J-Term: DAY 1
No Morning Chores for the boys. Ki made Grands Biscuits for breakfast. I don’t buy those things, but on holidays (usually Christmas & Whatever break we take in Spring & Summer) Brian buys them. Grands & the Cinnamon rolls in the Pop-Open canister. I figure it’s a good arrangement. I don’t like Ki having those (esp the Cinnamon ones) during school weeks because he needs to avoid Artificial- but it is a Dad Makes Breakfast Thing usually- and that is a good bonding/memory thing for the boys- so having it as a Holiday/Special treat is fine. And Brian forgot to make the Grands Biscuits with dinner last week and Ki found them this morning. They should be low enough is artificial (probably just some art. Butter flavor) that Ki will be fine for today’s school.

SCHOOL: Started at 9 today. I hope to get started at 8:30 the rest of the month- most of the time.

9:00 AM- Read from the Bible. Reading Proverb of the Day with the boys this month. And read a little in Story of the World. Then we talked a bit about how we will run J-Term this month. I gave C & K their Index Card Cases for Sewing Class and Ki his for Culinary Arts. Gavin went off to do Computer Programming while C,K, & I started Sewing Class. I handed them the syllabus and showed them the appliqué pouch I made. We talked about different ideas for a pouch and then they had to draw 2 ideas on index cards. Connor wants to make a pouch for Amtgard Thrown weapons and Ki wants to make a belt favor pouch for Amtgard.
I cut 2 plastic bottles for plants while they did that.

When they had their designs drawn, we went to the fabric store. They looked around for what seemed like forever before they found the right solid green and the perfect solid brown and the shade of solid yellow that they liked. They had the lady cut it and talked to the cashier. She was very glad and impressed to see boys happily/willingly learn to sew!
At home they started the prewash with salt 9to help keep the dye from bleeding- which is mainly for multi-colored fabrics, but it won’t hurt to get them in the habit. Then it was break time. I planted some carrots in some mini-greenhouses and they played. Gavin had a snack of course.

After the break I had my Tiny Tailors get out their Sewing Note cards and write/draw how they thought the pouches should be made; what shape/size to cut the fabrics, how to put them together, how to make the pouch and handles etc. Being able to visualize what needs to be done to get the desired result is very important in sewing and in many other aspects of life. I planted an onion)
When they were done with that they we ready to dry their fabrics.
Now they have a couple index cards for their design. They date them and keep them in their index card holder.

LUNCH!!!! I had a quick lunch then rode my bike to Trader Joe’s for a few grocery items.
Classes change after lunch but I had C&K iron their now dry fabric after lunch (before switching to the next class)

Math isn’t really a fun topic about which too blog, so I’ll just share that Ki is reading Life of Fred for math and he actually looks forward to and asks if it is math time yet now! It’s great for non-math kkids that love stories and storytelling!
Brian sent G&C an email with links and assignments for their robotics/computer programming today.
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- Gavin and Connor,
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- During J-Term we will need to cover some basics like mechanics, wiring, soldering, and programming. We will be using Lego Mindstorms to cover some of the basics of mechanics and programming. Wiring and soldering skills will be practiced in the shed.
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- ASSIGNMENT for Monday (4 Jan). When I get home we will spend 45 minutes discussing the items below.
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- Read the attached PowerPoint file. It can also be found at
- www.robofest.net/resc/robo101forRobofest.ppt
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- Watch
- 60 Second video on how to do binary quickly
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- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdFmSlFojIw&feature=player_embedded
- Read the sections on HISTORY, QUALITY, and DEBUGGING
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- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_programming
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- Check out the list of computer programming languages - We don't need to learn them all :) We will be learning BASIC and PYTHON at first.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programming_languages
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- Read the section on "What is a Hacker"
- http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html#what_is
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- For fun - links to check out .....
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- In the future (possible this spring) we will purchase some robot kits - see links below.
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- sample basic robot using PICAXE robot platform
- http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5734178030844828508#
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- balancing robot
- http://www.instructables.com/id/Balancing_Robot/
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- Where to buy.
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- http://www.robotshop.us/starting.html
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- http://letsmakerobots.com/node?page=0%2C1
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- http://www.robotgear.com.au/Category.aspx/Category/38
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- Dad