Weekly Reports 2008:16&17

This weekly report covers all we've done and plan to do in this fortnight of "homeschool holidays".

Circle Time
I have found the words of In Christ Alone in the booklet from the 2007 Perth Women's Christian Convention and have started teaching the first verse to my kids... I use the term "teaching" loosely here because all I've done so far is sing it to them a few times when I put them down the bed for their afternoon nap.
Jeff picked up Gospel Light's Bible Story Coloring Pages #2 from Koorong the other day, which added a few pictures to our collection for studying Acts, some of the Epistles and Revelation. I took a few hours and planned out the study, including the stories from this period in our The Children's Bible. We will probably use the text on the back of the Gospel Light pictures for the stories that aren't in TCB. I have 40 stories planned to use, which should take us at least 10 weeks to cover (we do Circle Time each M, Tu, Th & F if we are being really diligent). I have tried to include stories that illustrate the vehement proclamation of gospel truth that characterised the apostles' ministries. Stories behind Peter's statements "Salvation is found in no-one else." and "We must obey God rather than men!", for example, as well as the story of Stephen's martyrdom (which also provides background to the story of Saul's conversion). Also stories of the miraculous power that testified to the apostles' authority, such as Peter's release from prison twice by angels and Dorcas being brought back to life. I have also tried to include at least one story of each of the most noteworthy people who accompanied (or met) Paul in his ministry - Barnabas, Silas, Timothy, Lydia - and I plan to include Pricilla and Aquila also, but still need a suitable colouring picture. And I probably should mention Luke in there somewhere as well! At the end of our study we will read some of the promises of our future hope that are found at the very end of Revelation. I'm looking forward to working through this with the kids, especially because we've been so blessed by our studies from the gospels.

Not-at-home-schooling
We went on several excursions this fortnight, to the Museum of Western Australia and to the Perth Zoo as well as down to the end of our street to watch some friendly workmen build us a lovely new footpath. Jeff and Joshua also competed in their Karate-Do gradings. Last night we had dinner with some friends of ours who are Sudanese, which was a great cross-cultural experience as well as being fabulous Christian fellowship!
I am really glad that I decided at the beginning of this "holiday" to get the kids away from the house and off to some of those places that we might just put off as too difficult. We went to the museum without Jeff and it wasn't totally impossible. It would be better to schedule our holidays for a different time to the public school holidays, but it seems to have worked anyway, and at least today Jeff was able to accompany us because it's one of his study weeks.
This weekend we're going to Pemberton with the B family which should be a lovely end to our fortnight of holidays. We've been there the last two years and it seems to be becoming our yearly family holiday destination. I just need to remember to pack the camera!

Literacy
The one thing I have kept on with each day is Joshua's reading, although we've taken a break from the Bob Books and are reading one story a day from two Ladybird Phonics books called Splat Cat (which he's now finished) and Hot Fox. These are good books for reviewing sounds, but they're not nearly as good at the finely incremental phonics as the Bob Books.