courtcase, DNA, Parenting Teens

February 4, 2008

In Story of the World we have been reading about China. We got to the Great Wall today.

After SOTW I gave instructions for Brain Gym (crisscrosses and elephant 8s) while I wrote the spelling words on the board.

I explained their words and how we’d do spelling this week. We are doing irregular verbs like catch-caught and interweave-interwove. The words are in sets and to be copied into their notebooks as sets. For their spelling tests I will say one verb and they will write the verb in the other tense. So if I say ‘teach’ they will write ‘taught’.

Gavin and Connor went off to read and Gavin fell asleep.

Ki played Beat the Clock on the Leap Pad then we did a few story problems in his Froggy Fraction book.

After a small break, Connor choose a Netflix for us to watch. The Greek Gods from The History Channel. It was interesting. Lots of talk of sexual conquest and paintings of naked people. Oh well. Sex happens and is a big part of Greek history.

Then Lunch and getting ready for the court thing. It’ll be nice to be done with this.

We arrive at the court house, wait a long time (about 30 minutes). The dude decided to plead no contest so I don’t have to testify. We decide to stay and watch the court workings. So after another 30-40 minutes we watch him walk up to the judge, plead no contest and walk out with his attorney. We head out and I hope the chick (the attorney) would at least impart knowledge to the boys. She didn’t have another case for awhile. I asked if there was anything she could tell the boys about the courthouse. She says “The public defender is for people that can’t afford to hire their own defense.” Because the boys pointed the room marked Public Defendant and asked about it. That was all she had to say and left. So much for being educational.

Home again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig.

Clean up from Lunch and did a CSI Activity about DNA with out CSI Science kit. Gavin did some extra research on ‘Junk DNA’. We’ll have to continue that.

Brian did some math with the boys after dinner.

In keeping up with our Parenting Class assignment I have counted:
TOUCHES: C-7, G-5
YELL: C-0, G- is a stern, barked command the same as yelling?
“I love You.” C-3, G-2
TIME: C- 15mins (he wanted to do my exercise DVD with me), 60ms (watched movie together) 15 (I figured I could count 15 minutes of our courthouse date) 30ms (doing CSI Science.
TIME:G- 60, 15, 30.
HUGS:C-3, G-2