Anna's Primary School Graduation

Quirky Girl


With Tessa, Abigail and Rem

End of term school music concert - Abigail

Let's Play "Spot the Zoo Creatures"

What are Anna, Abi, Josh and Sam looking at here?That's right, it's an elephant, aka Elephas maximus!

Can you see what the kids were spying out here?It was a mother and no-longer-baby giraffe, aka Giraffa camelopardalis rothschildi. If you look carefully in the bottom right-hand corner of this picture, you'll see that there were zebras (Equus quagga boehmi) in the enclosure as well.

We had a great morning at the zoo today. The kids were all very well behaved (until we got in the car to drive home) and I was amazed at how easy it was to take four kids ages 6, 5, 4 and almost-3 through the Perth Zoo without any other adults along. It was a special treat to have Joshua with us for our Family Day Out, since it is school holidays at the moment.

I asked them all to choose one animal or exhibit to visit. We saw Abigail's choice the saltwater crocodile Crocodylus porosus; Samuel's choice the elephant; Anna's choice the Rainforest Retreat; and Joshua's choice the Nocturnal House. Then we stopped quickly at my choice, the giraffes, on the way out.

An Aquarium for School

A few weeks back, Jeff set up an aquarium at Joshua's school, complete with tadpoles, fish and water plants.Anna got to go to school with Jeff and Joshua for the morning, and she loved it. She did say it was a bit harder doing the writing than she had thought it would be... she was with a grade one class, after all. Joshua was very pleased to have his Dad come to school just to do stuff with him.

Weekly Reports 2009: Term 3 Week 5-6

Literacy
Anna has read a half dozen more pages of Sparky the Space Chimp (ER#5) but still not finished it. I really need to sit down with her for some long slabs of time to listen to her read but we have somehow fallen out of the habit. She has continued to progress with Reading Eggs but her free subscription expired last weekend and we have yet to decide if we will purchase her a proper subscription.
Abigail has read Sam (BB#1.2) and Dot (BB#1.3). She has also completed another half dozen pages from LEM Phonics Workbook 1.
Anna has been doing more copywork and less tracework. Her tasks have ranged from five lines of copywork, which was one long sentence from her narration of Thumbeline (by Hans Christian Andersen) and six lines of copywork from Mark 10:32-34 (she still has another 12 lines to complete the passage).

Literature
We have read quite a few Hans Christian Andersen tales:
Thumbeline, The Tinderbox, The Sandman, The Jumpers, The Rose Tree Regiment, The Naughty Boy, The Swineherd, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Real Princess aka The Princess and the Pea, The Nightingale, The Little Match Girl and The Red Shoes.
The girls betook themselves to the Nursery Rhyme books one day as well.
I have continued reading aloud Anne of Green Gables to the extent where Anna just named a new Dolly that she won last weekend "Anne". Jeff has read aloud a much shortened version of Around the World in 80 Days which did incite interest. We have also shared a few picture books from our home library and Jeff has read at least three Asterix comics to the children. These last are Joshua's choice from the school library, but the girls are enjoying them as well, as I am noticing from a few additions to their vocabulary.

Mathematics
Anna has completed the chapters on shapes (Ch7) and measuring length (Ch8) from Primary Mathematics 1A and will be moving on to the chapters on Halves and Quarters, Time, Money and possibly Graphing from 1B over the next two months.
I ordered Earlybird Mathematics 1B (the second semester Kindergarten-level course from Singapore that Joshua and Anna used together last year at the Pre-Primary level) from Chariot Press at the CHESS conference on Saturday. Abigail will begin work from that as soon as it arrives, and leave the rest of the Nursery Rhyme maths books, which is similar to what I did with the older two. I picked the 1B to start with since that has less on numbers (which she is fairly adept with) and more on shapes and time and other practical mathematics, which Abi is less knowledgeable in. Of course, we will continue to use the Maths Mastermind hands-on materials and their tasks, which she enjoys.

Bible
Abigail and Anna did some tracework/copywork from Hebrews 13:17 to present to their BSF Children's Leaders, as I wrote about at the bottom of this post.
Anna chose to memorise Mark 10:32-34 to recite at our evening church service last Sunday, when Jeff was preaching from that passage (and the surrounding passages). She did a marvellous job of reciting in front of 12 unrelated adults, having already practised on such willing listeners as Dad, Granny, Mrs D (from Women's Gathering), Mrs Felicity (our BSF Teaching Leader) and Mr K (one of our elders). I learnt the passage along with her:
They were on their way up to Jerusalem with Jesus leading the way and the disciples were astonished, while those who followed were afraid. Again he took the Twelve aside and told them what was going to happen to them. "We are going up to Jerusalem," he said, "and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the Chief Priests and teachers of the Law. They will condemn him to death and hand him over to the Gentiles who will mock him and spit on him, flog him and kill him. Three days later he will rise."

Other
We have also made time for a little bit of craft and Joshua has been working with Jeff to make a Zoo for his "XYZ project" for the school open evening this week.

Social
Last Thursday two families from the Women's Gathering came over to our Play Room for lunch and a play afterwards, which was a lovely time to get to know one another better and encourage each other.
Abigail had a play day with her friend I on Saturday, while Anna had a play day with her friend R. The boys spent the morning at the church Busy Bee doing a big job of backyard clean up in the house next door to the church which is owned by the church and rented out. Apparently the boys had a great time, Josh with an axe and Sam with some secateurs (can you tell I wasn't present?!?) and their toy lawn mower.
I spent the day with several friends at the Christian Homeschool Seminar and Show. The talks were only so-so, but I was able to purchase the Earlybird Mathematics curriculum for Abigail that I used with Joshua and Anna last year, which pleased me immensely. The company I had purchased those books from previously is MIA. I was also able to examine the LEMP Phomics Workbook 3 and purchase that to do orally with Anna over the next two months (as review); Abigail will write in it when her turn comes to use it some time next year.
I am writing this post Monday evening. Since Friday evening, one or more of us have been involved in 15 different events, not including school attendance. The outings ranged from the Boys' Brigade Aladdin dinner Pantomime on Saturday evening (we only got the kids into bed at 10:30pm!!) to lunch with the F & B families from church on Sunday, after the morning service and the church AGM. Josh and Anna both had Brigades this evening and Jeff and I both had separate meetings tonight; fortunately mine was here at home! But as you might imagine, I am exhausted, mentally and emotionally. So now I am going to bed.

Weekly Reports 2009: Term 3 Week 4

As per my Mum's request, I am going to be writing more on the blog again about our homeschooling efforts. I have settled into our pattern, and it hadn't seemed interesting enough to write about from my perspective, but she reminded me that I am teaching different children now, and it is good to be providing a diary of sorts for myself and for interested parties such as grandparents. And Mum does have a point. My last Weekly Report was way back in week 2 of term 1! So here we are again...

Granny was staying with us all this week, but didn't spend much time with us until Thursday, because she was visiting Gramps each day. He has been in hospital here in Perth, having had a heart attack last Saturday night. Gramps was operated on on Tuesday, and had five stents put in three blood vessels near his heart. He was discharged on Thursday and we were at last able to spend a little time with him (see below). Unfortunately, Gramps still needs at least one more stent put in, so he will be back for another operation in a fortnight.
It has been a privilege to care for my MIL while she deals with Gramps's dramatic health concerns, after all the help and prayer our family has been given over the last month. As Paul wrote (2 Corinthians 1:3-6),
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer."

Monday
We took a morning trip to the library. We read some books there and borrowed a few to bring home, including Lauren't de Brunhoff's Babar's Little Girl, which has re-ignited Babar-fever in our sweet Abigail.
Abigail worked through pp5-6 of LEM Phonics 1 book and re-read Bob Book #1.2 Sam. I have decided to have Abi do her phonics pages in order that the letters are introduced in the Bob Books, so we are hopping around a bit. After Abi has completed the relevant phonics work, she reads the book. It is taking her several days' worth of lessons to get through the phonics behind each Bob Book, so she is re-reading them quite a number of times before moving on to the next. Each time she reads the books, she gets a little better. At this stage she isn't feeling frustrated, but rather pleased with her accomplishment. I am not feeling like I should be moving her through faster. Joshua and Anna read shorter home-made reading books (one sentence a day) when I was introducing them to the Basic Code, but I wasn't using the LEM Phonics materials with them either. I think this is a good fit for Abigail.
Abigail is doing well with blending, but the pace is allowing her to focus on learning and recognising each new letter. Also, while she can blend simple CVC words, she still finds it hard to segment words (sound them out from hearing the word, not seeing it written) into their individual sounds without running two sounds together, thus: mat is sounded m+at or ma+t, rather than m+a+t. It is really quite fascinating to see how well she has come along so far this term, since we began about six weeks ago (with time out for illness) to introduce her to the Basic Code and reading VC and CVC words. And when I look ahead in my mind and see her reading as well as Anna and Joshua do, I am excited to be teaching my own child to read, once again.
Abigail also worked through half of the pages of the Singaporean kindergarten-level Mathematics book Baa Baa Black Sheep, using the skills of counting 0-5, using the terms "one"/"many" and "enough".
Anna read pp44-47 from Endeavour Reader #5, Sparky the Space Chimp. She also went to Girls' Brigades in the evening (and so was required to have a rest in the afternoon, hence she didn't do much in the way of academics).

Tuesday
In the morning, we collected Grandma from the airport, only for an overnight stopover this time, on her way home to Darwin. We took Grandma for a tour of Joshua's school, where she was able to see Joshua working and see the pre-primary class that Anna will be joining for the last five weeks of term 4.
In the afternoon, Abigail completed pp9-10 or her phonics book and pp22-26 of Baa Baa Black Sheep, using the terms "same"/"different".
Meanwhile, Grandma and Anna were working on a jigsaw of three chameleons, which provided a nice topic for an extended conversation about the characteristics of some of the Animal Classes. Both Anna and Abigail joined in this conversation, and while Anna had a sound understanding at the end, which she was able to demonstrate to Dad over dinner that night, Abigail found it a bit confusing.
Anna's penmanship task for the day was based on this Science lesson. For copywork: "Birds have feathers. Mammals have fur. Reptiles have scales." For tracework: "Zebras and tigers are ___. Chickens and ducks are ___. Snakes and turtles are ___." Anna completed this penmanship with Grandma's oversight while I went to collect Joshua, and apparently she had no trouble reading the sentences or working out what word to use in the blanks.
Grandma also helped Anna with her mathematics lesson, from Primary Mathematics 1A #7.1 pp69-75, and Ex50 from the Student Workbook 1A(2). It was Anna's first lesson on shapes, and we are moving through faster than previously because she is quite familiar with these ideas, and much of it is review. Since Anna has now completed the number skills chapters to the stage of being able to add and subtract within 20 (competently with manipulatives and sometimes without), we are leaving the remaining number skills chapters and skipping to the chapters on shapes, length, halves & quarters, time, money and perhaps weight and graphs, in order to complete these before she begins at away-school. If I was going to continue teaching Anna at home, we would just keep going steadily through the Primary Mathematics 1 books into next year, but I think most of the number skills of 1B are beyond her at this stage, while the space and measurement skills are at an appropriate level as well as being useful.

Wednesday
This is our BSF day. After dropping Grandma back at the airport and Granny at the hospital, I was back home in time to hand the car keys to Jeff so he could drive Joshua to school on time: by 8:35am!
At BSF, we studied Numbers 13-14, the tragic story of the unbelief of Israel when they listened to the report of the spies who had been into the Promised Land, and focussed on the "giants" in the land who would oppose them, rather than listening to Caleb and Joshua and placing their faith in the greatness of God who would go before them in all His mighty power.
Jeff met us at the church and collected the kids from me. We have one child in each of the BSF classes: Samuel is in the 2yo class, Abi in the 3yo class, and Anna is one of the eldest children in the 4-5yo class. When Anna begins away-school, she will have spent over three-and-a-half years in the BSF programs! The Children's Leaders have been an immense blessing in Anna's life, as for all our children. Without the kids, I was able to attend the Homiletics Seminar, as I have already blogged.
That evening, I read the children four picture books, one for each of them: Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans, Where's Stripey? by Wendy Binks, Jungle Drums by Graeme Base and I Love My Mummy by Sebastien Brown. All of these picture books came from our own home library, and most were gifts from family.
I think Where's Stripey was the favourite of the night, with the children joining in with me for the repeated refrain as Stripey's father, Crikey, asked other bush creatures if they had seen his son. The names of places and characters are delightful. I offer you a taste:
So Crikey ran on, past Musselduck Crossing and over Dingbat Ditch, where he saw the two kookaburras Smirk and Giggle, who were laughing their heads off.
"Hey, guys," he called to them once they'd stopped laughing, "have you seen my chick? His name is Stripey."
"What does he look like? Asked Smirk. "Does he look like you?"
"No," said Crikey, "he is small and fluffy - and stripey."
"No, sorry," Smirk and Giggle replied together, "we haven't seen him."
The pictures are delightful as well:















Thursday
This is our Women's Gathering Day. Jeff dropped Joshua at school then took the younger children to church, while I collected another woman to bring her to church. It was a small group of five this week (the smallest it has been since we started), but that was great. It gave me an opportunity to see how the changes I had made in the structure of the study (embedding Connect questions within the Content section, rather than leaving them all to the end) worked well: it did.
The children joined with their friend C in having Kids' Gathering with Jeff, studying Acts 13:13-52. He told them the story of Paul and Barnabas in Psidian Antioch, when the Jews responded to Paul's proclamation of the good news of salvation through Jesus with contempt, but the Gentiles heard the word of God with gladness and believed. Each week I provide a colouring picture to help them visualise the scene. This week's picture I altered slightly from the original black line master, which was intended to be Jesus preaching at Nazareth:When we got home from WG, the kids were delighted to find Granny had brought Gramps home from the hospital. They cuddled around him on the recliner, with me intervening when it seemed they would bump him too hard or lean over him too heavily and cut off the circulation to his legs. Gramps even managed to read a few stories to the eager children: The Princess and the Pea and The Emperor's New Clothes by Hans Christian Andersen.
Granny provided lunch and then she cooked Magic Broth (aka vegetable soup, the alias is hoped to help Abigail want to eat it though she really doesn't like soup) with Anna's careful help and increasingly skilful efforts with the vegie peeler.
The girls and Joshua played with Maths Mastermind later on, Abigail working with the beads and Anna with the shapes.

Friday
Before everyone left in the morning, I took some photos of the kids. With only a few days left of winter, I have finally got their winter homeschool excursion clothes made, so after Joshua left for school we had some more fun (and a whole lot of frustration as well) taking some more Equip Academy photos.
Since it is apparently "Book Week", the local library was having a special treat for their Story Hour, which we don't usually attend. We watched a Patch Theatre production of "The Frog Prince". Well, I watched. All three of the kids, along with a friend from Sunday School who was there with her mother, were chosen to be part of the cast. So they didn't just watch, but joined in! Anna was dubbed Lady Spice and Abigail was Lady All Things Nice... can you guess where the names came from? Any predictions for Samuel? He was Lord Slugs!
The children loved the story, and the girls really took it all in, as they showed later when they narrated it back while Sam had his nap. Anna's narration provided her penmanship task for the day, and I read The Frog Prince from my JLC & WC Grimm anthology as well. One of the things I noticed about this story is that the original has an extended end that is deleted from every children's version I have ever heard. After the happy couple marry, they are driven home to the prince's kingdom by a faithful coachman who has mourned his prince's suffering so much that his heart has had to be bound with three iron bands. As Henry drives them home, his joy at the prince's happy ending is manifest in the sounds of the bands on his heart breaking, one after the other. At first, being so familiar with the modern versions, I felt like the tale of Henry was an odd end. But upon reflection, I can see that Henry's faithful love provides a much-needed counterpoint to the princess's faithless attempts to avoid fulfilling her promises.
Anna completed Ex51-52 from her maths workbook, and listened to Esther on MP3 while examining the related pictures in one of our children's story Bibles.
Abigail completed pp13&15 from her phonics book and re-read BB1.2, Sam for the last time. She can now read each of the words almost without hesitation. She also coloured a picture very neatly to send to a friend.
While we were at the library, we also read Clod Hans by Hans Christian Andersen and a picture book adaption of Sergei Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf": The Boy Who Cried Wolf by Tony Ross. I can't say I have read the original, although I think I may have heard it on a record (!!) when I was a child. This picture book is great, although parents might want to pre-approve the ending before reading it to little ones... the wolf goes home with a very full belly.

Weekly Reports 2008:40-43

Well, more like a monthly report! I've been too busy for a weekly report of late but here's what we've been up to in the past four weeks.

Before I start...
Here's a gratuitous image of Sam.Just because I can.
I opened up the garage roller door one day last week and he promptly took off down the driveway in our kiddy car. When I asked him where he was going, he replied with quite clear diction, "Going to shops". He went the entire length of our street in the right direction before I stopped him and brought him back (I went with him of course). Just for reference, that tiny pink dot on the path in the background is Abigail, about where our house is.

Literacy - Joshua
Joshua has really taken off in the past few weeks with his reading. He has finished Are You My Mother? from the Beginner Books series and also read There's a Wocket in My Pocket, The Cat in the Hat, The Cat in the Hat Comes Back and is three-quarters of the way through One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. I am impressed because with the high level of repetition in these books he has moved from decoding almost every word to reading almost all of the words fluently in one smooth stream. A bit of it is the ability to guess, helped by the rhyme and pattern in the stories, so it is great to see him putting together other cues about what upcoming words will be as well. I had hesitated in using these books because they use such controlled vocabularies, but right at this point in Joshua's reading journey I think they are perfect, because he can decode every word if he needs to, and if he does have to do it, that provides reinforcement of the phonics rules he has been learning in our workbook. I can hardly believe that he has come this far from struggling through reading one sentence each day at the beginning of this year, such as "She has a zip on her red bag." Joshua has only four phonograms and a number of review pages to go in his Phonics workbook. He is a few pages ahead of Anna, because he very rarely has an afternoon nap, and if he does, then she is almost certainly also too tired for school as well. If they nap, they miss out on school for the day since we do our academics during the quieter hours while Abigail and Samuel also nap.

Literacy - Anna
Anna struggled through the fourth, fifth and sixth Ladybird Phonics books. It wasn't so much that she couldn't read the words (she was fine at that level), but more that she wasn't interested in the stories, which were oriented more to boys than girls, IMO. Which is ironic given that Joshua also found the books hard to deal with because he was too distracted by the pictures to concentrate on the words. I think I will skip these books with Abigail and Samuel. She has also read all the way through Green Eggs and Ham, with a lot less whinging than Joshua when he read it, which wasn't too long ago! She'll read one or two more Beginner Books before the official end of our term in just under four weeks, and then I think I will have her read the fifth box of Bob Books over the Christmas Holidays. Possibly. She is doing very well, and her handwriting is quite neat in the Phonics workbook. Anna naps about one afternoon out of the four or five we do academics, but she generally catches up the workbook task within the next few days. Reading gets skipped that day.

Literacy - Abigail
Abigail has started to ask for school lessons as well, but she is too young to give up her afternoon nap. (I have a hard and fast rule that all children in our household must have an afternoon nap until their fourth birthday.) So when she does wake up early from her nap, I have been getting her to trace her name on the megasketcher board. She loves this simple task, and is happy for this to be all of her "lessons" for the moment. She was even able to trace her own name on Jeff's congratulations card that we made for him last week. (The others each wrote their own name as well, without tracing, except Sam, of course.)I have begun letting her have her pre-nap cuddles on the couch as well, so she can listen in to at least the first chapter each day of our on-going Read Aloud book, immediately after lunch.

Literature
In the past four weeks we finished The Phoenix and the Carpet and also The Story of the Amulet by Edith Nesbit and loved the last book of the Five Children and It trilogy best. It would be a great book to read to tantalise children with a taste of history to begin academic study in this area. The kids also got their first taste of the myth of Atlantis from this book, which we followed up by reading a picture book retelling of the Atlantis tale, which I borrowed from Mrs T.
Taking a break from Nesbit, we turned to Mary Norton's Borrowers series and read The Borrowers with delight. Today we were able to obtain The Complete Borrowers from the library, so we have now begun on the second borrowers title, The Borrowers Afield.

Mathematics
Joshua and Anna continued to steam through subtraction.
We spent a few days reviewing telling the time, with Anna learning to tell the time to the hour and Joshua learning to tell the time to the half hour. Then last weekend, they both learnt quarter to and quarter past, although that was a quick lesson and will need a fair bit of review. Joshua knew how to tell time to the hour from Play School and Anna picked it up without too much difficulty as well. I'd like them to be comfortable with telling the time to the quarter hour before next year, so I will have to remember to ask them to work out the time whenever they ask me what it is!
We skipped the lesson on Days of the Week as they all know this well, even Abigail, since I made a "Today is" chart for our dining room wall.We often talk about what yesterday was and then I get them to work out what day today is and tomorrow will be. Even Abigail is becoming proficient at this process.
They completed Lesson 13 on counting by tens to 100, which both can now do comfortably. I have also been having Joshua practice counting by tens to 200 and further, and I think he has got it. They already knew how to count by hundreds to one thousand.

Science
We have completed what I wanted to cover with Science this year, and so our Science lessons have morphed into "Agriculture" lessons: backyard gardening with Dad. They have planted a wide range of vegetable and even fruit seeds (watermelons) and have also planted some flower seeds as well. Sprouts are starting to show up and Samuel has now been rebuked and corrected enough times to remember to stay out of the vegie patch, which is protected by a make-shift fence.
Not-at-home-schooling
Joshua has been thoroughly enjoying Boys' Brigade nights and Karate lessons. Here he is, showing off some of what he has learnt:Anna is looking forward to being old enough for Girls' Brigade next year.

[Book cover image from Amazon.]

Weekly Report 2008:36

As I mentioned on Saturday, last week all our academics were done in the afternoons, while Abigail and Samuel were napping. I've also begun doing phonics and reading with Anna first, then while she does her penmanship, I help Joshua with his phonics and reading lessons. Then Anna has a little bit of free play while Joshua finishes up his penmanship. This has minimised some of the whining and fighting for my attention. They still do maths together, but they both love it so there are few complaints over maths lessons anyway.(See what I mean? Who else has kids who build numbers with their Lego, or stand up at the breakfast table and show me how they can make a 4 with their legs?)

It is officially school holidays here in Western Australia, but since we took a week off to visit Albany earlier in the term (and most of another week to recover), our family isn't on holidays. Having no academics (other than Circle Time and literature read alouds, which we do year round) in the morning meant we were still able to enjoy participating in some fun activities out and about with friends.

On Monday
I took the kids to the fenced playground at Bunnings so they could play while I enjoyed a coffee at the internal cafe. We also bought 90 cents' worth of 6mm dowel, but that wasn't the point.

On Wednesday
The girls went to the B family to celebrate I's fifth birthday. After I dropped them off, I took the Boys to the David Buttfield Centre for an Anchor Boys event. As part of their devotions on serving God, the Anchor Boys had learnt two songs to sing for the residents during their Wednesday church service. Since Jeff's grandmother lives in this home, we went for a special visit to her as well. Joshua did a private performance of his two songs for her (she was not able to make it to the service), Samuel covered her in little boy kisses and I was able to talk to her about our anniversary and Jeff's latest sermon. I left before she got tired and she had a smile on her face, so I was very pleased I had been able to take the boys. Visiting with all four kids can be too overwhelming for her.

On Thursday
Jeff and I (secretly) went off to take a tour of the private school we are thinking we'll send Joshua to next year. At this stage we haven't told Joshua that we're definitely sending him, and the others know nothing about it, so we organised to leave Joshua with the (other) B family to play with their boys, and then drop the girls with the T family to play with their girls. We took Samuel with us, but then, to mis-quote slightly, "toddlers tell no tales". The kids loved their time with friends and I appreciated being able to take a 20min coffee break after dropping Jeff off for the train, in order to get my head straight before I collected all the kids.

On Friday
Having completely forgotten to send Sam to childcare on Wednesday, I had organised to swap his day to Friday. So on Friday morning we all walked Sam to childcare and I had a lovely chat to another mother as she walked most of the way home with us.
Jeff dropped the rest of us at a nearby shopping centre and then we were in for a treat. At Jeff's suggestion - well, insistence, I was completely against it to begin with - at $10 a pop, I paid $30 for the most expensive four minutes of Joshua, Anna and Abigail's lives to date. They have something a bit like a cross between a jumping castle and a bungy crane at the shops at the moment, and the kids each had a go. They were delighted!
My purse quite a bit lighter, I took the kids somewhere free: the library! While I browsed for books on the animals of Europe with limited success, they listened in on nursery rhyme and story time. What perfect timing we had.
We then scurried back to the shops just in time for the 11am show, a singing, dancing extravaganza of Mr Men and Little Misses, with Mr Happy, Mr Greedy, Little Miss Chatterbox and Little Miss Neat. Afterwards, Anna told me solemnly that "there are real people inside the Mr Men: I think they must have a zip at the back!"
So next we caught the bus home. Unfortunately, it was only once we were on the bus that I realised I had no keys to get into the house. So we went home anyway, dropped Josh over the fence to open the garage door, and took a pram with us to the local shops to buy lunch (Abi's legs were getting tired). Then we caught another bus back to the first shopping centre (where the train station happens to be) and took a train to Trinity to get the house keys, and thankfully, the car, from Jeff.
We still managed to get our literacy and maths lessons done that afternoon, so I am very proud of myself. We did have to order pizza for dinner though, my energy didn't make it that far through the day!

On Saturday
Last week Joshua sold lemons to earn some money and his next plan was to grow and sell carrots. Since that takes more than one week to pull off, this week Jeff told him he could earn two cents for every snail he collected from our back yard. I thought two cents was a bit stiff, but Joshua still managed to earn $1.80!! (For the mathematically challenged, there are now 90 snails suffering from the effects of salt poisoning on our backyard barbecue.)
In the afternoon Abigail announced, "I have to go to L's house. We have to be friends together!" So we tidied up the house a little and then walked three doors down to play with the S family, and another neighbour from across the street, R, who was already visiting. It was a great chance to chat with Mr S and kept the kids from being frantic for another hour or so.

But what about academics?

Circle Time
Jeff did some great storytelling about Moses taking the Israelite people into the desert and what happened there. When I do the stories, I tend to read straight from the Bible with only a few word simplifications, but Jeff does it as a storyteller, not just a reader. The kids are now quite familiar with How Deep the Father's Love for Us and were thrilled to be able to sing it along with the congregation last Sunday. We're learning Exodus 3:10-12a & 14-15a at the moment, one verse at a time:
12 "So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh
to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt."
11 But Moses said, "Who am I,
that I should go to Pharaoh
and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"
12 And God said, "I will be with you." ...
14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM.
This is what you are to say to the Israelites:
'I AM has sent me to you.' "
15 God also said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites,
'The LORD, the God of your fathers -
the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob -
has sent me to you.'
This is my name forever, ... by which I am to be remembered..."

Literacy
Joshua finally finished the sixth book in the fifth set of Bob Books and to give him a break, we moved back to the Ladybird Phonics readers. He read the first two stories from the fifth book without too much problem, which was quite a relief after the struggles of the last few weeks. Anna continued to storm through a book a day from the fourth set of Bob Books. Next week, when I envisage she will finish the box, I'll have to give her some Ladybird Phonics books to read as well or Joshua might get a tad outraged that she has caught up to him already.
This week we did our penmanship (tracework for Anna, mostly copywork for Joshua) in the dotted thirds lined books I purchased from Wooldridges. We have also added in some work from a phonics workbook, Multiple Phonograms from the LEM Phonics program (you can see a sample here). I like that it is an Australian product, and it is providing the direct instruction on multiple letter graphemes that Joshua in particular needs and Anna is definitely ready for at the moment. I have been doing it with Anna at the dining room table while Joshua plays quietly in the lounge room and three times now Joshua has called out "I know a word with that sound" and has come up with a word that not only has the sound (all this week it has been "er"), but also the spelling we're studying that day. On Wednesday, he thought of Ursus maritimus, on Thursday it was earth and on Friday he came up with worthy. I am not sure whether this synchronisation was just random luck or if he has some level of recognition above what I have been giving him credit for. Anyway, when it comes time for him to do the task he has been doing quite well. He can recognise the graphemes in the word lists faster than Anna, yet she can remember what sound each grapheme represents faster than him. Strange, but that encapsulates their individual struggles with reading any word at the moment.

Literature
We didn't finish Adventures of the Wishing Chair but began on Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit because it has to be back to the library very soon. I have been reading ahead myself (I wanted to be sure it was suitable) and am loving it. You can tell it's a good kids' book when even adults love it. So far we're three chapters in.

Maths
We did a page a day with Maths, except on Wednesday, so we've now finished lesson 2 and begun lesson 3. The kids have already both grasped the idea that sums can be written vertically as well as horizontally. The book's way of presenting this, using pegs stuck to a strip of card, and showing it first horizontally and then vertically, makes great concrete sense. I wouldn't have come up with it on my own but it made the transition to vertical sums clear and simple.Science
We did a notebook page on Orangutans and I heard the kids playing at being "Pongo pygmaeuses" yesterday, so something must have stuck. That was all for Science this week, but I collected a few books on Swallows and other European animals from the library so we'll turn there next week.

Arts and Craft
Joshua wanted me to draw him some dinosaurs on Monday. I told him he could do a better job than me so he went off to prove me right. When he had copied several pictures from a book we have, he decided to build one in 3D from our Lego blocks. Some days, this boy just amazes me with what he can do!Class Time
I haven't mentioned our class time for a while but this week we have successfully memorised our home address and the colours of the rainbow in order. Just handy things to know.

That's it for this week. When I write it all down I realise our week was absolutely packed to the rafters!

Entrepreneurial adventures

Joshua has really enjoyed attending Anchor Boys this last term. Each night, there is a short devotion, which is part object lesson and part Bible story with application. The entire term their Skipper has been focusing on the idea that, despite being young, they are all able to serve God. The last week of term the topic was "Serving God with our money". Joshua has never really had any money of his own (we don't give pocket money). But full of the idea that if he had some, he could use his own money to serve God, this week Joshua decided to earn some money of his own. He was all ready to collect his earnings as the boys had made simple money boxes in the craft time at Anchor Boys that night.

So he has been collecting lemons from our tree and this Saturday, he and I went door to door down our street, offering "fresh, homegrown lemons" for sale for 20 cents. Surprisingly, not only did everyone who answered their door buy at least one lemon, we also had people give more than the asking price. One gentleman even gave him one dollar extra for his enterprising spirit! (It was a great opportunity for me to introduce myself to a few people who have moved into our street in the last few months as well.) Having also sold a few lemons to some of our dinner guests from Friday, Joshua earned $4.25 in his first week!

During the week Joshua had also made some envelopes in which to place his offering for church. On Sunday morning, we counted his money with him and explained how to work out what was reasonable to give: 10 cents for every (whole) dollar. We explained that God does not want us to give beyond our means and leave us destitute, but neither does He want us to be stingy with money that has, originally, come from Him. So Joshua worked out he would give 40 cents, and selected four 10 cent coins. He then wrote from Joshua to God on his envelope, drew a flower on it as well, placed his coins inside, and carefully stuck it together with sticky tape.
When we got to church on Sunday, there was some impatience! After almost every song or prayer I heard a whispered, "Is it time for the offering yet?" from either Joshua or the keenly watching Anna. When the offering bag finally came around, Joshua was very pleased with himself as he placed his envelope into the bag. And I was very proud of my little boy who has shown his desire to earn money so that he can gift it back to His God.

Weekly Report 2008:33

Last week went very well, almost completely according to plan. Amazing!

Circle Time
We read stories of Joseph and his brothers and what happened in Egypt. We left out the bit about Potiphar's wife, but didn't have time for it even if it had passed the toddler-level censor. I overheard Anna singing the first four lines of "How deep the Father's love for us..." this morning so the first verse must have sunk in. I do think it's a bit slow for them, they don't seem as keen on it as the previous two or three songs. Jeff has been leading Circle Time a lot lately and I really appreciate his succinct applications and prayers at the end. We're learning two memory verses at the moment: Phil 2:14-16a (to counteract whinging) and Genesis 45:8 "So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God..." from the story of Joseph.

Literacy
Joshua is reading through the fifth (last) box of Bob Books half a book at a time, so he read book 3 and 4 last week. Anna has begun reading from the third set and is steaming ahead having read 1-4 last week. She seems to be picking up sight words (phonetic, but not using rules she's learnt yet) such as "was" and "saw" much faster than Joshua did. I am not sure if this reflects her better blending skill or her greater familiarity with the flow of words in stories. Either way, it definitely reflects her fascination with stories.
We didn't manage to do penmanship on Monday but the rest of the week went okay. I have increased the amount of writing Joshua is doing and it may be a bit to demanding for him. He's doing six lines (large writing, they take up a page with my three lines of writing to copy) or less. He did a fantastic narration of Dot and the Kangaroo on Tuesday. Anna didn't do a narration of it, we just couldn't fit it in. Oh well.

Literature
The kids are loving The Wizard of Oz. We read chapters 6 through to 14 last week, even with Joshua going out to Anchor Boys and Karate different nights of the week.
We picked up some picture books of Asian folk tales from the library on Tuesday and the kdis all adore Tikki Tikki Tembo ("retold" by Arlene Mosel and illustrated by Blair Lent), which I picked out because I remember it from my childhood. I have also ordered The Five Chinese Brothers (by Claire Huchet Bishop and illustrated by Kurt Wiese, who also illustrated The Story About Ping) through interlibrary loan.
The kids can now recite "Toad's Last Little Song" well, and really enjoy it. Even Abigail asks to recite poetry at other times, such as at bedtime. I'm so glad I thought of adding this into our day, because poetry has become a wonderful thing to share together.

Mathematics
We've begun Earlybird Mathematics 2B! We did the first half of the first "lesson", which is quite a long one. We're doing one page a day (three times a week, we do something different on Friday) and it seems to be moving very slowly with single-digit addition, but I am going as slowly as the book rather than let them move quickly because there's no reason to rush and I want to be sure they both get it. So far, they've had no problems with understanding what the + and = signs mean, so I'm pleased with that. We did a lot of extra problems on the magnetic sketchpad and our little white board, which they both enjoyed. Joshua can handle bigger sums in his head, I've noticed. Anna is fine with addends of 1-3 but she struggles if there's a 4 in the problem (mentally, with an image or fingers or whatever she does fine).
I've been trying to do addition sums with the kids when we've been out and about as well, with real objects to add together to help them with more examples.

Science/Geography
We went to the library on Tuesday and checked out a few books on Asian animals and folktales. I couldn't find anything on Pandas to my dismay but did find a book on the Siberian Tiger which we have a DVD about. We spent a day or two looking through the kids' atlases pages on Asia, and read a few books of folktales. I want the kids to be able to identify Indonesia and Singapore in particular because their Grandpa lives in Jakarta (Indonesia) and their Aunt immigrated to Australia from Singapore when she married Jeff's brother, so we have family connections with those countries. Of course, they've heard a lot about China in the last few weeks with the Olympics, so we're learning a bit about that as well.
Joshua and Anna went on a "bug hunt" with Joshua's magnifying glass one afternoon and came back inside having drawn some cute pictures (crayon, hardly any detail) of a spider, a beetle and an ant. Then Joshua treated Jeff and I to a spontaneous narration about insects, including the insight that "ants live in burrow nests underground. They like to burrow in cracks between the bricks. They prefer to burrow in sand, and especially like orange sand." This insight was based on the large number of ant sand piles we have in our undercover area outside, where there is obviously orange bricklayer sand underneath the bricks, rather than the white-grey sand of the yard and sandpit areas. The orange ant piles on the brown bricks are much more obvious than any ant piles elsewhere in the yard. What an investigator!

Craft
Pipe cleaner and plastic spoon insects, with the idea courtesy of Play School, were the hit of the week craft-wise. Abigail loved being able to join in with the tracing page as well. Her efforts were enough to tell me she has quite a way to go developmentally before she'll be able to join the bigger kids for penmanship! (Not that I didn't know that already.)

Outside Time
I have loved the warmer weather and sunny skies of the last week and the kids have flourished in their outside times. I am so glad we can finally get back out. They are settling much better at bedtime as a result of all the time outside and we've had a few more chats with neighbours than usual because they're out in their yards as well.

Evening Actvities
Joshua enjoyed both Anchor Boys and Karate this week. I was greatly saddened on Friday to realise I have another two badges to sew on - one for Joshua and one for Jeff for their Karate uniforms. Somehow it slipped my mind previously... I have no idea how!

Weekly Report 2008:29

With the sudden appearance of high temperatures and lethargic little ones, our third week of semester was disrupted somewhat. Despite doctor's visits, (yes, yet another of my kiddos is back on antibiotics, this time it's the big gun penicillin), I managed to keep almost on track by picking the most important/best of Thursday and Friday's planned activities and focussing on those.

Circle Time
Jeff was very busy preparing for his first in a series of interviews with our church's denomination for consideration as a candidate for Ministry of the Word, so I led most of our Circle Times this week. We read the stories of Abraham & Lot choosing land, of God's promise to Abraham (descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky) and then the fulfilment of God's promise in the birth of Isaac. On Friday, we read of God's request that Abraham sacrifice his promised son, Abraham's faithful obedience and God's last minute provision of an alternative sacrifice. It was wonderful to spend a week talking about God's promises, and how even though we often have no idea how He could possibly carry them out, or we feel God's promised gifts are under threat, God is still faithful, trustworthy and true. In the words of the Colin Buchanan song (from Isaiah 46:9-10), "God says, 'I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me. I say: My plan will stand, and I will do all that I please.' " How true this is!

Literature
We finished Dangerous Journey this week and will be using a quotation from that for tracework/copywork/dictation and narration for Joshua next week. I just have to pick the quotation! I have loved reading through this with the children, despite the times when I had to hide the pictures because they were too scary. At the moment many of the people met on Christian's and Christiana's dangerous journeys are a bit of a mystery to the kids, but the events such as the unintended visit to Doubting Castle were clear enough metaphors for them to take in, with the help of Mum & Dad's ongoing commentary. I can see re-reading this book over the years will continue to yield fresh insight and encouragement for the Christian Life as we and they grow and go through some of the events portrayed allegorically by Bunyan.
Anna has a burning desire to narrate the story of the three little pigs to me, so she will do that for her narration next week. This week she narrated Tim to the Rescue much better than Joshua' who hadn't the patience that particular day.

Literacy
Joshua has finished re-reading all the Bob Books in the second (orange) set. He is a much stronger and more confident reader for the practise. Anna is now three books in to the same set, and of course she is reading them slower but, from my memory, she seems a lot more fluent than Joshua was when he first read the set. She has begun picking up picture books and trying to read the words on her own. Last night she announced, "Shhh! I am trying to read the newspaper!" and we realised she was reading the headlines over Jeff's shoulder. This is a step of independence in reading which Joshua has yet to attempt. Jeff considers it another reflection upon her insistence on "reading" from picture books when she was little. I just think she's obviously going to grow up like me... head perennially stuck in some book or other!
Writing lessons went well this week although, due to Abigail and later Samuel's sickness, we only managed three days out of the planned four.

Mathematics
We finished Lesson 19 from Earlybird Mathematics 2A, convering quarters. The kids have a pretty good grip on this now and even Abigail has learnt a bit from listening in on some of our discussions. We didn't get to begin Lesson 20 as planned, but will still hopefully finish the book next week.

Science and Geography
Our study of Polar bears was enjoyed by all this week. As well as the websites I already mentioned, we checked out some pictures my cousin sent me from their trip to see a polar bear at Sea World, in QLD. The kids loved hearing the polar bear roar (from the National Geographic website). We also watched a TV show "The Tipping Point" about the retreat of the Arctic ice cap. In the middle of all the shots of floating sea ice, we saw about one minute of footage of a polar bear with its prey, a seal. The kids liked that, and they also liked hearing about one particular arctic bird which has no nest but lays one egg on a small shelf many metres up sea cliffs, then stands over it to warm it for three weeks. The hatchling is three months old before it takes its first flight down from the cliffs. What a precarious life cycle! As you can probably guess, we've been looking at the Arctic Circle for Geography this week.

Craft
The kids made elephant pictures, drawing around their hands and then painting them. We also made cardboard cut out people and dressed them in colourful cut out paper clothes, and this was Joshua's favourite. Wednesday's efforts with the water colour paints were a hit as well.

And in the evenings
Joshua loved Anchor Boys again this week. He told me excitedly yesterday, "Mum, today's Friday! That means tomorrow's Saturday and then there's only one more day before Anchor Boys Day!" Yes, we have one excited boy in our family.
I enjoyed my second week of T@N classes. I am glad I am studying two such different subjects, one exegetical (1&2 Samuel) and the other more practical (Head, Heart & Hands), because two exegetical subjects would have been overwhelming.

Weekly Report 2008:28

Our second week of second semester went smoothly with less whinging than last week, so I'm quite pleased. The one thing which is causing problems is actually one of my scheduling decisions planned to remove problems! I have planned for Abigail to watch Play School (with Samuel in the lounge room as well) while I do the reading and writing lessons with Joshua and Anna in the dining room. The big kids never used to watch morning Play School before (it's only a relatively recent addition to our screen time in the afternoons) and the littlies are often asleep during the afternoon showing. Despite this, there is great angst being experienced, particularly by Joshua, over the fact that Abigail gets to watch morning Play School and he doesn't. Like, lots and lots and lots of distress. I'm not sure what to do with this problem. I am considering the idea of giving Abigail playtime in the lounge with a CD on, preferrably a homemade CD of songs, poetry and memory verses we are learning together, rather than the TV to watch. Then I can tell her that's her "Preschool Time" and the others might not be as jealous. I think if I put a music CD on I would still get much of the same jealousy as I am seeing with TV, but perhaps a spoken word CD would not cause the same envy. I think I will persist with the present situation for one more week and see if the big kids can learn to suppress their jealousy.

Circle Time
We finished the story of Noah, heard about the doings at Babel, and read two stories about Abraham. We'll actually be doing six stories on Abraham rather than four because there is, as is natural, some overlap with his story and that of his son, Isaac. We have begun singing Consider Christ by Bryson Smith & Philip Percival (1996) from the album You Alone together at Circle Time and at other times, such as when we take our walks together, and the kids have already learnt the first verse and chorus. We have this on CD, which I realised after I searched online for the words for a good 15min on Monday morning (one thing I was not organised in advance for). It has some complicated words for little ones, so we've been having some great vocabulary-stretching and theology-building conversations whenever we sing it. We have successfully memorised Genesis 1:27 and have moved on to Genesis 12:1-3 which will take us longer to memorise, although it has a poetic structure also so perhaps won't take as long as if it was all in prose style.

Literature
As I posted here, we've added poetry to our morning Read Aloud time, and all but Samuel are already joining in with various segments of "Ducks' Ditty". They have loved my reading from Sister Madge's Book of Nuns (I know most of the poems in it by heart).
We've read a few longer picture books from our bookshelf this week also: The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams and Tim to the Rescue by Edward Ardrizzone. Only two chapters from Dangerous Journey, but that's pretty heavy-going for the kids and I think the pace of one chapter every few days is probably about right. The do ask lots of questions, and there are times when I have to hide the pictures, but the chapters (so far) have all ended positively. Chapter 6, Vanity Fair, inlcuded the death of Christian's partner on his pilgrimage, Faithful, but there was warnings before it happened (so I could prepare them ahead of time) and it was immediately followed by a description of a chariot coming to take Faithful straight to the Celestial City, so that Faithful reached it before Christian. I loved this description of the consummation of the joyous hope for eternal life that every Christian holds.

Narrations
We are now doing two of these each week, a literature or Bible one on Tuesday and a Science one on Friday. The Bible narrations went well, but the Science narrations on the Polar regions (just basically the terminology) was less than successful. I will need to come up with a concise sentence for each of the poles for them to memorise over the next two weeks as we read together about Polar Bears, Arctic Foxes and other polar animals.

Literacy - Reading
Anna has completed reading through the first set of Bob Books! I am so proud of her. She seems to have moved ahead with the skill of blending faster than Joshua; she caught on to it faster initially as well. She has a faster recognition of individual graphemes and the phonemes they represent than he had even a few months ago (although she is still slower than his present rate, of course). She is already self-correcting herself when she reads "the": "t... h... the" (sometimes she doesn't even read the "h" aloud), and Joshua took ages to get this with the extra repetition of flash cards. I think it has helped immensely that she has such a wonderful grasp of the flow of language in story forms. While she was climbing a tree at the shops car park this morning I overheard her telling herself a story, and it is this sort of storytelling which has paved the way for her to grasp decoding so quickly, I think. Although she was very put out that "cat" was not rendered "lion" in "The Vet", which she read today.
Joshua has greatly improved in his ability to read aloud from a book without adult prompts this week as well. He is definitely benefiting from going back to the second set of Bob Books and re-reading them at the dining table (less seating-related distractions) while holding the book and pointing to letters/words himself (improved independence). Jeff was quite impressed with his speed and fluency when Joshua read to him this morning, while I was listening to Anna read. I know it has been said by many homeschooling mothers, but I am relieved to see the hurdle of learning to read is looking doable at last.

Literacy - Writing
Anna did her writing this week from a penmanship workbook, because Joshua was working on the same passage for the whole week and it would have been too much for her to tackle. It was almost too much for Joshua to tackle, but in the end he produced some amazing work which impressed both Jeff and I.

Maths
The kids have loved our discovery of basic fractions this week, lesson 19 in the book. Lots of eating fruit cut into halves and then quarters. I must say Salada crackers are very handy when it comes to teaching about fractions. It took a few days, but both Joshua and Anna have a pretty good grasp of halves and quarters and the concept of equal parts of the whole. We'll continue with fractions next week as it's a long "lesson" in the book, five pages, and we only did Earlybird Mathematics three days this week, with Friday being dedicated to Maths Mastermind. I think stretching it over two weeks will also help to solidify it in their memories.
The kids like having something different for Maths lessons on Friday. Today Jeff did it with the kids while I napped. Anna was very excited to tell me later she had "made a teddy bear with round circles and long rectangles and triangles and red bits and blue bits but no yellow pieces and...". Jeff was impressed with her recall and so was I.
Anna and Joshua also enjoyed playing with the Colour Patterns game Joshua received from a friend as a present ages ago. Once they had completed a few patterns, Anna discovered a 100 chart on the back of her pattern card. She proceeded to count her way from 1 to 100 and then I sent her to Jeff and she did it again for him. Joshua wasn't to be left behind and did the same. Without any prompting from me! Wonderful.

Science and Geography
Pole to Pole, by Pamela Freeman, with amazing pictures by Phillip Blythe, was an enjoyable introduction to the polar regions and the variety of creatures that inhabit them.
We also read about Animal Babies in Polar Lands. This book was written with a question on one spread, with the answer on the following opening. An example: "I have flippers instead of legs. They help me to swim very quickly in the cold water. Who is my mummy? ... My mummy is a harp seal and I am her pup. My fur is soft and white, but my mummy's fur is sleek and brown." Complete with cute photos, this simple book grabbed the kids' interest. They were busy with Duplo on the floor when I started reading it aloud and before I had read the second question they were both standing by the arms of my recliner, peering over my hands at the pages.
Our homemade atlas pages went well. Before now we have used the world globe only in our schoolwork, with flat maps being used for day-to-day activities (such as, "Let's look at this street directory to find the way to XYZ.") I explained to them the difference between the two and how the top and bottom of the globe are stretched visually when they are shown on a flat map. The study of Antarctica was a good place to start with this, I think.

Craft
We did a lot of painting this week, making our own sponge stamps and doing some bubble painting (courtesy of Play School on the Web ideas. Joshua has started saying "when are we doing craft? I love craft!", which of course pleases me. We also worked on a calendar - well, Jeff kept the kids happy drawing weather and celebration illustrations while I finally got around to writing out labels to be stuck on with velcro dots. It is now hanging up in the dining room from a bulldog clip, and we'll try to remember to change the day, month and relevant activity labels each morning as necessary. One thing I am pleased with is that they know the order of the days of the week well and are familiar with the names of the months. We'll be working more on their order next week in Class Time.

And in the evenings
I took Joshua to his first Anchor Boys on Monday and he thoroughly enjoyed it. It helps that one of his best friends has been going for six months and the other started on Monday night as well. I am really pleased that he will have this structured activity, which is strongly Christian in content, as one of his "co-curricula" activities, especially as he will be too old to come to the BSF Day class children's program next year. Jeff doesn't go to an Evening Men's class at the moment - he has quite enough on his plate already - but I do hope to move into an evening class if possible as the children get a little older. However, next year I am hoping Jeff will be able to spend Wednesday mornings with Joshua while I take the girls and Samuel with me to classes.
I've just started two - yes, two - six-week night courses through Jeff's Theol College. If I pass them both, I'll be able to graduate from the Certificate of Christian Studies at the same time he graduates from his Masters of Divinity. On Tuesdays I am studying 1 & 2 Samuel: God's Eternal King and on Thursdays I am studying The Christian Life: Head, Heart and Hands. I am planning to complete the essay for the Thursday subject early so I can work on the (probably harder) one on 1 & 2 Samuel in the later weeks. I am sure I will be able to get an extension if I ask for it, but I'd rather get it done on time because procrastination will not help in the long run. So I will be a little busy for the next few weeks... I am very glad we've got the homeschooling running relatively smoothly now before this started.

Jeff should be healthy enough to go back to college to study next week, Lord willing. It has been helpful (and lovely) but somehow odd to have him at home so much.

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.

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.