What a full on day.  Last night I decided to get rid of paper piles (and I mean piles!) in my office.  Space is limited (made no better by my piles) in the office so my sorting space was the dining table, which made eating meals there impossible.  Thankfully the weather turned nice again and we ate most meals outside.

 

No Car
I didn’t have a car today – Pete’s died so he needed mine for work.  Tricky, since Thursday is my big out and about day.  But with a few phonecalls to my friends plans were changed and everything covered.

 

Extra’s to homeschool today

I was going to have an extra two for Nature and Library in town, so instead their mum dropped them off here and took my older two into town with her.  So I had a “class” of 4 for the morning, Nomi 11, Daniel 8, B-girl6, R-girl4.  Since I got distracted with my piles of paper again this morning I wasn’t quite ready for lessons so they played a few board/card games together.  We then had our Nature time (this doesn’t come naturally to me so it has to be planned and organized!)  We read a little from “The Wonderland of Nature” which is my text book and guide at the moment.  Then we went outside looking for ants, especially to see if we could see any evidence of the things we had read about.  Then we came inside and created a notebook page – we made ants by using an inkpad and fingerprints and we cut out a photocopy from one of our books of an ants next underground.  Nomi had to write/type a narration later on as well. 

 

Then it was morning tea time, and table time where the girls worked on their worksheets that mum sent along, Daniel did his language lessons.  Daniel read 3 sets of sight words getting a good percentage right or most importantly remembering to sound out not guess if he wasn’t sure.  It is amazing what changes happen from one lesson to the next.  No math today.   When each person was finished they sat on the mat reading a book till everyone was finished.  Then Nomi took everyone down to the chook house to see the chicken.  Then it was time out for everyone with a movie “Auto-B-Good” which was new to Daniel so he was bursting throughout the morning to sit and watch it!

 

It was good for me to have such a structured morning and to see the different mode of operation I fell into when I was responsible for more than just my own children.  There were some things that I would do well to remember, even when it is just Daniel.

 

The older kids
Meanwhile Jess was at Mainly Music.  Her morning tea went down well.  Once she got home –with her friend HW – they had lunch and got into working on their creative projects.  HW is finished her quilt so she was making a needle case but Jess still had the binding to do on hers.  She worked all afternoon, along with visiting with her friends, and now only has the hand stitching to go. 

 

Nomi had some time to herself which she spent journaling outside –till she discovered a next of centipedes right where she was sitting so she lost motivation!  She then spent the rest of the afternoon on her embroidery.  Actually I caught her performing and dancing a few times so that must have been for comic relief!!

 

Josh had a productive morning in the library, with his main goal to write an article in response to one of the articles in the TIME magazine.  Josh is working well to our assignment sheets.  We have broken the term into two study blocks and set goals.  The goals are to be finished by the end of the study block but we have broken them down into weekly goals to help set the pace.  He then spent the afternoon at his friend’s, JW, place.

 

My afternoon

I had a productive afternoon, with being able to focus on my papers and giving the girls directions and help when they needed it.  I even sat down and started to test the next project for the girls – crocheting a mp3 player bag.  I am glad I did this as the cotton I bought for the girls will drive them nuts – it nearly drove me to distraction!  So we will give the fancy cotton a miss for our first project and just work with plain ole wool.  Not so exciting but the girls can always do a second project with the nice cotton.

 

It was quite late when everyone left (Mrs W and I talked for so long!!!) I quickly made spaghetti bolognaise (thanks to my menu I knew what I needed to do, and I had planned it to be a simple meal knowing I had people here in the afternoon).  As I said, the table was not available to eat dinner so we ate in the lounge. I delayed my dinner so I could finish our read aloud to the rest of the family while they ate.  We have been reading Daddy Long Legs.  It is written in a style where the story is told through a sequence of letters (only letters, and only from one correspondent and the receiver of the letters doesn’t write!).  The girls loved it.  Daniel struggled.  So our next read aloud is to be a funny one.  The main character in Daddy Long Legs (the writer of the letters) had many beliefs that were not in keeping with the Bible but were easy to discuss with the children so though at times I wondered if the book was worth reading, considering we were discussed these things along the way I think it was.  There were plenty of other really good, thought provoking lines as well.  I am glad I read it as a read aloud instead of just giving it to Jess though.

 

Once the kids started the dishes etc I fell asleep on the couch, without touching my dinner, so Pete sent me to bed and I was fast asleep by 8.00pm!  Unheard of – but there you go – it did happen. I’ve woken incredibly early – my body clock is way out of whack… but to keep talking about that would be the beginning of Friday’s story!