Joyful Jajliardos' Christian Academy

We're currently doing about 1/2 days of school (started last week) just to get us back into the habit (hopefully by the time the books get here, the grumbling will have tamed a little bit!) Anyway, I just had to share today's "fun". Big D is reading A Wrinkle in Time for literature (and I can do it now without the k12 books). Well, if you've read it, you know it talks about tesseracts. Big D had a printed off glossary of words for this book, so he, at least, had a better idea than I did when I first read it. He asked me if a tesseract was a real thing, so we were excited when we found a link in our online stuff for it. Well, I just have to say it was VERY cool!! We started just trying to figure out a 2D drawing of one, then Big D found a tesseract pendant, which, when we looked at it, reminded us an awful lot of some of M.C. Escher's stuff (you know, where some people are walking down stairs and then suddenly those stairs are going the other way,....look here. We had fun trying to figure it out (I don't know if you actually, truly can). But it was nice to see the eagerness in learning!! (okay, I was getting into it too!)

Joyful Jajliardos' Christian Academy

August 2008

News Flash!

Another school year has begun! All 3 children are enrolled in an online school (K12) which they will do at home although it is considered a public school. The best part....all the materials are FREE!

Prayers & Praises

This Portion of the newsletter will be dedicated to brief prayer requests and praises.

Prayers for:

getting into a school schedule
getting all of our materials and getting set up
wisdom for Glenn as he is "finance guy" for the chapel on base
VBS (July 4-8, in the evenings). This is our church's first one!

Praising God for:

Glenn's involvment in our school decision this year
friends who will be attending VBS with us.....their first VBS too!
Daniel's mission trip!

School News

We have begun the process of signing the kids up for K12. As I mentioned in the sidebar, this is a public school online. We will actually be participating in a school several hours from here that has open registration for anybody living in Utah. We have heard really good reports about this school and the principle. She used to homeschool her own children! She was actually the principle in our county for a while, but was moved as Davis County didn't like the flexibility she allows.

So, for the first time ever, I had to get copies of shot records (and update any shots the kids needed, send out copies of their birth certificates, and have them take placement tests. Quite an eyeopener for me as the only thing we've ever had to do for homeschooling was to file a "letter of intent" with the school board.

There are several huge "pluses" that I see in using this curriculum. For one thing, it is all provided free! Including any extra manipulatives and such that you might need. The only thing I'll need to provide is paper, writing utensils, scissors, glue.....that kind of stuff. Another great thing is that it is all planned out ahead of time and you simply have to keep up with it. I am going to set up a bulletin board with their weekly assignments on it, so that they can see what they need to do and even go on ahead a bit if they want to. We will have a teacher checking in with us frequently, answering questions, keeping us on track and such. This had been a concern to me in previous years, but I really see it as a help to keep us on track, especially as Daniel gets older......I need to know what he needs to be learning. Glenn is excited about that as well, that there will be someone there to help us "maintain course".

A new thing for us will be the testing at the end of each year. We haven't done that before. As a matter of fact, the placement tests were their first taste of testing. 2 of the kids did pretty well with that and one of them was rather distracted and unfocused.....but, it's a learning thing, and I will talk to the teacher about that and what we can do to improve that.

So.....I have filed all the things that I need to in order to be enrolled, and now I'm waiting on a call from the teacher/consultant to discuss where we're at, how this all will work, and such. Then our order will be placed and we'll wait for the boxes to arrive. We've already been warned by several people that it is a LOT of boxes!!! It'll be like Christmas!!

Stay tuned, we'll keep you informed as we learn more about it!

Books We're Reading

Mom: One Anothering by Simon Schrock; Power of a Praying Parent by Stormy Omartian; Under the Lilacs by Louisa M. Alcott
Daniel: just finished The Golden Cord by Paul Genessee; has been reading The Red Rock Mysteries , a Christian mystery series by Jerry B. Jenkins and Chris Fabry
Alycia: Pride and Prejudice (a Children's Illustrated Classic) by Jane Austen; Archie comics
David: no current reads, but his latest favorite (another Children's Illustrated Classic.....he loves the pictures) is 20000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. David isn't reading yet, but is a very gifted story teller, so he looks at the pictures and then spins some wonderful tales!

Around the Jajliardo "Ranch"

Our vegetable garden is doing fairly well; next year we are planning a bigger garden space.
Our sunflower house, in a corner of the vegetable garden, is amazing! Lots of different kinds of sunflowers that the children enjoy examining and measuring.
Suzi is doing well and keeping busy chasing balls and playing with the kids. And we're happy to report there's been no dog fights lately! Hee hee!
The weather has been rather hot, but playing in the sprinklers in the yard helps a lot. The kids and Dad have made up several fun games that can be played in the sprinklers!