Wednesday November 19, 2003

Today was a good day for school. We started out with Matthew Chapter 13. I don't know that Reagan understood it at all, but he heard it. He learned and copied down the verse at the bottom of the page. It was Matthew 12:35 "A good man says good things. These come from the good that is put away inside of him." I like that Reagan is learning scripture. It's amazing how many quotes I can put to good use. If he's not listening, I make him learn a scripture verse about it. It's not a punishment, but a lesson. Then we completed his homework for his religious ed. class. He had questions to answer, scripture to read, and prayers.

Language Arts was simple. Periods at the ends of sentences. Spelling was fine. We're doing words with the long i sound. So, he forgot the e at the end of each word. Mistakes are learning! So, we discussed the rule about the e allowing the vowel to say it's own name and he added an e to each of the words.

For Reading he read Dr. Seuss's ABC book, and we had fun coming up with alternate rhyming words to put at the ends of sentences. This ties in with last weeks rhyming lessons. In a few minutes we'll read another story from "Just So Stories" and whatever else he's interested in. And of course there will be more from the Magicians Nephew. Last night the evil queen threw a bar from a lamppost at Aslan's head! The children found that the bar had planted and was growing into a complete lamppost. I, of course, can see the tie in to "the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe." I can't wait to read that book to him.

In math we're adding up to 9+9 and still working on adding with fingers. This is especially important now as he doesn't have enough fingers to do it the way he likes!

History was Hammurabi, and the Code of Hammurabi. I like the way our book ties into other lessons we've learned. For example, Hammurabi was the king of Babylon which was near Kish where Sargon was from. He's seeing the continuity and interconnectedness of History. The main lesson was that Hammurabi was king, he had laws that everyone followed, and he was the first person to ever write laws down. Also, he encouraged religion (which involved a lot of stargazing) and people learned that the earth traveled around the sun, broke the year into 12 months, days into 24 hours, and hours into 60 minutes.

I'm thinking of throwing the TV out of the window. I'm so sick of Reagan being interested in what's on it, when there are about 1000 better things to be doing! And I already allow very little TV. I can't be alone in this feeling.

Total school time: 3 hours