Our week of learning - 14th Feb - Movie time!

This was a fairly interrupted week - we were still away on holidays on Monday and Pete came home from a trip on Wednesday. We just seemed to be all over the place. We pretty much ambled along for most of the week but seemed to gain a bit more enthusiasm by the end of it.

Current Readaloud: Five on a Treasure Island

Audio books: Just Crazy by Andy Griffiths (very boy-oriented!); Beware of the Gingerbread House by Emily Rodda

Independent Reading: He finished reading Jack Stalwart: The Theft of the Samurai Sword. I looked up the information for the NSW Premier's Reading Challenge last night and realised he can start reading books towards it even though he can't register til March. I'm going to register him in the Yr 3-4 level (even though he's only 'officially' in Yr 2) which means he has to independently read 20 books from the approved reading list. Jack Stalwart will be his first!

English: He researched some facts about Baden Powell (the founder of Scouts) and wrote an information sheet as part of his Promise Challenge for Joeys. He was quite disgusted to be told he had to hand-write it, not type it (by the leaders, not by me), but he did it without any complaining!


Maths: We did some logic practice by playing a game of Cluedo Jr - he's starting to get the hang of the strategy of it. We watched an episode of Cyberchase, he weighed some fruit at the grocery shop and tried to work out approximately how much it would cost and I gave him an introductory 'lesson' on binary numbers as part of our robots investigation. I didn't know how well he'd understand, but he got the hang of how the numbers worked quite quickly and was asking some good questions.

Science & Technology: While he was moving stuff around in his cubby (sorry, I have to call it a clubhouse now!), he uncovered some little lizard eggs & some newborn lizards so we investigated those and looked them up on the internet to confirm what we were looking at.




We also watched the evolution videos on Risa's blog in honour of Charles Darwin's b'day - he particularly liked the Simpson's one :)

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): He played the Pink Panther Passport to Peril CD again which teaches about different countries as the Pink Panther visits each one.

He made his own Chinese New Year Dragon for Chinese New Year (it appears to be a mythical white dragon!), and we cooked Chinese tonight to celebrate (sweet & sour pork - delicious! & fried rice).



Creative & Practical Arts: Drama class. He's also been having a 'Mr Bean fest' and watching the episodes over and over. It's provoked many discussions on the way Roman Atkinson uses visual humour with Billy predicting what would happen a few times.

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): Little Dragons martial arts class, an obstacle course at Joeys.

Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): He begged me to make fresh pasta last night, so we did. He had fun using the pasta machine to flatten it out and then made up his own shapes. I stuck with fettucine :)

School shows: Not on yet.

Other fun stuff: Pete came home after 10 days away in the US. We also got 'Up' out of the DVD shop and watched it again - twice!

Are you on Facebook?

I initially joined Facebook because a couple of friends from online groups had drifted away from the group and were using it pretty exclusively. I wanted to keep in touch with what they were doing so I joined too.

I added a few friends that I knew and checked it sporadically. Now several groups that I'm on have moved across to it or use it in addition to their other forum. So I check it most days, leave a comment or two if I feel like it and keep in touch that way.

Do you facebook? (Is it actually a verb??!) If you do, and you'd like to be friends ('do you want to play with me?' lol), I'm Kez Ptol on there. Let me know who you are when you add me. A word of warning though - if you send me any hugs, gifts, flowers, animals or request that I join groups or participate in silly status updates etc, don't be offended when I don't play along :)

Impressed with myself :)

I bought myself an overlocker a few weeks ago (actually it was even longer than that since I ordered it since a certain well-known chain starting with S and ending in 'light' doesn't keep stock of sewing machines in store!!!)... Anyway... It stayed in the box while I read the instruction manual and tried to figure out how the heck to use it! I took it away with us on the weekend so that Mum could help me set it up and stop me freaking out that I was going to chop my fingers off :)

I love it!

So ta-da, presenting the first thing made on my new overlocker - a pair of boxer shorts for Master B!

Our week of learning - 7th Feb 2010 - Macbeth & Robots!

We've had a bit of a theme of Robots going on this week. Billy decided he wanted to learn more about them, so that's the direction we've headed (as well as a lot of other bunny trails).

Current Readaloud: The Lemonade Trick, Five on a Treasure Island

Audio books: Billy listens to audio books every night as he goes to sleep, plus on his music player and sometimes in the car, so I thought I'd start recording what he listens to.

We've been listening to Andy Griffith's "Just Macbeth" in the car - an adaptation of the "Scottish play" for younger audiences - basically add fart jokes into Macbeth and you've got the idea! It's actually very funny and well done - we'll have to keep an eye out for the stage play coming to Newcastle again. I think it toured last year but I thought he'd be too young.

He's also been listening to 'The Waterhorse' by Dick King-Smith.

English: We watched the movie 'Robots' which led to many discussions on character & plot development, as well as vocabulary work. There is a scene where Fender sings "Singin' in the Rain" so I found the original Gene Kelly sequence on YouTube and Billy watched it.

He's been reading a book of magic tricks that he got for Xmas, and then trying to do the trick by following the instructions - if that's not 'reading for comprehension' I don't know what is!!

To my great pleasure, he's been keen to actually sit and read this week - woohoo! The book that's grabbed his attention is a Jack Stalwart one: The Theft of the Samurai Sword. I like those books - they're a good mix of an easy to read chapter book with cultural information about a different country (in this case, Japan).

Maths: One of the magic tricks he learnt involved the use of parallel lines - this was a new concept for Billy so we had a discussion on those.

Science & Technology: He wanted to learn more about robots, so we got a few books out of the library. One that we've started reading together is called 'How to Build a Robot'. Obviously that meant he wanted to build one - so we trotted off to our local electronics store to see what we could find. I'd love to buy the Lego Mindstorm NXT kit but at $400+, finances just won't agree! So we ended up with a cute little sound detecting robot that we had to build. (ie I had to do the majority of the fiddly bits like building the gears and putting wires where they needed to go and he helped me with the bigger bits).


It's so cool - it turns towards the sound of your clapping and moves towards you!



He also spent some time updating his website.

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): We had a social day at Blackbutt Reserve with the natural learner's group, and had a great time going around looking at the animals.

On the weekend we spent ages looking at the mangrove eco-system and had a walk through the wetlands.

Creative & Practical Arts: Drama started back this week. He seemed to enjoy it again.

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): Little Dragons martial arts class, fishing, swimming, walking and running around at the playground.

Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): Just general contributing to the household.

School shows: Not on yet.

Other fun stuff: Joey's started back again for the year, and he's started working on his Promise badge.

Exploring our local area: Karuah

40 mins drive from us is a little town called Karuah - the highway to Brisbane now bypasses it and it's a sleepy little town (but welcoming according to the website!) Other than travelling through it, I have no memories of ever stopping there, so I wasn't sure what to expect when we headed there for a weekend away.

My sister and nieces, and Billy & I shared a cabin at the caravan park and Mum & Dad took their van. We spent a lovely extended weekend there, with the kids going fishing & swimming, we all explored the mangroves that were literally right outside our verandah, did lots of mud-crab and bird-watching, jumped on the giant jumping pillow (well the kids and I did anyway!) and even took in a wetlands walk on the way home in honour of World Wetlands Day last week.

We found a lovely park there that will be great for day trips to go fishing.

The only down side to the whole weekend was the @#$%^ midges / sandflies! But I guess you get that when you're camped on the edge of a mangrove!

The view from our cabin's verandah!

Water lillies at the Karuah Wetlands

We spent hours watching and photographing mud crabs. They were fascinating!

Our week of learning - 31st Jan - out and about

We had a lot of running around this week - I think we were in the car more than we were at home! So not much to report this week.

Current Readaloud: The Secrets of Droon - The mysterious Island

English: I downloaded some Shakespeare stories for Kids from the My Audio School website and he listened to some of those a couple of nights before bed. Thanks to Katie over at Katie's Homeschool Cottage for reminding me about that website!

We finished watching "Tin Man" - a futuristic version of "Wizard of Oz". It's amazing how many references to the book & movie Billy is now finding in other shows, books & art works!

Maths: We played the Fractions & Decimals board game.

Science & Technology: We played a science board game that he loves called 'Totally Gross'.

I found out that Mars was quite bright in our skies this week so we went out before bed one night and had a look see! We convinced ourselves we saw it anyway! I also found that the Sydney Observatory site has a monthly sky chart that you can print out (for the Australian skies) so we'll be using that next month to find some constellations - hopefully!

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): We made lamingtons for Australia Day.

Creative & Practical Arts: At the homeschoolers social day, Billy and a group of friends were making up little plays and acting them out together. It was cute to see :)

We also went to the Newcastle Art Gallery today for their free 'art cart' workshop. After a look around the gallery, they were told to make something on the theme of "monsters". Billy made the winged monkey and spider monsters from 'Tin Man'.

He's started practising "Happy Birthday" on the keyboard and made up his own tune.

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): Little Dragons martial arts class (twice), fishing, swimming and running around / scootering at the playground.


Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): Just general contributing to the household.

School shows: Not on yet.

Other fun stuff: We went to see 'Alvin & the Chipmunks 2' today.

Fish and Lamingtons...

No, not a bizarre new diet, but a summary of a couple of our days this week!

On Australia Day (Tuesday), we made lamingtons. It was my first attempt at a sponge cake - let's just say it needs a lot of work, but it didn't seem to affect the lamingtons too much!

For those unfamiliar with the delicacy, you take a sponge cake, cut it into squares, layer with jam, roll in a chocolate mixture and then coat in coconut... Nice & messy :)

And then, eat :)

You can read more about lamingtons - including a link to the official lamington website (who knew??!) - and see the recipe we used at the BTN website.

*****

On Wednesday we went with my family down to a park on Lake Macquarie to go fishing. The kids had a swim, and a fish, our parents fished and I sat and chatted with my sister and watched the local wildlife..

And Billy caught his first fish! And then his second! It was a very exciting day!! (even though they were both under-sized and had to be thrown back...)

Our week of learning - 24th Jan - Webkinz World

Billy saved up his pocket money and bought himself a new Webkinz (for the uninitiated, they're a cute, cuddly toy that has a unique code to get into their website and play games). He was given one by a friend a couple of years ago and played on the website a bit, but after 12 months it expired and locked him out of the website. He decided he wanted to get back in, so searched on ebay until he found the one he wanted! He was hanging out until it arrived on Wednesday and has been on the website every day since.

Current Readaloud: The Secrets of Droon - The mysterious Island

English: He spent time on Spellodrome and earnt a certificate for the week. We played a game of Rainbow Scrabble (an easier scoring version of proper Scrabble). He answered a 50 question Language Arts quiz at Quizzy's Corner (on the Webkinz site) - he learnt terms like 'synonym' and 'antonym'.

Maths: He spent about an hour on Mathletics over the week and earnt his weekly certificate. This was his first time on it since moving up to the Yr 3 level. He came across a couple of new concepts like rounding to the nearest hundred, as well as some pretty tough 2-digit mental addition.

He also answered a 50 question Maths quiz at Quizzy's Corner - its quite an odd feeling to be asked at 9pm "Can I answer 50 maths questions now Mummy?"!

Science & Technology: We did a couple of science experiments this week as blogged previously - making marbled paper with chalk and the baking soda / vinegar & peanuts experiment.

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): We went and did our monthly Waterwatch testing and picked up some rubbish along the river bank while we were there.

Creative & Practical Arts: I bought a canvas and some acrylic paints for him (at his request) and he had a great time painting a portrait of his 2 Webkinz animals as King & prince! (They're the black and white figuers down towards the bottom - the yellow is the castle).




PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): Little Dragons martial arts class. He also answered yet another 50 question quiz on Webkinz about Health - questions about nutrition, the body, road safety etc.

Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): He made a cake by himself (with me supervising and getting it out of the oven) and iced & decorated it all on his own.



School shows: Not on yet.

Other fun stuff: His cousin had a b'day party on today so he had fun playing with his cousins and some of their friends.

Fun Science

We did a couple of cool science experiments this week.

The first, called Streaky Paper, came from the book "Giant book of cool stuff".


(experiment 13 in the Science section)

You begin by placing bits of chalk into ziplock bags (one colour per bag) and use the rolling pin to crush it up into a fine powder.

Tip each colour into a separate plastic cup and mix with 1 tablespoon of cooking oil.

In a large plastic bowl (as you can see, we used a baking tray instead), fill with water and add 2 tablespoons of white vinegar.

Pour the contents of each cup into the bowl. The chalky coloured oil should form large coloured pools on top of the water.

Lay a sheet of white paper on the surface of the water.

Lift out and place on sheets of newspaper to dry. Once dry, carefully wipe off any surface chalk grains with a paper towel.

We experimented with different amounts of oil - too much left it very pale and light-coloured, too little and the chalk mixture sank to the bottom.

The scientific explanation behind it - the molecules of chalk (calcium carbonate) and vinegar (acetic acid) and water and the surface of the paper all chemically mix together to make a chemical bond. This causes the streaky colours to stick to the paper.

Suggestions for use - wrapping paper, writing paper etc.

Our other experiment came from reading 'The Magic School Bus gets baked in a cake: A book about Kitchen chemistry'.



It's a simple one but it amused us for a while :)

Put some water in a jug and add 2 teaspoons of bicarb soda (baking soda) and 3 teaspoons of vinegar.

Throw in 5 or 6 peanuts and watch what happens!

The bubbles from the carbon dioxide will form on the surface of the peanuts and cause them to float to the top. The bubbles will then slowly pop and the nut will fall back down again. Repeat :)

We used cashews because that's all we had - they were probably a bit large as they were quite slow to rise - it did eventually happen though. We also added some sultanas later on and they were much quicker to rise and fall.

So there you go, some simple but fun science for the week!

Me join a gym? When pigs fly!

Guess what, did anyone else see little piggies in the air above their heads today?!

I went to a BodyBalance class at our local gym last week - it's a combination of Pilates, Tai-chi and Yoga. I loved it! My abs hurt for a couple of days afterwards, but in a good way!

So I went back tonight and I actually joined up to the gym for 6 months. It works out cheaper to go to the class that way than as a casual member plus I can use the equipment and if I'm brave enough, go to any other class I want to as well. I might turn into a gym junkie :)

Now to convince myself that nobody is looking at me and sniggering :)

Our week of learning - 17th Jan - holidays over?

Back into the recording..

Current Readaloud: Famous Five - Five on a Secret Trail, Artemis Fowl

English: Not much reading on his own this week.

Maths: Lots of 'Living Maths' - adding prices at the supermarket, measuring while cooking etc. We also played a few games of Monopoly.

Science & Technology: He made slime using a kit he got for Xmas. He's also been working on making a new website.

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): Reading the 'Famous Five' book introduced him to Romain ruins, coins and pottery so I pulled out a kit called 'The Roman Child' which had cardboard 'replicas' of pottery & coins. He had a brief read through the book.

Creative & Practical Arts: He moved his keyboard into his room and has been practising 'When the Saints go Marching in' some nights. I must find something other sheet music for him!

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): He started a martial arts class which he really enjoyed. He also spent time at the playground when we went for a picnic with another group of homeschoolers.

Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): He's spent a fair bit of time in the kitchen this week - among his accomplishments were pasta and apple crumble.

He's been helping Pete out with painting some shelves for the office.



He sewed a door stopper (bag filled with rice) to go behind one of the doors.

School shows: Not on yet.

Other fun stuff: He got a new xBox game for a late Xmas present and has been busy mastering that. He's scarily good at it! A friend of his came over through the week and taught him a few tricks on it as well.

Turning off the voices..

A friend asked me how I was going to go about "being me". I was emailing her, discussing a few things when I realised what the first step had to be. (Actually I'd written the email, hadn't yet sent it and was in the shower when I realised! - how's that for the naked truth lol)

My first step has been to start to "turn off the voices in my head". Does anyone else have a running commentary in their head of what other people think about what you're doing?? I'm now gone 'no-mail' or taken off my daily reading, the forums and websites that tell me "what to do" - I'm sure you all know the type - how to be a better parent, a better homeschooler / unschooler, a better housekeeper, a better money saver etc etc etc. I haven't completely unsubscribed, so I can go back to them if I need advice on something specific, but I'm not getting bombarded with other people's opinions on "how to".

I'm not going to read a self help book or go searching the internet for "how to be me". As silly as that sounds, I was going to...

I've turned off the voices so maybe now I can hear mine.

The Naked Truth about Me...

Thanks for the lovely comments on my theme for the year - both on the post and via email (including Mr Spammer..). I'm glad a few people are joining me in trying to be a "yam" :)

Like Libby said in her comment, our blogs are often quite sanitised. I tell the truth in the posts, but maybe not the "whole truth"...

So some true confessions:

• My house is a mess. It ranges from a bit messy (the type you can say "excuse the mess" if anyone drops over and only feel a bit embarrassed) to 'kick a path through the room' messy (where you feel mortified if anyone drops over). Anyone who knows me personally - please give me notice before you come over :) I've tried heaps of things including Flylady - I've been on Flylady lists from when there were only a couple of hundred people - and everything only works for a short time. Although I do remember a time in 2002 when it was tidy - that's when I was on maternity leave and nesting :)
  
  I've quite recently come to the conclusion that it's unlikely to change - at least in the near future. Housework is obviously not a priority with me or one of the schemes would have clicked. I have a good handle on the laundry, and the dishes get washed on a regular basis, my bed is made every day - as for the mess, well it gets tidied when I can't stand it anymore. It obviously doesn't bother anyone else in the family, and if it does, well, they're quite welcome to clean it themselves...
  
  
• I'm not a "natural mother". I don't seem to have that mothering instinct that some women do. I don't get clucky around babies, or want to cuddle them when I see them. It's hard work for me. I need a lot of alone time. I don't know how I'd cope if I had another child.
  
  
• I'm quite a serious person. I'm not the life of the party. I don't enjoy playing games or being silly. I'm very self-conscious when I do. I do like watching comedy (mainly British) but I'm not into 'Funniest Home video' style or American sitcom humour. I have a very dry sense of humour (almost black) that many people don't get so it stays hidden a lot.
  
  
• I think I like reading about gardening and self-sufficiency far more than I like actually doing it. I'm not an outdoors person which kind of makes the gardening bit hard :) I'd prefer to sit down and read a book..
  
  
• I've just realised for a blog called 'Kez's Blog' there's not really that much about me in it!

OK, that's enough soul baring for now! If anyone else wants to post their naked truths, let me know when you do.

Theme for the year

Last year I chose the word "Balance" to focus my year. To a large extent, it worked - by the end of the year I had a far better balance of the different areas of my life. There's still work to do though.

I've been thinking of what word I could use this year and had pretty much settled on "respect" - respect for family, friends & myself, but I had one of those blinding flashes that come on every now and then. Respect for myself was really the major part of what I was reaching for.

So I hereby declare this year to be:

2010 - The Year of Being Me. "I yam what I yam"

Yeah, it's more than one word, but that's kind of the point. This year I want to focus on discovering myself. I'm basically insecure and have spent most of my life trying to fit in. I want to be able to do what feels right to me without worrying about what other people think, or what some 'expert' says to do, or what every else is doing. I want to do things I *want* to, not what I think I *should* do. I want to be able to read what other people are doing and think "wow, that really works for them, that's great" rather than beating myself up because they sound so much more fun / with it / caring / focused etc than me.

I have a long way to go - even while I'm typing this I'm thinking, "Gee that sounds selfish - what will people think??!"

In the long run though, I think if I'm more secure in myself, it will reflect favourably in my relationships with others. Or maybe that's just me making excuses so people will still like me :)

I have no idea how I'm going to achive this, but I'm putting it out there. And I'll just keep repeating to myself - like Popeye, I yam what I yam.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...

I hinted before Xmas about a fairly major lifestyle change we were contemplating and now that it's official, I can reveal the news..

Pete handed in his notice at work yesterday - as of mid-February, he's going to be working for himself from home. It'll be quite a change in many ways - all three of us will be home together most of the time (we're setting Pete up in a room as an office so he hopefully won't be too disturbed by us!). He currently commutes an hour each way to work, so he'll have an extra 2 hours each day. Plus his hours will be flexible, so he might be able to join in with us sometimes.

Financially will be interesting - going from a steady income to working for himself will have its own challenges. We're setting aside money as a buffer though to help insulate from the ups and downs of a small business.

It's all very exciting!

A week of no 'have-tos'...

Look at this!

I have a delicious week in front of us with no 'have-tos'. A few 'should dos', a list of 'want tos' but no 'have-tos'... I'll be pottering around the house catching up on tidying, installing my new computer, catching up on blogs and emails, maybe a trip to the library or the park, a fair chance of some grocery shopping but we'd survive if I didn't.

It feels good!

Almost time for home...

1 more day to go before we pack up and head home. We've had gorgeous weather this week, so there's been the opportunity for some:

swimming at the beach,

bushwalking in the Dorrigo National Park (Dangar Falls),


and some time on the biscuit & toboggan behind Uncle Linc's boat.

We also took a trip to Coffs Harbour to the Big Banana but it's a huge disappointment now. There used to be a train ride around the plantation while they showed you how they grew & harvested the bananas. That no longer exists - and they have very little of the banana plantation left either. It all seems to be a big tourist trap for the purposes of cashing in on the Big Banana name and getting kids in to the waterslides, toboggans and ice-skating rink that are on the premises. Very sad :(

We did however watch them make some awesome 'rock' lollies at the Lolly shop on-site! And then treated ourselves to a very nice lunch at a seafood cafe on the river at Urunga.

A feast for the senses

• the sound of the birds - chirping, carolling, calling to each other
• the 'thwack-thwack' of people walking by in thongs (*), the crunch of their shoes on the gravel, the squelch of wet feet in crocs
• the clang of the toilet door shutting a thousand times each day
• the constant drone of cicadas
• the sounds of kids playing - squeals, calls, laughter interspersed with the odd toddler tantrum and sibling squabble
• the feel of the breeze and the sun on my face
• the sound of the milko in the morning with his 'cow horn' and the seafood man later in the day 'fresh prawns, fresh prawns, other seafood available'
• the click of bike tyres and the harder sound of the scooters, skateboards and rip-sticks
• sounds of an impromptu cricket match or footy match or game of catch
• the smell of bacon in the morning and steak, onion and sausages at night
• the greetings 'morning' as people pass each other and the inevitable small talk about the weather or the cricket
• happy sounds. holiday sounds.

* thongs - flip-flops, footwear, not the underwear kind :)

Happy New Year!

Finally some photos of what we've been up to - well Billy really. I've been sitting back reading my book as much as possible, and Pete has been working on the computer and playing computer games.

When the weather's been fine, there's been lots of:

swimming

fishing

more fishing

putting on a magic show

and when the weather was not so good, lots of this...