I went to bed last night determined that today was going to be a focused study day.

8.00 came and Jess and I were both having breakfast so we talked over our plans to improve her writing.  We planned to do a IEW session later in the day.  Jess suggested over lunch so we didn’t miss any of the other lessons planned.

8.00 is supposed to be our family devotion time, so we were obviously ‘running late’ but that is okay – once we ate our breakfast we called the other kids to the table and had a quick reminder about our Bible verses and theme for the week:  to love one another we need to forgive one another.  We talked about holding grudges – or not holding grudges, as it should be.

Then Josh and Jess went off and did their own studies.

Nomi and Daniel and I headed down to the family room for our Bible Studies.  First we spent some time finishing off notebook pages and filing them.  If we don’t file the work straight away things often get lost.  Then we did our next lesson – the Conquest Era of the Old Testament.  After I read a short section the kids drew pictures to represent the main events.

I made a few phone calls while they worked on the notebook pages (drawings).

Then we worked with Exploring Planet Earth.  I read the next episode – we talk about it, draw diagrammes on the white board, and pull out other books that we’ve read on the topic (or need to read on the topic) as we go along.  I’m not doing narrations enough with this time – I need to pick up on that.  After we finished reading/discussing the kids used Google Images to make a notebook pages on the different type of clocks we’ve had over the years.  I wanted them to do a notebook page so they could remember longitude/latitude but they didn’t get to that.

Once again while they worked on their notebook pages I made a few phonecalls and dealt with emails.

Last term we read a story on Beethoven but didn’t get much notebooking done with it.  So before we move onto another read aloud we’ll work on some notebooking.  The idea is to introduce (or remind) the kids on the different types of information they can record when listening to a read aloud.  Today we reviewed the timeline and typed up narrations – Daniels was oral (which I typed) and Nomi’s was written.  I did encourage her to write according to the structure and style techniques she’s previously learnt with IEW.  Daniel did a second notebook page defining some character traits he remembered Beethoven showed.  Once again, I typed while he spoke.  I write mostly as he speaks it but it is time to start working on his grammar during these oral narration times.

Lunch time – while the kids made lunch I made a quick phone call to wish my friend a happy birthday but we ended up talking for quite a while.  I guess I should have known that was going to happen!!

Then Josh, Jess and Nomi watched the IEW lesson on summarising and writing a report from one resource.  Josh is working on the structure of an essay and this really helped him – actually it was the structure of a paragraph within the context of an essay.  We will pick this up again next week and start working specifically on some writing improvements.

That was the end of instructional time for the day.  The girls are on Mainly Music morning tea tomorrow so Jess had decided to make a double batch of chocolate slice (which is becoming the norm for us and Mainly Music morning tea) and Nomi made a custard cake.  We will make a dip tomorrow morning before we go to town.  Daniel spent time typing a diary entry (I think he is copy typing old entries).

So today went more or less according to plan.  It is good to have these types of days every so often.  It wasn’t a normal day as such, the kids didn’t do their independent/discipline studies like math and reading but we covered the things that I set out to cover.