15 steps to finding my photos

We've been down at the farm in Albany for the last week and I have finally completed the prolonged and technologically advanced (well, it seemed to be) process of transferring images from Jeff's digital camera to the desktop computer. These were the steps involved:

1. Locate the correct laptop, it's the newer one so I guessed it would be in the smaller bag. I guessed right.
2. Turn on laptop and log on. This involves rememberring which finger to use for the fingerprint scanning thingo in place of a simple password, that might be forgotten, as compared to the slightly less likely event of having a finger cut off. Then try several times before the computer recognises me.
3. Find the SLR digital camera and work out how to remove SD card.
4. Find the slot for an SD card in the laptop and insert.
5. Look for Windows Explorer. Give up. Use the Start Menu instead to find the SD card contents.
6. Locate a random 128MB memory stick. Find the USB port and insert. Actually there are two. How handy!
7. Attempt to copy images from SD card to memory stick.
8. When it becomes clear that memory stick doesn't have enough memory (how annoying!) frantically search for alternative memory stick, this one with 2GB storage space.
9. Insert into aforementioned handy second USB port.
10. Copy remainder of images from SD card to 2GB stick.
11. Remove SD card and all memory sticks and shut down laptop.
12. Put laptop away so there is room on the desk to use the desktop.
13. Insert both memory sticks into the two USB ports (two again! how fortuitous!) on the desktop computer.
14. Open Windows Explorer and transfer images from each of the memory sticks in turn to the picture folder on the dard drive.
15. It is now possible to use Adobe Photoshop to tweak the images to blog-worthiness.

So let's review: 15 steps, 5 hard to remember acronyms (4 of which rhyme, oddly) and 1 slack photographer. You can see why I prefer to use the other digital camera (which connects to the desktop via one cable) can't you?

Being an Australian

Emily asked me to blog about being "native to Australia". I've never been anything else, which makes it kind-of hard to write about, but here goes...

Culture
I was born in Australia. So were my parents. So were their parents and their parents and ... you get the idea. About seven generations ago one of my ancestors came out to Australia from England; Cornwall, I think it was. But Australia is becoming a lot more "multicultural" these days. My sister-in-law is the daughter of immigrants from Italy. My brother-in-law married a lady from Singapore who he met at university here in Australia. The congregation of my church is probably two-thirds first or second generation immigrants on any given Sunday, with many people in particular from Singapore and South Africa. The Ministry of the Word candidate at our church came to us from Indonesia. When I was a private school teacher in Darwin, I worked mainly with Aboriginal students, and came to appreciate the cultural divide between us. This diversity is one aspect of life in Australia today.

Religion
I am a Christian. I was brought up within the Uniting Church and was amember for a while of a Baptist church. My theology is fairly conservative, reformed and evangelical (and I could add many other labels, but I won't bore you.) What I mean when I write those things probably differs from an American definition, however. By conservative, I don't mean legalistic, I just mean something more along the lines of orthodox (not to be confused with Orthodox, however.) Reformed is broadly equivalent to Protestant, with the added understanding that I trace the history of my doctrinal inheritance from the Calvinist reformers rather than simply the Church of England. And by evangelical... well, in America that seems to mean you believe in the need for a personal rather than inherited faith, as evidenced from being "born again" - am I right in this? Anyway, when I use this term I concur with the personal faith issue but I would also place emphasis in the need for both evangelisation of non-Christians and discipleship of Christians as the two central "good works" of the worldwide Christian Church; and in the centrality of the inerrant word of God, His Bible, in these two activites (and indeed all Christian life and theology.) In Australia, evangelical is pretty much the opposite of liberal, in terms of definitions - although I am sure not everyone would agree with me, particularly those who claim the title liberal.

Sport
In Australia our men play Australian Rules football (which is *nothing* like American football) and rugby, with soccer rising in popularity. Other popular sports are tennis, cricket and swimming (summer) and netball (womens' winter sport). I grew up orienteering and also have rogained for much of my adult life. Rogaining is a home-grown sport, having been invented by Australian bushwalkers who wanted "something more". Rogaining is sort-of an extreme sport version of orienteering, with regular 12- and 24-hour events where you plan a route through bush (in England that would be "natural countryside" - what do they call this in America?) The aim is to find checkpoints to obtain the most points possible in the given timeframe. This might not be the most well-known sport, but it is growing in popularity, here and internationally.

Shopping
In Australia, we don't have as long a history of local manufacturing industry as in America and as a consequence many things cost a lot more here than they would there. And what is it with shopping coupons in America? We have nothing even remotely like that here. Sure, we have catalogue sales, but... well, suffice it to say that Gayle from Grace for Gayle posted on her new blog The Grocery Cart Challenge that she bought three loaves of bread for $2.67 a few days ago. This is about what I would pay for *one* loaf of bread. Except that we have a breadmaker, which I should obviously use more often in order to save money from our meagre budget...

Politics
Australia just had an election and elected the (left-wing) Labour party to replace the (more right-wing) Liberal party which had been in power federally for over a decade. I cannot comment on my opinion on this change as here in Australia, it is generally considered impolite to discuss politics aloud. With anyone other than your spouse, and if they disagree with you, you're better off not talking to them about it either. In Australia, everyone over 18 is legally required to vote, unless they somehow manage to get themselves removed from the electoral role, like my father-in-law who lives overseas.

Spelling
In Australia, we can spell correctly. I'm sorry, but sox just doesn't cut the mustard. It's socks. And grey, not gray. And -ise, rather than ize. And... I could go on, but I don't want to alienate anyone too much.

This is what it means to be Australian. Some of it, anyway. I hope that helps you understand me better, Emily.

Doctrinal studies for 2008

I have just prepared my new schedule for 2008 and incuded daily Bible reading and prayer, alone and in Circle Time with the kids. One other thing I am hoping to add into my weekday routine is a short study on church doctrine. Recently while I was at a Christian bookstore, I found the book An Exposition on the Shorter Catechism, by Alexander Whyte, and I think this will be ideal.

There are 107 questions to the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the first and most well known being "What is the chief end of man?" The answer is: "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever." This book contains each Q&A with a short commentary. I am not sure yet whether I shall simply read through the book, one question each weekday, or if I shall take my time, memorising each question and its related verses, and moving on to a new question only when I have accomplished this. Obviously the latter would be more profitable, however I am hoping to use the Shorter Catechism for Recitation, Memorisation and Copywork (Transcription) with my kids throughout their years in the Grammar Stage, so I might memorise along with them then. This would be the more realistic course.

I also hope to complete my last 3 units of the Certificate in Christian Studies in night classes at Theological College next year so I can graduate from that at the same time as Jeff graduates from his MDiv. The subjects I hope to be able to undertake are The Rise, Fall & Reform of the Church: Church History I; The Christian Life: Head, Heart & Hands; and .... aargh! I've just been over to the college website and they've changed the offerings for next year!! Well, those two subjects, anyway. That's my punishment for flippantly quoting James 4:14-15 to my friend R at church this morning: Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that."

Whatever I am able to study, I pray that my growing knowledge may bring glory to God and help me to enjoy Him forever.

Pray for safety in the Sudan

This morning I received an email, simply titled "Pray!" from a dear brother in Christ, David, who has recently travelled to the south of Sudan to encourage Christian ministers and those who are studying for this role, as well as to spread the wonderful news of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. Years ago, David left the Sudan as a refugee, and now he has returned for the second time because of the enormous burden that God has placed on him to share the gospel with people from his nation of birth.

I would like to share an edited excerpt from David's email, and ask that you would join in me to pray for David's safety and his continued evangelism in the Sudan and also in Uganda.

"Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ from the Sudan. I trust that all is well with you. I arrived in Uganda. Had a time of real blessing with some of our Native Missionaries here. All are Sudanese preparing for Ministry at various Bible Colleges. I visited some of the Pastors in the town of J and had real time of encouragement from God's word.

"I then went to a Sudanese refugee Camp in K to meet some of the local Pastors and Evangelists in that camp, it was very encouraging and uplifting to see the hunger for the word of God from the Pastors and Evangelists, the open ears they gave to hear the Gospel. I was deeply encouraged and many were blessed by our time together. We are supposed to screen the Jesus Movie but we need to get a generator and by God's grace do that by the end of this month.

"I am now in the Southern Sudanese town of Y. It was a really rough travel with the road in completely very bad shape, but we praise God that we have arrived safely although we faced a fearful challenge on the way. Some many testimonies to be shared about the travel, the mercies of God even before the authorities at the borders, but within the southern Sudan, I thought that was the end of our lives! We were entering the Sudan from Uganda, as we all know that this is a country emerging from several years of civil war. Before getting to the town of Y, a former rebel was standing on the road, and stopped our car with a gun in his hand, just got in the car and forced the driver to go! That was the most scariest time in my life, he was angry, clearly possessed! As I bowed my head in the van in prayers, I asked the Lord for three things, 1. To get this man out of the van, 2. We would drop off and wait for maybe a truck, 3. I praised God if my life could end on the way, the Lord answered me immediately, another soldier came and forced this man to get out! It was a scary scenario! But I praise God, I am well.

"Continue to pray for safety. Many people are still angry and filled with hatred and desire to shed blood! Pray that the hands of the enemy that holds many people captives here will be broken and lives set free."

Some of you who read my blog already know David, who studied at the same Theological College as Jeff does now. He is truly a man who desires with all his heart to see people know salvation through Jesus Christ. On his behalf, I urge you to pray for him and for the glory of our great and wonderful God.

Like my new sidebar pics?

Thanks so very much to the talented Andrea, Samuel's god-sister, who took the photos of Joshua, Anna and Abigail (which now appear on the RHS sidebar) earlier in 2007 for a school project. And just for posterity, here are the old images, which were taken in October and December 2006 by my sister-in-law Kim, who is also handy with a camera.

My husband the carpenter

Jeff has just completed a beautiful magazine rack for his step-father's birthday present, using recycled Jarrah timber from someone's broken-down old verandah and a few pieces that Jeff shaped from logs taken from trees on their hobby farm.

And in the background of this last pic you can see our newly shaded sandpit. The posts for this are also made from recycled timber. It is really good for the kids to have another place out of the sun where they can play, and I am so thankful to have my husband in handyman mode now he's on holidays.

End of Year Homeschool Report - Joshua - 2007

This may be very boring for those who do not know Joshua personally. It is included here for the benefit of close relatives. Also, because a homeschooled child does not get a school report, I think it will be nice to have a written record of my assessment of my children's accomplishments in times to come!

Bible and Belief
Joshua is familiar with many of the well-known historical narratives. He can retell many Bible stories in his own words, such as Jesus calming the storm, and Jesus' parable of the houses built on the sand and rock. He uses his knowledge of other narratives in his play, for example asking Anna to pretend to be John and to baptise him in the bath [said practice which led to him getting an ear infection and has since been curtailed].
Joshua has memorised Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1-4 along with several other verses.
Joshua knows many of the words in the Lord's Prayer and recites what he knows along with our church congregation on Sundays. He has also memorised the core words of the minister during Holy Communion and has, on occasion, initiated play-acting of Holy Communion at meal times at home. Joshua prays readily in familiar circumstances (such as meal time grace) and also talks informally to God about personal matters both with his parents and when he is alone. He also encourages others to join in communal prayer times.

Character
Joshua has continued to develop his wonderfully manly attitude of protection and caring for his younger siblings, although he can often be bossy also. At times Joshua is too easily upset by circumstances and struggles to regain self-control, but can usually do so adequately after taking time out alone in his room. He is generally obedient and polite, but does find it difficult and frustrating to leave a task he is involved in, especially if it is of a creative nature such as building with Duplo blocks or drawing and colouring his own pictures. This can be a source of conflict between Joshua and his siblings, so I need to be careful in my choice of timing for activities, so as to prevent him becoming be exasperated beyond bearing, in order to avoid unnecessary arguments.

Literacy
At the beginning of this year, Joshua knew a few letters, really only those in his own name. Now, he can read many CVC words which use the Basic Code ("short") vowel sound. Often he needs to sound out the word from its letters, and he has recently begun to read some words without this step, or after only decoding some of the letters aloud. Joshua has also begun to read a few words which have blended consonant pairs and clusters (CCVC, CVCC etc) as well as those with consonant-vowel blends (VC, CV, CVC). He is familiar with the use of [s] for the /z/ sound, reading thus: "i...sss...iz" and the use of [e] for /ee/, reading thus: "w...e...wee". He can also recognise two consonant dipthongs: [sh] (which is in his name, and so was familiar early) and [th].
Joshua is sometimes unenthusiastic about a set reading task but usually surprises himself with his own ability and is gaining confidence. He enjoys reading words and numbers from signs and other non-page sources. His attention span for the still difficult task of decoding words from an unfamiliar source is limited to less than 15 minutes, which has improved greatly from the beginning of the year.
Joshua writes very neatly when tracing, shaping all letters correctly according to the example. He finds some letters which have slanted lines, such as w and z, to be difficult to form. Occasionally he writes the descender before the circle in the letters a, d and g, which needs continued enforced correction (ie, erasing and re-writing the letter). Joshua's free-writing (writing without an immediate visual example or lines) is clear and readable although his letters are not consistent in size. Joshua can write a short sentence of about 8-10 words in one sitting before his hand becomes tired and his concentration wanders. Unsurprisingly, he prefers a task of reading and writing a sentence over the same task with a list of unrelated words.
Joshua knows that a sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, and that a capital letter also marks the beginning of a proper name. He can discriminate between capitals and lower case letters and identify full stops.

Literature
Joshua listens enthusiastically to picture books (especially those with rythmic prose) and episodic/chapter books (such as The House at Pooh Corner and Tan A Wild Dog) when they are read aloud. He follows the central flow of action although he misses some plot subtleties. This has been demonstrated through his answers to comprehension questions and through his oral narrations, as well as such things as identifying previously unseen images as relating to a particular familiar story or rhyme.
He uses many words and phrases that he has heard from these books in his play and in everyday conversation, demonstrating a knowledge of their meaning (for example, "festival"). He asks questions about some of the vocabulary that is above his present level.

Mathematics
This year, our mathematics curriculum has been purely ad hoc, such as counting incidental objects and reading the numerals on letter boxes and freeway signs. A while ago I put a bit of effort into teaching Joshua to rote count into double-digit figures, and he can now do this with fair success, although he still stumbles over twenty. When my mother was visiting a fortnight ago, I showed her (and Joshua) the mathematics books we will be using next year, and as he attempted a few random tasks, we realised that Joshua can mentally calculate with a fair degree of competence simple addition and subtraction sums with the digits 1-5. He can also perform similar calculations with the digits 1-10 if he has fingers or some other manipulative to help him to visualise the problem. Wow! I was impressed with my little boy's ability.

Our hyper-linked 4yo Kindergarten Curriculum

***more hyperlinks added 6 Dec 2007***

Literacy
We began 2007 with a program based around the letters of the alphabet. I introduced most of the letters with a Sesame Street colouring page, and a brainstorming session on words that started with or contained the most common phoneme for that letter. One thing I am already doing differently is that with Joshua I only showed him the capital letters, but with Anna I am introducing both the capital and lower case letters at the same time. I have now refined the colouring pages into my own alphabet penmanship pages, with the colouring picture at the top and lines for caps and lower case writing below, with manuscript, typewritten and cursive examples of the letter also included. We supplemented this with an ABC Sticker Book from Hinkler Books, which Joshua really enjoyed.

In the second half of this year, we have used Reading Reflex: The foolproof Phono-Graphix guide to teaching your child to read by Carmen and Geoffrey McGuinness as our primary resource. We worked through activites based on those explained in chapter 3, "Teaching the Basic Code". One major difference I made was to do "mapping" (that is, writing out of new words) as tracing on homemade lined paper, rather than on a small whiteboard as the book suggested, because Joshua was not already familiar with the formation of letters. We also added on extra reading and penmanship activities based on the very limited vocabulary, using three Penmanship Readers with colouring pictures which I made myself (using free online colouring pictures mostly from Karen's Whimsy and Clipart ETC).

Literature
In the first semester of 2007 we read a lot of picture books, which Joshua then narrated back for me. He also illustrated his own narrations, with great improvement in the recognisability of his drawings as a result. Our picture book read aloud list is below. Ttitles with an asterisk *, I hope to read aloud sometime next year, when Anna is doing 4yo K and Joshua is doing 5yo K - titles with a hash mark # are firm family favourites. I have hyperlinked the Australian titles and some that are less likely to be known:

A Hat for Minerva Louise - Janet Morgan Stoeke
*We’re Going on a Bear Hunt - Michael Rosen & Helen Oxenbury
Alexander’s Outing - Pamela Allen
#Shout, Daisy, Shout - Jane Simmons
*Angus Lost (and other Angus books) - Marjorie Flack
*Bears - Ruth Krauss
Harry the Dirty Dog - Gene Zion
#Hairy Maclary from Donaldson’s Dairy (and others) - Lynley Todd
#Fancy That! - Pamela Allen
Miffy's Garden - Dick Bruna
*The Potato People - Pamela Allen
*Corduroy - Don Freeman
*Gregory’s Shadow - Don Freeman
#Handa’s Surprise - Eileen Browne
#Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak
Who Sank the Boat? - Pamela Allen
Mr Archimede’s Bath - Pamela Allen
#One Horse Waiting for Me - Patricia Mullins
#Goodnight Moon - Margaret Wise Brown
#The Gruffalo - Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler
The Gruffalo’s Child - Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffler
#Simpkin - Quentin Blake
The Story of Ferdinand - Munro Leaf
*Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? - Bill Martin Jr
Each Peach Pear Plum - Janet & Allen Ahlberg
Madeline - Ludwig Bemelmans
*The Little Engine That Could - Watty Piper
*A Bear Called Paddington - Michael Bond
One Duck Stuck - Phyllis Root
One Woolly Wombat - Rod Tricia & Kerry Argent
*Pete the Sheep - Jackie French
*Diary of a Wombat - Jackie French
#Josephine Wants to Dance - Jackie French
*Cecily G and the 9 Monkeys - H A Rey
*Curious George - Margaret and H A Rey
*Flat Stanley - Jeff Brown
*Caps for Sale - Esphyr Slobodkina
Bedtime for Frances - Russell Hoban
*Bread and Jam for Frances - Russell Hoban
*Amelia Bedelia - Peggy Parish
*Floss - Kim Lewis
#He Came With the Couch - David Slonim
#An Anteater Named Arthur - Bernard Waber
#The Blue Balloon - Mick Inkpen
Possum Magic - Mem Fox
Where is the Green Sheep? - Mem Fox
#Blossom Possum: The Sky Is Falling Down-Under - Gina Newton
*A New Coat for Anna - Harriet Zeifert
*Story of Babar, the Little Elephant - Jean de Brunhoff
The Story About Ping - Marjorie Flack & Kurt Wiese
#Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel - Virginia Lee Burton
The Velveteen Rabbit - Margery Williams
#The Enormous Crocodile - Roald Dahl
#The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me - Roald Dahl
*Owls in the Family - Farley Mowat

Below is our list of episodic or chapter books, from our Kindergarten read aloud list. Of course, many of these we will read again over the years:

Thomas the Tank-Engine - Rev Wilbert Awdry
Adventures of the Wishing Chair - Enid Blyton
The Wishing Chair Again - Enid Blyton
The Complete Adventures of Peter Rabbit and Friends - Beatrix Potter
Winnie-The-Pooh - A A Milne
The House at Pooh Corner - A A Milne
The Enchanted Wood - Enid Blyton
The Magic Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton
Folk of the Faraway Tree - Enid Blyton
#Milly-Molly-Mandy - Joyce Lankester Brisley
Pollyanna - Eleanor H Porter
Tan a Wild Dog - Thomas C Hinkle
*Bambi - Felix Salten
*Pinocchio - Carlo Collodi
*Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Peter Pan - J M Barrie
*Mary Poppins - P L Travers
*The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - Frank L Baum
(some of) Andersen’s Fairy Tales - Hans Christian Andersen
(some of) Grimm’s Fairy Tales - J L C and W C Grimm
*The Complete Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault - Charles Perrault

Bible and Belief
I attend a Day class of Bible Study Fellowship and the children are all enrolled in their Childrens' Program. We also read Bible stories and discuss them, pray together and learn some memory verses as a family. One thing Joshua and I have both enjoyed is to record his narrations of Bible stories and allow him to colour a related picture. The picture and narration are then put into a plastic sleeve in a folder so he can make his own Bible. If Joshua makes a 2D craft at Sunday Club related to the story of that week, we sometimes stick that in with his narration instead of a drawing. Joshua quite likes flicking through his home-made Bible. I am planning to do this a lot more consistently next year, using colouring pages from Calvary Chapel, as well as reproducible colouring pictures from Gospel Light and HeartShaper.

Mathematics, Science and History/Geography etc
Purely from life experiences, although we do make an effort to introduce learning opportunities frequently.

I'm not finished breakfast yet, Mum!

Where Rudd's "Education Revolution" will take us

At last, after weeks of fretting over lack of information throughout the election campaign, I begin to see the substance of what Rudd promised with his promotional mantra of plans for an "educational revolution".

Last weekend, The Weekend Australian reported that "In a new super-ministry, Ms Gillard will be in charge of policy on childhood development, schools, universities, skills and training, workforce participation and employee rights." Thus the deputy prime minister has the portfolios of industrial relations (as would have been expected, given her previous role as shadow minister for industrial relations) and also education. Predictably, in this article, the main concern expressed over this was the enormous workload involved in combining these two important areas of oversight. Of course, everyone thinks their particular area deserves, or even requires, more concentrated focus within a smaller portfolio. I think these views somewhat short-sighted. Indeed, I think they miss the point completely.

This same article described Rudd's justification for his decision thusly: "Mr Rudd strongly supported Ms Gillard's appointment, saying Labor's plan was to bring preparation for work "under a single roof". He described Ms Gillard's super-ministry as a modern approach, combining the entire agenda of education, skills and training, participation at work and workplace relations." It appears that the crux of Rudd's so-called "education revolution" is to demote the myriad goals and aims of education to "preparation for work", that is, vocational training.

Gillard's comments (later reported in The Australian) supported the need to integrate some Australian history into a national curriculum, as Howard had done previously. She also maintained the popular, but in my opinion, limited, view of the supreme importance of the three Rs. Gillard "reiterated that Labor would focus very strongly on the basic skills of maths, reading and writing in the development of the curriculum." Surely education should be aimed at producing more than the most basic of all academic skills? (I am not sure that the Liberals ever aimed for anything too much above these basics, either, and that is perhaps why they seemed to be losing the educational war to the socialist left in the past decade of the infamous OBE.)

At this point, I would like to introduce a contrast. My next two quotes are taken from Dorothy Sayers' paper read at Oxford University in 1947, The Lost Tools of Learning. Sayers proposed a "progressive retrogression" to a classical model for education in the tools of the trivium, (Latin) grammar, formal logic and rhetoric. She said of her hypothetical students, "one cannot begin a good thing too early... We will therefore "catch 'em young," requiring only of our pupils that they shall be able to read, write and cipher [ie, perform basic arithmetical calculations]." Sayers' expected that, although her students would be young, they would already be competent in the basic skills. In Sayers' opinion, these skills were not the end point of a school education, they were, rather, the pre-requisites of this education!

If Sayers did not see these basic skills as the end point of education, what did she propose as an alternative? The concluding sentence of her paper tells us. "For the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain." Some would argue that it is too early to criticise, but I fear that the first steps of Rudd's "education revolution", towards a model of education that limits itself to concentrating on the basics and preparing people for nothing other than a life of serfdom ("participation in work"), will eventually be revealed to have been in vain.

Weekly Report #11

Literacy
With each new unit of the Basic Code, I have seperated the work out into two sections. In the first weeks, Joshua is taught to read and write new words, then in the later weeks he reviews these words while he completes his Penmanship Reader. Despite our illnesses over this last week, Joshua now has only one lesson to go in the first section of this third unit, [s]=/z/, introducing words such as is, his, as, has, was and, just for the heck of it, Israel. Next week, we will hopefully complete that lesson and then spend a few lessons copying our second Rule of Written English ("A capital letter marks the beginning of a sentence and the beginning of a name.") On Thursday next week, Jeff is taking Joshua and the girls to Granny's hobby farm in Albany for 8 days, so that will be the end of regular, daily lessons for this year. Occasionally over the Christmas season, I'll get Joshua to work on his third Penmanship Reader, so he doesn't forget what he has learnt. Then when the public school and Theological College students' year starts at the beginning of February, we'll be ready to tackle consonant and vowel digraphs.

Literature
We are still reading and enjoying Pollyanna by Eleanor H Porter. I am hopeful that we will complete it by the time the kids leave for Albany, because I don't want them to have to wait for the end and I also don't want to miss it myself!

Table Time
Jeff has been, rather masterfully, drawing the kids pictures "one step up from stick figures" (which is my forte) to colour this week. The kids have been making requests: Anna has asked for dolls, Abigail has requested houses, and Joshua has delighted in Jeff's invented dinosaurs, such as spotosaurus, spikemomosaurus, centipedosaurus and two-headed lionasaurus.Here we have a specimen of the little-known Girafmosaurus.

Pollyanna

We've all been sick this week, so Joshua only had homeschool lessons (the academic stuff, like reading and writing lessons) on Mon and again today (Fri) but in between it was mostly just me reading Pollyanna. We are almost finished, up to chapter 28 out of 32. When I ask Joshua comprehension-type questions, he is obviously getting the gist of most of it, which is great, even though bits of it (words like "veritably") are going over his head, I am sure. And he can put together a bit more than is in the text also. I asked him tonight who he thought would be glad that Mr John Pendleton was adopting Jimmy Bean, and his first answer was Pollyanna (because that's what Mr John P says in the story, that he hopes the news will make Pollyanna glad,) but then when I asked him, "who else?" he suggested both Mr John P and Jimmy B, so obviously he realised that it would be happy for them also. This has been much of the storyline, that "a child's presence" (or, alternatively, "a woman's hand and heart") make a house into a home. To borrow a phrase from Pollyanna, I'm glad he's understanding so much of this book, even though he's not yet five years old.

A little background and an update

If you read my last post on the book The New Puritans and were wondering if I'm an Anglican of the Sydney diocese, the answer is no. Actually, I'm not an Anglican at all. I was brought up in the Uniting Church denomination and became a member of a Baptist Church after doing an Alpha course there soon after getting married.

More recently...

Just last Sunday, I became, once again, a member of the Uniting Church. This time, as a member of the congregation of N where we attend regularly and Jeff works 8 hours a week as a Ministry Intern. Today, Jeff submitted to our minister (and, through him, our elders, church council and presbytry,) an application to be considered as a candidate for ordained ministry within the Uniting Church of Western Australia. I'm looking forward to the opportunities God has for us to teach and serve his people.

A Critique of "The New Puritans"

After his exams, Jeff brought home a few books that he actually wanted to read, rather than being required to read as part of his course. One of these was The New Puritans, by Muriel Porter. This book is a critism of the Sydney Anglican diocese from the perspective of a liberal Anglican, whose husband is an Anglican priest in Victoria.

At times when I read this book, I wanted to laugh - not because what the author said was funny, per se, rather because the author seemed so blind to the contradictions in her own arguments. She complained that Sydney Anglicans seem reluctant to employ ministers trained in other Anglican Theological colleges around Australia (which are, in the main, liberal,) yet did not mention the complete barrier to employment that those trained at Moore Theological College, (bastion of Sydney Anglicanism,) face to employment in almost any Australian diocese other than that of Sydney. And she complained that Sydney Anglicans are providing support funding for ministers (often trained at Moore) in diocese which cannot fund these ministers themselves. On the other hand, she complained that Sydney Anglicans don't give vast swathes of money to the ecumenical, liberal groups that other Anglican churches support (because Sydney Anglicans do not agree with the motives or means of these groups), yet also complained that when Sydney Anglicans do get involved in Anglican organisational bodies they actually expect to have their collective voice heard (not unreasonable, given their status as Australia's largest and fastest growing diocese). The author criticised the membership of the Sydney diocese because it contains so many men and women of all ages, and, in comparison to liberal Anglican churches, so few elderly women. She does not understand that this is a sign that Sydney Anglicans are reaching out and evangelising all people, rather than being left only with the few of their membership who are too stubborn and set in their ways to give up on the church of their youth (and who patiently await the day when they might again be fed in their church from the Word of God, His Bible.)

On another level, I was deeply disturbed by the beliefs that Porter has, which have ppresumably flourished within her own experiences as an active member of a liberal church. She complained that one of the heads of Sydney Anglicanism stated that people from faiths other than Christianity are not saved. She disputed this central tenet of evangelical Christian doctrine! Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." [John 14:6] No modern day liberal doctrine of relativistic "tolerance" can get around the fact that Jesus claimed that knowing Him was the only way of knowing His Father, God. His last recorded words were: "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." [Acts 1:8] Jesus himself commanded his apostles to evangelise and disciple people of other cultures and faiths into the Christian faith. The Christian church needs to remember this truth, and act in accordance with it, rather than seeking to bury it under politically correct "tolerance". All Christian churches need to get on with the job of evangelising unbelievers and discipling believers. And churches cannot do this if they persist in squabbling, like Muriel Porter, over which church diocese has the most "tolerant" plan for evenly apportioning what she seems to see as the spoils of some intra-denominational war: converts won into Christianity by the faithful portrayal of the gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God, and in his atoning death on the cross for our sins. New Christians that Sydney Anglicans are seeing converted by the power of God's Holy Spirit, just as Jesus promised all those centuries ago.

Oh, The Irony!

Warning: This is a bit icky.

I started toilet training Abigail last Thursday and she pretty much had everything down fine in three days. Still doing poo in her pants, but she was dry all weekend, even through her afternoon naps.

Then I came down with gastroenteritis ... vomitting and diarrhoea from here to there and everywhere in between. So far I've managed to pass on the bug to Samuel (who threw up twice last night), Jeffrey and Anna (who threw up this afternoon and then again a little while ago). Mess-wise, this has to be a pretty bad situation for the first week of toilet training, wouldn't you think? Still, although Abigail had a few accidents while I was out this morning, she stayed dry this afternoon. We'll keep with it. I may have to revise my initial hopes for immediate success, however. This thing might take two weeks, rather than two days, and that's not even considering the dreaded number twos.

Oh, how I look forward to the days when I only have one child in nappies!

Weekly Reports #9 & #10

Literacy
We are moving through the third unit of Basic Code smoothly with minimal fuss. In the last two weeks we have covered [e] [w] [l] [k] [v] [x] [ee] and now we just have [z] to go before we move on to the third Penmanship Reader, which I have just compiled. I have also added reading one story from our (as yet small) selection of phonics-based readers to our daily literacy activities. So far, he has really enjoyed this. He really likes the idea that he can read real stories. We cuddle on my "reading chair" together, while we do it, which helps to make it a calm and happy time.

Literature
Our current Read Aloud book is Pollyanna by Eleanor H Porter. I wanted to read this to the kids because the Disney version of this is the one movie-length DVD that they have watched, and despite needing to hold hands during the scary or sad bits, they really enjoy it. The Disney movie is, like all Disney versions, different from the original and I wanted them to know the original story also. I hope the girls may read it again themselves, when they are older and more able to appreciate it. According to the book, Pollyanna is 14 and Jimmy is 10, so my kids are a lot younger than the book's protagonists, and I know a lot of it is going over their heads. However, they are enjoying listening and I am enjoying reading the story again. It has been interesting to see how Porter has juxtaposed Pollyanna's interactions with two invalids - one in bed through illness but able to move about, the other in bed through injury though only temporarily - with Pollyanna's own (still to come) confinement to a bed, where she is both unable to move and presumed to be permanently injured. Anyway, the kids must be liking it because they often ask for more than one chapter.

Outside Play
Due to a few days of very hot weather (high 30s), we are encouraging the kids to play on the southern side of our house, which is always shady. They are at present having a great deal of muddy fun outside the study window:

Inside Play
Has consisted mostly of playing with the Mega Blocks this week as Samuel received some new ones for his birthday and the others appreciate any new toy.

Table Time
Has been mostly colouring. Abigail, in particular, is improving in her colouring as she has grasped the idea that you colour within the lines of each picture, or at least attempt to do so as far as your fine motor skills will permit.

Bible Study
This week was the last Children's Program Bible Study at my BSF class. (Next week is our Sharing Day, which I am looking forward to enormously.) The kids have benefitted greatly from doing BSF this year, and I am looking forward to them studying through Matthew with me next year.

and...

Toilet Training
For Abigail, which started on Thursday. She is going well, driven on by an eager desire for M&M rewards for dry undies and wee in the potty. I'm hoping to have her trained adequately by the time Jeff takes the kids to Albany on 8 December.

First Steps!

My baby took his first steps yesterday, two steps towards the couch because he didn't want to put down the balloon he was holding. I saw the first step and my excited voice ensured that my daughter Anna saw his second. Joshua "was too busy building to look up, mum." This is the boy who prayed for a brother...

Joshua's latest writing efforts

Joshua's latest efforts at free writing:The second line reads: Joshua hugs Dad. His writing is a little bit cramped at the end, and the D is reversed, but I think he did very well.

I told him today in our reading and writing lesson, we'd have a word that was something to do with Dad. He guessed "hug". The word I was thinking of was "exam". Well, I'm glad he's not been psychologically harmed by having his father studying so hard lately!

Joshua's latest writing project is a five sentence letter to Nanna, which he dictated himself. (He wanted it to be longer, but I was frightened it would take forever to complete.) He is trace-writing one sentence each evening while the girls and Samuel go to bed.Look at that tongue out so he can concentrate!Hopefully it should be ready to post in a week or so. I'll be sending these pictures along with the letter as proof it was his work not mine. I think Nanna will be overjoyed.

My baby is ONE and has high aspirations

What a climber! Samuel turned 1 on Saturday, and although he cannot walk yet (he has just started standing unaided in the last fortnight) he loves to clamber over anything in his path. Challenges such as the slippery dip on our home-made (that is, husband-made) cubby house are mere fodder for his feet.

Before Christmas - A Very Long Post

Christmas is coming up and a friend just emailed to ask what I am planning to do with my family to celebrate Advent and Christmas. I have been praying, planning and preparing for Christmas for a while now, so here are my ideas:

BEFORE CHRISTMAS

1. Each time I've been to the library lately, I've been on the lookout for picture books that present the Christmas story. I read them to the kids along with all the other library picture books we get, just to lay a foundation in my kids' minds as to the reason for celebrating Christmas, before the idea of presents looms too large in their minds to fit anything about the baby boy whose birthday we are celebrating.

Our favourite Christmas story book so far has been This is the Star by Joyce Dunbar, illustrated by Gary Blythe. You chant or sing it to the rythmic tune of "This is the house that Jack built" - which, incidentally, we also borrowed in picture book form, during the same library visit. The illustrations, from oil paintings, are magnificent and the verse is lush. An excerpt:

"This is the Christ child born to be king
While hosts of heavenly angels sing.
These are the wise men come from afar
Who also saw and followed the star,
Bearing the gold, and fragrant myrrh
And frankincense, the gifts that were
Placed by the manger warm with hay
Where-in a new born baby lay.
This is the ox and this is the ass
Who saw these wonders come to pass
At the darkened inn where the only room
Was a stable out in the lamplit gloom
For the donkey and his precious load
Who trudged the long and weary road,
Looked on by the angel shining bright,
Who came to the shepherds watching by night
That saw the star in the sky."

2. Starting next year, we will incorporate a chronological Bible study into our homeschooling, supplementing the Bible story reading that Jeff does over dinner most nights. In order to align our studies with the Christian calendar of festivals, we are starting with the New Testament, with Jesus' birth, and starting our readings the fortnight before Christmas. This will be instead of Advent-type activites using a calendar or Jesse Tree (I plan to have us reading though a selection of events from the gospels over the next 14-15 weeks, culminating in reading the passion story just prior to Easter. After a short break, we'll be reading through the very end of the gospels and the beginning of Acts as we celebrate Ascension and Pentecost, then through Acts and the beginning and end of Revelation around the middle of the year. We'll spend the second half of the year working through the Old Testament stories of God's coventant people. I hope to have us ready for the New Testament stories of Jesus' birth again just before next Christmas! We'll be repeating this chronological study of biblical events each year, I hope. I will need to change the progression slightly, including more or fewer stories according to the varying dates of Easter each year.) I am constructing some sets of relevant colouring pictures for the kids to work on each day, which will go into their Make-Your-Own Bibles, using (among others) images from the wonderful Calvary Chapel resources.

The order of events and readings in our our pre-Christmas Bible studies is:
A Saviour is Promised - Isaiah 7:14; 9:6-7; Jeremiah 23:5; Micah 5:2-5a
Zacharias and Elizabeth - Luke 1:5-25
The Angel Gabriel Visits Mary - Luke 1:26-38
Mary Visits Elizabeth - Luke 1:39-56 [An interesting aside is that Mary was possibly present with Elizabeth at John's birth, considering Luke 1:26, 39 and 56.]
The Birth of John the Baptist - Luke 1:57-79
The Angel Visits Joseph - Matthew 1:18-25 [I am not quite sure where this fits in chronologically, but it seems a good point to include it here, so as to avoid confusing interruptions to the story of John's birth.]
The Trip to Bethlehem - Luke 2:1-5
The Birth of Jesus - Luke 2:6-7
The Angels Appear to Shepherds - Luke 2:8-14
The Shepherds Visit Jesus in the Stable - Luke 2:15-20

I'll include here my plans for Bible stories in the first few days after Christmas, also:
Jesus is Presented in the Temple as an Infant - Luke 2:21-24
Simeon and Anna Prophesy - Luke 2:25-38
The Wise Men Travel to Jerusalem and Meet Herod - Matthew 2:1-8 [Given Herod's later order to kill boys aged up to 2yo (Matt 2:16), the location of Jesus' family in a house rather than the previous stable (Matthew 2:11) and the description of Jesus as a child rather than a baby (also Matthew 2:11), it seems highly likely that Mary, Joseph and Jesus lived in Bethlehem for some time after Jesus' birth, notwithstanding their visit to the temple in Jerusalem for ceremonial purposes. It was possibly a year or more after Jesus' birth before the Wise Men reached Bethlehem. We'll be pointing this out to the kids if they ask about it when they see nativity scenes, etc.]
The Wise Men Worship Jesus - Matthew 2:9-12
The Escape to Egypt - Matthew 2:13-15 (perhaps also 2:16-18)
The Return to Nazareth - Matthew 2:19-23; Luke 1:39-40
The Boy Jesus Visits the Temple - Luke 2:41-52
and then on to Jesus' baptism and ministry, etc.

3. Memory verses to be learnt over the Christmas period:
Isaiah 9:6
For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counsel[l]or, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
and Luke 2:11
"Today in the town of David a Savio[u]r has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord."

[Which brings up another point, I do wish they would publish a NIV translation with English/Australian spellings and punctuation. It would make copywork so much easier in the future! How does one use pieces for copywork when they have spelling "errors"?]

4. I am working on teaching the kids some of the songs we sing in church, and in December we will be learning some Christmas Carols, notably "Away in a Manger". We'll be listening to them some time each morning, I think, from a variety of Christian Christmas Carol CDs we have in our collection. I'm not so fussed about teaching them the more worldly Christmas songs, such as "Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer" - I think they'll learn them by osmosis from trips to the local shops.

5. Decorate the tree. We started our married life resolutely using real pine trees, but do have a realistic plastic tree, which is more kid-friendly. Last year, the kids loved helping Jeff put it together, and ladening the lower branches with ornaments, while I held baby Samuel and took photos. Jeff's brother and sister-in-law have made a tradition of giving us a new ornament each Christmas. Maybe another year we'll do something crafty and make some of our own ornaments, but this year we'll be too busy with visits to relatives.

6. Select, buy and wrap presents. This could take another whole post (and probably will) but I'll just briefly state that last year we gave each of our kids at least one book, one CD or DVD and one toy. We also add one outfit of clothing, if it is really needed. The rest of our ideas we list as suggestions for grandparents and assorted uncles and aunts to give. Last Christmas, the kids didn't get too much that was not suitable, and there were some nice surprises, especially the harmonicas from Granny and Gramps. KMart just had a toy sale and Target is having one this week. Duplo and Fisher Price Little People feature heavily as good toy choices. I do have a rule about books: nothing which does not state the author's name on the cover, I prefer editions with the original illustrations if possible (although I am flexible with this - I like Robert Ingpen's work on some classics such as Treasure Island) and abridged or paraphrased versions are not acceptable (if we have to read an abridgement, I'd rather select it myself because I am very picky.) Before I wrap the books, I will be covering them with contact, so they last.

7. Plan our holidays - because Jeff has 2 1/2 months off study, we need to make the most of this family togetherness, rather than getting frustrated by unspoken expectations about what will or won't happen. So this Sunday, Jeff and I will be comparing our To Do lists for the holidays, although already some things have been scheduled, such as visits to Jeff's mum & step-dad and to my brother and his family, and the Baptist church camp that Jeff will be speaking at. We need to make sure Jeff gets his fill of woodwork (so I can have my new desk!!) and I get to do some regular exercise without having to take the kids to the gym creche, as well as having lots of family time just having fun, out and about!