Weekly Report 2008:37

Last week we kept up with all our academics, despite only having our lessons in the afternoon. That is, except for Friday, when we went to the Colin Buchanan concert in the morning and all (even Joshua) had naps in the afternoon. When we eventually got inside the house: would you believe I forgot to take house keys again?!

On Thursday we went in to have a BBQ lunch with Jeff at college. He'd organised it for the entire student and staff body, something he does once a term or so. it was lovely to get out and chat to friends I've made at college and he also watched the kids while I ducked down the street for a coffee on my own so that was positively delightful! On Saturday we went to a BBQ in Mandurah with his pastoral care group from college and after lunch walked down to the beach together. The kids all stripped down to their knickers and went in for a swim. Due to a small reef creating a lagoon, there was minimal swell and the kids thought they were very clever, being able to go out as deep as their belly buttons or even chests without being pushed over by waves. No photos, sorry!

Literacy
The kids both did four pages in their new Phonics workbooks, covering the multiple letter graphemes "th", "sh", "ee" and "ay".
Joshua finished reading book 6 from the Ladybird Phonics reader set. This week he'll be moving on with more Beginner Books. Anna finished the fourth box of Bob Books readers and will now move on to the Ladybird Phonics ones.
They did reasonably well with their tracework/copywork/dictation: we did three days on the Days of the Week and then they wrote out "Whole Duty of Children" which they have just memorised. Here is Joshua's effort:
Literature
We finished up with Five Children and It and were only one day late returning it to the library, and were able to find the second book in the series (by Edith Nesbit), called The Phoenix and the Carpet at the library so borrrowed it and are already up to chapter 5. While I was there I ordered the third book and have just received an email saying it's ready to collect. The kids have really enjoyed it and also enjoy me telling modified adventures with their names in it as bedtime stories.

Mathematics
The kids finished Lesson 3 and began lesson 4.

Science
The kids loved hearing Swallow Journey by Vivian French, illus Karin Littlewood, which tells the story of one family of swallows from their nesting in England through their journey south into Africa across the Sahara desert to their winter home. I try to look for story books with non-fiction content whenever I'm at the library. I think it's easier for the kids to keep listening as they want to find out what happens to a particular swallow, (or caribou, or...) rather than just listening to bare facts about what the life cycle of an average swallow is like.

That's all for this week. I hope yours went well.