Sept 14.

2009_9_14
Everyone seemed extra tired. Connor was up before 7, but everyone else slept till almost 8. I hit the ‘snooze’ a few times, too, and didn’t get up until about 7:35. I made Lemon Poppyseed Muffins. I had mixed the batter last night, so all I had to do was cook them. I used our LEGO cupcake pan. MMMMM! I usually avoid starchy foods for breakfast, but Ki offered the remaining half of his muffin to me. I can’t turn Ki down when he’s being so sweet.
So, it’s a late start to our day. I wanted to have the boys do their reading when Brian and were gone, after lunch. They wanted to read first thing. They always read first thing in the morning. It’s what they are used to doing, so I went with it. We can do shorter lessons today. It’s my anniversary present to them…
I spent their reading time drinking tea and researching Bible Passages for this week. I read John 1:1-3 to them. Then I re-read it using “Jesus” in place of “WORD” and “Him”. I then told the boys to go get started on their school. Ki decided to read in Genesis and talked about how in the Original Hebrew text it didn’t really say “In the beginning”. The words used mean something closer to “At some time”. He said he likes that because it doesn’t seem like creation was the beginning of time, like saying ‘in the beginning does’.
Ki and I did science. We read about crustacean anatomy. As I was getting ready to read the next section (about Lobsters) Ki announced he wanted to go draw a lobster that he made up. So I told him where the colored pencils were and gave him a large note card.

C&G did their Alek Math and their science. I read Ki’s church history book with him. He made note cards of people’s names. I had him get hiss clay. He likes to stop and squeeze his clay between note cards. It helps him to be able to write more and better. It’s a glow in the dark clay and Ki says it doesn’t make his hands sticky like other clay.

The rest of school they will do on their own as Brian and I will be out of the house.
After the picnic, Munchkins, and DRIVE THROUGH CAR WASH, we got home around 3. The boys decided to watch the Liberty Kids DVD we got in the mail today. They asked if it would count as their history. I said yes, they could count that as their history if they wrote a paragraph for each of the episodes they watched.

Ki’s German today is a Matching Sheet I made and printed for him, plus listening/watching the YOUTUBE lessons we have in the school playlist.

Spet 9, 2009- off-track scheduling

7-8 is Morning Computer time. (If morning chores are finished). But The boys slept in today. Connor got some morning computer, but Ki & Gavin didn’t.
8-9 is Breakfast, Bible Reading, Story of the World, and any discussion time about the days assignments or agenda. With K&G sleeping in and the fact that I have an extremely sore throat so I slept inn a little, we were off a bit here, too. That’s fine, The times are more just to keep up moving onto the next thing. If we are not done with our ‘together reading’ by 9, we don’t just stop at 9. We finish our reading. So today the next session didn’t really start until 10:15. I had a sore throat (still do) so Connor read SOTW for us. Ki was our Bible Reader today. (Eph 6:10-20)
9-10 is almost always Reading Time. It works best that way. It gives me time to make sure I have gathered any lists or items I need and gives me time to clean up a bit in the kitchen, plus the boys like to ease into the school day and reading is a good way to accomplish that. Ki is reading WARRIORS (cat warriors), Gavin is reading 39 Clues (second book), He’s supposed to be reading Tom Sawyer, but can’t find it. We don’t always do assigned reading books, but when we do and Gavin can’t find his, he usually is handed the Robert Frost book of poetry. I was nicer today and just let him choose any book he’s not read yet. Connor is reading Swiss Family Robinson. His dad assigned that.
OK—we are even further OFF the time slots- All is good. We just moved on to the next thing when we are done with the previous. Ki choose to start with Science. (I printed all his syllabi for his classes. He put them in to their corresponding books). Science was almost a meltdown, because I mentioned he didn’t rite the first word on the list first, he had skiped it accidently then I corrected his letter ‘n’ and told them to write them properly. He makes them like a lazy, upside-down u. no stem- just a bump. He said when he makes them with a stem they look kind of like an ‘h’. I told him at 3 or 5 or even 7, that is an understandable excuse, but at 12 and 13, he can figure out which it is by the word. LESSON has an /n/ sound at the end, not an /h/. He was fighting a meltdown so hard! He then does his verson of an ‘n’ with a stem. He writes it correctly, then ADDS more stem to it. (making it look like a short ‘h’). I told him there is no need to add a stem if he did it when he wrote the letter. He said it didn’t look right without adding the extra stem. He was about to cry and run off and slam doors, I could tell. So I dropped it. Correcting penmanship & pointing out omissions are not worth a meltdown.
(G&C did their math during this time)
Ki wanted to do Church History next, but next in Church History was writing Name Cards. He decided to do german as there was no writing in that. I found that one of our High School Advantage CDs had german lessons so we did that. It’s basically like Talking Flash Cards on the computer. He did great with the 1st two things in the lesson, but the 3rd thing was to type the number name in English that went with the German card. So if it said Eins- he had to type O-N-E.
O.K. TYPING and SPELLING all at the same is NOT going over well for a boys who had Dyslexia & Dyspraxia and already was on the verge of a meltdown. He actually did a couple, but got frustrated that he couldn’t just hit the number button (like ‘ 1’ or ‘5’) and then he always messed up the typing/spelling. So I ended that quickly! I am a “Meltdown-Avoiding Wimp” today.

I’ll be changing his Church History today. No more writing today.
I got out a 10-sided die and we played a little game. We just rolled the die back and forth to each other saying the number (German) that was the number. So if Ki rolled it to me and it landed on 8, I’s say “acht”
We did 2 rounds. Round 1 we had the “0” be ZERO and round 2 we had it ne TEN. It was a good game.