Weekly Reports 2009: Term 1 Week 1

My first weekly report for the 2009 academic year!

With Joshua heading off to away-school, I am able to give Anna more attention and Abigail is able to join in with some of our activities. Once she starts skipping her afternoon naps (after she turns four in May) she will join us for her first literacy lessons in the afternoons, but for now she is joining Anna for Science and Arts, and possibly for some History, which are all morning lessons. Everyone, even little Sammy, sits down together at the dinner table for Family Bible Time.

Family Bible Time
Jeff is taking us through Mark this term, and this week he read stories from the first half of chapter 1. That seems like hardly any of the book (fitting 16 chapters into 10 weeks might get difficult at a pace of two weeks per chapter) but Mark packed a lot in to the first chapter of his gospel. We may cover later chapters in a few days. As soon as the kids are sitting down with their crayons and colouring pictures out, Jeff asks a few questions about the stories he has read so far. Then Jeff reads the new story, explaining any difficult or new words and concepts as he goes. He usually re-reads the passage at least once, often because the children ask him to. Then he talks a bit about something we can learn from the passage and prays with the passage in mind. Some days we also sang a song or recited a memory verse.
Joshua is joining us for Family Bible Time, because even though he is off at away-school, it is really important that he hears from the Bible each day, and that his father is teaching and discipling him, not just his school teacher. So we have had to be on our toes in the mornings to get all the practicalities covered (lunch made and packed, breakfast eaten, uniform on, etc) in order to sit down to Bible Time as a whole family. At first, Joshua objected, but when he heard on Wednesday that Jesus used words from the Bible to rebuke and admonish the devil, and then we talked about how Jesus' parents would have helped him to know what the Bible said, he could see that it was very important for a young boy who wants to "keep his way pure" (as Ps119 puts it) to join in with Family Bible Time!

History
This week I introduced Anna to the study of history. We read the picture book Nothing by Mick Inkpen, which tells about a stuffed toy who has been left in the attic so long he has forgotten who and what he is, and the different stimuli that help him to remember that he is Little Toby, a stripey stuffed toy cat. We talked about people's need to be reminded of the things they have forgotten. Anna did an oral narration (2 sentences) of Nothing and then traced her narration in the first page of her brand new history book.
In our second history lesson Anna had a look through her photo album from when she was a baby, before I read aloud SotW1 Introduction, and Anna read the 3-sentence summary of the chapter that I had pre-written into her History notebook and then traced the last sentence, giving a simple definition of "History". Her writing was amazingly neat, compared to Joshua's at this time last year.

Play date
On Wednesday, Joshua's first full day of away-school, we had a play date with the B family, whose eldest son L is in the same grade as Joshua. Mrs B brought their younger children around to our house after we had each dropped off our boys, and the kids had a lovely play together while I kept my mind off the fact that Joshua was missing.

Science
Thursday was Science day. This year, we are doing one activity each week from 50 Science Things to Make and Do, a little book from Usborne. I'm not planning anything wonderful and this week we just had fun making little bowl ovens with alfoil and clear kitchen wrap to "cook" marshmallows in the heat from the sun. They were all melted and gooey inside after 15min so a great success with the girls (and it made Joshua jealous). Then we talked a little about how the heat from the sun can "cook" us too - that this is what happens when we get sunburnt, so we need to be careful to cover up when we are out in the sun. I'm looking forward to a very relaxed play-based approach to Science this year.
Also, on Saturday Jeff took us all for a nature walk through a nearby urban Bushland Conservation Area, and the kids had a great time collecting gum nuts and examining sticks and leaves. We also began to teach them to come back when we whistled: a trick from Jeff's childhood which is handy in the bush because whistling often carries further than calling. When we came back Joshua wanted to examine the gum nuts with his magnifying glass, and Anna had a good look as well. Jeff even sawed open a gum nut to show him the transverse sectional view, and drew a few pictures for Joshua to colour, so he hasn't escaped Equip Academy totally!

Arts
Fridays are now our Arts day, using The Usborne Art Treasury for picture study and instructions for art/craft activities based on the art work we examine. Having spent an evening at Officeworks buying acrylic paints, paint brushes and thick paper for painting on, I had all the materials - and the book provided the know-how. We looked at Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night and then I asked the girls to close their eyes and tell me what they had seen in the picture. They had noticed all the main elements, so we took a few moments to talk about a few details, like the taller building among the other houses, did the spire mean it was a church? and other such things.
After our picture study we had a go at painting a basic landscape using acrylic paints mixed with PVA (woodworking) glue on thick paper. We did the foreground and sun first using green, yellow and orange, because I didn't read the instructions properly (we were meant to do the sky first), and we will finish the sky and trees next week. We used plastic forks and the end of our paintbrushes to add a 3D stroke effect for grass and sunlight circles to the paint as well. I sat between the girls and showed them what to do on my paper first, then they both had a go. They loved it.

Literacy
Anna read some of a letter from her grandparents, she read work from her History lessons, and she also read a bit further in Ten Apples Up On Top by Theodore Geisel (Dr Seuss), which she began reading in January. I am trying to get her to read for 15min every day at the moment.
Anna's writing was from her history lessons on two days and the other two days she did copywork (3 lines) or tracework (6 lines) in her new penmanship notebook. Her first effort at copywork ever was brilliantly done. She missed 2 letters, wrote one p backwards, lost the tail on a g and forgot all about the gaps between words, but otherwise she copied perfectly. And this was done without help because I was picking up Joshua from school and Jeff was showing an electrician the problem with the bore out in the garden. I was very impressed when I got home!
Mathematics
Anna finished the last 9 pages of Earlybird Mathematics 2B this week, ready to begin Primary Mathematics 1A next week. She had a great deal of fun working out the coins to use to pay for certain good using our Australian play money. This was a very difficult concept, but she did well with help, and she now has a lot better idea about how money is used, even if she's not quite ready to be sent off to the store alone.

Literature
Our days ended with me reading a chapter or three each night from Stuart Little, by EB White. We read Charlotte's Web last year, but this is closer to the kids level and they are enjoying it even more. When I told them that we were reading a story by the same author who wrote "the story we read last year about the pig", Joshua remembered his name was Wilbur, so I was quite impressed that something had made an impression that lasted. Anyway, they are enjoying the adventures of the little mouse-boy, and I am as well.

[Starry Night image from the van Gogh Gallery.]