Weekly Report 2008:24

This week, despite - or perhaps assisted by - my mother's visit for a few days, we have been back hard at work.

Literacy
We didn't do any penmanship but Joshua has steamed ahead with his reading this week. He read all of Go, Dog, Go! on Monday which just amazed me. Then on Tuesday he read a simplified version of Psalm 23 from The Lord Is My Shepherd and other stories from the Psalms, from a series called I Can Read God's Word! For the rest of the week he worked through Hop On Pop which is a lot easier than Go, Dog, Go! and gave him an opportunity to show of his reading prowess for Grandma. In between picking his nose. What is it with reading lessons and nose picking? The two just seem to go together according to Joshua. Even when Grandma is videoing him to show Grandad.

Literature
We've been a bit eclectic this week, reading from Seven Little Australians (which I'm not enjoying as much as The Little Black Princess but which we will persist with for another week as well as More Milly-Molly-Mandy and Thomas the Tank Engine: The New Collection which are evening reads.
Anna is also enjoying Jeff reading a rewritten version of The Secret Garden to her (I'm not sure what word to use: paraphrase? abridgement? anyway, it's not the authors original words and there's quite a bit skipped.) I wouldn't have read it to her at this young but it is inspiring quite a few good discussions judging from what I've overheard. The first night Anna observed, "She's not very nice, is she?" and then decided she wanted to pray that the girl would become a Christian and hence become a lot nicer person. Unfortunately she's to be disappointed as the whole premise of the book is the redeeming power of experiencing nature. Which is basically why I had my concerns in the first place, and why I am so glad she is reading it on-to-one with her Dad.

Maths
Joshua worked steadily on Maths this week, completing pp56-61 of his book, all of lesson 15 and a bit of lesson 16. He and Anna are learning about the idea of place value with "tens" and "ones".
Science
We read the rest of our library books on Australian animals, such as the bilby, koala, thylacine (the extinct Tasmanian tiger), emu and another general one on Australian birds on Monday and Tuesday. This meant we were ready for a trip to the zoo with Grandma on Thursday (Anna finally got her membership card and was very pleased). We checked out out frogs, turtles and a saltwater crocodile in the wetlands section and then had lunch and a little play. After lunch we visited the bushland exhibit which is an open area with kangaroos free to wander while we "Please stay on the path" as Joshua read from one of the many signs. Other Australian animals are in their enclosures reached from the path. We saw kangaroos (grey and red), lots of noisy black cockatoos, a numbat, three koalas, a dingo, a rock wallaby (Abigail spotted that one and was quite proud of herself) and an emu or two. Joshua was enthusiastic to the end to be "learning about the animals, it's very important Mummy." I appreciated the fact that we had a good view of so many of the animals, especially the croc, which was staring straight at the glass from underwater, rather than being at the back of his cage catching a few rays of sun like he's been the last few times we've visited.