Sunday, September 23, 2007

How Many Goats Do You Get for a Mile of Pennies?


The weekend went too fast, and I didn't get done the things I'd planned to (huge surprise there, eh?), but it was nice.

T. had a friend over yesterday, and they spent a couple happy hours working on their movie. T. had put some effort into the screenplay/script, and was most gratified when his friend admired it (I think it helped that I re-typed it for him and cleaned up the spelling and punctuation while I was at it. I overheard his buddy pointing out his spelling and punctuation errors in the addition they later made to the script. Perhaps having someone else -- not his mother -- point these things out to him will convince T. that grammar and spelling are not things I've concocted purely to make his life miserable?). Aside from K.'s refusal to play Zelda tied up in the basement, their movie making went quite smoothly.

Sunday School, which I once again left 'til last minute to plan for, went quite well this morning. I was teaching about the parable of the dishonest manager (Luke 16), which was initially quite a puzzler to me, but I ended up with a pretty decent lesson. The kids made the announcement right before Sunday School that they have collected their first mile of pennies (to buy a cow for a village somewhere in Africa), and have started on a second mile. Apparently you can get quite a few goats for the cost of one cow, and one of the moms brought a goat from home (as an example of what a goat is like, I guess, for any members of the congregation who might have been iffy on this). (The goat stayed outside, in case you were wondering.)

Since it was warm again today, we went over to Stone Mountain again this afternoon. I explained to the kids about "making hay while the sun shines."



5 comments:

Elisheva Hannah Levin said...

Make hay while the sun shines...

You know, when I was practicing giving the WAIS, we were told that younger people almost certainly would not get the two proverbs in the comprehension part of the test. They just don't spend enough time talking or listening to older folks, so they don't hear proverbs. And the reading they do for school does not have the richness.

Isn't it wonderful that you have the time to talk to your kids? Count your many blessings--especially those of Stone Mountain. I have grown to love that place just through your pictures! I am wondering how it will look in winter...

The wheel of the year just keeps turning...

Melora said...

I had to google WAIS! I don't know how my kids do with it, but home schooling certainly does give me plenty of opportunity to share my store of "wise old sayings."

If you are ever in our corner of NC you should definitely visit Stone Mountain! If it isn't Too cold in late November, I'm planning to drag my parents over there when they visit and show off our favorite spots.

Dy said...

What a fantastic day! I love that K is so very patient w/ T's schemes and plans. And he usually seems to be w/ her, as well. But ftr, I don't blame her for drawing the line w/ the plot of that one. Nobody wants to be in the basement on a beautiful afternoon! :-)

Dy

Anonymous said...

Re: i-science.

Both i-science and MPH follow the same scope and sequence, however, only MPH is available with all the support materials that I listed. The textbooks of both have very little reading compared to the very wordy American science texts and if the textbook is all you have then you aren't going to have much and you'll need supplemental books from the library. However, in MPH the child spends most of their science time figuring out the answers to questions rather than reading. There are very, very good questions in the MPH "Higher Order Thinking Skills" supplement. (The child is required to make inferences)

One idea if you really like i-science is to get their text/activitybook, but go ahead and order the MPH Higher Order Thinking Skills, Tests, and Workbook (question/answers) The "activity books" for both MPH and i-science would be better named lab books and they are not very valuable without the text.

The information is the same for both curricula and so the child shouldn't have difficulty with an i-science text and lab and MPH workbooks.

I have i-science activity books for the 6th grade as well as MPH and I have the first grade in that series as well since MPH doesn't begin until 3rd.

Melora said...

Myrtle,
Thank you so much! I'll have to look at the two programs again to decide which one, but Singapore has been so satisfactory for math that I'd really like to give their science a try. And your recommendation means a lot!