I woke the boys around 7:30. Gavin took a shower.

Connor helped put breakfast condiments on the table. Ki made bacon and got the dishes around the table. Manuel put the placemats on the table first. I vacuumed the floor. Gavin helped clear the table.

They all made their beds and brushed their teeth.

9AM- school started on time! I read Little Pilgrim's Progress to the boys. Manuel read more of his Narnia en Espanol. Then a water br4eak, a few stretches and I read Story of the World.

I gave myself 45 minutes for this first section of school… so far…so good….

Ki did his Word cards. He wrote them in salt, then he wrote them on a dry-erase board, then he wrote out sentences. Gavin, Connor and Manuel practiced the Spanish-English words for their week. Then Manuel filled out a book he was given at the hospital. It is a book of favorites.  .. favorite color, favorite television show, favorite food…..

That was spelling class. Spelling and writing. I think it went well. Nothing grand, but good enough.

The my boys read while I did massage and therapy with Manuel. We finished..still on schedule! I asked God to keep us on schedule today, and He did. it really is a big accomplishment here.

After massage and therapy we did math/science. Gavin and Connor did math. Gavin did Saxon and Connor played Math Detective then read through some things on coolmath4kids. During that time, I taught some science to Manuel and Ki. Manuel was still totally clueless. I need MORE BASIC…. Ki did pretty well though.

Then they had lunch and recess. I closed my eyes for 25 minutes and was so sad when recess was over.

After recess I gave Connor and Gavin some science print outs and pictures to label about cells. I assigned 4 pages in Miquon for Ki. They are all on fractions. For Manuel I converted a neat math site into Spanish. If you type the URL of a page at Babelfish, it converts the page into any language. Gavin is in one of those "HUH????" moods. ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Arg. The kid is smart, I don't like these moods where nothing makes sense and he says HUH? to every simple thing. Oh, well.

Here is the site I converted for Manuel.

http://www.coolmath4kids.com/fractions/index.html

 It's neat. not just the site, but Babelfish. Because he can click to go the next page, or back to the home page…. and it's all in Spanish.

I had him do all the pages of lesson one. He was CLUELESS. (what is it with the boys in my house today????). We went over the pages together. He understood the words, but didn't understand the concept. So I got out pen and paper, drew pictures, used my very broken Spanish and went over it with him. Then we got an apple out. and cut it up. ONE APPLE into 2 parts. the 2 parts are ONE APPLE. the denominator is the number ot total parts in the whole thing. So when we cut the apple into 2 parts we had a denominator of 2. If I  stole one part, 'que fraccion piezas yo robo'… and he kept saying I stole 1 part, so we worked on 'I stole how many parts (numerator) out of how many total parts (dominator). He soon got it. I cut the apple into 4 pieces. We stiil have UNA MANZANA (one apple) but todas piezas  4. My Spanish is seriously all broken and patched together. But he understood. Then I cut the skin off one piece. "Qunatos piezas no piel de TODAS piezas? Que Fracccion?" and he wrote the fraction ¼. Then I peeled 2 more and asked the same question in my broken Spanish. He wrote ¾. Then I cut it into 8 pieces. He found out the denominator. I had him eat a piece and "enscribir fraccion- que piezas vos comer (de piezas todas)"

 he wrote 1/8. Then he ate 2 more pieces and wrote the correct fraction. Then Ki ate 2 pieces, Connor had a piece, Gavin had a piece and I had a pieces. I asked him how many todas piezas mi manzana. helaughed and said nada! I got him to understand how many did I have.. I had 8….si? ?cuantos piezas /we/(hand motioned) comer de piezas todas? Que fraccion?" and he wrote 8/8. and I said. 8 piezas de 8 todas piezas= UNA MANZANA---"… and hegot it. Then I asked him. "Cuantos ninos mi casa? he said 4. I asked quantos ninos de todas ninos –pelo negro? he said 1. I said 'enscribir fraccion. cunatos ninos pelo negro de todas ninos mi casa' he wrote ¼.

THIS IS WHY I DO WHAT I DO!!! Me, in my severely broken Spanish, was able to explain factions to Manuel when the math site in Spanish couldn't. It's just a great feeling to help find that path that leads the light buls turning on! And I love exploring and researching all the different paths till I find one that works.

then it was 2:30…right on time.. they all went out to play. Juego afuera