Titus Academy & Wiggins Family of Youngsville,NC

Well it is finally here.  Graduation day, I really tried to focus and make this time a very positive and memorable time for Charles.  He is so excited and looking forward to going to public school and getting the help with his reading so that he can achieve academic success and not have to struggle so much.  It is going to be very different but we are approaching it like a new adventure and with the mind set that this is temporary and that he is going to public school for the academic stuff but we will still have the primary influence and control in his life and we will continue to teach him the spiritual and morality and we will do our bible study and nature study on the weekends.  A transition of venue but not a complete break of our relationship.

We are really focusing on the preparation and emphasis on him "suiting up" so I made the theme of tomorrows ceremony the Armor of God.  His "diploma" is a decree from the Queen and King of Titus Academy that Charles is to now be known as Sir Charles L. Wiggins.  We got a suit of armor and will use it in the ceremony to knight him.  We got him gifts that emphasis the protection and encourage him to pray when he is feeling frustrated or overwhelmed. 

 I make slideshow DVD's for special occassions so I made one of our Homeschool journey and included a sound track of 3 of my favorite songs that really speak to my heart about our journey.

Here is a link to it: http://www.photodex.com/sharing/viewshow.html?fl=2983954&alb=0

Check back for a report on the graduation and to see the pictures and video.

Today I met with the IEP Team and received the determination of the team.  It went well we were able to work together, use all the documentation I had in my yearly files and notes from consultants to devise a plan to help Charles transition into public school and middle school in August.  He is excited to be able to get more help with his reading and writing.  After talking with the team and hearing the plan and services they will provide him in school I am feeling more confident that we can overcome these problems. Charles should be able to get up to grade level in his reading and writing and achieving academic success with some hardwork and the available resources.  We are working to make his transition as smooth as possible and make this a positive experience and embracing the teaching moments of maintaining faith and diligence even when things are difficult or scarry and the importance of teamwork.

We are planning our Homeschool graduation for June 7, 2008.  I will post more information about it a little later.  Post a message and I will print it out and included it in Charles Scrapbook that we are making him.

We will continue our blog and chronicle his adventures in Middleschool.  He is going to help write some posts, they will be much shorter and much more entertaining :)

Please keep us in your prayers.

Well, Life is certainly never short of curves and steep hills.  We have just rounded a long and windy curve that has made an abrupt climb up a very steep and rocky hill.  But we do trust that God is still leading this adventure and is going before us, (as I was reminded by my favorite devotional blog byhisgrace.blogspot.com) and we are suiting up with our full armor of God to fight the good fight. 

We finalize things Thursday May 15, to enroll Charles in Middleschool next year with an IEP to get him the specialized teaching and assistance he needs.  I have strong emotions and feelings, thoughts and boxes of research to argue til the cows come home that this is a bad idea, I see no signs of this being a good thing, without guarentees that all this talk (and paperwork) is going to materialize into diligent, caring action.  But faith is believing in what we do not see, and grace is not holding the past against someone (or system) no matter how soon the past was and that they are currently doing things contrary to what they are saying, but God is in control of it and He will work all to the good of those who love Him, and My Husband, Charles and I do, that is the grace in this whole "experience" I guess.  I will be working as an advocate to change this process and laws that have lead to this decision but, for now I must humble my pride that I know best and trust God to handle this new adventure and guide us in the way would should go.

I do not handle change, deceitfulness and double talk well and that is the majority of this whole process. Legal and political jargon, "interpretations and translations" and processes and procedures that are so misguided and impersonal that it is just sad.  But, I am not going to allow my well documented and well informed opinions cost my son.  I have learned alot in the last 5 years and I will play by the rules and I will find a "legal and logical" way to get my son the help he needs and make all this heartache mean something and my goal is to save one person from this crazy process.  But, I am not going to let this whole experience go, it is part of a bigger experience God has for us and it too will be used for good, maybe not right now but someday this will all be a positive thing.

We have the next 2 months or so to prepare, review and seal any doubt in Charles faith and in our family values.  He is a bright boy and He will be well covered with prayer so I am going to trust and work to make sure this becomes a positive and benefical change.  We will just do our teaching at the dinner table and on weekends.

Your prayers would be greatly appreciated. For our family, as homeschooling is a lifestyle change and it is going to be a big adjustment.  For Charles, to make the transition and become diligient and self sufficient, For me to be proactive and not back down, to become peaceful and joyful and patient with this new adventure we are embarking on and remember it is hopefully only for a season.

The Sun

Today we took a "field trip" to a local neighborhood with a long street that was not in traffic and that had a sidewalk to get an idea what 3/4 of a mile looked like (.7 mile) on the odometer in the truck.  We also set the trip odometer while we were driving around to get an idea how far a mile was, and what it looked like. We parked the truck at the end of the road, made the mark for the Sun and then paced off to mark the other planets.  Our scale had it worked out that Mercury was 11 giant steps (each step should be 3ft (1 M) long. When we read the instructions we only paced off 3 ft, but did not see that until we had gotten tired at Neptune and was going to calculate the next two planets positions by doing the math and driving the distance in the truck.  So we are going to do our math and redo this exercise, but Charles got an idea of the distance and was able to see that the solar system is a big place, more so than the pictures in books are able to show.  He also made the connection that God is omnipresent and omniscient and in control of EVERYTHING IN THE Universe and that He is dependent on God, and should consult God about everything since God knows all and can see all, but we are limited in knowing many things and full understanding things like all the galaxies in the universe and if we have even discovered all the planets in our solar system.

The rest of the model is as follows:

10 giant steps for Venus

9  giant steps for Earth

15 giant steps for Mars

110 giant steps for Jupiter

131 giant steps for Saturn

291 giant steps for Uranus

This is where Charles got tired and we were going to calculate the distance to the next two planets and caught our mistake.  Try to do the math and see what you come up with.  how many steps = .1 mile?

328 giant steps for Neptune

282 giant steps for Pluto  (which Charles, reminded me is no longer considered a planet)

You are now at the edge of the solar system standing beside the farthest known planet from the Sun.  You have walked nearly 3,750 million miles (6 billion kilometers).  This is just a model that's on the scale of 1 to 5  for every distance of 1 (ft) you measure on your walk, would measure 5 billion in space!.

Tomorrow we are going to try to figure out the math and adjust the scale to fit it in our neighborhood.

(This was taken from the Genesis For Kids Science experiments that show God's power in Creation!)

We are going throught the Bible and learning and finding "proof" the Bible is right, and that the timeline is right and that evolution information does not make sense.  We are learning about the sources of alot of confusion about the Bible comes from problems with the translation from the different languages and even within the local uses of words.  Also, we do not have the knowledge about our world like they had back in Bible times.  We are learning about the Animal Kingdom classification system that was developed by Linneaus and relating it back to the week of Creation, so Charles is crystal clear and really know  what the Bible is telling him, and then he will be better able to process the information and understand it and hopefully take it to heart and live by it, be encouraged by it and really see God as the awesome creator, and artist that he is, and better than that, He is his personal savior and friend.

We are digging into this academically, with vocabulary, writing, history, Latin, we are learning about the parts of plants, characteristics, how they get classified, some plant families and we are touring the J. C. Raulston Arborteum in Raleigh regularly to see some of the actual species discussed in the Bible, but some we are seeing "cousins" which helps us learn about the family traits.  And we are relating the plants to people, and to the scriptures in which they appear in the bible. The plants we are using in our study as just of few of the "major" ones with alot of symbolism and use today.  Many are herbs that we use as "spices" and do not even think about, like garlic, onion, cilantro, coriander, cumin, and endives but these were very important in the Children of Israels lives and are symbolic not to mention very much a part of our lives today.

The list of plants and a summary of information, containing the common names, binomial (Genus, species) {Latin name if applicable} description of the plant, flower and fruit, web resources used to get the information, georgpahical origin/sources, historical significance, biblical references and significance is on my webpage, Titled Things to find in the "Garden", click here to go to it.  Dot's Creative Expressions

If you have any problems with the file, or have any questions feel free to email me, or comment here and it sends me an email with your question.