Wednesday Weigh-In - Wk 32

Weight loss from last week: 250 g
Total weight loss overall: 5.25 kg
Total cms lost off waist: 11 cm

I'm going to take a break from weighing in and trying to lose weight for the moment. I've lost about 5kgs, my clothes fit a lot better, I'm back in a healthy weight range and I feel a lot better. Yes, I wouldn't mind toning up a bit more and I will still continue to exercise and monitor my weight but I'll stop reporting in weekly.

Thank you for all of your encouragement and support over the last 32 weeks! It's been much appreciated...

6 week exercise plan - wk 4

Do you want to hear my excuses this week??! lol

Monday - rest day
Tuesday - 10 min walk (it was 38 deg C!)
Wednesday - '10 years thinner' exercises
Thursday -
Friday -
Saturday -
Sunday -


I exercised twice so it's NOT a failure! Just not as good as I'd wanted.

Our week of learning - 8th Nov - just life!

Current Readaloud: More Aussie Bites.

English: Lots of reading (mainly Aussie Bites & Boyz Rule series) & audio books. A trip to the library to get yet more books!

Maths: He's been measuring & weighing as part of general life. He's been adding up prices, sticking to a budget, getting the money out of his bank account, paying for things and calculating change.

Science & Technology: I found a new beginner's programming environment called Alice that he's been using. It's a storytelling environment - it's similar to Scratch in the way the programming works but more intuitive in some ways I think. You can do some cool stuff with camera angles and special effects on it!

For the Juniors was about space this week.

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): As part of community awareness for the Caring & Sharing badge, they had two special guests at their Joey's meeting this week - a vet & a policeman (both dads of the kids in the group). Both men spoke about what they do and how they help the community.

Creative & Practical Arts: He made a box house for his stuffed animals one rainy day this week. I got to help with the engineering side of things - stairs & walls etc :)


His drama class did another read through of their script and started to act it out.

We visited Newcastle Art Gallery to look at their latest exhibitions.

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): Playing with friends outside, circus class.

Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): He learnt how to cook fried rice, helped with general meal preparation and making biscuits & a b'day cake for my mum. He helped me water the garden.

School shows: Numbers Count, For the Juniors (space), Telling Tales, Count Us In, BTN Special.

Other fun stuff: He decided he wanted to ask a friend over to play after school this week - so he looked up his phone no, called him up, left a message and then arranged a play date when his friend rang back. They had a good time playing together.

It was my mum's b'day on Saturday so we spent the afternoon / evening with them down on Newcastle Foreshore. Prawns & a chocolate cake - not a bad way to celebrate!

Wednesday Weigh-In - Wk 31

Weight loss from last week: gained 250 g
Total weight loss overall: 5 kg
Total cms lost off waist: 11 cm

Arrrggghhh! Back up again this week. I'm tempted to blame the tablets, but I think that's just a cop out! I'm slowly getting back into the exercise -
* 1 x 10min walk (it was 38 deg, not an ideal time to be exercising!)
* 10 min workout.

Our week of learning - 1st Nov - social butterflies!

We had a very social week this week. Two homeschool group meetings, a play date with another friend as well as drama and joeys!

Current Readaloud: An older book we picked up at a book sale - The TV kid by Betsy Byars. We've also been reading more Aussie Bites.

English: Lots of reading (mainly Aussie Bites & Boyz Rule series) & audio books.

Maths: He's been coming up with and working through lots of problems lately like "if I'm selling 10 chairs for $20, how much will 3 chairs be?" It's good to see how he goes about tackling the problem.

Science & Technology: Whenever we've been home, he's pretty much been on the computer this week! He made a Powerpoint presentation about the weather, he's been using Photoshop to manipulate images for his website, he's added quite a few new pages to his website, and wrote a Pacman game using Scratch that also went on his website - check it out, it's very cute!

The school show "For the Juniors" this week was about the stars.

We put together some skeletons (which while not exactly anatomically correct was close enough for general familiarity with ribs, pelvis, leg & arm bones etc). We also talked about the digestive & waste systems using the diagrams & overlays in a great book we have called "Body" by Robert Winston.

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): While I was cutting out skeletons, Billy read out to me about the traditions of Hallowe'en and where they originated.

Creative & Practical Arts: Our homeschool group had a visit to the local Maitland Art Gallery. We were split into groups, had a tour around the gallery and did 2 workshops - a print making one and portrait drawing. (I'm not sure who Billy's glaring at in this photo - someone was obviously encroaching on his space lol).




LOTE (Languages other than English): Nothing.

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): Exercises with his dad, scooter riding, time at the playground, walks, playing at the beach.

Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): He cooked donuts with just a bit of assistance, we made biscuits together and he made up a recipe for a spaghetti bake (which wasn't too bad!).

School shows: Numbers Count, For the Juniors (stars), Telling Tales, Count Us In, BTN Special.

Other fun stuff: We went to the beach with some homeschool friends on Friday. There was only a bit of swimming due to blue jellyfish in the water but lots of digging in the sand. I stayed up with the bags, read my book and took photos while another mum supervised Billy and her kids on the beach. (Win for me lol!)

6 week exercise plan - wk 3

Definitely not a great week. I came down with a UTI on Tuesday night - long story short, I saw the doctor on Thursday, she made an educated guess about which antibiotics to start me on, and then rang on Friday night (after the test results had come back) to change them to the right ones. So I didn't get started on the correct antibiotics until Saturday morning. I've spent the week in varying states of discomfort - from mild to "someone shoot me and put me out of my misery". Today is the first day I've started to feel normal..

I did manage to exercise twice before that, so that's better than nothing!

Monday - rest day
Tuesday - '10 years thinner' exercises + 30 min walk
Wednesday -
Thursday -
Friday - 10 min gentle walk
Saturday -
Sunday -

I should be right to get back into it early next week though.

Boo!

We've been making skeletons today - anatomy lesson Halloween style :)

Wednesday Weigh-In - Wk 30

Weight loss from last week: 0 g
Total weight loss overall: 5.25 kg
Total cms lost off waist: 11 cm

A bit of a plateau this week - due mainly to some poor food choices. So far this week I've exercised twice -
* 1 x 30min walk
* 10 min workout.

Our week of learning - 25th Oct - outer space & plays

I find it fascinating how themes emerge some weeks without being staged. This week had a space theme - on Monday Billy came across a "test tube alien" kit he'd been given at some stage and decided to grow it, on Tuesday we had a trip to the observatory with his Joeys & Cubs group, and some of the school shows this week were about space as well.

Current Readaloud: We've read a few Aussie Bites books together this week and are currently reading "Secret Agent Jack Stalwart: The Mystery of the Mona Lisa". This is the 2nd Jack Stalwart we've read - they're pretty good chapter books for kids this age. They blend facts about the country (in this one France) with a mystery that Jack has to solve.

English: Lots of reading (mainly Aussie Bites series) & audio books. He's also been reading a series called "Boyz Rule" which are set out as a 2-person play. He also wrote a very brief script for a play that he and his cousin performed.

Maths: He spent some time on the Mathletics site and finished off the Year 2 curriculum. He was struggling a bit visualising the section on faces, edges & corners of cubes, triangular prisms etc, so I made him some little figures out of modelling clay. That seemed to help make it click and he was able to understand. He's now moved up to the Year 3 level.

Counting corners of a cube!

He also watched a few Cyberchase episodes.

Science & Technology: He played a science board game with his cousins called "Totally Gross".

He went on a trip to a local observatory with his Joeys and Cubs group - they got to look through a $7000 telescope at the moon and the stars. I snuck a peek at the moon, but I'm telescope challenged and couldn't see much!

The school show "For the Juniors" this week was about the moon.

He's also spent time updating his website, and using Pivot (animation software). He had his first programming lesson with his dad using C#.

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): He's learning bits about France (a few words and some of the geography) by reading Jack Stalwart.

We went on a picnic with some other homeschoolers to Blackbutt Reserve where we could look at the native animals and feed the emus!




Creative & Practical Arts: He did some woodworking with his grandfather when we went there for a visit. He took photos of the animals at Blackbutt Reserve. His new drama class started this week where they got to read through a script - he was very excited by that! He's also been reading some books called "Boyz Rule" that are set out as plays.

LOTE (Languages other than English): He decided he wanted to put together a poster with how to say hello in different languages. I helped him find a website with some greetings on it, and he did the rest.



PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): Exercises with his dad, scooter riding, time at the playground, walks - he's non-stop! His circus class started back this week as well.

Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): He cooked breakfast of cereal & a cup of tea for me this morning. We made popcorn balls and biscuits. He helped his dad cleaning the BBQ.

School shows: Numbers Count, Being Spanish, For the Juniors (moon), Telling Tales, Count Us In, BTN Special.

Other fun stuff: He grew and has been looking after a "test tube alien" - now I get to say things like "Have you fed your alien today??!" :)