Thursday:  Today I believe we achieved the very things I set out to achieve – compared to the week so far. 

 

We headed to Margret’s for the children to complete another Skeleton Fish for our Art Exhibition at Kimberley Fine Diamonds.  Jess completed a simple fish shape with movement in the wire using contrasting colour wires.  Nomi used coloured wire and beads to create a fish that said “Something Fishy” on the tail.  Daniel was excused from this activity today – he played with the little boys under Joshua’s supervision.  It is good to see Daniel starting to connect with Joseph (though he is only 3 he is a good playmate for Daniel if they would only play together!!)  Today they played side by side, happily and creatively.  Daniel also had his camera there so took a card full of photos and video footage.

 

We stayed for lunch, which gave the kids more opportunity to play.  Daniel and Joseph watched a video, Josh and Hannah played a game of checkers, Josh read a book, Jess and Liesa beaded, Hannah and Nomi played outside with pocket knives and tools in the bushes making cubbies and the like!  They were both very grubby!

 

Coming home mid afternoon meant quiet activity; puzzles, games, and playing with the dog.  We watched a beautiful round, red sun disappear over smoky mountains.  It was very beautiful.  While I cooked dinner I had Daniel work on his sounds and blending.

 

 

Friday:  Today was a very relaxed day.  Nomi and Daniel played, bouncing on the trampoline pretending to be clowns.  Jess, Nomi and Daniel played Twiddliwinks and then did some beading.  Jess helped with the laundry and packed her back for a sleepover.  Josh worked on his blog and Science.  Josh also mowed the lawn.

Daniel came to town with me and ended up shopping with MeMock.  MeMock was buying a treat for Jess and Daniel since they were the kids in town at the time and Daniel insisted that he not forget Nomi and Josh who were at home.  Not sure about the manners of insisting that someone spends more money but the heart for his siblings was there!

 

 

Saturday:  Jess is at a sleepover.  Nomi woke early and has decided to sit up on the computer and work on some Notebook pages she needs to finish.  It is nice working side by side early in the morning!  Our goals for today is to do some homeblessing and to have some downtime, hopefully in creative pursuits!

 

The kids and I got into Blitzing mode – actually we did a Deep Blitz.  Blitz is the word our family uses to quickly clean up any Hotspots in a room.  It is kind of an adaption from Flylady’s words of “Room Rescue” and “Hotspots”.  When we do a Deep Blitz that is going a bit deeper than just things put in the wrong place finding the right place.  Today we hit some Blazing Fires – we don’t have Hotspots here (Hotspots being places that just gather stuff) – we have Blazing Fires!!

 

We decided we were going to clean out the Family Room – we were very proud of ourselves for doing this without Jessica who is usually our motivator when it comes to all things pertaining to cleanliness and organization! 

 

After the room was cobwebbed, dusted, vacuumed and Blitzed we rewarded ourselves with some sugar (lollies) and a movie!  

 

Jess was impressed when she got home.  In the past she has been very unimpressed that we have had a cleaning spurt without her (she is that into cleaning) but this time I think she had such a blast at her sleepover she really didn’t mind!! LOL.

 

Why am I blogging our Saturday Housecleaning as a part of our learning journal? 

 

For a start I believe that our children need to have the life skills of cleaning and maintaining the house in a clean and functioning place.  Secondly I see all sorts of skills coming out when we do such a project together.  There are the character issues of perseverance even when the task was yuk!, there was initiative when they went ahead of my instructions and just took on an area to clean, there was responsibility when they start taking pride of their room, there was serving happening when one boy made the bed for the other boy etc, and because we were working together I saw these character decisions happening and I could give praise for what I saw.  Another benefit and I guess in a sense it is already covered but I wanted to list it separately and that is a work ethic.  We worked till it was finished – even though it took a bit longer than our original goal.  Our children need to know how to bring a project to completion, how to work together, and how to work even when it isn’t enjoyable!