Our week of learning - 20th Sept - Just life lived well!

Current Readaloud: The BFG by Roald Dahl; Pete and Billy finally finished "The Hobbit" which has been their Friday night read-aloud for about 12 months!!

English: Lots of reading & audio books. The big news this week is that he has finally started (with encouragement) sitting and reading books to himself. He reads well to us, but hasn't done much reading by himself. I'm very pleased about it! The books he's reading aren't high quality ("Aussie Bites series") but he enjoys them because the stories are quirky.

Maths: He spent about an hour on the Mathletics website.

Science & Technology: More work on his circuit board kit. He's been doing more work on his websites and making cards with a card program.

He helped me pull the vacuum cleaner head apart to clean it (@#$% cat hair around one of the bits - and we haven't had a cat for nearly 2 years!) and discovered for himself how the air forced the brushes around and how all the dirt was sucked into the bag. He even remembered how to put it all back together - luckily!

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): He learnt about the testing of water quality and keeping the water environment clean at our Waterwatch Training day.


Creative & Practical Arts: Drama, lots of imaginative play, and a trip to 2 art galleries - the Newcastle one to see an exhibition of Aboriginal art and the Maitland one to play in the "Kid's Space" and draw all over their blackboard area.

LOTE (Languages other than English): Nothing formal - lots of practising "hola" and "muchas gracious"...

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): Circus class. Lots of running around and playing (frisbee, cricket, running, catching) with his cousins at a b'day party today.



Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): He helped with tidying, shopping, putting away. He cooked his own noodles and a ham & cheese omelette (with a bit of help getting them out of the pans).

School shows: BTN, Numbers Count, Science Clips, Telling Tales, For the Juniors

Other fun stuff: Magnetix & Lego play. Games of 'noughts & crosses', time on the computer creating cartoons and games.

The other big news - his cast came off on Thursday and all apears to be well. Yay!

Holly? Are you out there?

A homeschooling mum by the name of Holly emailed me about one of my posts, but I get a bounce when I try to reply. Holly, if you are out there - can you send me another email with your email address so I can try to reply to you? I'd hate you to think I was ignoring you!

Book #5 - A Fortunate Life by A.B.Facey

This is an Australian classic. It's an autobiography written by Albert Facey, a man born in 1894 in Victoria who spent much of his life in Western Australia.

He had a remarkably hard life by our standards. He was sent out to work for a living at about age 8 - hard work looking after farms. He worked at various times as a drover, building the rabbit-proof fence, working on the railway hammering spikes on the rail line, farmer, dingo killer, and boxer! As a young man, he fought in World War I at Gallipoli in which two of his brothers were killed, and he was injured. He lived through the Great Depression. He married, and he and his wife had 7 kids, one of whom was killed in World War II.

He was completely self-educated, teaching himself to read & write. He started keeping notes on his life after WWI, and eventually published his book in 1981, just 9 months before he died.

The story is told very simply, as if he's telling a "yarn" in person, but the story itself is remarkable. You realise how much you yourself have "a fortunate life". It's a story that will stay with you long after you've finished reading.

So where's the school work?

I wrote this post on one of our local homeschool forums a few days ago to clarify how we do "school" and I thought it was worth posting here for those that were wondering exactly how we do it.

Firstly some background:

When we first started homeschooling, I was very relaxed about how we did things - after all it was "only" kindergarten and he could already read, write his name, knew his numbers and could do basic sums. We took it easy and just did fun things.

This year we hit 1st grade and I thought we needed to get more formal with our school work. I tried to go with curriculum and structure - and caused more stress than it was worth. So now we're back in a relaxed, "natural learning", "unschooling" style - and he is learning just as much, if not more than before!

*****

I class us as "relaxed eclectic". I actually love this term of "tidal homeschooling" - http://melissawiley.typepad.com/bonnyglen/2006/01/tidal_homeschoo.html

* Disclaimer - this is what works for us and I'm in no way saying that everyone should do it this way! *

I think "natural learning" or particularly "unschooling" is quite misunderstood because it means different things to every family that does it! John Holt first coined the term "unschooling" to be "life without school" - it does not mean there can be no learning, or education or teaching. Generally it seems to mean that much of the focus is on what the child wants to learn - ie child-led or child-directed.

I'm finding more and more that if I try to teach Billy something that he has no interest in it is like bashing my head against a brick wall and is not enjoyable for either of us. And more importantly, he retains very little of it - so why bother??! If he is interested, then he's like a sponge soaking up everything he can!

That certainly doesn't stop me from finding ways to make new subjects interesting to him! Or introducing him to new ideas and concepts. But it means that I need to be prepared to accept that he's either not interested or not ready to learn something yet and to drop it on go onto something else.

We do informal unit studies in things he is interested in - atm he wants to learn more about Captain Cook, so we've been to the library to get some fun books that will capture his interest. I try to do things in a hands-on way or through living books - even Maths can be done via living books!

We don't follow a "scope and sequence" (although I do admit to having a list of concepts that I'd like to cover this year just as a mental checkpoint for me to reassure myself that he is learning!) My point of view is that "scope and sequence" is a very artifical concept that has been introduced by someone to make life easier in schools - and if the Australian states can't all agree on what to learn when, why should we??! I think every child learns things in a different order and at a different time! As long as kids have retained a love of learning, they will learn what they need to when it becomes important to them.

We don't sit down at a particular time of day though and "do school". He's learning from the time he gets up in the morning to when I tear him away from his computer to go to bed at night! He learns to handle money by actually paying for things in the shops, to weigh things by weighing the fruit in the vege shop. We try to make things relevant to "real life".

It also certainly does not mean (for us) that there are no rules. We do not "unparent". While I *try* to parent in a way that respects Billy as a person and give him choices about many things, there are still some things that are non-negotiable!

*****

So that's where our school work is - incorporated into our everyday life.

Wednesday Weigh-In - Wk 24

Weight loss from last week: 0.25kg
Total weight loss overall: 4.75 kg
Total cms lost off waist: 9 cm

0.25kg until I reach my next goal weight!! I did get back into the exercise a bit more this week, but need to stop eating so much bread :(

A Day in Our Life - Sept 15th

I used to do this when Little Jenny Wren was running it and have decided I want to try doing it again so people can see what a "typical" day in our life is like (if such a thing exists!).

5:45 - alarm goes off, lay in bed and listen to news, weather and trivia quiz. Get up and organise DH's breakfast and lunch. He leaves for work at 6:30.

Check emails, read blogs, make breakfast. Try to plan our week, but give up because the brain is too foggy! Billy is playing on his computer making cartoons with Toon Creator.

8am. I have a shower, make beds & put a load of washing on. Meanwhile Billy decides to watch Ghostbusters for what seems like the millionth time.

8:40am. I put my headphones in, put some music on (Grease soundtrack) and start doing some paid work. Billy decides to get his marbles out and plays a game with himself. He then moves onto Lego and starts making up an elaborate scenario.

9:40am. Finish work, go and hang the clothes out on the line. Cut B & I up some fruit for morning tea.

10am. Sit down to watch the school shows from today (BTN & Science Clips) and the ones we'd taped yesterday (Telling Tales & Numbers Count), while we have our fruit.

11am. I go out to the kitchen to start tackling the piles of dirty dishes left from us being out the last couple of days (*groan*) while Billy starts building some circuits with his circuit board. He brings it out to show me - once again, he has chosen one with sound - and an annoying sound at that!!!

He stays to hassle me (um I mean have quality time with me) and has a discussion about the blue tongue lizard we have living in our garden. He wants to know what length they will grow so I send him off to look it up on Google. I'm trying to get him to start looking things up himself rather than using my brain all of the time!!

He comes back, sidetracked, to tell me that the Google image is about crop circles and wants to know what crop circles are. I give him a brief explanation and he goes off to watch some of the videos on google about them.

He finishes that, and I get him back on track of looking up what length blue tongue lizards grow to. He tells me he can't find an answer, so I help him look it up. (600mm for those who are interested!)

12pm. Time for lunch! I pack snacks & drinks while I get our lunch ready, then 10 mins reading my book while we have lunch (B watches some TV). We get organised to go out.

1pm. We leave for Newcastle - an hour's drive away. We have a successful chiropractor's appointment, then get money out of the bank and buy fruit & vege. Back in the car and head into the CBD - we go to the Art Gallery first for about 20 mins - the exhibitions atm are an Indigenous art exhibition and a modern art display. I have to admit I'm not keen on the modern art.


Then walk next door to the library, where we spend about 20 mins looking for books on Captain Cook and convicts, and borrow what look to be some good ones.

Drop the books back into the car and walk Billy to his drama class.

4pm. B's drama class. After I drop him at his class and say hi to his teacher, I head off for a walk around the streets. I try a slight variation on my usual route as I'm trying to add some extra time to it. I end up walking a lap around the park (including up and down the steps) to add on another 5 minutes. Then I collapse in the car, have a drink, eat a banana and read my book until his class finishes and I can go and collect him.

5:10pm. Back in the car and heading home. It's peak hour so never a pleasant drive..

6pm. Get home, put the garbages out and unpack the car. Cook and eat a quick tea.

7pm. Pete leaves for squash, Billy watches some TV and I play on the computer. B moves to his computer and watches cleaning hints on the Lush House site - sometimes I wonder about that child :)

8pm. Start giving B the hurry up for bed. Story, cuddles and then finally he's gone about 8:30ish...

9pm. A quick tidy of the kitchen, put this blog post up and now I'm heading off to bed to read for a while. DH usually gets home from squash after I'm asleep so I won't see him again until tomorrow.

I hope you've enjoyed this glimpse into our life - I'd love to see you do one too! (I know you already do Libby!)

Waterwatch Training Day

About 50 local homeschoolers today went on a Waterwatch training day at the beautiful Williams River, Dungog.


Waterwatch is a government organisation responsible for monitoring water quality in the catchment areas - they mainly do it by training the community to do the testing and monitoring.

So we learnt how to take the water sample, test it for various things like temperature, pH, turbidity (how clear the water is) and salt level.



We also got involved in dipnetting to see what bugs we could find in the river to give an indication of the quality of the environment.


And just as importantly, the kids got to get wet afterwards :)


We had a gorgeous day for it and everyone had a fantastic time.

Our week of learning - 13th Sept - A new website!

Current Readaloud: The BFG by Roald Dahl

English: Lots of reading & audio books. He watched the 2nd part of a spelling program ("Spelling with the Spellits").

Maths: Several Cyberchase episodes - covering probability, area, estimating and fractions. We did a probability experiment - tossing a coin 20 times and recording whether it came up heads or tails. It actually ended up 10 / 10!! He also did some measuring around the house with the tape measure.

He spent many hours completing a computer game called "Clue Finders: 3rd Grade Adventure". It included maths, english, science, geography and logic. He's doing really well with multi-digit addition and subtraction. His method is "non-standard" but it works for him. For eg to add 25+34, he will break that down in his head to 20+30+5+4. While it may not be "by the formula", it proves to me that he understands what he is doing rather than just following a formula.

Science & Technology: He made 'rockets' using a film canister, alka seltzers & water.

The big project that he's been working on this week has been learning to use Frontpage and creating his own webpage (beware - the home page is very colourful!!!). He also used Photoshop and Pivot in it's creation.

I signed him up to Skwirk.com.au and he spent some time on the science section.

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): We had a discussion of Greek mythology including Mt Olympus and Zeus. We read the myth of Pandora's Box from a great comic book of Greek Myths.

At Joeys they had an "Around the World in 80 days" theme and played games from different countries.

Creative & Practical Arts: Drama, lots of imaginative play, and a trip to the Lovett Art Gallery to see an exhibition of book illustations.

LOTE (Languages other than English): Nothing.

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): Circus class plus lots of practicising through the week with his diabolo, devil sticks and spinning plate.

Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): He helped with gardening, tidying and vacuuming.

Other fun stuff: As well as the Joey's fun day, he also invited neighbourhood friends over on Wednesday afternoon for a play.

Joey's Fun Day

Today was our region's Joey's Fun Day - about 200 Joeys (youngest level of Boy Scouts) gathered at a park in Newcastle for a day of activities with a 'Lost in Space' theme. Boy did they have some fun!

Among other things, they did some space themed craft like making rockets & meteors



fired air powered 'rockets'


ran an obstacle course 5 or 6 times!



walked across the rope bridge


made some alien face biscuits


went on the flying fox


and played various 'space themed' games.

I was exhausted - and I was just walking around helping out!! As you can imagine, the boy had a great day!!

Wish me luck - I'm going in!

Yes, today is the day. It's time to go into the frozen wastelands and find alien life forms - or in domestic terms, I'm off to clean out the freezer :)

I've been running down the stocks in the freezer and using up the containers of things that I'm always sure I'll remember what they are when I freeze them, but never do! It's made for some interesting meals!

Next week I intend to do a monthly shop - I'm attempting to go from fortnightly grocery shopping to monthly. It'll be challenging I'm guessing!

What's in your reading pile? September 2009

I've seen something similar to this on other blogs, and thought it was a good idea - I've just never got around to doing it before!

These are at the top of my reading pile atm - after reading a book from the library called "Camelot's Honour", I'm on a bit of an Arthurian kick(again) :)

Currently on the go are:

• "The Betrayal of Arthur" by Sara Douglass - a non-fiction book examining the Arthur legend and how's it's changed over the years.
• "Wild Designs" by Katie Fforde - it's a light chick-lit for the times I can't handle anything heavier!
  

Still to come:

• "A Fortunate Life" by A.B.Facey - an Australian autobiography
• "The Last Gospel" by David Gibbins - I picked this out of the display at the library - it looks like a "Da Vinci code" type book
• "Camelot: The once and future king" by TH White, "The Crystal Cave" and "The Hollow Hills" by Mary Stewart - more King Arthur classics.
  

So share - what's in your reading pile?

Wednesday Weigh-In - Wk 23

Weight loss from last week: 0.5kg
Total weight loss overall: 4.5 kg
Total cms lost off waist: 9 cm

I don't know how I lost 0.5kg - I have had zero motivation and have done zero exercise, but I'll take it :) It offsets those weeks where I worked hard but didn't lose anything!!!

Our week of learning - 6th September - A magical week..

Current Readaloud: We started on The BFG by Roald Dahl - loving it!

English: Lots of reading & audio books. He watched a spelling program ("Spelling with the Spellits") and spent some time on Spellodrome.

Maths: He learnt the concept of "doubling" while learning magic tricks on the PBS kids "Math Magic" site. We also played Addition War.

He played a computer CD called "Arthur's Logic Games" and revised ordinal numbers watching "Count Us In".

Science & Technology: He made another circuit with the circuit board, watched a show on Rocks and Soils, and made a 3 way string phone to see if it would work.

He decided that he wanted a CAD program that architects use (he'd seen one earlier on a TV show about designing cubby houses), so he googled for one, found a trial version, asked me if he could download it, did so, installed it and taught himself how to use it! He designed a house for himself - let's just say the layout is unconventional :) I pulled our house plans out so he could see those, and he spent some time orienting the plans with the actual house (something I am dreadful at doing!).

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): We watched an animation of the Greek myth "Theseus and the Minotaur".

Creative & Practical Arts: Drama, lots of imaginative play, and another trip to the Maitland Art Gallery.

We went to see a play called "The Fastest Boy in the World" - we both really enjoyed it. Lots of great songs and video displays as well as the acting. My favourite scene was when he got an air-guitar for his birthday :)

Billy also made an artwork using a sheet of photo paper, food colouring in a tray of water, and salt sprinkled on top of the picture to create different effects.



He was also busy making Father's Day cards and presents.

LOTE (Languages other than English): Nothing.

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): He reached his "bronze level" in the spinning plate at circus - which means he was able to demonstrate certain skills with the plate like keeping it spinning while balancing on one leg, sitting down and standing back up again, and lying down and standing back up again. Yay!

He also went for a walk around our street to deliver some letters and spent time at the playground with his younger cousins.

Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): He helped with meal preparation, unloading the dishwasher & tidying.

Other fun stuff: He's been busy on the computer as usual - game creator, toon creator, lego designer etc. Lots of imaginative play and playing with lego. He has been busy practising magic tricks, learning new ones, and putting on shows for anyone who will stand still long enough!

Wednesday Weigh-In - Wk 22

Weight loss from last week: stayed the same
Total weight loss overall: 4.0 kg
Total cms lost off waist: 9 cm

I'm back on the weight loss wagon.. I didn't gain any weight over the last couple of weeks of eating rubbish (which is very shocking!)

I have 3 kg to go to reach my next (and possibly final) goal. I want to do it by Xmas but would be nice if it was sooner!

Our week of learning - 30th August - New toys to play with!

Current Readaloud: We finally finished reading Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (adaptation)

English: Lots of reading. We did a spot of people-watching while waiting for an appointment and he made up stories about where the people might have come from, and what they might be doing there. I helped him come up with a list of words he could use in his stories to replace "and then..." eg "suddenly, eventually, without warning" etc

Maths: He watched a cyberchase episode on doing surveys and collecting the results.

Science & Technology: Apart from having a first hand experience of how x-rays are taken (!), he's also been doing some hands on science. He got a pluggable circuit board set for his b'day so had some fun with that - coincidentally, the first one he made played "Happy Birthday"!



He spent a fair amount of time playing around with the Scratch programming language.

He put together a puzzle of the brain (another b'day present!) and compared it to a picture in the Body book.

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): He watched a school show talking about "Working Dogs" - quarantine dogs, guide dogs, sheep dogs and hospital dogs.

We had a couple of discussions about Captain Cook, and the convicts in Australia, and he has decided he wants to learn some more about it. We also discussed what type of things he wants to learn about the Ancient Greeks which are next on our path.

Creative & Practical Arts: Drama, lots of imaginative play, and a trip to the newly re-opened Maitland Art Gallery.

LOTE (Languages other than English): He and his cousin made up a game based on "Rock, paper, scissors" but using greetings from other languages!

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): He was a bit limited at circus class with his fractured arm, but managed to use the spinning plates and the hoops.

Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): He iced and decorated cupcakes to take to Joeys on his b'day.

He also made use of another one of his b'day presents - a Fairy Floss (Cotton Candy) machine! It's so cool - all it takes is a tablespoon of sugar to make a fair amount of fairy floss!



Other fun stuff: He put together a new lego helicopter he got for his birthday, has been busy learning new magic tricks and putting on a show, and playing lots of logic games on the computer like Tinker. He's also found time to play with a pinball machine & a game called "Bop it" both of which he got for his b'day.

He had his Auskick presentation today where they were presented with their certificates and trophy for participating in the year.

Book #3 & #4 - Z for Zachariah & A little history of the world

Z for Zachariah - Robert C.O'Brien

This is a young adult's book set in a small village in America following a nuclear attack. 16 year old Ann is the last person left alive in the valley, which seems to have escaped the effects of the attack by having it's own weather patterns. With the help of the stores in the village shop, her chickens & cows, Ann has settled into a reasonable existence. One day a stranger appears in the village dressed in a "safe suit" - while Ann initially hides from him and watches, when he is struck down with radiation sickness, she comes to help.

She nurses him until he is well - while recovering, he is able to help her by designing more mechanical ways they can do things eg he shows her how to use the gas pumps so she can drive the tractor.

Unfortunately his behaviour towards her becomes increasingly threatening - he tries to rape her, cuts off her food supply and tries to bring her under his control.

I won't spoil the ending by saying any more :)

I think I have read the book some time ago but enjoyed it again as a quick read. The ending was left in the air a fair bit - I found myself longing for another chapter, but then I like things to be wrapped up neatly in a happy ending! If I was at school, I can imagine I would've been given an assignment to write an extra chapter :)

If you've read it, what did you think of the ending?

A little history of the World by E.H. Gombrich

In 1935, 26 year old Ernst Gombrich, with a doctorate in art history, was given 6 weeks to write a history of the world aimed at younger readers. He succeeded very well!!

Just before his death in 2001, he revised the book, and added extra chapters to bring it up to date.

Written in a delightful conversational and story-telling style, the book is not heavy with dates or facts, but gives an overview of the marvels of history. It shows how events relate to each other, and draws parallels between things that are happening in different eras or areas.

I originally bought it as a read-aloud to use in history studies with Billy - I will still do that but I think I'll hold off for a year or two. I just don't think he's at the right level yet, but that would depend on the child.

In the meantime, I've picked it up and had a thoroughly enjoyable read! I learnt heaps that I hadn't known before, and put together some connections about things I thought I did know.

Classics (and more) book list

This is an ongoing list of books that I want to read (or re-read) - I'll keep updating it as I think of others, and strike off what I've read (in yellow).

I've sorted it into some sort of categories now to keep track a bit better.

Classics

• To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee (July 2009)
• 1984 – George Orwell (Sept 2009)
  
• Animal Farm – George Orwell (Aug 2009)
• Homage to Catalonia - George Orwell
  
• Shakespeare’s plays
• Walden – Thoreau

Biographies / Autobiographies

• A Fortunate Life by A.B.Facey (Sept 2009)
• Kings in Grass Castles by Mary Durack (Jan 2010)
• We of the Never Never / The Little Black Princess (Jan 2010)
  
• Mockingbird : a portrait of Harper Lee
• Bbiography on CS Lewis

Non-fiction

• The Future Eaters by Tim Flannery
  
• A short history of nearly everything – Bill Bryson
• A Brief History of Time? – Stephen Hawking
• 
  

Kids / Young Adult

• Z for Zachariah - Robert C. O'Brien (Aug 2009)
• Tom Appleby, Convict Boy by Jackie French (Sep 2009)
  
• Harry Potter series – JK Rowling
• Playing Beattie Bow – Ruth Park
• Narnia series
• Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
• 
  

Historical

• A little history of the world by E.H. Gombrich (Aug 2009)
  

Australian history

• Poor Man’s Orange series – Ruth Park

Fiction that makes me think

• Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Dec 2009)
  

Please feel free to suggest any books you consider must-reads.

Happy 7th birthday Billy!

Our baby boy has turned 7 - amazing!

I chose this photo because it seemed to sum him up - a bit cheeky, cute (well I think so!), busy doing something (that usually makes a mess!), loving being the centre of attention - oh, and in his pyjamas :)

He loves anything to do with computers, especially computer games, cartoons - especially Ben 10 and Scooby Doo, anything to do with science, cooking, magic, Joeys and sport. He loves to sit and watch the news and weather! He thrives on being the centre of attention in a group that he feels comfortable with, but can be surprisingly shy in a new group. He loves to act and is always filming himself perfoming little shows :)

While he can be reasonably independant, he also still loves a snuggle and tells me "I love you" a dozen times each day.

He can drive me mad with arguing and questioning (while I want a child who knows his own mind, I'd just prefer he didn't practice on me quite so often lol), and knows exactly what buttons to push to make me explode, but then will melt my heart in the next instance.

Being his mother is the most challenging, yet rewarding job I've ever had.

Happy birthday to my buddy...

What happens when you get a skateboard for your b'day..

.. and refuse to think that you need to learn in baby-steps...

3 hours at the ER last night - the diagnosis is a possible slight fracture. They weren't entirely sure, so have put it in a "back-slab" - basically a cast that goes along the bottom of the arm and elbow to keep it from moving. The specialist will take a look at the x-rays, and we have to see our local GP later in the week (much easier said than done!) to find out whether he needs a proper cast or if it's ok..

So our science work yesterday was on x-rays :)

The party's over..

Despite being quite a hot day, it seemed to go well. Everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves whenever I looked, and I actually had some time to sit down and chat as well which made a very nice change!

It was fairly relaxed - the only organised activity this year was a treasure hunt, and some water balloons to cool the kids down in the heat.

Billy got some great presents and he has tried to play with every single one tonight! He's really buzzing - both from excitement and party food I suspect :)

Oh, the cake is an Aussie Rules football ground - the swan is the Sydney Swans mascot, and the jelly babies were playing a hard-fought battle :)

This morning before the party he hugged me and said "thank you for organising my party" - way to melt a mum's heart :)

Our week of learning - 23rd August - Birthday party edition!

We focused mainly on life skills this week - ie cleaning, weeding, shopping etc - ready for his party tomorrow (Sunday). We had smatterings of "school learning" in there as well though :)

Current Readaloud: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (adaptation)

English: Lots of reading. At our homeschool meeting, we had a "Collectors Day" - he took along his collection of AFL bits & pieces (posters, footy cards, hats etc), and gave a short presentation about what he collected.



Maths: He picked a 5th grade CD game out of the library called "ClueFinders". Some of the puzzles on there involved maths & logic, and he was giving them a good go - even if he did have to use a calculator for most of the maths..

Science & Technology: Another puzzle on the ClueFinders CD involved manipulating wires and batteries to form circuits. I don't think he's ever done anything like that before but soon figured out how to make it work.

Working in the garden also led to discussions on how rivers are made, and how seeds move from place to place by birds, wind etc.

We also had a discussion on where babies come out, due to a friend's Mum being overdue having her baby. *blush* - I think I handled it matter of factly! He was a c-section, so he's always known that the doctors cut me open to get him out, but I figured when the opportunity came up that I'd better tell him how the rest of the world's babies appear! Let's just hope he doesn't think to ask how it gets there in the first place - I'm not ready for that one yet :)

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): With his Joey's unit, he went on a nature walk on Thursday night. They did a nature scavenger hunt - eg looking for the biggest leaf, a part of the food chain, something with chlorophyll in it; and a worksheet on what habitats they could see in the immediate area eg rocks, logs, grasses etc.

Creative & Practical Arts: Back to drama this week.

He's also been spending time on a "Toon Creator" site where you can use predefined "Ben 10: Alien Force" backgrounds and characters to make cartoons. He's been doing it for a couple of months, and this week I noticed how detailed his cartoons are getting. I think originally he'd have 5 or 6 fairly basic scenes, now he's making them with 40+ detailed scenes. I was also quite amazed to see his use of perspective - making the character smaller over each scene as they "walked" away. All that time watching cartoons is good for something :)

LOTE (Languages other than English): Nothing.

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): Circus class - his skills are really showing improvement at circus. He's slowly getting better at both the devil sticks and the diabolo, and this week was able to do the group skipping - running in to the turning skipping rope, having 3 jumps and running back out again. When he started last term he couldn't run in *or* jump the rope!

Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): Gardening, cleaning, grocery shopping - he's been slave labour this week :) (Well, a very spoilt slave anyway!)

He made chicken schnitzel for tea one night - he pounded the chicken to flatten it, and did the coating. I cooked it up though. That's the first time I've let him touch raw chicken - I've always been pretty paranoid about it, but I made sure he washed his hands properly afterwards - no ill effects yet! It tasted pretty darn good too!

Wednesday Weigh-In - Wk 20 (a bit late!)

Weight loss from last week: gained 0.5kg :(
Total weight loss overall: 4.0 kg
Total cms lost off waist: 9 cm

No Hollywood ending for me - I didn't magically get down to the 5kg goal days before Billy's party :( In fact I put on weight because there is junk food in the house and my exercising has been slack as well..

But I did go and buy myself a new pair of jeans anyway - because losing 4kg is a damn good effort and I deserve to look good in a new pair of jeans!! (Considering my other ones were over 2 years old and came from the op shop originally!)

I won't be trying to lose weight for the next couple of weeks - we have Billy's party on Sunday and I'm sure we'll be eating leftovers for the week after that! I'll be happy to not put on too much..

Some (maybe not-so) quick updates..

A few updates:

Re the tree - it appears the general consensus, both here and at a tree forum I posted on, is that it's an oleandar. Oleandar's are poisonous to kids & animals, so I'm not keen on keeping it around. Hubby can pull it up and throw it away.

*****

Re my commitments - I decided not to go ahead with teaching for next term. I'll see how I'm feeling later in next term, but I probably won't even decide to put in a course for Term 1 next year either. I have enough else in my life that I want to be doing. I have 2 more nights to teach this term and then that's it.

In the meantime, I taught a full-day course at a different community college (prior commitment), and when they asked me if I'd go back, I declined for next term but left it open for the possibility for a couple of one-day courses next year if they don't find someone in the meantime.

I've also tentatively made a decision about not continuing with something else that I do, but I will see out the year. I'm being deliberately vague on that one until I let people know that need to know :)

****

Re my education - I haven't updated for a couple of weeks, but I am still firmly committed to this goal. The trouble is, I have so many books on the go that I haven't finished any of them lately!!

As well as reading, I've also been watching a free lecture series from Yale University on Introduction to Greek History. I'm halfway through the 2nd lecture and really enjoying it (although the intro was a bit long-winded at times).

I've decided for now that I'm going to focus my attentions in 2 areas - I'm going to give myself a "virtual" Bachelor of Arts Degree, majoring in Ancient History and English, from the "prestigious" University of Kez :)

For Ancient History, my first "subjects" are:

* Overview of World History

I'm currently reading a wonderful book called A Little History of the World - it's meant as a kid's book and tells world history as a fascinating story. I am almost ashamed at some of the historical connections I had never made before.

We're also still watching The Teaching Company's Big History course.

Also on my list is Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. This is more science-based I think, but I'll give it a try anyway.

* Ancient Greece

I'm watching the Introduction to Greek History lectures, and reading the associated textbook. I also have some Greek historical books and myths here that I'll attempt as well.

For English, I'm doing a "literature study of classics" - ie reading books that I regard as classics, and then following up by reading a biography or autobiography of the author.

****

So that should be enough to keep me busy, you'd think!

Is this a tree or a weed? Any thoughts?

We've had this tree / weed spring up in the path in our backyard - its now about 3 or 4 foot high with a thin trunk. The leaves are long and thin - most are light green, some are red or mottled red. The leaves have a rather unpleasant smell to me, but I can't put my finger on what the smell is. Does anyone have any idea what it is? Do we throw it out or transplant it?

Our week of learning - 16th August - Ahoy there, me hearties!

Our week was much slower this time - Billy came down with a fairly heavy cold on Monday afternoon, so between him feeling lousy and neither of us sleeping properly with him coughing at night, we didn't have the energy to do much!

What we did do, however, mainly had a pirate theme..

Current Readaloud: Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson (adaptation)

English: Lots of reading plus time on Spellodrome.

Maths: He spent a fair bit of time playing Timez Attack with his 2 times tables.

We also played card games like Addition Wars for maths addition practice, and did word puzzles from a book called "You can, Toucan, Maths".

Science & Technology: He went through most of the section on 'Materials' on the BBC schools Science website. This was teaching properties of materials like changing state, heat transfer etc.

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): We finally uncovered the fruit slices we were mummifying on the kitchen bench :) There was quite a dramatic difference between the mummified one(on the right) and the control slice (left) that went mouldy! (The white is the bicarb / salt mixture we used in the mummification process).


With Billy's help, I finally got around to putting the Egyptian figures on our historical timeline stretching along the hallway. That led to some interesting discussions once we could see how similar the time period was between the Sumerians making their ziggurats and the Egyptians building their pyramids.

Creative & Practical Arts: He missed drama due to being unwell.

We both had fun finishing off our treasure maps. Several weeks ago we'd started the process by 'ageing' some paper - I aged mine with tea, Billy did his with stock cubes. This week I broke out the ink, and we created our treasure maps. Fun :)


We made a pirate costume that he wore to a pirate night at Joeys. They played piratey type games, sang piratey songs, and had a treasure hunt.



LOTE (Languages other than English): Nothing.

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): The last Auskick training for the season.

Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): Some cooking, including making up his own biscuit recipe - it didn't quite work out, but he learnt a few things for next time! He's getting more confident at sliding things into and out of the oven by himself too.

He's been very helpful over the weekend in cleaning the deck, his cubby etc ready for his party next weekend.

Wednesday Weigh-In - Wk 19

Weight loss from last week: 0.5kg
Total weight loss overall: 4.5 kg
Total cms lost off waist: 9 cm

I pulled out a pair of work trousers to wear on Saturday - they were from the job I had before I was pregnant with Billy, so almost 8 years ago. They fitted quite comfortably!!! So I'm now back to a pre-baby weight again - woohoo!

1/2 kg to go until my next goal weight!!!

Sisterhood Award

I was quite humbled to receive a blogging award last week from Belinda at Belinda's Place. Thanks Belinda - it means a lot!

So now for the hard part - to pass it on! (I hate leaving people out!)

The rules:
1. Put the logo on your blog or post.
2. Nominate up to 10 blogs which show great attitude and/or gratitude!
3. Be sure to link your nominees within your post.
4. Let them know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog.
5. Remember to link the person from whom you received your award.

Here are a selection of my fellow "sister bloggers" who I feel show great attitude.

Suji at Funschooling.net - Suji is a fellow homeschooling Mum whose blog name says it all - Fun Schooling. She's always striving to give her son the best learning experience they can have.

Libby at Life is a Journey, Not a Destination - Libby has a great attitude! Over the last few years she has lost a substantial amount of weight and kept it off, and goes on the most amazing holidays with her family. Her exercising constantly puts me to shame!

Julie at Towards Sustainability - Julie is passionate about her garden and living sustainably. She seems to show no fear in jumping in to learn new skills - from embroidery, to jam making, to soap making! She is a great source of inspiration.

The following 3 ladies have really had a great influence on how I homeschool. They all have the best attitudes to life & learning!

Tiffany at Child's Play - Tiff does the most fun Maths lessons with her kids - seriously! I'm always inspired when I read her blog. She also takes amazing photos!

Alicia at Magic & Mayhem - Alicia and her family do the most fun things - her kids seem delightful and I wish we at least lived in the same country as them!

Stephani at Blue Yonder - As well as being an awesome artist, Stephani makes me laugh with her posts about her boys and their fun, adventurous life!

Our week of learning - 9th August - Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

English: Lots of reading plus an hour on Spellodrome. He finished all the books he needed to read for this year's Premier's Reading Challenge.

We watched the BBC Shakespeare's Animated Tales of Twelfth Night, and today we went to see it produced by a local Youth Theatre Company. It was Billy's first Shakespeare play and he was very excited! He must regard it as a "grown-up" thing to do as Pete & I go down to Sydney a few times each year to watch Bell Shakespeare productions, and he gets left behind (with family)! So he was so chuffed to find out he was going this time!

It was a really good job for an amateur production - some very strong performers in it.

We also started reading Twelfth Night in the Leon Garfield's Shakespeare Stories, but haven't finished yet.

Maths: An hour or so spent on the Mathletics site and quite a bit of time spent on the Cyberchase website.

His work on Cyberchase included using Venn diagrams and he did fraction work while cooking. We also played Battleships to reinforce grids and co-ordinates.

Science & Technology: We did a cool experiment involving a lighted candle in a jar, baking powder and vinegar. When you pour a bit of vinegar in to mix with the baking powder at the bottom of the jar, it forms carbon dioxide which rises and snuffs the candle out.

This is a very shaky video of it - my videographer kept getting carried away and forgetting to keep the camera steady!

(video removed)

I showed him how to create a spreadsheet for his pocket money in Excel, so he updated that after he banked some money.

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): Nothing formal.

Creative & Practical Arts: Drama lessons started back. He seemed quite happy once he came out, so we will see how the term progresses.

We had a folk dancing workshop at the homeschool meeting, so he got to participate in some dances from other countries.

He & Pete attended an exhibition of Dr Seuss illustrations on Saturday which they both liked by all reports.

LOTE (Languages other than English): He watched a school show on living in Germany which was in mainly German dialogue. Good practice for my rusty high school German!

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): Auskick training, circus class & a trip to the park.




Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): He deposited his pocket money into his bank account without help - he went up to the counter by himself while I stayed back and watched in case he needed help. The look of pride on his face afterwards was so cool to see!

He also cooked some Anzac biscuits with minimal help.

Wednesday Weigh-In - Wk 18

Weight loss from last week: 0.25kg
Total weight loss overall: 4 kg
Total cms lost off waist: 9 cm

I had some poor food choices this week, but did get back into the exercise with a couple of short walks. So I did lose some, but not as much as I was hoping for.

1kg to go until my next goal weight!!

Book #2 - Animal Farm by George Orwell

"All animals are equal but some are more equal than others."

I cannot believe I have never read this, but then I probably wasn't cynical enough to really appreciate it when I was younger :)

It's a very thinly veiled story of human nature in general & communism in particular - the animals of Manor Farm are sick of working like slaves for the humans and stage a rebellion. They take over the farm (now renamed Animal Farm) and set to work for themselves. They make 7 commandents, one of which is "All animals are equal". All is good and happy. They have plenty of food, and freedom.

Gradually though, the pigs start taking over as the ruling class. The animals start working for the pigs, but they are convinced that they are still better off - after all, they aren't working for the humans anymore. The farm turns into a dictatorship under the leadership of Napolean, the head pig, who rewrites history, spreads propaganda and changes the commandments..

"All animals are equal but some are more equal than others."

I absolutely loved this book! I spent the whole time chuckling wryly at what was happening and thinking "so true!". The copy I'd borrowed from the library was illustrated by Quentin Blake, one of my favourite illustrators, so it was even better!

Definitely a classic!

Our week of learning - 2nd August - Space & Egypt

English: Lots of reading plus an hour on Spellodrome. He was also introduced to similes & metaphors, and homophones.

He wrote a very short story (or more like a script) about being kidnapped and a friend finding him.

Maths: An hour or so spent on the Mathletics site. We also discovered a kid's maths cartoon from the US called Cyberchase - I'd heard of it on one of the Yahoo groups I'm on and bemoaned the fact we didn't get it down here. I mentioned it to a friend who suggested looking on YouTube - why didn't I think of that??! There look to be hundreds of episodes on there! We've watched two so far - one on maps, grids, scale & co-ordinates and the other on measuring.

He also spent hours on the Cyberchase website playing with the maths games.

Science & Technology:

We're still reading "George's Secret Key to the Universe" (it's due back this week so we have to finish in the next few days!). Still on the space theme, we watched the slideshow on this website of the "Power of 10" - it's a series of pictures that "zoom in" by powers of 10 from 10 million light years from earth, down to the subatomic particles in a leaf. I dare you to watch it just once - it's very cool!!

We did an experiment I stole from Dana @ The Sunny Side's blog (it's ok - I told her I would!) showing how molecules move faster in warm water than cold water by watching how a few drops of food colouring disperses.

While at a friend's place they made a projector using a pluggable circuit board kit (its now on my want list!!).

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment):

We still have fruit slices mummifying on our kitchen bench.. You know you're a homeschooler when... :)

We read a beautifully illustrated book on Egypt called The Scarab's Secret.

He made a pyramid out of clay with a golden "treasure" embedded inside (a gold curtain ring), we dried it in the oven and then he played archaeologist and dug it back out.




Creative & Practical Arts: He used Publisher & Photoshop to make his birthday party invitations. Lots of inventive play - that's what he does much of the time!

LOTE (Languages other than English): Nothing I can think of this week.

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): Auskick training, circus class & lots of running around at a friend's place. He's finally gaining mastery of a trick with the flower / devil sticks at circus! In fact the teacher commented how much he's improved since he started last term.

Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): He made jelly all by himself - under very anxious and close supervision with the boiling water!

I've discovered that he's now tall enough to reach the clothesline so he helped me take the towels off the line and fold them.

Re-evaluating our commitments

You know you're over-committed when:

1. You look at the month just starting and wish it was over already

2. It becomes a major logistical exercise just to organise to get-together with friends

3. You hope that your classes get cancelled so you can have a break!

I'm looking seriously at what we're doing at the moment in terms of outside commitments. I can't do much about this term though as we've already paid fees or otherwise committed to things.

Billy was in the car the other day, and was telling me the activities he does in order of how much he liked it. Joeys (Scouts) was a definite number 1 - he absolutely loves every minute he spends there. Auskick (Jr AFL) was a pretty close number 2. Circus was number 3 and drama lagged behind as a poor 4th. In fact he said it in a tone of voice that implied it was torture to him :)

This is his 2nd year of doing drama - he loved it last year but has been luke-warm to cold about it this year.. I think part of it is the fact that they got a new teacher last term - she's lovely, and probably a great teacher, but his old teacher was bubbly and like a big kid herself. Billy adored her. To make matters worse, they spent most of last term practicing for their play - Billy is not a child that enjoys rehearsing over and over again - especially when he doesn't even have a speaking part!

So I'm wondering why I'm spending an arm and a leg AND driving an hour each way to his lessons when he doesn't enjoy it! I've told him he has to go this term (since I've paid the fees!), and he can make his mind up at the end of the term whether or not he wants to continue. I think we might take a week off in the middle of the term too just for a break.

Auskick finishes sometime this month I think, so that will free up a night soon.

I'm also looking at what I'm committed to. Each term I teach a course or two at our local community college. I'm in two minds whether to continue, although the "not continue" mind is winning. Once again I'm committed to this term, but I have to make up my mind in the next few days about next term. It brings in a couple of hundred dollars (when the courses run), but its really hard to juggle with the rest of the family's needs. At the moment I run from the drama pick-up to teaching and we have to swap Billy over on the side of the road! It inevitably clashes with Pete's squash which means he has to take Billy to squash with him, and then it's a late night for Billy. Which means then Wednesday is a bit of a write-off - we lose a day in the week! I think I'm just in a bit of a rut teaching there - I'm not teaching anything too exciting or that couldn't be taught by others, and I don't have the enthusiasm to come up with a new course on anything.

Anyway, just thinking out loud if anyone has read this far :)