Mosiah 3:19

We just finished memorizing and using this scripture for copy work. It is a pretty deep scripture and longer than most of the ones we've done in the past, so I let the younger boys just trace half of it each day instead of the whole thing, that made it a little more doable for them. The older girls pretty much have it memorized, the boys don't really, but at least it is familiar to them now and maybe they will understand it as they mature. They do like the part about how we need to be like a little child. Here's a link to the whole chapter online and here it is:

19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

Terrible side effect from the flu shot

This is really really sad. A Washington Redskins cheerleader had a sever reacction to the flu shot and now has some strange neurological disorder. I think I'll risk being sick for a week rather than play Russian roulette with some vaccine. Very,very sad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4MIm1mB7GM

A Little Poem

I got an awesome book from Yesterday's Classics , actually I got a bunch of cool books that I'll write about as we read them, but this one is called Poems Every Child should Know by Mary E. Burt. It is a great collection of nice poems and it is divided up starting with shorter and easier for younger kids and then moves into longer and harder poems for older kids. My 7 and 5 yr old, actually all the children are memorizing this one:

Little Things
Ebenezer Copham Brewer

Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean
And the pleasant land.

Thus the little minutes
Humble though they be,
Make the Mighty ages
Of Eternity

Isn't that so true? What a great way to internalize the message!

Teaching Math at Home, can be frustrating

Math does not come easy to my oldest child. She is amazing at music and art and loves to write and make up stories, but when it comes to being exact and focusing, it is really hard for her. We have been using Singapore Math and I let her fall behind a bit because I didn't want to push her too hard, but I had an awakening when she turned 10, that she needed to be farther along in all our subjects. As a 10 year old I felt that she was old enough to learn to focus and really train that brain, so it was time to play catch up. Not that she is behind her peers, just that she was behind where I want her to be and if we're going to homeschool, we'd better be at least a year ahead.

So instead of doing 2 pages of Singapore Math a day, the requirement was 5 pages a day which turned into 10 pages a day. I would explain the new concepts and she would go to work, but when she finished the book and I went to correct it, I found that she had been mostly guessing and really didn't understand much of what she had done. So we had to go back through the book with me watching over her train of thought and teaching her to be exact. That took forever, but we did finish 3B. Then we pretty much took the summer off and started 4A the first part of September.

This time however, I kept up on checking as she went along and caught the mistakes early, but it took FOREVER. The first 2 weeks of school Math was pretty much all we did. I hoped that she would eventually be able to focus without me right there over her shoulder, but since she is not math minded, it never happened. After 2 weeks of spending pretty much 2-3hrs. with just her on math a day, I decided that I couldn't neglect the other kids or subjects any longer so we worked on math at the end of the day if we had time, and her dad could help her when he got home. We thought that once we got through fractions and onto measurements, it would be easier-- no such luck. However, she really worked and tried her best and finally finished 4A -- we finished the corrections on Thurs. It took about 5 hours. While I was frustrated at times during the correcting phase, at the end of the day, I felt fulfilled and like we had actually accomplished something. She realizes that she has to do math even though it's not her favorite. She understands that it is important and that it will leave so many doors open for her in her future. She feels good about sticking with something she doesn't really like and that is hard for her, but overcoming it and making it a strength. I don't think she is ready for the test, so this week we will be doing review problems out of the textbook until she is solid on the concepts and does everything in the proper order and writes everything down and can check it and find her little errors on her own. Then hopefully she can take the test on Thurs. and move on to 4B.

The goal is for her to start Algebra next September-- she'll be in 6th grade and on that track she can take Calculus as a sophomore and be done with Math forever if she wants. It is hard playing catch-up and being the guinea pig, but I think she will be able to do it although it does take a lot of time and concentration. I am becoming extremely patient.

The difference between her and her sister just younger in math is amazing. The younger one loves math and is a year ahead, just finished 3B and passed the test and started 4A. I only have to explain things once and she gets it right. It is such a breath of fresh air for me teaching it to her. The boys so far seem pretty math minded too and after that first daughter I am just happy they can make jumps in their heads so easily without having to go through every little step. Math always came fairly easy to me and I loved it especially though high school, but now I understand those who don't like math after going through it with my daughter, because if it doesn't come easy, then it can be torture!!!!