 6 -7 weeks), I will pre-organize his writing lessons. He'll be using the skills he's learned from reading, spelling, and language arts in order to be successful with that section (this was my choice, as I just didn't think he would be ready for that section until the others were completed). Then, during the last week or week and a half of this year he'll be doing testing from the book. He will be finished with the math section within six weeks, probably, so I bought him another workbook for math. It's a first grade math book by Miquon.
He's doing very well in spelling. He breezes through his lessons. Most of the language arts has been easy for him. With some of the things, he struggles a little at first and then quickly figures it out. Some of the stuff in math he struggles with, but he says every time before we begin math that he likes math. He's been doing addition and subtraction, including doing fact families, and he's done place values. He caught on to the place value stuff very quickly. We're still working through some of those lessons, and then we'll be starting on money.
We observed the first fall feast--the Feast of Trumpets--last sabbath. This is the second year we got the boys gifts, but I have a better plan now. I made them each a Feast of Trumpets reward folder. Both Nathan and I wrote short notes to each of the boys, hole-punched them, and put them in their folders. At the bottom of the notes, we also listed the reward(s) they received this year. We will be keeping these folders for them and updating them every year by adding an additional page with our notes each year. The notes are to detail what they did well the previous year, what we've appreciated, and what we've noticed that they've overcome, what behavior traits are good and what extra help we've appreciated. The reward(s) can be taken away if they fall away from having good behavior and slack off helping the way they should or being disrespectful or irresponsible, not taking care of their responsibilities. Of course, for now, this applies more to Jaden, since he has more responsibilities than Trusten.
I made trumpet-shaped cookies again for the feast. This was my second year in doing so. The cookie cutter is too big, though, so the shape gets messed up when transferring the cookies to the cookie sheet to bake. This year I made roll-out peanut butter cookies. At least they tasted good. We had a beef brisket as the center of our main feast meal. We had that Friday evening and then leftovers the next day for lunch.
I went over the feast lesson with the boys by first detailing a brief summary of all the feasts, as I do each high holy day, and the steps of salvation which they symbolize: Passover being that we need a perfect sacrifice for our past sins, Unleavened Bread that we must repent and remove sin from our lives, Pentecost that we must receive the begettal of the Spirit of God in order to help us live righteous lives according to God's Law, Feast of Trumpets that there will be seven trumpet plagues before the return of Christ and that at the seventh trumpet the saints will be raised and changed as Spirit sons of God, Day of Atonement that Satan will be locked away during the 1,000 year reign of the Firstborn Son of God and all the other sons of God (the saints in the first resurrection) so that human beings who have lived through the tribulation and their posterity will live under the Kingdom of God rather than the kingdom of Satan and that people will become "at one" with God, the Feast of Tabernacles that life here on this physical planet in these physical bodies is temporary and that the Sons of God "tabernacle" temporarily with human kind until the plan of salvation is finished, and the 8th Day that all who have ever lived and were not called to the Truth (whether because of death during childhood or spending one's life in a heathen culture, never hearing about the true Creator God and His Law and plan of salvation) will be raised to physical life once again and be shown the truths of the scriptures and be given their judgment period to choose life or death, and then all who have rejected God's way will be thrown into the lake of fire, and God will come down with the new spiritual earth and dwell with his Sons.
I then focused more specifically on the Feast of Trumpets, reading several scripture selections dealing with the feast and with what it means in the future fulfillment at Christ's return. Jaden understands it all more and more every time we go over this. I always ask plenty of questions as we go along. I explained that at Christ's return he will be bringing rewards (gifts) from our Father to the saints who earned them.
Jaden blew the shofar Friday evening. He's been blowing it on the weekly sabbaths and new moons for the last few weeks. He does extremely well for a six year old! He likes to do it. Then the next day, he asked whether I would get him and Trusten some balloons (I rarely let them play with balloons), so I blew up a balloon for each of them and wrote "Feast of Trumpets" on each of them. They played with their balloons after breakfast, and then after lunch they blew the little party noise blowers that I'd saved back from last year's feast. Then, we did the lesson, and we read their notes and let them open their rewards.
Jaden got a jump rope and two computer games (a racing game, as he has wanted a race car game for some time now, and an educational spelling game), and Trusten got a wooden helicopter with a wooden peg man inside (the latter of which I took away until he gets older, as it's a choking hazard). Trusten loves vehicles of all sorts and really likes flying machines (they both do, and they get that from me). He has frequently played with Jaden's little wooden helicopter (something Jaden has never played much with), and so I decided to get a bigger one for his very own. He loves it! And Jaden loves his race car game, which he gets to play after his school, other responsibilities (feeding cats, making his and Trusten's beds, and vacuuming the living room), and after outside time (I sure don't want him addicted to a computer game with no outside play!).
One day this week Jaden wanted pancakes (he loves pancakes), and he's been wanting to help me in the kitchen, so I let him make the pancakes. He even read off the ingredients the best he could, and with very little assistance from me, he put everything together, mixed them up, and cooked them. He did a great job! And it was a nice change to be able to sit down and eat pancakes while he cooked, instead of them sitting eating their pancakes while I still cooked! Yay!!! ;-) What a treat (and he thought he was the one getting the treat by my letting him cook).
The boys and I all got stung by yellow jacket wasps yesterday. I got stung on the front porch, and then a few minutes later the boys came screaming (and Trusten crying) from across the yard. I think they must have been by the nest. I have not yet gone out there to investigate. I had to take their shirts off, b/c they had yellow jackets crawling on them. Jaden got stung twice. Trusten got stung four times. So then last night we all read some things on the computer about stinging insects and learned about the Schmidt Pain Index. Very interesting stuff. And the creature that was second from the top looked like an insect I saw after I'd gone back outside a while after being stung. It was on the deck railing, and I was staring at it, wondering what it was and whether it could sting (it was obviously a wasp-type creature). Anyway, the creature I'm talking about is a Tarantula hawk. I investigated further to see whether they exist in Missouri, and they sure do. Well, if that's indeed what it was, I sure do not want to be stung by one of those. They are supposed to be worse than red wasps (which I've been stung by once, and my whole hand swelled enormously and stayed that way for days).
Well, I guess that sums up our learning adventures for the past week. I couldn't possibly ever fit in everything.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
"How to Make" Videos and Plant Project Update
As far as the bible goes, we're still in Jeremiah! :-)
Jaden is reading a Rocket Readers book to me nearly every day when the boys and I have our reading time together. He is doing so well. :-)
As far as the plant/leaf project goes, we've added gaura, partridge pea (toxic, good for nothing but beauty, I guess), goldenrod, pokeweed, and I can't remember what else since the last time I updated. We together gather the leaves off trees and shrubs, or we pick flowers with the leaves. I look up the info and record it, and Jaden scans the plant parts, pastes index cards to the card stock, and cuts and pastes the scanned pictures. Trusten just sticks around and observes everything. ;-)
Jaden is always bombarding me with questions, and there's no way I could ever record all of it and remember to post it here, nor would I have time. Lately, he has asked a lot about different bodily functions. Human anatomy and physiology happens to be among of my favorite subjects, so I can explain fairly well w/o consulting anything. He's asked so much lately, though, that I've almost considered going through the science book on the human body before the one on animals, but I've decided to stick to my plan, which is to start on animals when we go back to the books next week; and then he'll start the human body next, once he starts the second grade.
Last week sometime, he asked about fiberglass insulation (or was it cotton candy?). It was about one of those things, and then I compared it to the other. Anyway, I told him I'd try to find some videos on both. I finally got around to that today. He watched two different videos on how to make cotton candy, and I couldn't find one on the making of fiberglass insulation, though we did find a video talking briefly about how fiberglass is made, which didn't really say anything beyond what I'd already said. He decided to also watch videos on:
How to Make Bubble Gum (This we'd all already watched a year or so ago.)
How to Make Potato Chips
How Chocolate is Made
How Crayons are Made (I remember very well watching this on Sesame Street as a child.)
Jaden is reading a Rocket Readers book to me nearly every day when the boys and I have our reading time together. He is doing so well. :-)
As far as the plant/leaf project goes, we've added gaura, partridge pea (toxic, good for nothing but beauty, I guess), goldenrod, pokeweed, and I can't remember what else since the last time I updated. We together gather the leaves off trees and shrubs, or we pick flowers with the leaves. I look up the info and record it, and Jaden scans the plant parts, pastes index cards to the card stock, and cuts and pastes the scanned pictures. Trusten just sticks around and observes everything. ;-)
Jaden is always bombarding me with questions, and there's no way I could ever record all of it and remember to post it here, nor would I have time. Lately, he has asked a lot about different bodily functions. Human anatomy and physiology happens to be among of my favorite subjects, so I can explain fairly well w/o consulting anything. He's asked so much lately, though, that I've almost considered going through the science book on the human body before the one on animals, but I've decided to stick to my plan, which is to start on animals when we go back to the books next week; and then he'll start the human body next, once he starts the second grade.
Last week sometime, he asked about fiberglass insulation (or was it cotton candy?). It was about one of those things, and then I compared it to the other. Anyway, I told him I'd try to find some videos on both. I finally got around to that today. He watched two different videos on how to make cotton candy, and I couldn't find one on the making of fiberglass insulation, though we did find a video talking briefly about how fiberglass is made, which didn't really say anything beyond what I'd already said. He decided to also watch videos on:
How to Make Bubble Gum (This we'd all already watched a year or so ago.)
How to Make Potato Chips
How Chocolate is Made
How Crayons are Made (I remember very well watching this on Sesame Street as a child.)
And
But, the real reason I finally got around to videos on cotton candy and insulation is because today he asked me about the days getting shorter and seasons. I reminded him it was because of the earth's tilt and revolution around the sun. I told him it would help to see a video demonstration of it, so I went to find a video for that. The video I found discussing the earth in motion is awesome. Jaden sat down and ran the video, and then he had to follow instructions to test what he'd learned. What a neat site. :-)
While Jaden was watching some of the "how things are made" videos, I half-watched while I sat with Trusten on the couch and went through one of our books on colors. I also had to dig a large splinter out of Trust's foot. I'm not sure how he managed to get that.
I'm over halfway through a book by Kevin Leman called Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours. So far, it is mostly good. As he suggests, I discard certain things. I'm seriously thinking about reading Crystal Lutton's Biblical Parenting again. I have it in my library. I remember it being a very good read, but I read it when Jaden was a baby. I felt like I was almost the perfect mother during his first two years, and then things started falling apart when we lost our second-born son Asher. Just when I thought I was getting everything back together, I had Trusten, whom has been quite a challenge all along. I've gotten to the point where mothering hasn't even been very enjoyable and that I feel more frustrated than anything and knowing where my own faults lie (as well as my husband's) but feeling helpless to overcome them. I think reading back over things like what I'm doing will help me. I think it already is.
I really believe I have to change myself before I start seeing changes in my children (and we used to say Jaden was a perfect child). I have to approach this as I did my marriage many years ago. A person can't change one's spouse, but a person can change oneself. Once that's done, usually the other person changes, too. I have to overcome what I have been doing wrong. That's not to say that I'm to blame for everything that is wrong, but I am responsible for what I am doing wrongly. I know Nathan really wants things to be better again, too. I hope he won't give up and will do this with me.
Nathan has cut down some trees and has been working on cutting up the wood so that we'll have wood to burn this winter, especially if and when we lose electricity. Jaden has watched so that he can learn, and he helped pile wood.
Jaden will be watching me work on some sewing soon. I want to do a project this winter (not sure what, yet, but I need to work on my sewing), but within the next couple of weeks I'll be doing a hand-sewing repair to a Boppy pillow. The seams have broken, and the stuffing is coming out. I need to get it done before the baby is born.
Well, that's it for now. Next week Jaden will start back on book work, and I'll be letting Trusten do art work. Also the end of next week is a Christian feast, the Feast of Trumpets. I LOVE that day. I'm planning for it to be the greatest this year so far. I'll talk all about that soon.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Observing Nature and A Pleasing Conversation with My 6yo Son
I absolutely love to observe nature, among all three kingdoms: animal, plant, and mineral. It thrills me so to see my two boys love it as well. I get joy when they laugh with delight upon learning new things, and I don't mind answering their questions. If I don't know the answers, then we go seek them. It's amazing how much I learn, too.
Yesterday Jaden (William) alerted me to a red wasp that was perched on the front porch railing behind us as we sat reading the bible. He was upset about its being there, and as I sat staring at it, it seemed to sense that it should be in ready-to-attack/defense mode. It's interesting to watch them. But, anyway, I did grab up my other book and kill it. Well, I don't think I completely killed it. Sometimes it's hard to tell, since their nerves often go on twitching after death, anyway. But, I'm 99% sure this one still had its life-force in it. I let Jaden get a stick and "explore" it. That's the word he often uses, though I tell him "examine" or "inspect" is better-suited. I told him to watch its tail carefully and to notice that it kept bringing its stinger out. It was having some difficulty. Its computer was all but dimmed. Then J. finished it off.
This morning I was opening the blinds in the living room when J. walked in. He immediately noticed the wasp caught in the web of an orb weaver just outside one of the windows. Trusten came in about that time, and they got on the couch and stared out at the wasp and the approaching spider. (As a side note here, these spiders, which Nathan and I call "October spiders," because throughout our lives we've known them to show up around mid- to late September and stick around all through October and beyond before winter sets in, have been making webs around the house all through August, which is just one of several signs we've seen that the weather pattern is definitely "off.") I told the boys to watch how the wasp was moving in a manner to aim its stinger at the spider. It was fighting vigorously to free itself from the web and it kept swinging around and taking stabs toward the spider with its stinger-loaded "tail" (abdomen). I reminded the boys that some wasps eat spiders, too. The spider was barely staying far enough way to be safe from a sting. I commented that it'd better walk back away and wait until the wasp tired itself. Well, what ended up happening is the wasp loosened itself from the web, and I think it dropped out. J. had mentioned that he thought one of its wings was damaged. I didn't see where it went, but J. said he said he saw it just sitting (standing?) somewhere. I had walked off right after I saw the wasp get out, because I had breakfast to get ready.
Today we came back from walking, and as we were about to walk up the steps of the front porch I spotted a lizard sunning itself on the left side railing. I pointed it out to the boys, and I guided Trusten over to see it, and J. said, "I'll get it so that you can see it Trusten." Well, I didn't get the words out quickly enough, but I foresaw what was going to happen. J. grabbed the lizard too far back on its tail, and off came its tail in his hand! LOL! He dropped it immediately and looked a bit bewildered. I just laughed and explained that it was the lizard's defense mechanism so that it could possibly escape from predators. I don't guess he knew this before, so this was something he learned today. He's caught lizards many times before, but I'm supposing this is the first time he's encountered this. (You know, I don't think I ONCE caught a lizard as a child, but I do remember trying. They were all so fast. I think they must be a little slower up here. ;-)
Earlier today I drove to town to get some groceries. Sometimes, rather than just fill Jaden's head with teachings, I ask him questions to get him to think for himself. As we were driving through the beautiful countryside, I asked what he thought should happen to a person if he or she murdered someone. His reply, "Killed." I asked what he thought should happen if a man raped a woman or sexually abused a child. "He needs to be killed, too."
Then I said, "Okay, well what if a person got really angry and murdered someone in his wrath, but then he felt really awful about it afterward and wished he hadn't have done it and would never think of doing it again?"
He replied, "I don't think he should be killed. They should be repented."
I said, "You mean that they repented and should be forgiven."
"Yeah."
I was very pleased with his answers. I often discover that he understands more than I think that he does. I told him I agreed with his answers and that I think people who do those things should be killed, too, and I only think that people should be given mercy and grace IF they repent and stop transgressing God's Law. I told him that all those things mentioned carried the physical death penalty under God's Law and that our society has rejected His commandments, statutes, and judgments. Those who should not get mercy expect it and often get it. On the other hand, those who aren't even guilty of a wrong under the Perfect Law are condemned.
He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to Jehovah. ~Prov. 17:15
I didn't bring up that Proverb in our brief talk, but J. should know it well. We read over it once every month, since we read a chapter of Proverbs each day. He does know the Proverbs quite well. As I read them daily, I stop at different places for him to fill in the blanks. He does well most days. He's memorizing them, having wisdom stored within him. Now, all he needs to do is use it....sometimes he does.
On our walk, I saw an amazing thing, a very large mushroom. J. had run ahead, so I called him back, knowing he'd appreciate it, too. Meanwhile, T. was catching up. J. did like it, and then he looked at T. and asked, "Trusten, would you eat that?" Trusten shook his head violently and said, "Uh-huh!" :-) I said, "Well, that's good, b/c it may very well be poisonous." (We don't eat any mushrooms, though, as they are classified as "non-green plants" [sometimes classified in a separate kingdom altogether as a fungus], and non-green--meaning non-chlorophyll-producing--and non-seed-bearing plants were never given to us as food {Gen. 1:29, 9:3}). I sure don't want my child trying out something that may acutely poison him to death, though.
I ordered three more books yesterday from the new & used section on Amazon.com. I got two more books from Kevin Leman, the author of the last two books I've read/am reading. They are both parenting books, but I'm sure birth order is probably a topic in them as well. And then a book I'm really looking forward to getting is called Nature Got There First: Inventions Inspired by Nature. I bought it for a whopping $0.44. Besides law, family, natural health, and etymology, one of my subjects of interest and writing is science/knowledge and technology/application of science. I love learning and teaching about true science/knowledge and bringing glory to whom it is due--the Most High God, the Creator of all. In a world where two dominating views crush out the truth, namely that everything was somehow brought forth by rocks by itself and evolved or that God is some hocus pocus magician nothing like the man made in God's image, I am determined to share the truth with others who want to understand the true God.
Everything that man comes up with and all the miracles man has wrought with advanced knowledge and the application thereof has already been done by God and even better. Everything man comes up with pales in comparison to the knowledge and technology of the Supreme Creator. Human beings themselves are the greatest creation on this planet. The only real thing lacking is mortality, and people are busying themselves, as I write this, to use what knowledge they have to technologically make human beings immortal. Of course, I have full faith that they will fail, though many seem so prideful and confident that they will get it. Indeed, they are making advances with cloning, stem cell treatments, and nanotechnology (nano means "small," usually or always invisible to the human eye, we're talking atoms and molecules), and they're trying to make immortality a reality while still in the state of sin! What a horror...
The artificial intelligence, scientists say, will almost surely be a likelihood, with nanobots traveling through people's blood and increasing lifespan to over 120 years, perhaps several hundred years old. Well, that's not quite immortality, is it? ;-) You'd have to get rid of the blood altogether, as well as the earthly body.
Anyway, I'm excited about the book and can hardly wait to read it. Many people just don't realize how many of our fancy modern inventions were inspired by animals and other things in nature. I am hoping it will be fun to share with J. the things I read in the book, too.
Well, that's it until next time. I have to be careful, as I'm notorious for writing book-length things.
Yesterday Jaden (William) alerted me to a red wasp that was perched on the front porch railing behind us as we sat reading the bible. He was upset about its being there, and as I sat staring at it, it seemed to sense that it should be in ready-to-attack/defense mode. It's interesting to watch them. But, anyway, I did grab up my other book and kill it. Well, I don't think I completely killed it. Sometimes it's hard to tell, since their nerves often go on twitching after death, anyway. But, I'm 99% sure this one still had its life-force in it. I let Jaden get a stick and "explore" it. That's the word he often uses, though I tell him "examine" or "inspect" is better-suited. I told him to watch its tail carefully and to notice that it kept bringing its stinger out. It was having some difficulty. Its computer was all but dimmed. Then J. finished it off.
This morning I was opening the blinds in the living room when J. walked in. He immediately noticed the wasp caught in the web of an orb weaver just outside one of the windows. Trusten came in about that time, and they got on the couch and stared out at the wasp and the approaching spider. (As a side note here, these spiders, which Nathan and I call "October spiders," because throughout our lives we've known them to show up around mid- to late September and stick around all through October and beyond before winter sets in, have been making webs around the house all through August, which is just one of several signs we've seen that the weather pattern is definitely "off.") I told the boys to watch how the wasp was moving in a manner to aim its stinger at the spider. It was fighting vigorously to free itself from the web and it kept swinging around and taking stabs toward the spider with its stinger-loaded "tail" (abdomen). I reminded the boys that some wasps eat spiders, too. The spider was barely staying far enough way to be safe from a sting. I commented that it'd better walk back away and wait until the wasp tired itself. Well, what ended up happening is the wasp loosened itself from the web, and I think it dropped out. J. had mentioned that he thought one of its wings was damaged. I didn't see where it went, but J. said he said he saw it just sitting (standing?) somewhere. I had walked off right after I saw the wasp get out, because I had breakfast to get ready.
Today we came back from walking, and as we were about to walk up the steps of the front porch I spotted a lizard sunning itself on the left side railing. I pointed it out to the boys, and I guided Trusten over to see it, and J. said, "I'll get it so that you can see it Trusten." Well, I didn't get the words out quickly enough, but I foresaw what was going to happen. J. grabbed the lizard too far back on its tail, and off came its tail in his hand! LOL! He dropped it immediately and looked a bit bewildered. I just laughed and explained that it was the lizard's defense mechanism so that it could possibly escape from predators. I don't guess he knew this before, so this was something he learned today. He's caught lizards many times before, but I'm supposing this is the first time he's encountered this. (You know, I don't think I ONCE caught a lizard as a child, but I do remember trying. They were all so fast. I think they must be a little slower up here. ;-)
Earlier today I drove to town to get some groceries. Sometimes, rather than just fill Jaden's head with teachings, I ask him questions to get him to think for himself. As we were driving through the beautiful countryside, I asked what he thought should happen to a person if he or she murdered someone. His reply, "Killed." I asked what he thought should happen if a man raped a woman or sexually abused a child. "He needs to be killed, too."
Then I said, "Okay, well what if a person got really angry and murdered someone in his wrath, but then he felt really awful about it afterward and wished he hadn't have done it and would never think of doing it again?"
He replied, "I don't think he should be killed. They should be repented."
I said, "You mean that they repented and should be forgiven."
"Yeah."
I was very pleased with his answers. I often discover that he understands more than I think that he does. I told him I agreed with his answers and that I think people who do those things should be killed, too, and I only think that people should be given mercy and grace IF they repent and stop transgressing God's Law. I told him that all those things mentioned carried the physical death penalty under God's Law and that our society has rejected His commandments, statutes, and judgments. Those who should not get mercy expect it and often get it. On the other hand, those who aren't even guilty of a wrong under the Perfect Law are condemned.
He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to Jehovah. ~Prov. 17:15
I didn't bring up that Proverb in our brief talk, but J. should know it well. We read over it once every month, since we read a chapter of Proverbs each day. He does know the Proverbs quite well. As I read them daily, I stop at different places for him to fill in the blanks. He does well most days. He's memorizing them, having wisdom stored within him. Now, all he needs to do is use it....sometimes he does.
On our walk, I saw an amazing thing, a very large mushroom. J. had run ahead, so I called him back, knowing he'd appreciate it, too. Meanwhile, T. was catching up. J. did like it, and then he looked at T. and asked, "Trusten, would you eat that?" Trusten shook his head violently and said, "Uh-huh!" :-) I said, "Well, that's good, b/c it may very well be poisonous." (We don't eat any mushrooms, though, as they are classified as "non-green plants" [sometimes classified in a separate kingdom altogether as a fungus], and non-green--meaning non-chlorophyll-producing--and non-seed-bearing plants were never given to us as food {Gen. 1:29, 9:3}). I sure don't want my child trying out something that may acutely poison him to death, though.
I ordered three more books yesterday from the new & used section on Amazon.com. I got two more books from Kevin Leman, the author of the last two books I've read/am reading. They are both parenting books, but I'm sure birth order is probably a topic in them as well. And then a book I'm really looking forward to getting is called Nature Got There First: Inventions Inspired by Nature. I bought it for a whopping $0.44. Besides law, family, natural health, and etymology, one of my subjects of interest and writing is science/knowledge and technology/application of science. I love learning and teaching about true science/knowledge and bringing glory to whom it is due--the Most High God, the Creator of all. In a world where two dominating views crush out the truth, namely that everything was somehow brought forth by rocks by itself and evolved or that God is some hocus pocus magician nothing like the man made in God's image, I am determined to share the truth with others who want to understand the true God.
Everything that man comes up with and all the miracles man has wrought with advanced knowledge and the application thereof has already been done by God and even better. Everything man comes up with pales in comparison to the knowledge and technology of the Supreme Creator. Human beings themselves are the greatest creation on this planet. The only real thing lacking is mortality, and people are busying themselves, as I write this, to use what knowledge they have to technologically make human beings immortal. Of course, I have full faith that they will fail, though many seem so prideful and confident that they will get it. Indeed, they are making advances with cloning, stem cell treatments, and nanotechnology (nano means "small," usually or always invisible to the human eye, we're talking atoms and molecules), and they're trying to make immortality a reality while still in the state of sin! What a horror...
The artificial intelligence, scientists say, will almost surely be a likelihood, with nanobots traveling through people's blood and increasing lifespan to over 120 years, perhaps several hundred years old. Well, that's not quite immortality, is it? ;-) You'd have to get rid of the blood altogether, as well as the earthly body.
Anyway, I'm excited about the book and can hardly wait to read it. Many people just don't realize how many of our fancy modern inventions were inspired by animals and other things in nature. I am hoping it will be fun to share with J. the things I read in the book, too.
Well, that's it until next time. I have to be careful, as I'm notorious for writing book-length things.
Monday, August 31, 2009
End of TSAP, Plant Project Update, Etc.
The boys are loving the "break," and so am I. We're all getting more time outside, and I'm loving how much I'm getting to read. What a treat! Only two weeks left, and then we start back until our Feast of Tabernacles break (just a couple weeks later). And then we'll continue to work strongly until Jaden is finished with first grade, and we'll have a week's break before starting second grade for him, which is planned in the Roman month of January.
We're continuing to move slowly through Jeremiah in the bible, usually only a chapter a day. It's important, though. The prophets didn't only speak for first fulfillment of prophetic messages, but they also spoke for the end time fulfillment of the same. And it's very clear that the Israelite nations are headed swiftly toward the severe punishment foretold. Praise God that brighter days are foretold afterward, the time that Satan's kingdom comes to an end as he is locked away for 1,000 years, and God's Kingdom inherited by Christ and the other sons of God (the saints) will rule. Rather than world government being established by wars, as is Satan's way, God's way will be by example. The sons of God will lead Israel to be the witness it was always meant to be. People will willingly follow the commandments and statutes of God's Law and will enjoy the blessings of obedience. When all the other nations see how healthy and prosperous Israel is and how abundant their crops are, they will inquire about God's way and will send representatives to Israel to find out. Eventually, the entire world will come under the rule of God's Kingdom, and even the animals will be at peace. Godspeed that day! This world NEEDS the Truth of God's way--His perfect law of liberty, the Ten Commandments and their statutes.
We're continuing to collect leaves for the plant project. Last week we were gone from Tuesday afternoon until Friday evening, visiting family. So, we've only added one more plant over the last week--"Mimosa," Albizia julibrissen. I've not yet collected the identification traits, food, drug, building, and other possible uses for it. It was scanned, and Will has cut and pasted it on a sheet. I did collect info for the Eastern Redbud and write that on the card. There are two or three others in the binder for which I have not collected and written the information about the plants. Apparently redbud flowers and pods are both edible. The former is claimed to be good in salads, and the latter are supposedly tastiest when battered and deep fried. Children have been known to enjoy snacking on the flowers. Well, we'll have to try this next spring. We have the most beautiful redbud tree in our front yard. :-)
Okay, so I messed up on my TSAP. It was Friday. I almost messed up Thursday by eating some mashed potatoes. I put them on my plate, and then I remembered, and I scraped them onto Nathan's plate. Well, then the next day I ate a fried potato, and then Nathan said, "I thought you might like me to remind you that you're not eating potatoes."
Well, this kind of thing happens fairly often in studies. So, what I'm doing is cutting it short. I can't just go on like it didn't happen and then report less-than-accurate results. It was just over a month that I went. I still have not introduced tomatoes or peppers. I had planned on putting tomatoes (except fresh, as I'm pretty sure I'm finished with those, quite sure I have developed an allergy) back into my diet first, but oops. So, I'll wait a few days, and then I'll try that out, and then I'll wait a few days and try peppers.
I never noticed through the month any benefits for which I'd obviously credit the abstinence. Nor have I experienced anything crazy since I ate the potatoes (yes, I continued to eat the potatoes once I started).
A few weeks ago, I guess it's been, I bought more art supplies for the boys. I am planning for Trusten to learn his colors while practicing motor skills and art with crayons, colored pencils, water paints, etc. He doesn't seem to be understanding the various colors still. Of course, he will one day. I hope he will enjoy what I have planned (more on that when the time comes) for when Jaden is working on his school work. I have concluded that Reading Rainbow puts Trusten to sleep. He's not one to take many naps, but RR sure seems to do the trick. Jaden (William) loves watching RR, and Trust will sit there on the couch with him, but time and time again, Trust will fall asleep during those shows. He watches the various biblical and/or safety videos and other such things that are cartoon-animated without falling asleep. But, if something dealing with reading books and traveling around to learn how things work is on, the lights go out for him. I commented about it to Nathan last night, and he said that RR made him fall asleep as a kid, too. Interesting...
I'm halfway finished with the book I'm reading The Birth Order Book. I'm enjoying it.
That's pretty much it for us!
We're continuing to move slowly through Jeremiah in the bible, usually only a chapter a day. It's important, though. The prophets didn't only speak for first fulfillment of prophetic messages, but they also spoke for the end time fulfillment of the same. And it's very clear that the Israelite nations are headed swiftly toward the severe punishment foretold. Praise God that brighter days are foretold afterward, the time that Satan's kingdom comes to an end as he is locked away for 1,000 years, and God's Kingdom inherited by Christ and the other sons of God (the saints) will rule. Rather than world government being established by wars, as is Satan's way, God's way will be by example. The sons of God will lead Israel to be the witness it was always meant to be. People will willingly follow the commandments and statutes of God's Law and will enjoy the blessings of obedience. When all the other nations see how healthy and prosperous Israel is and how abundant their crops are, they will inquire about God's way and will send representatives to Israel to find out. Eventually, the entire world will come under the rule of God's Kingdom, and even the animals will be at peace. Godspeed that day! This world NEEDS the Truth of God's way--His perfect law of liberty, the Ten Commandments and their statutes.
We're continuing to collect leaves for the plant project. Last week we were gone from Tuesday afternoon until Friday evening, visiting family. So, we've only added one more plant over the last week--"Mimosa," Albizia julibrissen. I've not yet collected the identification traits, food, drug, building, and other possible uses for it. It was scanned, and Will has cut and pasted it on a sheet. I did collect info for the Eastern Redbud and write that on the card. There are two or three others in the binder for which I have not collected and written the information about the plants. Apparently redbud flowers and pods are both edible. The former is claimed to be good in salads, and the latter are supposedly tastiest when battered and deep fried. Children have been known to enjoy snacking on the flowers. Well, we'll have to try this next spring. We have the most beautiful redbud tree in our front yard. :-)
Okay, so I messed up on my TSAP. It was Friday. I almost messed up Thursday by eating some mashed potatoes. I put them on my plate, and then I remembered, and I scraped them onto Nathan's plate. Well, then the next day I ate a fried potato, and then Nathan said, "I thought you might like me to remind you that you're not eating potatoes."
Well, this kind of thing happens fairly often in studies. So, what I'm doing is cutting it short. I can't just go on like it didn't happen and then report less-than-accurate results. It was just over a month that I went. I still have not introduced tomatoes or peppers. I had planned on putting tomatoes (except fresh, as I'm pretty sure I'm finished with those, quite sure I have developed an allergy) back into my diet first, but oops. So, I'll wait a few days, and then I'll try that out, and then I'll wait a few days and try peppers.
I never noticed through the month any benefits for which I'd obviously credit the abstinence. Nor have I experienced anything crazy since I ate the potatoes (yes, I continued to eat the potatoes once I started).
A few weeks ago, I guess it's been, I bought more art supplies for the boys. I am planning for Trusten to learn his colors while practicing motor skills and art with crayons, colored pencils, water paints, etc. He doesn't seem to be understanding the various colors still. Of course, he will one day. I hope he will enjoy what I have planned (more on that when the time comes) for when Jaden is working on his school work. I have concluded that Reading Rainbow puts Trusten to sleep. He's not one to take many naps, but RR sure seems to do the trick. Jaden (William) loves watching RR, and Trust will sit there on the couch with him, but time and time again, Trust will fall asleep during those shows. He watches the various biblical and/or safety videos and other such things that are cartoon-animated without falling asleep. But, if something dealing with reading books and traveling around to learn how things work is on, the lights go out for him. I commented about it to Nathan last night, and he said that RR made him fall asleep as a kid, too. Interesting...
I'm halfway finished with the book I'm reading The Birth Order Book. I'm enjoying it.
That's pretty much it for us!
Friday, August 21, 2009
Plant Project, Dragons, WW2 Nazi Movies, and More
I'm moving very slowly through Jeremiah with the boys...or should I say William, since Trusten just can't sit still through it all, and I don't usually make him. I've mostly been reading just one chapter a day, but sometimes two. I imagine some of the prophetic material is a bit on the boring side for children. I do briefly explain what I can to Will, though. I want him to be prepared...
Yesterday was Plant Project day (Thursday). Will cut out two leaves that we had scanned, and he pasted five more index cards to five sheets of card stock, and he pasted the two leaves. I have to catch up on gathering info for what we have. I am hoping to do some of that today.
Oh, I'm still suffering through TSAP. I really would like to have something with spaghetti sauce. I wonder...am I addicted to tomatine, or do I just really like tomato sauce and am having a hard time finding much to eat that doesn't have tomato, potato, or some sort of pepper that is in the plant family of Solanaceae? I haven't had any physical withdrawals of which I'm aware. It's the hardest when I go to the grocery store. It's a bit frustrating. And then Nathan said he's sick of having chicken and dressing for our sabbath meal (I'm read to change, too, although it sure is good), and I'd like to fix lasagna (I make really good lasagna, too!), but I can't. I think I'm going to make chicken spaghetti for this evening's sabbath meal.
Yeah, notice how I said, "I think." Isn't that bad...I'm not sure what I'm going to fix! Oh, and I'd mentioned having a brisket for the Feast of Trumpets (what we usually eat for that day), and Nathan said he'd rather buy a tenderloin and cut up some filet mignon. This is probably a good idea, because it dawned on me that we always use barbecue sauce with the brisket, and it has tomato and cayenne in it. I let Will get a small bag of sea salt and vinegar potato chips from the deli when we go grocery shopping, and it's so hard to bear him and Trusten chomping away on them when I don't get any. I have just a little more than a month to go, not quite halfway through this torturous experiment.
Anyway, for quite a many months I've had the subject of dragons and seraphim in my mind a lot. Well, I verbally spoke to Nathan a couple of weeks ago that I still really wanted to know more about dragons and whether there were/are good and bad dragons and whether the seraphim order of angels are dragons (etymological and other biblical evidence suggests that they may be). Well, it just so happened a few days later (this often happens for me) that I got an email from the History Channel website telling me about a sale, so I went to see what they had on sale, and there was a video on dragon history, which is just what I was wanting. Well, I found it even cheaper on Amazon. I got it for around 10 bucks after shipping costs. So, we watched that about a week ago. The boys watched it with us (sort of, anyway). It was interesting. It was only 50 minutes worth, though. I still have more study to do on the topic. (It did mention Satan being referred to as a dragon and about leviathan in the sea, but it didn't talk about angels beyond that.)
Wednesday night we watched the movie Valkyrie. It is based on a true story set in the time of WWII, about a group trying to assassinate the wicked Hitler. It was a sad story. They failed, and I believe it said at the end that Operation Valkyrie was the 15th failed attempt by different persons/groups to assassinate the evil German ruler. They were so close, and then a change in plans--a change of a building in which Hitler was having a briefing--was enough to foil the whole thing. (You'll have to watch the movie yourself to see why. ;-) It hit me right then that it was the evil spirits working behind the scenes. That is my feeling on the matter. It didn't say why they moved the briefing over to the other building.
Anyway, Thursday night (last night) we watched Defiance. I haven't cried that much during a movie in a long time. And I have to write about it. I really need to watch the movie again today (we have it rented from Amazon for a 24-hour period) and take notes with my Smartpen. But, I just don't see how I have time, so I will either have to make the time to just write something the best I can with the memory of watching it once, or I'll just have to rent it again. The latter is probably what will happen. I don't want to leave anything important out that I want to talk about. Defiance is also based on a true story set in the time of WW2 and the Holocaust. It's about some Jews in Eastern Europe who flee from the German Nazis to the Belarusian forests to survive. They have all sorts of trouble go their way.
Their time of escape happened to be before winter, so they had time to build shelter ahead of time, but then right as winter was about to set in, they had to leave their camp and go establish a new one. This and so many other terrible events occurred. There was some military fighting, though they ended up for the most part just trying to survive and keep each other alive. They didn't trust God enough, though. There was a terrible lack of faith. I wonder how much better they would have fared if their attitudes had been different. There was one part where I cried with joy, and that was during a wedding feast. But, I cried so much more over all the death, fighting, division, heartlessness, sickness. Last night ended up being one of those nights where I just wept heavily because of the sins of humanity, beings made in the image of God Almighty and being treated like some sort of garbage by fellow humans also made in the image of God.
It was one of those times where my heart just melted in love and compassion for my fellow humans and yet at the same time burn with hatred toward evil hearts who bear the image of God unworthily and wonder how they could possibly hate and mistreat fellow human beings in such a horrible manner.
There was certainly much to learn from the movie. I caught a lot of things during both movies, but I especially did from the second one. I saw so many biblical parallels of past and future events. Will watched the movie, too, although I was reluctant in letting him (but Nathan said it was reality and so wasn't too concerned). It's rated R, and there is definitely plenty of violence. I was able to explain some things to Will, though.
Oh, and he's so smart. Toward the beginning of the movie, the two Jewish brothers who are the main characters were hiding at the edge of the woods and watching the Germans kill and haul off Jews. When they all left, they went back to their house to get their youngest brother out from hiding under the floor (their parents were killed) and gather some food and things and then headed back toward the woods, and Will said, "They're having to go survive now." :-( I told him that yes, it was true. One of the games he plays when he's outside is Surviving. He says, "I'm going to go survive." This is before we've really started teaching him survival skills, but that is our plans.
That is a big part of the reason why I'm doing the plant project so that we can learn all we need to know about different trees, wildflowers, and other plants--food and drug usage and building usage (shelter, baskets, etc.) We will soon be starting a long curriculum called Prepare and Pray. I bought the first and second set of the curriculum. The second set is called Blessed Assurance. I'm not sure whether we're going to start it when we end our school break in mid-September or whether we'll wait until the beginning of next year (the beginning of the next Roman calendar year, in January). He'll be so busy with reading, writing, and math (I have a lot of that planned) work that we might not have any time to do anything else (except the animal science I have planned) until January, especially since I'm about to have the baby this fall and that I have a time limit to finish the book I'm writing, God's Law of Love: The Perfect Law of Liberty. But, we'll definitely be starting the curriculum soon.
Nathan will be taking Will hunting this fall, and I'm sure Nathan will carefully teach him how to clean and cut up a deer.
Trusten mostly learns from observing the rest of us and from talking with us. He asks questions. I do various activities with him when I have time. I simply don't have the time to sit down with him as I did Will at that age. Will certainly had the firstborn advantage.
I finished the book The Firstborn Advantage. What a super book. I highly recommend it, especially to firstborns. I did appreciate that the author Dr. Kevin Leman explained how there can be more than one person in sibling group that possesses firstborn qualities/personalities and that the literal firstborn doesn't always act like a firstborn.
I understood this a bit before I read the book, based mostly on my biblical knowledge and how a firstborn son can lose his firstborn rights. This book didn't discuss rights, really, but it just explained that you can have a firstborn son and a firstborn daughter, both with firstborn traits; and that whenever you have five years or more between two siblings, you can consider those subfamilies and that the firstborn of that subfamily may have firstborn traits. I truly believe that. My husband was the second born of two sons, but he's ten years younger than the firstborn. My husband has more firstborn traits, but he also does have two or three lastborn traits (such as his great sense of humor and social skills and his fantastic salesman ability). He's mixed.
I am no doubt a firstborn. The book not only confirmed things I already knew but also taught me things I didn't really know. The book pointed out the good and the bad of being a firstborn and how to use the firstborn advantage to one's benefit and also to the benefit of others (especially when people tend to easily hate firstborns). I better understand now why I tend to be so very analytical, logical, and organized. These traits are typical of firstborns. I'd like to get a copy of Kevin's The Birth Order Book now. I am very much into the study of birth order. It's amazing! I believe, as Kevin said, that there's a need for every birth order in our society, because each birth order possesses different strengths.
Wow, I'm so impressed with William's various houses and other structures he builds with blocks. He loves to build. I think it will be very exciting when he can build good things out wood and nails (he practices this already). If he's anything like his daddy is, he'll do well.
Will also loves the Reading Rainbow dvds I bought for him. I think he's watched them all, and I know he'll watch them again. I'm so pleased. I'm glad I got them. I just LOVED RR when I was a kid. Kudos to Levar Burton, the host. It's so nice to see a decent black person who loves to learn and share with others. (And he was on Star Trek: The Next Generation, too, and I LOVED that show, too!) Will has learned a lot from the videos. Trusten watches, too. My boys are SO CUTE sitting on the couch together watching a video.
Okay, well I'm just rattling on now. The main point is that we are still happily learning, even during our "break." (But, hey, we're enjoying a lot of time outside, and I'm catching up on my reading. Yay!)
Oh, yeah...one more thing. Last sabbath, while the boys went for a ride with Nathan, I was walking around the yard, and I inspected a tree at the edge of the yard. There are bumps all over the trunk of the tree. I assumed it must be some sort of fungal growth but that perhaps the bark was just that way. I'm not sure what kind of tree it is. I have not identified it, yet. But, anyway...fast forward to just two or three days ago, and the boys and I were outside. I was sitting on the front porch reading, and Trusten pointed to a beetle of some sort that was crawling on the house. He asked me what it was. Well, I've seen that type a few times before, but I don't know what it is. I stepped inside to grab our insect field guide and started flipping through it and told Trusten I would try to figure it out.
Well, that particular beetle is not in there, so I still don't know what it is, however I came across something called "scale insects." They had fake pictures of several different kind but not the exact thing that was on that tree. But, I think that must be what those bumps are. Some of them are apparently microscopic, and I guess all of them have legs very tiny (I can't see any legs). That's what I told Will later on, when I brought it up to him. He and I walked out to the tree so that I could show him the strange things. He said that they didn't look like insects, and I said that's not what I would have thought either, since I thought insects had six legs. But, I pulled back out that book to show him, and it said they have legs...you just can't see them.
That's it for now! I've already written what's becoming a book.
Yesterday was Plant Project day (Thursday). Will cut out two leaves that we had scanned, and he pasted five more index cards to five sheets of card stock, and he pasted the two leaves. I have to catch up on gathering info for what we have. I am hoping to do some of that today.
Oh, I'm still suffering through TSAP. I really would like to have something with spaghetti sauce. I wonder...am I addicted to tomatine, or do I just really like tomato sauce and am having a hard time finding much to eat that doesn't have tomato, potato, or some sort of pepper that is in the plant family of Solanaceae? I haven't had any physical withdrawals of which I'm aware. It's the hardest when I go to the grocery store. It's a bit frustrating. And then Nathan said he's sick of having chicken and dressing for our sabbath meal (I'm read to change, too, although it sure is good), and I'd like to fix lasagna (I make really good lasagna, too!), but I can't. I think I'm going to make chicken spaghetti for this evening's sabbath meal.
Yeah, notice how I said, "I think." Isn't that bad...I'm not sure what I'm going to fix! Oh, and I'd mentioned having a brisket for the Feast of Trumpets (what we usually eat for that day), and Nathan said he'd rather buy a tenderloin and cut up some filet mignon. This is probably a good idea, because it dawned on me that we always use barbecue sauce with the brisket, and it has tomato and cayenne in it. I let Will get a small bag of sea salt and vinegar potato chips from the deli when we go grocery shopping, and it's so hard to bear him and Trusten chomping away on them when I don't get any. I have just a little more than a month to go, not quite halfway through this torturous experiment.
Anyway, for quite a many months I've had the subject of dragons and seraphim in my mind a lot. Well, I verbally spoke to Nathan a couple of weeks ago that I still really wanted to know more about dragons and whether there were/are good and bad dragons and whether the seraphim order of angels are dragons (etymological and other biblical evidence suggests that they may be). Well, it just so happened a few days later (this often happens for me) that I got an email from the History Channel website telling me about a sale, so I went to see what they had on sale, and there was a video on dragon history, which is just what I was wanting. Well, I found it even cheaper on Amazon. I got it for around 10 bucks after shipping costs. So, we watched that about a week ago. The boys watched it with us (sort of, anyway). It was interesting. It was only 50 minutes worth, though. I still have more study to do on the topic. (It did mention Satan being referred to as a dragon and about leviathan in the sea, but it didn't talk about angels beyond that.)
Wednesday night we watched the movie Valkyrie. It is based on a true story set in the time of WWII, about a group trying to assassinate the wicked Hitler. It was a sad story. They failed, and I believe it said at the end that Operation Valkyrie was the 15th failed attempt by different persons/groups to assassinate the evil German ruler. They were so close, and then a change in plans--a change of a building in which Hitler was having a briefing--was enough to foil the whole thing. (You'll have to watch the movie yourself to see why. ;-) It hit me right then that it was the evil spirits working behind the scenes. That is my feeling on the matter. It didn't say why they moved the briefing over to the other building.
Anyway, Thursday night (last night) we watched Defiance. I haven't cried that much during a movie in a long time. And I have to write about it. I really need to watch the movie again today (we have it rented from Amazon for a 24-hour period) and take notes with my Smartpen. But, I just don't see how I have time, so I will either have to make the time to just write something the best I can with the memory of watching it once, or I'll just have to rent it again. The latter is probably what will happen. I don't want to leave anything important out that I want to talk about. Defiance is also based on a true story set in the time of WW2 and the Holocaust. It's about some Jews in Eastern Europe who flee from the German Nazis to the Belarusian forests to survive. They have all sorts of trouble go their way.
Their time of escape happened to be before winter, so they had time to build shelter ahead of time, but then right as winter was about to set in, they had to leave their camp and go establish a new one. This and so many other terrible events occurred. There was some military fighting, though they ended up for the most part just trying to survive and keep each other alive. They didn't trust God enough, though. There was a terrible lack of faith. I wonder how much better they would have fared if their attitudes had been different. There was one part where I cried with joy, and that was during a wedding feast. But, I cried so much more over all the death, fighting, division, heartlessness, sickness. Last night ended up being one of those nights where I just wept heavily because of the sins of humanity, beings made in the image of God Almighty and being treated like some sort of garbage by fellow humans also made in the image of God.
It was one of those times where my heart just melted in love and compassion for my fellow humans and yet at the same time burn with hatred toward evil hearts who bear the image of God unworthily and wonder how they could possibly hate and mistreat fellow human beings in such a horrible manner.
There was certainly much to learn from the movie. I caught a lot of things during both movies, but I especially did from the second one. I saw so many biblical parallels of past and future events. Will watched the movie, too, although I was reluctant in letting him (but Nathan said it was reality and so wasn't too concerned). It's rated R, and there is definitely plenty of violence. I was able to explain some things to Will, though.
Oh, and he's so smart. Toward the beginning of the movie, the two Jewish brothers who are the main characters were hiding at the edge of the woods and watching the Germans kill and haul off Jews. When they all left, they went back to their house to get their youngest brother out from hiding under the floor (their parents were killed) and gather some food and things and then headed back toward the woods, and Will said, "They're having to go survive now." :-( I told him that yes, it was true. One of the games he plays when he's outside is Surviving. He says, "I'm going to go survive." This is before we've really started teaching him survival skills, but that is our plans.
That is a big part of the reason why I'm doing the plant project so that we can learn all we need to know about different trees, wildflowers, and other plants--food and drug usage and building usage (shelter, baskets, etc.) We will soon be starting a long curriculum called Prepare and Pray. I bought the first and second set of the curriculum. The second set is called Blessed Assurance. I'm not sure whether we're going to start it when we end our school break in mid-September or whether we'll wait until the beginning of next year (the beginning of the next Roman calendar year, in January). He'll be so busy with reading, writing, and math (I have a lot of that planned) work that we might not have any time to do anything else (except the animal science I have planned) until January, especially since I'm about to have the baby this fall and that I have a time limit to finish the book I'm writing, God's Law of Love: The Perfect Law of Liberty. But, we'll definitely be starting the curriculum soon.
Nathan will be taking Will hunting this fall, and I'm sure Nathan will carefully teach him how to clean and cut up a deer.
Trusten mostly learns from observing the rest of us and from talking with us. He asks questions. I do various activities with him when I have time. I simply don't have the time to sit down with him as I did Will at that age. Will certainly had the firstborn advantage.
I finished the book The Firstborn Advantage. What a super book. I highly recommend it, especially to firstborns. I did appreciate that the author Dr. Kevin Leman explained how there can be more than one person in sibling group that possesses firstborn qualities/personalities and that the literal firstborn doesn't always act like a firstborn.
I understood this a bit before I read the book, based mostly on my biblical knowledge and how a firstborn son can lose his firstborn rights. This book didn't discuss rights, really, but it just explained that you can have a firstborn son and a firstborn daughter, both with firstborn traits; and that whenever you have five years or more between two siblings, you can consider those subfamilies and that the firstborn of that subfamily may have firstborn traits. I truly believe that. My husband was the second born of two sons, but he's ten years younger than the firstborn. My husband has more firstborn traits, but he also does have two or three lastborn traits (such as his great sense of humor and social skills and his fantastic salesman ability). He's mixed.
I am no doubt a firstborn. The book not only confirmed things I already knew but also taught me things I didn't really know. The book pointed out the good and the bad of being a firstborn and how to use the firstborn advantage to one's benefit and also to the benefit of others (especially when people tend to easily hate firstborns). I better understand now why I tend to be so very analytical, logical, and organized. These traits are typical of firstborns. I'd like to get a copy of Kevin's The Birth Order Book now. I am very much into the study of birth order. It's amazing! I believe, as Kevin said, that there's a need for every birth order in our society, because each birth order possesses different strengths.
Wow, I'm so impressed with William's various houses and other structures he builds with blocks. He loves to build. I think it will be very exciting when he can build good things out wood and nails (he practices this already). If he's anything like his daddy is, he'll do well.
Will also loves the Reading Rainbow dvds I bought for him. I think he's watched them all, and I know he'll watch them again. I'm so pleased. I'm glad I got them. I just LOVED RR when I was a kid. Kudos to Levar Burton, the host. It's so nice to see a decent black person who loves to learn and share with others. (And he was on Star Trek: The Next Generation, too, and I LOVED that show, too!) Will has learned a lot from the videos. Trusten watches, too. My boys are SO CUTE sitting on the couch together watching a video.
Okay, well I'm just rattling on now. The main point is that we are still happily learning, even during our "break." (But, hey, we're enjoying a lot of time outside, and I'm catching up on my reading. Yay!)
Oh, yeah...one more thing. Last sabbath, while the boys went for a ride with Nathan, I was walking around the yard, and I inspected a tree at the edge of the yard. There are bumps all over the trunk of the tree. I assumed it must be some sort of fungal growth but that perhaps the bark was just that way. I'm not sure what kind of tree it is. I have not identified it, yet. But, anyway...fast forward to just two or three days ago, and the boys and I were outside. I was sitting on the front porch reading, and Trusten pointed to a beetle of some sort that was crawling on the house. He asked me what it was. Well, I've seen that type a few times before, but I don't know what it is. I stepped inside to grab our insect field guide and started flipping through it and told Trusten I would try to figure it out.
Well, that particular beetle is not in there, so I still don't know what it is, however I came across something called "scale insects." They had fake pictures of several different kind but not the exact thing that was on that tree. But, I think that must be what those bumps are. Some of them are apparently microscopic, and I guess all of them have legs very tiny (I can't see any legs). That's what I told Will later on, when I brought it up to him. He and I walked out to the tree so that I could show him the strange things. He said that they didn't look like insects, and I said that's not what I would have thought either, since I thought insects had six legs. But, I pulled back out that book to show him, and it said they have legs...you just can't see them.
That's it for now! I've already written what's becoming a book.
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