Obedience as a Form of Love and a Plant Cell Model

*We have continued, as we always do, to recite the 10 commandments (in full, the version in Exodus 20) daily.

*In the bible, we have gone now up through 2 Chronicles 17, on our way of reading the entire bible, from front to back, to William. We've continued daily to read a chapter in Proverbs. We're back through chapter 1 as of today. We've read about kings of Judah Ahaziah, Jehoram, Joash, Amaziah, Uzziah, Jotham, and evil Queen Athaliah. There were some wicked people, especially Jehoram, and there were some who started off doing all the things RIGHT in the God's eyes, and then they turned away toward the latter years of their lives. We must keep this in mind, not to turn away ever.

*I've gone over in the workbook on Obedience that obedience is one way we love God. He loves us by giving us good rules, and we show our love to Him by obeying those rules, so that He doesn't have to punish us (b/c as every good parent knows, punishing a child is NOT a desirable thing for the parent). Colossians 3:20 has been the memory verse the workbook as given for the first three lessons. Will had already memorized this verse long BEFORE we started the workbook, because that is one of the scriptures I've taught him to memorize.

*For ~Reading/writing/spelling/grammar~: We've read almost daily (we actually missed two or three days with this, which we have not done in a long time) in the Rocket Readers Learn-to-Read bible. Today we read Rocket readers level 2 book called This and That. I didn't even read it to William (and never have before). I sometimes just see whether he can read things the first time on his own. He did very well with this book. I think I only had to tell him two words. It's about a 70-word or so book. He'll be reading another three books this week from the level 2, and he'll have to read all four to Nathan after the sabbath's end (at the beginning of next week). He didn't do a lot of writing, but he did do a little in his social skills workbook, his history book (though I'm not making him write most of the answers in that book but just having him tell me, so I can reuse the book and not have to make copies of the pages), and the Complete Curriculum for Grade 1.

*Math: More counting, and then yesterday (Sunday) I had him do some workbook pages on counting objects and recording the number. He needs more practice writing his numerals, anyway. His 2, 3, and 5 all looked the same, before I corrected him. He then did a pretty good two and a fairly good 5. His three still needs work.

*Science: We talked about a cell last Thursday. He learned most animal cells round and that all of them have five main parts: cell membrane, nucleus, mitochondria, vacuoles, and cytoplasm. Plant cells are usually square or rectangle and have two additional parts: chloroplasts and cell walls. We talked about what each one did. I always repeat each thing several times when we go over stuff like this. Then today, we reviewed these things again, and we did a plant cell model with gelatin, metal ball, coins, plastic baggie, etc.

Also today, after texting my day dad on my cell phone about doing a plant cell model with William, he texted me back to request that we do an experiment to see whether cold or hot water freezes first. He said he went to take hot water out to their chickens, and my grandpa was down there and said that the hot water would freeze first (as that's what he's always been told, and he hasn't proved it otherwise). My dad's hypothesis (as well as my own) was that the cold water would freeze first. He told me that when he was taking HVAC classes that the instructor (whom was also my husband's HVAC instructor) told them that it was a myth that hot water freezes first. Well, of course it's a myth. Logic tells me that the cold water would freeze first. It's already lost more heat. COLD is a relative term. One might say that there is really no such thing as "cold." Cold is simply the absence of heat. The further down the temperature scale, the more absence of heat there is. Absolute zero equals NO ENERGY to distribute between atoms. (I'll be writing an article in the near future on ENERGY, heat and cold, and Einstein's famous E=mc squared to post on my website--endtimecog.net. I'll post here when it's finished.) Anyway, Will's hypothesis was that the hot water would freeze first. I don't know whether he really thought that or not. He loves to disagree. It may be a bad thing now, but I have hope that his not-so-quickly-agreeing with everything will work to good in his future. Now, I'd also told my dad that I'd heard of some boy who did do this experiment (for his science fair project) and that the cold water froze first. BUT, upon my dad's request, we did the experiment to see for ourselves. Will and I got two identical mugs, put hot filtered tap water in one and cold filtered tap water in the other, labeled them with a red star and blue star, and we placed them in the freezer. I checked them after 20 minutes and after 40 minutes. After the former, the "cold" water was "colder" than the hot, the latter of which was now "cold" to my touch. After the latter time, the "cold" water had a nice layer of ice, and the previously hot water had not even started developing ice crystals yet. SO, the conclusion of the experiment is that hot water does NOT freeze more quickly than "cold" (less hot) water.


*In Complete Curriculum, Will did a reading lesson or two over the past week, a grammar lesson (animals as nouns), and a math lesson.

*We finished the first unit of the "Our Christian Heritage" book. We'll start the next unit sometime this week.

*We worked on more social skills, including saying no to friends when we should, asking to borrow another's possessions, saying sorry, and name-calling. We're halfway or so through the book. After we're finished, we will start the other manners and etiquette book.

That's it for now.