Sleep Dust {KIA[7]}

We survived... 1 week & going strong...

weak/weak- strong...

get it... huh?

ya, never mind.

Anyway. the last 6 days of lots of running, being on our own, must have caught up with us. The only Adventure  Ki and I had wad an adventure in  books and naps.

Well, I did bike to the post office and take Ki to the Indian Restaurant for his Volunteer gig.

Sorry, that's all we have to offer today.

Oh, and I love the author Jasper Fforde! I may be up late finishing "One Of Our Thursdays Is Missing" tonight.

I want orange juice.

And I am in need of comments to boost my spirits, so leave 'em here -->

(to read about previous days: click the following links:
 * read prologue

 Day 1 &Day 2 &Day 3 & Day 4& Day 5 & Day 6)

KIA[6]

Me, Ki, and the Cat. It's a small family these days with 3 of our members away on a trip.

Ki and I are having Adventures. This little blog is about Day #6. Monday.

I like this little pace to our days we have going.
He made his breakfast, I made mine- whenver we wake up. He does his morning chores. I wash some dishes.

We read or play on the computer a bit, talk about lunch plans, go for a bike ride, do a little cleaning. I hung my laundry. WOWSERS, opur laundry and groceries are almost non-exsitent compared to when there are all 5 of here!

We do our own lunches, too. We clean up from lunch then I was on the phone making toomany phone calls while Ki went out back to make a fire in the wheelbarrow again.

He used this fire to warm the PVC pipe he was working with:

A little later he made a yummy treat for us. He toasted some almonds and then melted some chocolate with sea salt for a yummy bark snack:

I was on the phone more, read my book I styarted a long time ago and had to back track a few chapters, then Ki and I cleaned our bathrooms. It was his idea. Yesterday he said "We should clean our bathrooms on Monday." So we did.

After that we read in his Science book. We were reading about muscle types. Skeletal Muscles, Smooth Muscles, and Cardiac Muscles. I read from the book; "Cardiac Muscles is only found in one place in humans. Time Lords have Cardiac Muscles in 2 locations."

I Ad-Lib when I read to them. And, yes, I still use silly voices when reading to my high school age boys.  The section kept talking about our SUPERSTRUCTURE and I always said it like a super-hero with a deep voice speaking in a tunnel....

Ki helped me pick flowers to put in my vase then he got started making dinner. I ws going to make dinner myself, but I had told him my plan for dinner and he thought it ws fun, so he got to work on getting things ready. I was getting hungry I guess. So we both did our part to create tonight's dinner:

Compartment Cuisine -->

Ki arranged them around our centerpiece and asked what game I wanted to play. I chose Fluxx.

 Ki has his cake decorating class tonight. I'll post a picture in tomorrow's blog.

(to read about previous days: click the following links:

Day 1 and Day 2 and Day 3 and Day 4 and Day 5)

YO!

Oh My.
Where have I been?
Not here in the blog world.
I have been in my van. Driving.
But the play is over. The kids were great. I am tired of driving. And paying $4.15+ a gallon for gas. I think I filled up the van 3 times in the last 2 weeks. Once it was $4.32 a gallon!
LAST WEEK: In the midst of the Play Frenzy I had to make a stop at my acupuncturist's. I had an awful migraine with sensitivities and tingly/numb arms and face. I sure feel LOADS better when I came out of there, after some massage and hitting some major points. I had about 5 needles in my head. I normaly only have 2. I left there with 6 ear tacks. 4 in my ears and 2 in my back.
Hector is a Mexican guy in town that always comes by our house looking for work and money. Always trying to get paid way more than his work merits and it seems he often is pulling our leg.All is fine with his family until he thinks we didn't pay him enough then his baby is in the hospital. But, he is out working to get money and I am ok to pay for hard work. But when we were gone Saturday he cam by and pulled weeds when we were NOT here. Gavin got home and Hector talked G into paying him for the work and letting him in the backyard to do more work, which he insisted Brian pay his for doing. And he pulled out all my Asparagus Plants. I was NOT happy about any of it! And Gavin forgot to tell Brian he had Paid Hector $20 already. Hector got paid and paid again then had Brian give him a lift to the store and got dropped off. A liquor Store and dropped at a bar.
THIS WEEK: I have little planned. Bible Study is on Tuesday. I will be here every night to make dinner! I have to pick up my sewing machine so the boys can work on their amtgard stuff.I assigned them an hour of reading and an hour of math. I wanted to get back into Apologia Chemistry, but I can not find our CD-ROM. So we'll watch some Standard Deviant DVDs and take notes. **FOUND IT! but still gonna just watch the Standard Deviant DVDs this week- then seriously Buckle Down with Apologia in June & July.
Ki is reading White Fang. Connor is reading The Adventures of Tom Sayer. Gavin is reading Two Spies and a General. They are to do 1 hour at Khan Academy daily- with 15 minutes of that being watching videos. and Ki has 15 minutes of review.
TODAY: I watered my garden. We have to tuck seeds in here & there where we have room. So my garden is in bits and pieces around the yard. I found 18 sunflower starts in back and 9 in front. I planted the ones in front a few days after the ones in back. I ate a strawberry from last years plant. 2 of the new plants (24) from this year didn't survive. (there is a chance one of those might be revived..).
NEXT WEEK: We will be headed out to Yosemite for hiking and pictures! We'll cross a BIG BRIDGE and then cross it to come back. We'll visit a friend on the way home, then attend a 4 day Amtgard Camping Function. We MIGHT stop by Pinnacles on the way home.
Then we'll have 3 days to unpack, do laundry, repack for 4 days in LA for a gaming convention.
So I won't be blogging much this month I guess.
That iPad is looking better and better.... I looked up iPad 2, was impressed (the guy says ALYOOMINIUM... that gets me every time). Talked to Gavin, who totally shot it down and said I'd be better off just getting my laptop upgraded. Then he said if I gave him $600 he could make a really good computer for me.



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"I don't like to read."

"I don't like to read."

Today, after Bible Study, I took Connor and Ki to the library. We had about 40 minutes until it was time to pick up Gavin from class. He normally bikes, but in this heat, I didn't think it the wisest of ideas.

So we get to the library and drop off a very overdue book. It was one of the 3 very overdue books we have right now. But the only one that could be founds.

Connor (15) and Ki (14) find a comfy seat. I suggest they find a book to read. Ki tells me;
"I don't like to read."

He doesn't.

Connor wanted to be squirrelly and spend the time reading all the signs backwards.

We were sitting next to the shelf that houses books in DISEASES. I was scanning the titles excitedly deducing which of these wonderful selections I wanted to devour first!

"PLAGUES"

It just doesn't get much better than a good plague!
So I sit down and start reading the book about PLAGUES.

Page 2 starts with something like...
"Within a few short days hundreds had fallen ill. Early signs were fever, hoarseness, and coughing. Soon the ill had swollen tissue, severe headaches, vomiting and diarrhea."

I take the book to Ki and tell him what an awesome book! How many books start out like this!..... and read it to him. I read onto the next paragraph.
Next thing I know h is holding the book and has decided he wants to read it.

There he is. My self-professed "I don't like to read" child... reading away.

Connor sees a book on the paperback display. He comments on how funny the cover is. It is all white with a picture of a baby chicken...... upside down.
that's it. With the title across the bottom....
"flipped". Connor thought that was VERY interesting!

We talked about marketing techniques as Ki goes over and gets the book with the Flipped Over Chick and starts reading it.

Connor is still having fun reading the different signs backwards and counting dots on his chair.

Ki has now read parts of 2 different books. Not bad for a kid who hates to read.

Then we got Gavin and went to the mall for lunch. (100 is too hot to eat at home)

After lunch we go to the $1 Bookstore where Gavin finds 5 different books on computer programming and programming languages. (I found 3 murder mysteries). I pay for the 8 books and G wants to go explore the other side of the Computer Texts Shelf and spend is $20. I told him to get through these 5 books first.

No "real school" today. or yesterday. Or last Friday. or last Thursday.
Just lots of Life Learning. We'll get to some planned lessons tomorrow.

we spent a 4 day weekend at Feast of Mars.

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.

"FIRST" day of school

First ‘official’ day of school.

The day is going well.
We had breakfast, cleaned up from breakfast. The boys did their morning chores.
We had our 1st day of school meeting. I had a notecard of everything I wanted to talk about.
We talked about morning chores (I need to check their work this week), how they can earn extra computer time, our plan this week, reminded them to check their email and talked about spending more time reading the Bible and Talking to God.

We did our Geography Mind Builders. No one got it. I was offering a quarter for the first person to get the answer (without looking at the map) and $1 for the bonus part of the question. I told them we’d do 1 of these each day. More if they want. And I’d offer coins for correct answers (unassisted). I gave them each a quarter for it being our first day and just figuring out how to work. I asked if they wanted to try another question. Connor asked “If we do 2 questions today does that mean we won’t get to do one tomorrow?”. When I assured him they’d always have a chance at 1 a day, he decided to do another. Gavin got the quarter for the 2nd question.

Here were today’s questions.
#1 What is the name of the island country off the South East coast of India? What was it originally called?

#2. What large central European country was 2 separate countries from 1949-1990? (and I added “what was the name of the division between the 2 countries? What war ended in this separation?- but they only needed to answer the 1st for the quarter.)

ANSWERS:
#1 Sri Lanka and Ceylon
#2 Germany

Connor was a little upset that he didn’t get eat his lat chocolate chip. He had 12, did 11 problems, so I didn’t let eat his 12th choc chip. Ki got all 12 eaten and said if he didn’t do 12 in his Aleks time, he’d just do Aleks even longer until he got 12 done. Gavin decided he wanted some for his Aleks time, too.

Gavin and Connor both like to listen to Weird Al while they do their math.

They looked over some of their upcoming school things. Ki read in his book; Acting and Theater.

Connor and Ki went for a bike ride.

After lunch, we’ll do Story of the World and walk to the bank to set up accounts for the boys.

BOOKS BOOKS!

I bought graphic novels for the kids to read. I know; “Graphic Novels” make them sound like smutty books. No, I did not buy Smutty Books for my boys. They are comic books, but in a book format (a novel) instead of the comic book type book. The ones I bought are based on the kids’ cartoon Teen Titans. Ki loves them! Ki is my slow reader. Reading is a lot of hard work for him due to his dyslexia and SID and dyspraxia. So these short portions for reading are good for him. He has been reading a lot this trip. He even asked me if I had another book for him to read!

I’ll be stopping at Barnes and Nobles in the next big town to see if I can find some more graphic novels got Ki (and his brothers)

☺♥☺☺♥☺☺♥☺☺♥☺☺♥☺

Yesterday while I was sitting in the van at the gas station, the boys all went in to use the restroom. Apparently, they took in some money and bought snacks. Ki bought Jolly Ranchers for himself. He bought a bag of Swedish Fish for me. I thought was sweet of him to use his money to buy a snack for me. I never would have done that for my mom or dad when I was a kid. He is just so sweet and thoughtful; such a HUGE difference than who he was about 6-9 yra ago. He was so angry and full of rage and violence. He’d bring papers home from Sunday School with Jesus and the sheep colored as covered on blood and killed. Sometimes Jesus would have a sword and all other people on the coloring page were bloody. It’s been a long road and lots of therapy, but he is doing so well now.

☺♥☺☺♥☺☺♥☺☺♥☺☺♥☺

I need some Shut Eye. My Fioricet makes me sleepy.
☺♥☺☺♥☺☺♥☺☺♥☺☺♥☺

I bought books. Lots. 2 Graphic Novels for Ki (Avatar cartoon). For Connor, I bought 2 Cat Warrior Graphic Novels and the Next Cat Warrior Hardback (next for him and fairly new, as the paperbacks won’t be out till Nov.) HE was a little concerned about the price since it was only available in hardback so cost more than the paperback. I told him not to worry about it. I bought “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” for Gavin. C&K were in the store with me. I wanted to get Holes for Gavin. I thought Connor would like Diary of a Wimpy Kid. It seemed his kind of writing. I guess he and Ki both liked it, because they said I had to get it for Gavin. Hmmmmm….. maybe they hope to read it next. As soon as we got in the van Ki and Connor were reading their books. Gavin was on the cell phone with his best friend back in Ohio.

* I bought To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis. She wrote The Doomsday Book, which is one of my favorites.

Best Laid Plans

AH-h-h-h-h-h.... NICE! I have the basic plans laid for school. I let the boys choose their science, social studies and Bible; which was a math choice for Gavin, since he choose Physics for Science (I didn't even suggest that one).
SO here is what I have so far. I will add online research and projects to these. ACE [Accelerated Christian Education] are self paced workbooks. We've never tried them, but I figured for a couple subjects they might be OK.

GAVIN (9th grade 08/09)
Science:Physics [Apologia CD course]
Math: Trig [Aleks Online] *Lessons from dad
Social Studies: Economics [A.C.E.] AND Ben'sGov [online]
Bible: Life of Christ [A.C.E.]
History: Story of the World and WW1&2 reading
Language Arts: Eclectic [Spectrum Writing, NanoFictionary, Reading, etc]

CONNOR (8th grade 08/09)
Science: Geology [online, research, projects, I'll pull a bunch of stuff together]
Math: Middle School 3 course [Aleks Online] Lessons from dad
Social Studies: Civics [A.C.E.] AND Ben'sGov [online]
Bible: Christian Growth [A.C.E.]
History: Story of the World and WW1&2 reading
Language Arts: Eclectic [Spectrum Writing, NanoFictionary, Reading, etc]

Ki David (6th grade 08/09)
Science: Zoology [online, research, projects, I'll pull a bunch of stuff together]
Math: Middle School 1 course [Aleks Online] Froggy Fractions and Froggy Decimals [Ki chose the Froggy Math] Lessons with dad
Social Studies:6th Grade Social Studies [A.C.E.] AND Ben'sGov [online]
Bible: Introduction to Missions [A.C.E.]
History: Story of the World and WW1&2 reading
Language Arts: Eclectic [Spectrum Writing, NanoFictionary, Reading, etc]

** That is the plan. We (all 5 of us) decided to try something a little different this upcoming school year. I still have to buy stuff. need todecide if I want to buy them now or wait till he move.
We'll do lots of hands on projects & independant research and fun stuff, too.

Autodidactic Day

Gavin and Connor took turns reading from Story of the World. Gavin read about the terracotta soldiers of China, so we looked them up online. Gavin was in charge of Brain Gym today. He did crisscross marches, Body Scales and offered the choice of deep breaths or Hook Ups.

They boys did their reading while I read my email and showered. Then we left for Java Café. We had our knitting needles and yarn. The Knitting Ladies didn’t show. So Gavin crocheted a bit.

I played Othello with Connor and them with Gavin. Ki was having fun playing with the Boggle cubes. He was finding words, but his didn’t use a timer and any words counted. Words like “a” or names like “Jim”. He wrote them down on his paper. When I was done playing with Gavin, I helped Ki find more words. There was a 2nd Boggle game and that is what Connor used. It was missing a cube, so he used a Scrabble tile chosen at random when he shook the Boggle Cubes.

We had a bagel snack there. Actually, I just had a Caramel Latte and the boys had bagels. Gavin had turkey, lettuce, tomato, and onion on his bagel.

Then we went to Krystal Keep to play some games with other homeschoolers. We get there a little early. The boys like to peruse the goodies and talk to Ron.

Just one parent joined us today. Gary and his 5 yr old daughter, Elizabeth. We played a few games. We finished around 4 and I chatted with Gary about other homeschool area events.

After dinner, Ki wanted to watch about Alexander the Great, so he popped in the History Channel DVD about Alexander and I went to the store.

Brian will do math with the boys before bed. Ki asked to learn about octagons and hexagons. I hope Brian will touch on them as it will encourage Ki to be autodidactic.

From Jan 14, 2008

(I am posting past homeschool journals that I have forgotten to put here)
Here is alist of our spelling words this week and then a little about our day.

Spelling Jan 14
G/C words in black given today. words in red are planned alternate forms to be added.
Politics political politician
Preside presided presiding president presidential presides
Debate debated debating debates
Public republic republican publicly publish
Office offices official officially
Elect elected elections elective electoral


K
Elect
Public
Puppy
Puppies
Vote
Press
Voting
Victor
*office
*official

Though words are to written from memory, I will give a bonus word to G&C and offer 5 more words to Ki to better his percentage and then a bonus word. They like their bonus words! The 5 more words for Ki will be from last week and maybe a few altered from this week. I might do people, voted, victory, hero, person. Maybe his bonus word will be ‘selected’.

The boys wrote their words in their notebook, then wrote them 3 times to turn in to me. Then they donned coats and hats and went outside to play. They did their morning criss-crosses in the falling snow while walking backwards. I sat as the table by the window with a cup of chamomile tea and a everything bagel with honey walnut cream cheese. I try to avoid the actual walnut pieces.

If we lived here, we may end up being total, radical unschoolers. We’d be reading hermits. It is so quiet and peaceful. Brian’s parents live on 3 acres. A lot is wooded. Grammy keeps a lovely garden and keeps up her landscaping. I couldn’t landscape or garden to save my life, but I love enjoying the labors of others who do so and do it well.

I need to get my camera from the house and take some pictures.
Gavin and Connor built a fire in the fireplace this morning while I was still in bed. (They did ask first and I told them yes) So after my shower I came out to a nice, crackling fire! I could get used to this!

After the boys played a bit I read from Story of the World. We sat in front of the fire on the couch and chair. It was nice.

We are into the Roman Empire. We read about Romulus and Remus. We read about how the Romans took most of their ideas from the Greek via the Etruscans. And we read about some of the Roman names for the Greek gods. I then read about Ceres and Proserpine. And I recalled I knew the Greek name of Proserpine, but just couldn’t quite remember it. It was right their on the tip of my brain. Fortunately, the book I brought for Connor ro read was a book of Greek Myths (written for children). So I looked it up in there and found it. Persephone. (per-sef- o- ny I think is how it’s pronounced).

Connor decided to read that story, so Ki got his reading book. Ki is reading from a book called “Best Loved Children’s Stories” and he chose to read The Ant and the Grasshopper. Connor found a choose your own adventure story to read for the rest of his reading time.