Saturday -- well, no homeschool today. Aaron is feeling better and went outside today. My daughter is home coughing and feeling miserable. The sun is shining brightly.
  ¶ 4:30 PM  

  Today the kids were too sick for lessons... again. It seems like everyone here is more afflicted than I am. Aaron had a fever today and my daughter had one yesterday. When I got up from that long nap yesterday I drank a big glass of orange juice and took 1000mg. Vitamin C... and I feel just fine now. I've made sure the kids took Vitamin C today with their orange juice. Keith made sure everyone got decongestant.. except me... I don't need it.
  ¶ 7:15 PM  

  More preparedness information to study:
Terrorism: Preparing for the Unexpected.

  ¶ 11:14 PM  

  We are sick today - all of us! We decided not to do formal lessons of any kind. My daughter spent the morning in bed but got up for the rest of the day. Not long after she got up, I found myself so tired I couldn't continue, and went to bed for the rest of the day. I woke up at 8 pm!

The FBI expects more terror attacks soon, so we discussed the recommendations of the Red Cross for disaster preparedness found at the bottom of this web page: FBI: Attacks possible within days. Then we did our evening Bible reading. The kids both said the 23rd Psalm which we all memorized during the last month. Memorization of a few Bible verses is one of our homeschooling goals this year so I thought I'd mention it here.
  ¶ 9:28 PM  

  I just looked through the math books available at Critical Thinking. There are some sample problems on the web. I wrote a few of them into my daughter's math notebook for her lesson today. I think these will be a lot more fun than just working more boring problems. We need a change!! I may get one of these books... though I haven't chosen one yet.
  ¶ 12:27 PM  

  Today we read most of the next chapter in our literature book selection:


The Bronze Bow

Then they did composition and reading. They watched Bill Nye the Science Guy again. Next was math. My daughter was upset when she corrected her own work and saw that she didn't get many right. It is very frustrating for her. She knows how to do the various proceedures, but makes little mistakes in basic adding. It is hard to have to keep going over the same material again and again, but I can't go on very far without more accuracy.
  ¶ 4:48 PM  

  Aaron did fine on division again today and my daughter is still having problems with adding multiple numbers. On almost every problem she was just ONE numeral off... like 2,976 instead of 2,986. ::sigh:: ...well, tomorrow I'll have her correct her mistakes and then move on to multiplication for a change. I had her do a Pumpkin Math project too, just for fun. She didn't miss any of those problems. I've already got her math assignment for tomorrow written into her notebook. I like to be prepared a day ahead of time.

Besides all that, the kids got to watch Bill Nye, the Science Guy for science. Keith also read to them from Street Law some more. My daughter worked in her spelling workbook, and Aaron continued reading to Keith.

Now they're doing some bike riding. Aaron just bought a mountain bike today from Larry, up the hill, for five dollars. Larry called afterwards to ask if I thought the deal was okay. Yes, I like the bike, but it was Aaron's money anyhow. I thought that was nice of Larry to call. Aaron earned the money by moving rocks out of our flower garden area in the front yard. We've got a ton of rocks around here. Well, probably considerably more than a ton, really. LOL Our house is built on the tailings of an old gold mine ... an extremely huge (and stable) rock pile.
  ¶ 5:10 PM  

  It is night now. Both kids are home now but my daughter didn't arrive back until it was almost dark (which is too late) so she is grounded for tomorrow. They are watching TV with Keith now. We're finally getting a little cold weather so it is time for popcorn and hot chocolate at night again... and the occasional fire in our woodstove. He had one going when I got up this morning...

...I nearly forgot to mention -- Aaron found the bike he was looking for but the boy who took it broke one of the handbrakes. Aaron will have to fix that tomorrow.

  ¶ 7:38 PM  

  Sunday - there's an important matter of a lost bike for the kids to attend to today - so they have gone into town. They are not yet aware of the strikes on Afghanistan. I am updating the Happy Camp News website, listening to TV news reports and looking for good commentary on the web.

  ¶ 3:22 PM