I set out 4 goals for this last week – I achieved two of them.
1. The kids finished their storybooks for the local library storybook competition. Joshua wrote a very long historical fiction based on the first crusade. Jessica reformatted a piece she had written about Cleopatra and made it into a book. Naomi wrote a mystery story and Daniel drew 14 pictures and told us the story for his book. I like taking this yearly opportunity to teach the kids how to use various computer programmes and to learn how a book is published. This year it was good to see how much they have learnt as they completed most of this by themselves. I have had a digital scrapbooking programme sitting there for a while that Jess has been baulking at, but she picked up and both Jess and Nomi designed their covers with it.
2. My second goal was to prepare for the Moderator’s visit next week – I have made inroads to writing up a progress report and listed goals for the next period for each of my children. I have set up a template based on our perspective of learning (as per my website, Lifestyle-Homeschool, which is working towards a discipleship model of education.) I have found it important to find a way to represent our whole life as a learning opportunity rather than be confined to the Education Departments reporting system.
We had our "Keepers" afternoon. One of the mums took the older kids for another drawing lesson. Another mum had the younger boys for an art lesson – they have finished their little art books they were making. I had the afternoon making cups of tea, taking photos and browsing books! Next week we start a quilt with the older girls, the younger boys will be working on a Father’s Day project and as for the two older boys – we have yet to come up with a worthwhile project.
We also went to a public screening of an address between our Prime Minister, Mr Howard, and the Opposition Leader, Mr Rudd as they addressed the Christians of the Nation. Though we had all our family with us, only Josh and Jess listened to the speeches. Josh took copious notes and was keen to discuss how each went as a speaker (separate to their actual content).
My goals for the coming week:
1. To start our next Character trait: Gratefulness
2. To start an exercise/movement programme with Daniel
3. To resume Daniel’s phonics programme
4. To resume a study schedule for the other kids
5. Thursday is Keepers – the girls begin their quilt project
5. Saturday is our monthly co-op – a Family Fun Sports Day and BBQ
I still have to prepare:
Assessment and Goals for Jessica and Nomi (for Moderator)
Joshua and Jessica’s updated reading list
Math lesson from a literature book for Daniel
FIAR Lesson for Daniel
Refresh where we are at with Australian History and Read Alouds
Familiarise myself with the quilt instructions
I had better stop thinking about it and actually go and do it.
Reminds me of a quote Josh found in Winnie the Pooh yesterday
"Pooh felt that he ought to say something helpful about it, but didn’t quite know what.
So he decided to do something helpful instead." Winnie the Pooh
