A Visit from Mr Frog

We have been talking about frogs a lot lately. For those who asked, Joshua's presentation of his Frog Report at the school assembly went well, although he did pick his nose throughout the entire song that the class performed after giving their reports. Sigh!

Also to those who asked for more details, yes, the Jesus Christ Frog is a real frog. That's its colloquial name, of course. Steve Parish's Amazing Facts About Australian Frogs & Reptiles, page 13, says:

"The tiny Rockhole Frog of the Kimberley and Arnhem Land, sometimes called the "Jesus Christ" Frog, skitters across water without breaking the surface film. It moves fast, weighs little and skips across the water at a low angle, like a skimming stone."

This evening we returned home from dinner with some friends from church to find a frog at our doorstep!We have been listening attentively to the Frog Chorus from the canal next-door each evening, and mostly hear Western Banjo Frogs. The Banjo Frog call is an easily recognisable "Plonk!" or, as Anna described it in her frog report, "Bop!"Yesterday was the first time I have heard a Motorbike Frog, although we hear them a lot at the farm in Albany, and we have caught and raised Motorbike Frog tadpoles. The Motorbike Frog call is also quite distinctive. It sounds like a small motorbike revving up to change gears.
Close up, it was clear to see that our visitor was a Motorbike Frog. The kids were all very excited to see a large frog up close, since we have mostly been observing tadpoles lately. We should start to see some of our tadpoles growing legs now that the weather is warming up. (We have a smaller aquarium with them here at home as well as the one at Joshua's school.)Mr Frog was even so kind as to pose rather nicely against a concave corner of our brick wall. Well, unless you interpret his movements to indicate that he was trying to avoid being trampled upon by four young children. Sensible frog!
Anna's report on Frogs is below. She dictated it on Monday and then we spent much of Tuesday morning listening to frog calls online. Abigail and Samuel were just as keen as Anna to listen to cluster around the computer desk and listen intently while I clicked through photos on the ALCOA Frog Watch site for the Swan Coastal Plain.
The Story of Frogs
By Anna
Frogs catch small, teeny-tiny fish with their sticky tongues. Some frogs eat other frogs. Snakes eat frogs.
Frogs use their teeth for holding food in place in their mouths. They can use their front feet to push food into their mouths.
Frogs can breathe and drink through their skin.
Rocket Frogs have long legs that are very strong. They can hop very fast and far.
Some frogs live in the ground in burrows. Other frogs live in trees and are called Tree Frogs.
Tree Frogs sleep in the day and wake up in the night. At night they make their noises, calling for other frogs.
Long-footed Frogs make a noise that sounds like the moo from a cow.
Banjo Frogs go “Bop!” There are Banjo Frogs living near our house, in the water in the creek.
Frogs lay eggs in water. The eggs hatch into tadpoles. The tadpoles grow back legs, then front legs, then their tail goes away and they become frogs.

Admitting You're Wrong: Of Frogs and Fellow-Workers

Last term, Joshua did a research project on frogs. In his final poster he wrote (among other things), "Frogs eat through their skin."

He was wrong. Frogs eat with their mouths. But despite his teacher telling him that he was wrong, and me telling him that he was wrong, and him not knowing where he had found that bit of information, Joshua stuck to his guns.

Tomorrow, Joshua has the opportunity to present his Frog Project at the class assembly. But his teacher, not wanting to reinforce this erroneous idea and spread Joshua's confusion throughout the school, told him he could not read it out unless he either

(1) changed it to say "Frogs breathe through their skin." (This fact is correct, agreed upon by both Joshua's teacher, myself, and Joshua, as well as numerous non-fiction books on frogs.) OR

(2) proved that frogs do eat through their skin, by finding a non-fiction source for the information. OR

(3) Agreed not to include the sentence in the absence of evidence.

Joshua's teacher let me know what was on the line, and this afternoon Joshua (and the rest of the kids) spent ages sitting snuggled on the couch with me, reading about frogs in some books from our home library. We started with the Family Guide to Nature from Reader's Digest. (Hearty thanks to my Mum & Dad, who handed that book down to us from their bookshelf a few years back!) From page 203, I read,

"Tadpoles breathe with gills, which some aquatic salamanders retain even as adults. But while mature frogs and toads have lungs, they get most of the air they need through their moist skin. ... The tadpoles of frogs and toads are vegetariansd, though larval salamanders feed on tiny aquatic animals. But as adults all amphibians are meat eaters."

At this point, I asked Joshua if he thought it was possible to eat meat through one's skin. He admitted that it seemed unlikely. I read on:

"Most species have long, [extendable] tongues that dart out with lightning speed to snap up any small creatures moving nearby. Larger prey is grasped with the forelegs."

I wasn't expecting anything from Joshua at this stage, but he burst out with a somewhat quizzical "I was wrong!

I am ashamed to say that I am never that quick to admit my flaws and faults.

I studied today in my Women's Gathering (Acts 15:36-40) about Paul being unwilling to work with John Mark because he had "deserted" Paul and Barnabas when they left Cyprus (on their first missionary journey out from Antioch). Paul chose Silas as his co-worker for a second missionary trip, but Barnabas was willing to give John Mark a second opportunity, and took him to Cyprus again.

We talked about how John Mark would have probably known about the reason for Paul and Barnabas deciding to separate. I wonder what he felt about Paul's rejection? Although the passage records Paul's description of the event as a desertion, Luke had earlier used milder language. Acts 13:13 records merely that, "From Paphos, Paul and his companions sailed to Perga in Pamphylia, where John left them to return to Jerusalem." The Bible does not record whether Paul was right to refuse to have John Mark come along. It gives no record of the success - or otherwise - of Barnabas's second trip to Cyprus with John Mark. Given that John Mark had been "with them as their helper" (Acts 13:5) on Cyprus before, he was Barnabas's cousin (Colossians 4:10), and Barnabas hailed from Cyprus (Acts 4:36), it seems likely that Barnabas and Saul may have been well suited as companions for a second trip to Cyprus.

Nowhere does the Bible record Paul apologising to John Mark (or Barnabas) for his rejection of John Mark. Nowhere does the Bible tell of John Mark saying sorry to Paul for leaving him in the lurch when they left Cyprus the first time. But the Bible does show us that they were later reunited and John Mark was again welcomed by Paul in his ministry.

In Paul's letter to the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colosse, he passed on John Mark's greetings, letting them know that John Mark might visit them, and if he did, to welcome him. Colosse was in Psidia, not too far west of the places where Paul and Barnabas had travelled to share the gospel after John Mark left them. It seems that Paul no longer feared John Mark would be unwilling to travel in those parts. At the same time, Paul wrote to Philemon and the church that met in their home in Colosse, describing John Mark as a "fellow-worker".

In Paul's last letter, 2 Timothy, he wrote asking that Timothy would bring John Mark to him (2 Timothy 4:11). Paul wrote that John Mark was "helpful to me in my ministry". So it seems that John Mark had gone full circle in Paul's esteem. At first he was a helper, then he was a deserter not suitable as a co-worker, then he was a fellow-worker who was to be welcomed by the churches, and once again he was helpful to Paul in his ministry.

It seems somewhere in there someone must have admitted they were wrong. Maybe Barnabas's second opportunity for John Mark to work with him on Cyprus showed that he was indeed a good helper. Maybe Paul apologised for misjudging John Mark; maybe John Mark apologised for leaving Paul. Maybe they both apologised and were forgiven. What we do know is that they overcame their differences and were able to work fruitfully together again. A little recognition of fault goes a long way.

I started this anecdote with Joshua's Frog Project. Well, we didn't stop reading about frogs when we found out they eat through their mouths and breathe through their skin. And I'm very pleased that we didn't! Because half an hour later, in Steve Parish's Amazing Facts About Australian Frogs & Reptiles, on page 12, I read aloud:

"Frogs do not drink through their mouths. Apart from a small amount of moisture from their food, they obtain nearly all their water requirements by taking in liquid through the skin on their undersides. The water passes into spaces called lymph sacs, then into the bloodstream."

So Joshua is content to amend his report to read, "Frog's don't eat through their skin. Frogs drink through their skin."And tomorrow he will read this startling fact out at his school assembly.

[The font used in the typing above is Sassoon Primary Infant. We bought it with some of our tax return money. Isn't it marvellous?]

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.

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.]

NCB Science advice paper comment conclusion

This is the conclusion to my submission to the National Curriculum Board regarding their initial advice paper on Science, which I emailed in last night. I already posted the rest in separate sections: part I, part II, part III, part IV, part V.

VI. In conclusion, there are significant deficiencies within this initial advice paper, which must be addressed before the final national Science curriculum is put to parliament. The most serious of these is the low priority given to the teaching of “scientific knowledge”, particularly in the primary years. Science studies should provide all students with both the skills and background understandings to make informed decisions with regard to scientific matters in their adult lives. This is true even for those who will not continue on to further academic study in this discipline. This paper proposes additions to the work load of teachers, while at the same time decreasing the rigor of what they are expected to teach. Again, it would be more worthwhile to specify a higher required contact time to teach scientific concepts, theories and processes, in age levels which are appropriate for the students’ mental capacities.

NCB Science advice paper comment Pt 5

V. [Appendix 1] “Teaching for scientific competencies requires: More emphasis on teams working cooperatively to investigate problems or issues.”

A. This is completely false. It is impossible to assess with any certainty the knowledge and understanding of any individual within a team based purely on the team’s final product. In team-based situations it is easy for one or more individuals to contribute minimal effort, to the detriment of other members of the team. The problems of students’ perceived needs for peer acceptance means that this is unlikely to be either identified by the teacher or reported to them. Working in teams when the team members have no particular special abilities related to their role within the team penalises the knowledgeable and hardworking team members and benefits those whose morals allow them to slack off.

B. Team tasks where individuals are arbitrarily given different portions of the topic to examine cannot solve this problem, as then the entire team membership is limited in their understanding of parts of the topic that were beyond their purview.

C. It would be of greater worth to encourage teachers to incorporate interactions between their students and people with a higher level of knowledge in the field, whether in person (using technological advances to make this possibly where necessary) or through the close study of the products of fertile, intelligent scientific minds: the actual journal articles and books written by great scientists of the past and present. The length of time necessary to study some of these materials (or even a portion thereof) in depth would be entirely rewarded by the interest inspired in the students, their greater level of understanding and the catalyst which this experience would provide to their further efforts within the discipline. This form of detailed study would be particularly rewarding and stimulating to students in the senior years of secondary study.

NCB Science advice paper comment Pt 4

IV. [pp9-10] "To improve the quality of science learning there is a need to introduce more diagnostic and formative assessment practices. These assessment tools help teachers to understand what students know and do not know and hence plan relevant learning experiences that will be beneficial."

A. The introduction of new "diagnostic assessment tools" will not make the plight of a teacher easier of more effective in any way. Rather, it will do the reverse. A science test can be easily designed to determine if a student "knows or does not know" any given concept, and tests can also be designed to determine if a student understands that same concept and its application. Furthermore, it is even easier to provide an opportunity for students to report on “all they know of a particular subject” which provides for a more individual and comprehensive assessment if required. Especially if one takes into account the common use by secondary science teachers of summative experiments, assessment in schools is done with efficiency and effectiveness at present. In my experience, differentiating between "formative assessment" and "watching and listening to the students as they work" only results in more paper work for the teacher and less time for them to interact with the students in a one-to-one fashion. "Detailed diagnostic information" never (in my experience) means "listen to the student’s explanation of a concept, and talk to them about how they are right and wrong in their understanding. Rather, it means paperwork and more paperwork.

B. The best way of enabling teachers to identify students’ needs and achievements is to provide greater opportunity for one-to-one interaction. This will not be achieved through the imposition of greater assessment and reporting requirements. Rather, it will be achieved through smaller science classes, greater time allocation for science lessons, or a combination of both of these.

NCB Science advice paper comment Pt 3

III. [p8] "To increase the relevance of science to students there is a strong case to include more contemporary (and possibly controversial) issues in the science curriculum…
The school science curriculum should provide opportunities to explore these complex issues to enable students to understand that the application of science and technology to the real world is often concerned with risk and debate."

A. I do not believe this is appropriate in the primary grades. Children of primary age are not able to grasp the idea of bias and how it affects the interpretation of statistical evidence, nor can they fully understand the idea that there may be no "right" answer.

B. This is appropriate at the secondary level where students are intellectually capable of learning and applying methods of reasoning (of which the scientific method is merely one) and also have a strong internal drive to make their own decisions and forge their own solutions. It is at this age when personal relevance of content to students’ lives is important to consider. However, it does take a skilled teacher to draw students into considering and acknowledging the breadth of their sphere of “personal value and relevance”. For this reason it is vital that secondary science teachers are provided with regular opportunities to upgrade their knowledge of scientific and technological developments, particularly if they teach in the fields of biology, biochemistry or physics.

[edit: this section was added 5 Nov]
C. It is no small matter for a curriculum to advocate the teaching of controversial issues as part of science classes. These issues are controversial because there is significant disagreement about the ethics of particular types of research or particular applications for research. Expecting a teacher to provide a fair and balanced assessment of a topic which engenders high levels of feeling and emotion within the scientific community and the general public seems akin to asking for complaints to be made about teachers’ approaches to the topic.

NCB Science advice paper comment Pt 2

II. [p7] "There is a consistent criticism that many of the problems and issues in science education arise from the structure of science curricula which tend to be knowledge-heavy and alienating to a significant number of students. ... The challenge is to identify the science concepts that are important and can be realistically understood by students in the learning time available."

A. It is my experience that the structure of science curricula is not too “knowledge-heavy”. It is not the content to be learnt which is “alienating to students”. Rather, the body of knowledge to be taught is organised in a manner that does not reflect either the experience of the students, nor their capacities and drive to learn. In my experience, young children (primary age) are inquisitive about the world around them and want answers. They do not want more questions, or to be told to work it out on their own. Children of this age want to know what things are like and how they work. This is mentioned in the paper [p10-11] however the paper does not acknowledge that at this age children’s curiosity extends beyond their own experience and it is easy for a teacher to nurture their interest beyond themselves and their local natural world. With liberal access to good books (particularly those which impart information within a storyline, addressing young children’s need to have concepts fit within a context) and judicious access to multimedia, a primary teacher is easily able to inspire children’s interest in a broad range of scientific concepts beyond their immediate experience. With careful planning a teacher can incorporate the wide range of tactile experiences and clear explanations required to help students to understand abstract concepts which otherwise would be beyond their understanding. At this age, students find learning reasons and rules fascinating and fun, and as a consequence are able to absorb more scientific concepts than they are presented with under the present system. At this age, memorisation is not difficult, but fun and rewarding. If this window of opportunity were used fully, students who at later ages are bored, frustrated or “alienated” with learning what appears to them to be dry facts would instead be able to extend and apply their previously built foundation of scientific knowledge in ways that are of interest at this age.

B. Towards this end I would suggest a greater emphasis upon the teaching of scientific concepts in the primary years when children have a thirst for knowledge but do not yet have the intellectual capacity for formal analytical reasoning as required by the structure of the scientific method. At present, primary teachers often leave science out of their curricula completely, or just give it minimal attention because they feel underprepared to teach it. It would be short-sighted to decide not to teach a sizeable amount of scientific content merely because the present system crowds the learning of virtually all scientific concepts into the junior secondary years. It is my belief that a focus on building knowledge of simple concepts, rather than the experience of elaborate experiments to “investigate questions scientifically”, would enable primary teachers to use a few intelligent and inspiring resources in ways which will satisfy their students’ desire to know as well as fueling their interest in science as a discipline. It would also ensure students enter secondary level education with a reasonable level of knowledge to draw upon as they enjoy applying the scientific method.

[edit: this section was added 3 Nov]
C. I am extremely disappointed with the attitude displayed by the developers of this paper. This section shows that they have not esteemed and valued the vast wealth of understanding that scientific endeavour has made available to people, and sought to find a way to share this wealth with Australia's students. Instead, the paper's developers seem to have given this effort up as a lost cause because it is "alienating to a significant number of students". If scientific endeavour is at all valuable to our society, as of course it is, it is worthwhile pressing onward and searching for ways to prevent this "alienation", rather than submitting to it. Nothing is gained without effort, and hard work and diligent effort reaps large rewards, in my experience. This is true for all levels of the education system. Students must apply themselves to thinking if they are to learn anything of worth. Teachers must seek ways to make the knowledge content of their discipline interesting and engaging to the students. Principals must employ teachers who display a high level of knowledge and regard for their subject matter. Curriculum designers must not seek to water down the curriculum to meet the standards of the lowest common denominator academically, but rather to set high goals and standards. These efforts will be met with the rewards of students' success and knowledge gained. The rewards of knowledge must not be given up meekly without regard for their high value.

NCB Science advice paper comment Pt 1

I am writing as an ex-teacher. I taught Science, Mathematics and Information Technology in both public and private schools at the secondary level (years 8-12) in South Australia and the Northern Territory for six years. I am also writing as a parent. I have four children (junior primary age and younger) who have been home educated for several years under my tutelage. Thus my response takes into account both my experiences as a teacher of Science and my hopes for the future educational experiences of my children.

I. [pp5-6] "... a science curriculum could be well based on three key elements:
1. Science as a way of knowing through inquiry...
2. Science as a human endeavour...
3. Scientific knowledge"

A. The purpose of scientific inquiry is to explain what is observed, using the “scientific method”. To explain is not the same as to know. As the paragraph under (1) states, scientific explanations change. Hence it is erroneous to state that science is a way of knowing. Rather, it is a way of explaining. One of the first things I learnt in my first year of university lectures in Science is that scientific experimentation cannot never tell us what is so, it can only tell us what is not so . The scientific method is a form of inductive formal logic, and as such, while it applies the laws of probablitity and possibility, it cannot prove anything for certain. There is a danger, to my mind, of referring to the academic discipline of Science as “a way of knowing”, because this can lead students to believe that the scientific method is the only way of determining the facts of a matter. In contrast, the methods of informal logic (critical thinking) and formal, deductive logic (Aristotelian use of categorical syllogisms and modern symbolic or propositional logic) provide other means of analysing and arranging evidence for or against an explanation of an observation. This misunderstanding, that scientific endeavour provides the only way to identifying the facts, is quite common and could be avoided if Science is taught as one way of formulating and justifying an explanation for observations, rather than as “a way of knowing”.

B. I find the inclusion of the second point, “science as a human endeavour” superfluous to the definition of a science curriculum. If students are taught that science is one mode of inquiry, they will certainly understand that those who make these inquiries are human beings. There is nothing else capable. Likewise, if students are taught even a small portion of the body of accepted scientific theory, they will see that the application of these theories has obvious ramifications for human society. If things change, they cannot stay the same. It is unnecessary to specify a key element of science to be the nature of it as a human endeavour, because study of the other two elements will necessitate the coverage of this factor.

C. Furthermore, I object to the placement of “scientific knowledge” at the end of this list of key elements. It is clear from this placement, and the lack of emphasis throughout the paper on building a foundation of scientific knowledge, that the writers of this paper do not feel that knowledge of the current body of scientific knowledge is of high value. Appendix 1 highlights this denigration. Given that the purpose of scientific inquiry is to build a body of reasonable explanations about our observations, it is of utmost importance to teach the results of previous scientific endeavour. Otherwise, our educational systems will merely produce students who are capable of applying a method, but who then have to use that method to re-establish the validity of the most fundamental ideas that already underpin our technological society. If students are not taught which theories held by scientists in the past have been refuted, we cannot expect to move forward in our theories; instead, we will be doomed to continually cover the same ground. At best, this system will produce students who lack the scientific understanding to embark on further academic study in this discipline, let alone become research scientists. The study of “scientific knowledge” must be of prime importance in the science curriculum if the students of the future are to graduate with a foundation of knowledge sufficient to allow them to understand further scientific developments that will have marked impacts on their lives, and to make wise decisions about their own practices as a result.

Weekly Reports 2008:38 & 39

[edit: I just added some pictures of Joshua and Anna's phonics work and Jeff and Abigail's Circle Time efforts.]Another fortnightly report. I was a bit too overwhelmed last week to think about reporting but I have managed to keep on with the schooling fairly well. The one thing we have let go this week as Circle Time - we only got around to it once, so we're now four days behind! We'll have to either skip some, which I would rather not, or add in some Saturdays. Which might not be such a bad thing as we've already been wondering whether to start doing Circle Time on Saturdays next year, anyway.

Circle Time
We are presently in the middle of Judges. Jeff started with the story of Ehud: in case you can't remember that one, it's the story of Israel's delivery by God through the stealthy actions of the disabled Ehud (his right arm was withered, hence his description in some translations as being left-handed) who stuck a sword into the unsuspecting - and very fat - king, and witnessed the king's fat closing over the sword as he let go. Quite gruesome. Not surprisingly, we couldn't find any colouring pictures to go with this story, so Jeff drew one for each of the children. This is what Abigail's looked like:

Literacy
We're not doing copywork at the moment because the phonics workbooks have a bit of writing in them and they are going so well. I am really pleased with this purchase! Both Joshua and Anna are incorporating their knowledge of multiple-letter graphemes into their reading and as a consequence are becoming much more confident. In the past fortnight we've covered the vowel digraphs ai, ow (two sounds), ou (sound ow), oy, oi, ch and au (sound aw). They have also done two pages of review where they have to choose the correct digraph from a list on the right to complete the word on the left (pictures down the middle). Joshua took to the task very quickly and Anna took longer and needed a bit more help but was able to get everything correct. This is Joshua's effort:And Anna's:Anna's reading this fortnight was from the second and third Ladybird Phonics books. She did very well with them, much better than Joshua did the first time round, but perhaps that was helped by her having read four sets of Bob Books already, not just the two Josh had read. She didn't seem so distracted by the colour pictures, which Joshua found very distracting. Joshua read the seventh book of the last set of Bob Books but balked at reading the last one: "I've looked at the pictures and it looks too boring." I think that was mostly because he saw there was a girl not a boy in it! Anyway, I set him to reading Are you my mother? by PD Eastman (from the Beginner Books) and he's half way through that, reading very fluently and enjoying it as well. I think he might just move on to the Beginner Books now.
We also spent an afternoon with Joshua and Anna taking turns to read starfall books online. Both Joshua and Anna read through the first ten stories from "Zac the Rat" to "Dune Buggy". I think the five stories on "silent e at the end of the word" really helped them to grasp this split-grapheme idea.

Literature
We have been reading The Phoenix and the Carpet by Edith Nesbit and enjoying it, with only a few chapters to go. We've also been enjoying some picture books which the kids selected from the library. They had surprisingly good taste at this last visit! In particular we enjoyed How the Camel got its Hump by Rudyard Kipling and Wombat goes Walkabout by Michael Morpurgo illus Christian Birmingham. It tells the story of a wombat who fails to inspire awe in any of his bush acquaintances until a fire sweeps through through and Wombat's own special skills save the day. The kids liked it so much they immediately asked for me to read it again. We also read a collection of the Madeline books by Ludwig Bemelman, because we're studying Europe at the moment in Science/Geography.

Maths
We finished lesson 5 and reached half way through lesson 7. These lessons are all on subtraction, which the kids are understanding easily because they spent so much time getting a handle on addition. I have been a bit slack about doing the concrete tasks at the beginning of the lessons but the kids are getting it without them so I'm not feeling too guilty.

Science and Geography
As I mentioned, we've been studying the animals of Europe. We've enjoyed reading about bears. Did you know Brown bears are called "Grizzly" bears in America, but they're the same species: Ursus arctos horriblis? Isn't that a funny name? I am enjoying choosing memorable scientific names for the kids to memorise! (The funniest they've learnt so far is Ornithorhynchus paradoxus, and they just picked that up from listening to Dot and the Kangaroo read aloud.) It's also handy that the brown bear species name is the same as that of polar bears, so the kids can see that similar animals share scientific names.
We also read about mountain goats, bees, paper wasps and butterflies. I was a bit short on mammals - I was hoping to find books on deer at the library but no such luck. The kids have looked through the book I borrowed on horses but I haven't read it to them as it has too much text.
We have talked about England and France and their respective capitals. Reading Madeline was a big help. So was the fact that Joshua's godparents live in London, and we went there on holidays several years ago, so we have a "hook" to hang these ideas on. Next week we will finish up our studies of Europe with some concentrated map work.

That's it for this fortnight. We got through to the end which feels like quite an achievement. I'm still feeling a bit shell-shocked at the moment over the result of Jeff's interviews. One wonderful thing has been I was already in the habit of rolling out of bed very early in the morning (I was winding the alarm back to be prepared for daylight saving time, which began today) straight onto my knees to pray. I've spent a lot of time in the past week praying for my husband!

Quotes from the NCB Science advice paper

These quotes have been selected from the National Curriculum Board's Initial Advice Paper on Science (PDF, 62kB). I am not nearly so impressed with this Science advice paper as I was with the History paper. I'm quite disappointed, actually. I think I might have to write a submission in response to this one.

"... a science curriculum could be well based on three key elements:
1. Science as a way of knowing through inquiry...
2. Science as a human endeavour...
3. Scientific knowledge" [So far, so good, except why didn't they put point (3) first? As I read further I realised it was because they thought this was the least important part of any science curriculum.]

"Australia is a scientifically and technologically advanced nation. It is imperative that its future citizens have an understanding of science so that personal and societal decisions can be made on the basis of evidence and reason."

"The purpose of school science is to develop science competencies by which students can:
• understand more about science and its processes
• recognise its place in our culture and society
• use it in their daily lives.
It could be argued that developing these science competencies is a basic need for effective citizenship. ... school science not only prepares students for citizenship, but provides a solid platform for more specific science pathways."

"By the end of the compulsory years of science study it is expected that students would be able to demonstrate the following attributes of scientifically knowledgeable people:
• they are interested in and understand the natural world around them
• they engage in discussions of and about science
• they are sceptical and questioning of the claims made by others
• they can identify and investigate questions and draw evidence-based conclusions
• they can make informed decisions about the environment and their own health and well being.
Essentially the focus is on what one could describe as ‘science for life’."

"Science education should acknowledge the interaction between science and social values in the many debates about the applications of science."

"There is a consistent criticism that many of the problems and issues in science education arise from the structure of science curricula which tend to be knowledge-heavy and alienating to a significant number of students. ... The challenge is to identify the science concepts that are important and can be realistically understood by students in the learning time available."

"... scientific knowledge is rapidly increasing... add[ing] to the pressure on the science curriculum. There is a reluctance to replace the old with the new. Rather, there is a tendency to simply add the new science ideas to the traditional ones. ... Obviously such a situation is not sustainable."

"This paper argues that developing science competencies is important, understanding the big ideas of science is important, exposure to a range of science experiences relevant to everyday life is important and understanding of the major concepts from the different sciences is important. It is also acknowledged that there is a core body of knowledge and understanding that is fundamental to the understanding of major ideas."

"... it is possible to provide flexibility and choice about the content of local science curriculum. ... In managing this choice, there is a need to be conscious of the potential danger of repetition of knowledge through a student’s school life and ensure repetition is minimised and that a balanced science curriculum is provided for every student." [I am assuming (and hoping) by this the authors are referring to repetition of the same task or localised issue to the level of boredom, rather than repetition of the same concept to the level of mastery.]

"Instead of simply emphasising what has been described as ‘canonical science concepts’, there is a need to provide a meaningful context to which students can relate ... students will be better placed to understand the concepts if they can be applied to everyday experiences." [Hmm...]

"To increase the relevance of science to students there is a strong case to include more contemporary (and possibly controversial) issues in the science curriculum." [Well, not necessarily. We could just increase the amount of exploration and play-based science activities we do with students in the primary grades, and make experiments more relevant to everyday life in the secondary grades.]

"The school science curriculum should provide opportunities to explore these complex issues to enable students to understand that the application of science and technology to the real world is often concerned with risk and debate." [Not at the primary level they shouldn't, IMO. Kids of this age are not able to grasp the idea of bias and how it affects the interpretation of statistical evidence, nor can they fully understand the idea that there may be no "right" answer.]

"When a curriculum document is prepared there is an expectation that what is written will be what is taught and what is assessed. Unfortunately, there is sometimes a considerable gap between intended curriculum, the taught curriculum and the assessed curriculum; what can be assessed often determines what is taught."

"It is unfortunate that the summative end-of-topic tests seem to dominate as the main tool of assessment. ... To improve the quality of science learning there is a need to introduce more diagnostic and formative assessment practices. These assessment tools help teachers to understand what students know and do not know and hence plan relevant learning experiences that will be beneficial." [I do not agree with this at all. The introduction of new "diagnostic assessment tools" will not make the plight of a teacher easier of more effective in any way. Rather, it will do the reverse. A science test can be easily designed to determine if a student "knows or does not know" any given fact, and tests can also be designed to determine if a student understands that same concept and its application. Especially if one takes into account the common use by teachers of summative experiments (that is, experiments done to test the student's knowledge and skill), assessment in schools is done with efficiency and effectiveness at present.]

"...formative assessment is more useful in promoting learning." [For those who are not familiar with the term, formative assessment is assessment done purely to give feedback to the teacher and student about their progress, not to give a final assessment of their achievement at the end of a course/topic. In other words, they are saying the teacher should be aware of how well each of the students is dealing with the material at hand, so they can direct students to further study or interaction with the material as required to achieve mastery and seeing them pass or fail the final test should come as no surprise. Well, whoop-de-doo! In my experience, differentiating between "formative assessment" and "watching and listening to the students as they work" only results in more paper work for the teacher and less time for them to interact with the students in a one-to-one fashion - as is evidenced by the next quote. "Detailed diagnostic information" never (in my experience) means "listen to their explanation of a concept, and talk to them about how they are right and wrong in their understanding. Rather, it means paperwork and more paperwork.]

"Assessment should enable the provision of detailed diagnostic information to students. It should show what they know, understand and can demonstrate. It should also show what they need to do to improve."

"[E]arly science experiences should relate to self awareness and the natural world. During the primary years, the science curriculum should develop the skills of investigation, using experiences which provide opportunities to practice language literacy and numeracy. In secondary school, some differentiation of the sub-disciplines of science may be appropriate, but as local and community issues are interdisciplinary, an integrated science may be the best approach. Senior secondary science curricula should be differentiated, to provide for students who wish to pursue career-related science specializations, as well those who prefer a more general, integrated science for citizenship."

"During the primary years ... A broad range of topics is suitable including weather, sound, light, plants, animals, the night sky, materials, soil, water and movement. Within these topics the science ideas of order, change, patterns and systems should be developed."

"In the early years of primary school, students will tend to use a trial and error approach to their science investigations." [How does one perform "trial and error" investigations upon the weather? Does one try to make it rain and find out one cannot? Does one try to guess if it is raining and find that this is a meaningless exercise? Perhaps a better model would be to use a "look, listen, feel, do and learn approach" and actually make a child's experience an important factor in their developing knowledge: Thus one looks at many different types of clouds and watches lightning, listens to thunder and the pounding of rain on a hot iron roof, feels the rain in their hair and on their hands, feels the heat of the sunlight on their bare arms and notices the way the heat dries the sprinkling of water applied thereto, uses a watering can to make "rain" over a soil and grass "habitat" in a plastic box, reads Robert Louis Stevenson's poems "Rain" and "When the sun comes after rain", waters plants in their garden and eventually gets to smell the flowers or eat the vegetables, and in all these things comes to a greater understanding of rain and sunshine and what weather really is.]

"[During the Junior Secondary years] it is important to exercise restraint and to avoid overcrowding the curriculum and providing space for the development of students’ science competencies alongside their knowledge and understanding of science content. Topics could include states of matter, substances and reactions, energy forms, forces and motion, the human body, diversity of life, ecosystems, the changing earth and our place in space. The big science ideas of energy, sustainability, equilibrium and interdependence..."

"[During the Senior Secondary years] There should be at least three common courses across the country: physics, chemistry and biology. There could also be one broader-based course..."

And just for the record, I disagree with pretty much everything in this appendix:

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!