What a Day!

Our first day of the 2008-2009 school year is over... whew! Our day began with a quiet time, followed by Veritas Press Bible. I am doing the quiet time with the boys to teach them how to read and reflect on a verse. During our time today, we analyzed Deut. 7:9, "Know therefore that the Lord your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commands." I was blown away when I asked what the key word was and Bruster replied, "faithful." Then, providentially, the Veritas Lesson from Judges was completely about God's faithfulness and the Israelites unfaithfulness. What a great time we had in the word today.

We spent the next hour with science, history and grammar. First, they played a game I created on Power Point to help them distinguish between aquatic and other animals. Then, they colored beautiful covers for their journals, explained the Missouri Compromise and colored the slave verses free states on a US outline map. Next, we reviewed the 8 parts of speech. I just about fell over when Bruster said that an adjective "modifies" a noun. They really are listening!


We have two literature studies going this six weeks. First, we are reading Little Pilgrim's Progress by Helen L. Taylor. I loaded the boys back packs down with really heavy books and made them carry them around the house until they were exhausted to help them understand Little Christian's burden. Then, I showed them a power point that had pictorial representations of the vocabulary words for the first three chapters. We ended the time by reading a chapter, discussing, and reading a related Bible verse. The second study is on Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days. I followed a similar pattern, introducing vocabulary through Power Point, reading and discussing.

The afternoon was spent in individual studies. Bruster and I did spelling, handwriting and art together while BT worked on Latin and Japanese. He has begged us for two years to study Japanese. We hesitated for some time because of his age, but when I found Rosetta Stone (both years) for $50, I had to buy it for him. He loves his language studies, and I praise the Lord for how he has provided. During his one-on-one time with me, BT and I discussed his goals for the Spelling Bee and National Geographic Bee. He is intent on disciplined study in these areas, and I assigned him lists of information to master this six weeks.

The day ended with a dinner of foods from states we are studying. We feasted on Philly Cheese steaks for PA, It's the Berries (a cranberry dish) for NJ, Peaches Sunny-Side Up for GA and Cheesecake for DE. Yummy! What a great day!