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Once life gets full of extra people blogging just stops happening.  I’m glad it is that way.  But since I started out to blog about the learning going on everyday this week I thought I’d catch up with slightly briefer versions for Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Friday:

The plan was for me to have my friends children for the day, so she could have some productivity time.  She kept the baby (1yo) and I had the other four – 13yo, 11yo, 6yo, 4yo.  The plan was for us to do structured lessons in the morning, rest time over lunch and free play for the afternoon.  It was a good plan.

We started our lessons with a Reading Journal exercise.  For the older ones this was about thinking about the story, asking questions and giving a narration/summary.  For the younger ones it was about giving a narration (orally which I wrote down) and drawing a picture.  This activity was based on a Max Lucado story, With you All the Way, which served as a devotional for us as well.

Then the older two girls (my Jess 14yo, and LC 13yo) went to the dining table to work on their independent studies while the rest of us did some mapping activities.  We looked at how can you make a flat map from a round world.  Once we made tennis ball globes (from a flat map – kind of our question in reverse) we talked about God having the whole world in his hand and how huge God must be.

After lunch out on the veranda the boys were full (and I mean full) of energy so Josh took them all (Daniel 10yo, JC 6yo, PC 4yo) down to the cattle yards for a run and climb.  When they came back they chose (of their free will) to play lego instead of watch a DVD.  Eventually they watched the dvd and then went outside to play for the rest of the afternoon.

The middle age girls (Nomi 13yo, HC 11yo) cleaned up after lunch and then had free time for the rest of the afternoon.  The older girls (Jess 14yo, LC13yo) had free time till it was time to make pizza for both families for dinner.

Mid afternoon the kids playing outside went for a swim in the channel – they stayed there till we called them in just on dark. 

In the mean time my friend had a productive time at home and instead of coming to pick them up decided to stay on for a movie and pizza. 

It was a full day – it was great to spend the day together and to be able to work in with each other this way (Next Friday is my turn and she has my kids!)

Saturday is our housecleaning day though this Saturday we had a few extra projects as well.  Josh had some weeding to do down in the Sandalwood so he took Nomi for a spell and then Daniel relieved her for the remainder of the time.  Before Daniel went down to the Sandalwood he made another bookcase. 

Jessica blitzed the house (putting away all those little things that get ignored throughout the week).  And then the girls and I worked on filling our bookcases.  We sorted all the picture books and non-fiction books.  It removed ½ the pile from my bedroom (if you remember the photo from a few days back!  Here’s a photo taken after Joshua found a very pertinent sign)

We had visitors for the evening meal so Jess cooked dessert – an apple crumble, Pete looked after the meat out on the BBQ and I did veggies and salad.  It is good for the kids to sit at the family meal table when we have visitors and learn to sit and listen to adults talk, or to be involved in conversation when appropriate. 

Sunday – This Sunday was one of the rare Sunday’s when no-one from our family was on roster for anything.  It was nice to be able to sit all together.  Straight after church Pete had to catch up with someone regarding a funeral that he is conducting later in the week – the kids and I headed home.  About an hour later we had the brother of a vet whom Pete used to work for come visiting for a while (along with his wife).  Our town is on the highway around Australia so we get a lot of visitors.  Oh.. funny story – Pete was talking to this older gentleman at church and he said, “Do you know a Letchford, a ……???? (trying to think of Peter’s name) and Pete had to say “ ahhhh? Peter Letchford? – yep, that’s me!”  This man was good friends with Peter’s uncle and parents from way way back.  Plus he was the chairperson of some board to do with Leucaena (tree legume) and Pete would be one of the experienced growers so he was very excited to meet Peter, unfortunately because of our afternoon plans we didn’t’ catch up with them much.  This type of thing happens often – it is a small world.

We made a last minute decision to go to a concert that was a combined church event.  We didn’t’ know about it till this morning.  Josh was asked to set up the sound.  The sound equipment etc is still all fairly new and challenging to Josh but he did very well.  There was high expectations (but not with out a lot of grace and kindness on the performers part) and he was able to keep his cool and be flexible and resourceful.  It was a great experience for him.  One of the nice things was that several older men actually made the effort to commend him.  He appreciated that (so did I).