Character Collages, Trusten Reading, Homer

Week of January 20 thru 26, 2012:

 I made collages of positive character traits for each of my children.  At first I didn't make one for Elizabeth and had decided to just wait until she was older and had more numerous definable traits, but after Jaden William asked about it, I decided I'd make one for her, too.  I chose their favorite colors for the older three.

Jaden

His was the first I made, and that "animals" one I placed first, and I'm not happy with where it's sitting.  Drives me crazy!

Jaden painted a chicken's egg this week

Jaden and I also read more of The Children's Homer.  We talked about wisdom, respect, honor, and justice.  We also talked about how it has already become apparent that the goddess Athene can appear in someone else's likeness and how the scriptures talk about the angels (as well as the Son of God) being able to do that.  There has already been conflict spoken of between various gods and goddesses.  For example, there was a contest to judge who the fairest between three goddesses (Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite), and there followed envy and conflict.  They each promised the appointed judge different gifts if they were the winner. Hera promised a great kingdom, Athena promised great wisdom, and Aphrodite promised the fairest mortal woman in the world would fall in love with him.  Paris chose Aphrodite, and so then Aphrodite caused Menelaus' queen Helen to fall for Paris, and Paris kidnapped her.  That is what then sparked the Trojan war.  What a mess!  In the Royal Family of the One True God, all members are of one mind in important matters, and when there is a disagreement, those members should resolve their conflicts in a loving manner.  When we are all perfect Spirit sons of God there will be no fighting at all amongst us.  Such is the difference in the pagan god lore.  Of course there is truth to the pagan gods and goddesses.  There really are spirits who receive the worship of humans and do indeed answer their prayers, but they are often working against each other.  Satan is indeed the god of this world/age, and it shows!

Jade also experimented with some things this week (when is he not?).  Included was shooting pellets at different numbers of pumps at a concrete block, then retrieving the pellet and showing me how much damage it incurred.  He then shot it at metal to show me how much it would dent it.  Then one day he came to the laundry room to show me how he was scratching into a nickel, because it was somewhat soft, because he'd put it in the woodstove where a fire was burning!  I then started to talk to him about how we're not supposed to ruin currency, but during this he put it back in there and excitedly said, "Look how it glows, Momma!"  I told him to hurry and get it back out of there before it melted, but when he tried retrieving it, red-hot coaled logs caved in on top of it, and so it's history.  Oops. 

Trusten

Finishing a Phonics Reader before beginning Language Lessons (I ditched the volume 1, as I realized that was intro to alphabet, and so I ordered him volume 2 and am keeping the other for Liv)

He's being funny, which is his normal routine, but despite his much joking around he actually is quite motivated to do his work, because he likes to play video games afterward.

It's Blur Boy!  He moves around a lot constantly, whether he's eating, doing school work, or even "sitting" to read.  The pink toy?  A gift from his friend Violet that he much treasures.  LOL

His drawing of his "favorite thing to do with a tree?" That is a quickly-drawn picture of him riding on our sycamore tree jumper/swing. I think it's cute!

A video of Trusten reading a page in his Phonics Reader (email subscribers must click the link and go to the blog page to view the video):

Trusten is working through these Phonics Readers, which includes reading and writing.  He's also working through some Rocket Readers books on the pre-level 1 level, and then he will read the level 1 books, and then we'll continue through the Rocket Readers Learn-to-Read Bible until he's finished before reading the level 2 and 3 books.  That's how I worked it for William, and all went well. I think I must have started the pre-level and level 1 before starting the L-t-R Bible, though. 

Olivia

Liv holding Little Hen, caught by Jade, of course.  She's always asking Jaden to catch her a chicken to hold.

Elizabeth

Sweet Liz looking out her "looking window," our left master bedroom window on which I raise the blinds each day just for her.  She loves to stare outside and watch the chickens, crows, trees, etc.

Until next time...

Icicles, Art, Robots and Homer

Week of January 13 thru 19:


The usual math, language lessons, spelling, etc., as well as reading lots of things with God's Instruction Book I as the top priority.  We also read about "India and Hinduism" in Mystery of History after Jaden did a quiz and pretest, the January edition of Ranger Rick where we read about the crabs on Christmas Island and some other things, the Learn-to-Read Bible with Trusten; and Jaden and I started reading The Children's Homer.

The Children's Homer

At the beginning of The Children's Homer, the king of Ithaka Odysseus was told by a messenger that he was being called to war with the other kings against Troy to rescue King Menelaus' (of Sparta) wife Helen whom was stolen by Paris, a prince of Troy.  Odysseus was a man of wisdom, among other things, and he feigned being mad in order to avoid leaving his wife and newborn son for war.  So what did he do to make it look as if he was crazy?  He started plowing a field with a donkey and ox yoked together!  I stopped at this point and talked to Jaden about the statute in the law of Moses that commanded not to yoke a donkey and ox together.  It's apparent that those of Greece didn't think this was a good thing, either.  The messenger tested him, though, by placing his firstborn infant son in the way of the plow, and when Odysseus got to the child, he stopped, so it was seen that he was sane and so went to war with some of his men.  Odysseus, if he was a real king, wasn't the only king recorded in history to feign madness.  King David of Israel pretended to be insane so that people would not know who he was, actually before he became king, but Achish, king of Gath, thought it was David the king, and so David was afraid, because he had fled from Saul who was still king and was envious of how the people treated David over him.

Robots

In one issue of Weekly Reader/Scholastic News we read about robots, especially humanoid robots and how they're being used more and more.  That led to some very interesting discussion about where our future is heading and the pros and cons of such a thing. 

Some Art

We started reading in the booklet that came with the Origami set that was a gift from my sister.  There are a couple other things we need to start doing origami. 

Here are some of the recent drawings and colorings of Trusten (who went quickly from practically no drawing and coloring experience to doing it and enjoying it), as well as an addition done by William to my turtle family set that I keep on my dresser.  My sister gave me the turtle family as a gift she got from Cozumel a year or two ago.  It was perfect, as it had a daddy turtle on bottom, a momma turtle, two boy turtles, and a girl turtle.  But now we have Elizabeth, so Jade decided to take a couple of my shells and make a new turtle (without legs, because I do not have shells small enough).  He got eyes and a puffball from his art stuff to add the finishing touches.

L: A pink person, a blue rabbit, and a yellow flower for Momma, from Trusten; An "Elizabeth" turtle (notice he used blue eyes) added to top of pile-up by Jaden William

  
Icicles

Jaden got his beloved wish to play with icicles from the bluffs.  It truly made his day that day:

A lovely sight for us to drive by whenever we go out

He doesn't like what he calls "the toddler picture." ;-)  He was appalled by his facial expression when I snapped the picture.  He was talking.

Ice treasures!!!  And yes, those are his good shoes!  We had gone to town that day.

  

Sabbath Day

Ahhhh....just gorgeous scenery and such a lovely day to relax and praise God on His holy day:

See the moon in the top picture?

 

Until next time...

Off Week

Week of Jan. 6 to 12, 2013:

This week was an extra housework week where Jaden helped with things for two days and earned two free days.  We read some Swiss Family Robinson on the first day, and we read scriptures and a bit of other stuff during the week, but no book work, except for Trusten on sixth day. 

And on my last post I'd entitled it the new Roman year (have since changed it), but I realized I didn't even go into what I was going to say about that.  There was an article on the Mayans in Jaden's Weekly Reader and a year in review, but I'm done with typing today. 

Here are a couple pictures from the week:

 Jaden brought in ice from the chickens' water one day to show me.  It'd had leaves in it, and the imprints were on it and other cool crystalline structures.  I was so afraid it was going to melt enough to break in the house.  I hurriedly took a picture and then told him to get out with it. LOL  Well...it dropped and shattered all over the floor, anyway.  Ha!  Oh well, it was no big deal.  It was easy for him to clean up and soooo much better than glass.

Two sweet boys watching the chickens together, talking, and Jaden carving something.

Homer, Geodes, and Other Fun Things

For the week of Dec. 30, 2012 to Jan. 5, 2013:

Chef Jaden

Jaden William fixed breakfast for us every day this week, because he wanted to do so, except for the sixth day when we ate a quick fruit breakfast and got to work, and except for the Sabbath on which we always eat an easy breakfast.  The first day he made pancakes, and I made muffins (I didn't want pancakes), and the other four days he made muffins.  He decided one of the days to make peach muffins.  Now I haven't made peach muffins in nearly seven years.  I made them one time, and I'd used a different recipe than the base recipe I use now for all my various muffins.  We had not liked them, and though I've thought a few times about trying peaches with my beloved muffin recipe, I've just never done it.

Jade came up with the idea totally on his own, though, and wow, did they turn out delicious (I did take out the cinnamon and told him we should include it just like in our apple cinnamon muffins).  The very next day we all wanted peach muffins again, but the electricity was off, hence my grain mill would not function.  However I have a manual mill, so William took out that grinder and went to work.  I was working with Trusten on a workbook, and so when Jaden William the flour was coming out too coarse I didn't pay too close attention.  From where I was sitting it looked ok, and so I told him to carry on.  Well he got everything mixed together (and right afterward the electricity came back on), and I then saw what he meant.  The mill can be adjusted, just as the electric one can be, and the thing had been set on a setting that basically just chopped the grain.  There was no turning back, though.  We ended up eating the muffins that way.  It was a good lesson in how the flour normally soaks up the liquids in the correct way.  Sorry.  I took no pictures of any of this.

Jaden and Trusten did workbook math, nothing fun about math this week.  I worked with Liv in the Southwestern book I have on Numbers.

Eye Collages

Trust and Liv used the window crayons I bought.  Trusten designed one of the boys' bedroom windows, and Liv decorated the second.  I mentioned this in  my last post, but this particular activity took place during this week.

We all participated in a fun eye collage (my idea).  I couldn't possibly get Elizabeth still enough for her picture to turn out well. I did finally get one with which I was satisfied, but I had to take it while nursing her, and so hers is more diagonal.  Liv's, Jade's, and Nathan's turned out the best.  In the second collage I used different pictures of Jade and myself where the colors of our eyes look quite different.  This was fun, and I have the top collage set as my newest desktop background.

Top, from l to r: Liv, Trust, Na; Bottom: Jade, Liz, Tara

Bottom left is alternate Jade, bottom right is alternate Tara

A Lovely Sight in the Sky

One beautiful morning we headed to the post office to pick up a package.  The skies were gorgeous, but we saw nothing out of the ordinary.  Late that afternoon we started off to NWA (Northwest Arkansas) to get groceries.  I was amazed to see a strange sight in the sky.  We had recently read in one of Jaden's weekly readers about solar storms and how the solar flares could cause the aurora borealis to be seen as far south as Arkansas, so Jaden said that he thought it might be that.  It didn't look like an aurora, though.  It partially looked like a second sun shining, and then there was a red bow.  The bow had a longer reach than you can really tell in my pictures, but the most visible part was with the bright circle of light, and you can see that in the pictures.  You can see clearly where the sun (a few minutes shy of an hour before sunset) is, and there are only light cirrus-like clouds in the sky, not cumulus clouds covering that whole area with just a break for the sun to shine through.  It literally looks like there is an entire different light-source (though it must surely not be).  Does anyone know the correct explanation for this phenomenon?  I do remember that the waves that show red show through better in the evenings, so this seems to me to be related to solar particles and waves, but I'm not sure whether it can be referred to as aurora, when I've never seen any aurora picture like this.

 Anyway, it was neat. I had to stop and take pictures.

Homer

We read in Mystery of History about "Elisha," "Joel and Obadiah," and "Homer."  I decided to read The Children's Homer with Jaden, which is a shortened version of the two classics The Odyssey and The Illiad.  I loved the movies.  Odysseus underwent many trials but never gave up in trying to get home to his wife and son.  And his wife was noble and faithful for two decades, refusing to believe he'd died and not wishing to marry another.  I'm also hoping to open Jaden's eyes wide to the biggest difference between the One True God and the many pagan gods, which is the fact that it's not that God the Father is a single god, but rather one, and that "one" means unity and union with harmony.  God can reproduce and beget sons just as any man or animal or plant, but they are one with him (like is fully explained in Christ's prayer in John 17).

There are other gods.  The scriptures call both angels and men gods.  Satan is called the god of this world.  And indeed there is a lot of truth seen in the pagan religions.  The problem is that people have worshiped all the various gods, and they WAR against each other.  There is NO unity/oneness.  The gods warred with each other, took revenge upon each other, etc.  One person may have prayed to one god or goddess for one thing, and delighting to answer that person's prayer, something horrible may have happened to that person when another god did something to him or her to get back at the other god or to answer one of his loyal follower's prayers.

I'm hoping for some good discussion and important lessons. 

The World of Randolph the Grasshopper

Speaking of important lessons, I'll share one of the latest Randolph stories.  For those who don't recall, as I've not shared many Randolph stories on the blog, Randolph is the main character in the most regular bedtime stories I've told the children.  I've been telling Randolph stories for five years or so now.  They are fun but almost always have a moral lesson, too.  This story was about two more of Randolph's sons named Shiloh and Abaddon.  Randolph taught both those sons how to make fire.  The two sons took the knowledge of making fire and went on two separate paths.  Shiloh used his knowledge of making fire to light lamps for others so that they could see their way in the dark and to build fires for warmth.  Abaddon was full of hate and so used his knowledge of making fire to deliberately burn down a nearby forest.  (Not sure whether I shared it a while back, but there was another son of Randolph's--Pyro--who also caused destruction with burning, and he perished in a field fire of his own making.)  Shiloh was loved and praised by those around him, whereas it was discovered what Abaddon did, and he was executed for his deed, and there was much mourning for the innocent that was lost, as well as mourning on Randolph's part that his son chose the wrong way.

This story was to further the understanding of the knowledge of good and evil and that knowledge itself is not evil but what is done with it can be.  Jaden and I have returned to this topic a lot over the past few weeks.  Two people can obtain the same basic knowledge, and one can use that knowledge to do evil, and another can use that same knowledge to do good.  A person can make a knife to cut food or leather, etc. or can make a knife to kill in battle.  A person can read a story to meditate upon its concepts and learn from the characters' successes and failures to become a better person, or a person can read the same story and decide to engage in wrongful activities learned in the story.  A person can learn uterine surgery to undertake a life-saving cesarean section operation or to remove the baby to kill it.

I had already conceived the story right before the children went to bed, but when I went into the boys' bedroom Trusten was beating on the big stuffed horse in the middle of the room, kicking and punching it.  I said, "I believe the story I'm about to tell will be just perfect, because Trusten is not doing the right thing toward the horse."  Immediately he started dancing with the horse,  holding onto its front feet.  So after I told the story I revisited the incident with Trusten and the horse.  Trusten had the knowledge to move his arms/hands and legs/feet, but he showed how that could be used for both good and evil toward the horse.

Geodes

We opened geodes this week, and of the six geodes, only one of them was not much to look at inside.  I've  now got them all adorning a shelf on one of our bookcases.  We also read about geodes:  what the word means (earth-like,  shaped like the earth), how they form, what kinds of minerals can be found inside, where they're located, etc.  The first five Jaden chiseled around them and then hammered.  The last one we left for Nathan, and he cut it open neatly.  Some of my pictures got deleted, and I'm disappointed in how some of these look, as they look so much more gorgeous than you can see, but the one Nathan is holding looks nice.  The one busted open shown on the floor with just a tiny cap off the top is a very gorgeous one, too.  You just can't tell it. 

Icicles and Chickens

Jaden loves all the ice in the winter, as most of you reading well know.  Here he is by the bluffs with an icicle.

 
 And everyone who knows Jaden William also knows he dearly loves chickens.  He has wanted some silkies again ever since his beloved black silkie Rudi died years ago.  He went with his daddy to get some white and gray ones.  The one pictured below became injured (leg was hurt by an attacking chicken), and Jaden cared for it all day.

Well, that covers the high points of our week.

Until  next time...

Balloon Math, New Educational Stuff

For the week of Dec. 23-29, 2012:


Balloon Math

The kids wanted to play with balloons, so I decided we'd do some balloon math.  Coming up with the idea for Liv to count balloons and for Trusten to practice addition by adding two sets of balloon was easy.  I wasn't sure what to do for Jade, so I did a search for balloon math and found a great idea on the Education World website.  I wrote a random numbers on the balloons, one number for each balloon; these were answers.  Then I used index cards to write problems to match up with the balloons, three different problems for each answer.  Then I taped the index cards throughout the living room, and Jaden had to stick the index cards with the problems onto the correct answer balloons.

Liv counted balloons before and after I numbered the balloons for JW

Some of the index cards taped around

Trusten has drawn a lot of pictures lately.  I'll post some next week.  I also got the kids some window crayons.  Jaden and I have written mirror messages (I to the kids in their bathroom and I to Nathan on his mirror in our bathroom, and Jaden wrote on my bathroom mirror), and Trust and Liv did art on the boys' bedroom windows.  Trusten drew a tree, some grass, and what looked like clouds.

I read to them from the Weekly Reader about winter holidays from both Trusten's and Liv's issues.  The four holidays (with "lights" and "celebration" as the topics) were Hannukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and Diwali.  I also sat with the kids through a short Youtube video discussing the pagan origins of Christmas.  I even wrote a poem (though poetry is far from being a talent of mine).

They say today is Christ's mass.
Do they not know they trespass?

Everywhere you go it's "Merry Christmas,"
and they all act as if full of bliss.

Families kneeling all around the evergreens,
Trees decorated with lights and figurines.

Lying to kids about Santa Claus,
Their traditions conflicting God's laws.

Asking God to bless dinner of ham,
But God blesses not, but does damn.

Was Jesus Christ born on this day?
They know he wasn't, but they choose to play.

When will they ever learn?
God doesn't wish for them to burn.

Even at the very end they'll make merry
and will send gifts all around,
When once the two witnesses who were wary
have been killed and lie on the ground.
                                 -Tara Lang Chapman

My sweet baby Elizabeth is pulling up all the time now:

Kids sitting ready for reading time, and Liz wants up, too.

We've been reading God's Little Instruction Book I every day in lieu of our daily Proverbs chapter, and we'll be doing this until we go through all three books I have.  I love the books.  I got them as a gift from my secret sister at church long ago when I was in a "Secret Sister" group.  The books include wise sayings, each matched with a scripture verse (often a Proverb or something Christ was recorded in the gospels as saying, but it includes scriptures from a wide range of biblical books).  I read a few pages each day and elaborate on certain points as I usually do.

In Mystery of History we read about the "Division of Israel" and "Elijah."

We read in God's Design for the Human Body about taste and smell and did some experimentation, including plugging off the kids' noses and closing their eyes while they tasted apple, potato, and carrot to see whether they could guess what they were tasting.  They all recognized the every taste, but it wasn't as strong with their noses plugged.

Now if we could just make mouth clips...lol

The kids all got some new things for learning, mostly with money from family.  During my mother-in-law's recent visit, all the kids got some money, and both Olivia and Elizabeth got money for their birthdays from a few.  So what cool stuff did they get?

Jaden loves all the stuff.  I chose the age 11-12 for him for Brain Quest (he's 9.5), and that was the perfect choice.  That math he struggles with (though he can answer some of it, too), but everything else he excels on.  He's such a big reader.  Nathan and I have played Line Up with him once so far.  Jade loves it.  It works on memory and attention to detail skills.  I think he's probably already worked through half the Perplexors book.  They're the little problems that give you clues about various individuals and what they had, liked, wore, etc., and you have to figure out who else likes what, etc.  Then the books are "Choose Your Own Adventure" books.  I remember reading a sci-fi book like that as a kid, and I thought it was really cool.  They set you up on an adventure, and at certain points you are given choices on the end of the page, and depending on which route you take (you then go to whatever page number it instructs) you may be a hero or end up being eaten by a dinosaur or something.  Lots of action and problem-solving.

Liv got the preschool (4-5 years) Brain Quest (she's 3), and this is just right for her.  The skills put forth in the cards are the skills she's learned or is currently learning.  The Little Keepers at Home book will be better served as the years progress, but she's already in early training, and this is a cute little book that works on scripture memory and various household tasks like cleaning and cooking.

Olivia and Elizabeth also got a nice Radio Flyer off road wagon with high wooden sides attached.  They both love it!  I can pull them both slowly, because Liv will hold Liz between her legs and hug her.  Olivia will get in by herself, and Jaden will run pulling her.  

Trusten will soon start the Language Lesson book.  Jade is using a book from this same series, but for an older level.  I knew Trust would love the Usborne Phonics Readers books.  We all do!  We've read almost all of them.  The Frog on a Log book has several different stories in it, but each of the other books has one story each.  The Brain Quest pictured is the "Grade 1" for 6-7 years, and I was torn between getting that and the 5-6 years level.  In most cases for such things, the correct thing in the case for my kids is to go up at least one level, but since Trusten is at that stage where he's learning to read and write and go beyond basic counting, I was unsure.  This one ended up being too advanced for him, so I've since got him the level down, which is perfect, and by the time he reaches his sixth birthday in May he'll probably be ready to move up.

I also got some other books not pictured.  I got Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree a couple weeks earlier.  I love the lessons in that book.  I even referenced that book in a biblical article I wrote a few years ago.  I want to get some of his poetry books, but for now I settled for A Net of Fireflies which contains a lot of rhyming haikus.  I then got a non-rhyming haiku book called A Year of Guyku (haiku for boys).  I'm not looking at the authors right now.

Also for Jaden and I to read together next year I bought a trilogy wherein the first book is The Giver by Lois Lowry.  I didn't know until I looked for this book to buy that it ended up being the first in a trilogy.  The book has been on my mind a lot lately for some reason.  I never even read the entire thing as a child, but there's something that keeps telling me to get it and read it.  I read enough of it to score well on the tests given.  It was a required reading book for English/Language Arts in junior high, and I didn't like my teacher at the time (no one did), and some of the other stuff she'd subjected us to was so deeply tormenting in the boredom department that I didn't want to waste my time reading something of her choosing. 

Science stuff!!!!!!!  These things will be used for various purposes throughout our learning experiences.

Nathan, Jaden, and I played Bible Scattergories on Sabbath.  It was the first time Jade had ever played that game.  Trusten and Liv did bible sticker books.  I helped Liv finish her book and read the last story to her, which was about the men building their houses on sand vs. rock foundations.

It was mostly a cold overcast week, but it snowed on the sixth day of the week, so the older three kids played out in the falling snow while I prepared for Sabbath.  It was the first snow of this winter.  The next day we took a Sabbath drive, because I wanted to go see the outdoors, but I didn't want to freeze.

Until next time...