Over the last few days we have been using an  “assignment” – a list of optional activities to use as guide to help us make wise choices in what we do during the day.  I must admit not a lot of my set activities happened but we are having very productive, purposeful days.

Peter has been working on fixing the pavers outside.  Both Joshua and Naomi helped him at some time.   On Wednesday Peter was building a frame to hold a old concrete sink to be out “art sink” out on the veranda.  Joshua worked with him for a couple of hours while the measuring and planning were going on.  In the midst of this Pete used the Internet to brush up on his Trigonometry and Algebra.  Though it was a lot of new concepts to Joshua all at once and a bit overwhelming he did come away with a good understanding for reasons why we study math and how math is used in solving practical problems.

Joshua has watched a lot of cricket with Grandad and at times played his cricket card game at the same time.  Joshua also reads while the cricket pushes on.  There has been many conversations and “debates” on various topics over the few days.  Josh is learning to temper his passions as he discusses things – he tends to get very emotional!   In reading newspapers, in particular, he has been trying to discern world view perspectives, and see holes in authors logic.  This has sent him off to the Internet to check out articles and follow his thoughts through.

Jessica has been a great blessing as she goes the extra mile and helps keep the house in order as I am a little distracted with having my mother here to talk to!  

Jess has been inspired by Cindy Rushton’s Christmas Recipe Book which was part of a downloaded purchase I made before Christmas.  Jess has been working on a recipe book over the last little while but decided to make a notebook, using plastic sleeves.  She has put the restraint on her recipe book, being only recipes she can cook by herself.  She created a border, made it a template and then either typed or cut and paste from previous documents each of her recipes.  She then used clip art and other features on Microsoft Word to complete title pages for each section of a recipe book and printed them off in colour.  At this point she is using a presentation folder for her Recipe Notebook which will be easy to move into a Binder when she has enough recipes to warrant a bigger book.

Jessica’s Horse Lapbook is so close to being finished.  She wants to finish it before the grandparents leave.  She has 2 little books left to complete.  She worked on one of these yesterday.  Once again she is showing great dexterity with using Microsoft Word – this time using Text boxes to fit the size of her mini-fold book, and working with the text; not only with the sizing of text  but also ensuring it is easily read.

Nomi received a stitchery for Christmas and has been very diligent with working on this every day.  She is really enjoying it.

Last week Nomi and Daniel went tadpole catching.  We have had these 2 jars of tadpoles sitting on our bench.  Finally!  We got to take the learning opportunity and learnt about tadpoles.  Jessica had found a website that presented easy to follow information on the lifecycle of a frog which we used.  Nomi and Daniel have started a new Scrapbook/Notebook called “Nature / Science”  After we used some quickly made flash cards to sequence the lifecycle they filled in a worksheet (which was spelling for Nomi and copywork for Daniel) and glued it into their scrapbook.  They then sketched a tadpole or two on the opposite page. 

On Monday the kids were all inspired to scrapbook as Grandma had her scrapping out on the table.  So we ditched the plans I had and everyone scrapped.  This included journaling for both Jess and Nomi and I need to get back and finish Daniels page off with his narration.  Nomi continues to show her very creative eye with colour.  Jessica took the time to look through her album and noticed how she has changed over the last couple of years.  Not only is her writing neater but she felt her scrapping style was a lot more simpler, and meaningful.

One of the activities we would like to happen while Grandad is here is to teach the boys in particular how to use a punching bag.  Daniel had his first lesson yesterday.  Grandad reported back that he listened and was responsive to his instruction – a good report to hear.  Though the punching session didn’t last long Daniel got the hang of it really quickly  – not that we are surprised as this is right up his alley!  Daniel has always showed great co-ordination and energy.  Nomi had a short lesson too as we are always looking for good exercise for the children.  Jessica isn’t too sure about it!  Thursday will be Joshua’s turn for a lesson.

Most of Tuesday was spent with some new friends (well, the children were new acquaintances to each other)  The boys played cricket, war strategy games, and lots of talking!  The girls talked and talked and then they were off to the cubby to play this highly imaginative game.  The game included things like political intrigue with the prime minister being kidnapped , and highly advanced technology with these amazing robots!

Last night, Wednesday night, Peter and the kids got caught up in stamp collecting.  They had Peter’s old stamp collection out and a book that Jessica has and discovered that Peter has some very old, and possibly valuable stamps.  Jessica seems to have a real understanding of “stamp collecting” as a hobby not just as yet another collection.