Monday we took easy – getting over the weekend!  Last weekend was our homeschool family camp.  I’ll post about that when I have some photos ready to upload.

Tuesday – We hit our desks and had a really great day.  We introduced the character trait, Truthfulness at camp so we continue with those studies this week.   At camp we borrowed a boxful of books, living books, from another homeshooler.  The kids spent the rest of the day reading and discussing the characters in their books.

Over dinner we discussed John Wesley – it is great to see Nomi being able to join these conversations now that she is reading biographies and living books as well.

Wednesday started again with our studies on Truthfulness.  Josh and Jess split off and are do their own work in Character studies these days with the Business Bulletins from Character First.  They are reading a segment and then writing some thought or lesson learnt.  Joshua piece today was about society having a consistent moral standard that constrains people and the freedom we have because of that constraint.  I hope to get him to blog this piece.  Jessica started to write about tactfulness (how to balance truth and love)

The rest of Josh, Jess and Nomi’s lesson time was spent finishing notebook pages – they worked on Australian History, Bible and their Reading List.  They had such a fun time as they listened to Narnia as they worked.

I sat and read to Daniel for about 45 minutes – which is a bit of a rarity!  He wanted to start Pilgrims Progress – we have a picture book version, which is right at his level.  We will read a bit of this every day.  We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, and discussed the days of the week.  We read Miss Rumphius our FIAR book, and discussed different types of countryside – mountains, deserts, forests etc and the different animals that live there.  We didn’t go and "notebook" it but just let it be discussions and enjoying the book together.  After all he had already notebooked our truthfulness session and since he finds fine motor things difficult I want to keep it all in balance.  We don’t have to write after every lesson.

Daniel had a party in the afternoon and had a great time running around the park with a group of boys!

One of my friends had a birthday yesterday, so it was a good excuse to go out for coffee.  I took my girls as well – it was our first time to try out the new book cafe in town.

Thursday –  The kids helped Pete do some weeding down in the tree paddock.  Jess was excused though as she was helping out at an outreach ministry in town; Mainly Music.  Unfortunately, the numbers were really low and the ladies didn’t need her extra hands as much as they expected but it was a good opportunity for her to get to see what goes on as she hopes to help out again.

We started a new phonics programme with Daniel; The Sound Way.  An Australian Phonics programme that delivers the lessons on DVD.  I will say more in a months time, or so, after I have given it a fair shot.  Daniel seemed to sit and absorb today’s lesson so that was a good start.

The other kids worked on finishing some of their written work (Notebook pages).  Character, Australian History and Bible. 

Friday – We had more weeding to do down at the tree paddock.  This took a little over an hour.  But it is very tiring work so the kids took a long break with productive quiet time – listening to Narnia on audio, jigsaw puzzles, beading craft, Lego and computer time.   Later in the afternoon the three older ones completed their math for the day.

We did the second lesson for Daniel’s phonics programme.  It was tough!  Tears, tears, tears!!  It ended up in lots of cuddles and “We’ll try again tomorrow!”  Due to Daniel’s fine motor difficulties we haven’t done a lot of writing so it was a big jump in for him. 

I also think having the video “teacher” puts a bit of pressure on him to do good.  That is a good thing except the teacher doesn’t know of his difficulties.  Daniel is rising to the teacher’s standards and yet there needs to be some understanding as well.  It has surprised me already what Daniel is able to do – obviously I can lift the bar a bit!

Josh and Jess went to X-plore Youth Group – which is dinner and Bible study.  They had a great time and are fitting into this group well.  They are the only homeschoolers there, and most of the kids are non-christian so it really is a new group of kids for them to get to know.   I love driving home with them listening to them talk – intermingling discussion points that they had talked about with the buzz of being with friends.