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...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)