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

to quiz or not to quiz... or HOW to QUIZ...

love home educating my boys. I love writing lessons. I like making quizes or question/study guides. I decided to make some quizes to go with their online government lessons. I am dreading it. I could forego the bi-weekly quizes, but I have decided that this trimester of school I want to focus on government and also on some school skills- taking notes, outlines, quizes. I think it's important to have some skill in these things for college and even jobs require these skills.

I decided quizes will be in math, science and government. and I won't be giving Ki science quizes (unless he wants them- he likes to choose to do what his brothers do when it hasn't been assigned to him. Makeshim feel smart to be able to take a quiz like his big brothers. I have found it to be an effective teaching method- to NOT assign him things that his older brothers do- then he gets that 'I HAVE TO KEEP UP WITH MY BIG BROTHERS" mentality.

So- I have 6 weeks of creative writing lessons. 5 weeks of lessons, week 6 is applied- writing short story using story cards (random draw of characters and conflict and setting).
I have 6 weeks of Math (Froggy Fractions) for Ki. He loves workbooks, so I went through and wrote down the pages- which he will be fine with half pages, every new skill he can choose between doing the 2nd OR 3rd page in that skill (he doesn;t need 4 pages of review, but the first is needed and page 4 is story problems he loves those. There are 6 story problems on the story problem pages. He does 4 and makes up 2 for his dad to do.

At the end of the 6 weeks he will have his next certificate. He loves getting those. I make them (the ones included in the workbook just don't fit what we do) I use cute tree frog clip art.
The older two I don't have a ending goal planned, we'll just go through out Algebra 1 book day by day and see where it takes us.

I have at least 8 weeks planned for Ki's Peoples of the World book. depending how in depth he wants to go- he could take this 8 weeks plans and 12 or more weeks with it!
I am enjoying ALL of the planning and look forward to planning the rest....... EXCEPT those darn government quizes. I think it is just because I'm not sure how I want to do them yet.

STILL TO DO-
write gov't quizes
plan DNA/Forensics- gather URLs, experiments and supplies, quizes, other activities.
Plan science Experiements for Fridays.
then gather some general school supplies.
I'm sure I'll think of more to plan in a bit.