Our week of learning - 18th April

A busy week despite it being "school holidays" and not having normal activities on. I'm a bit light on photos though due to my poor camera being rather difficult to use atm!

English:

Current Readaloud: George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt by Lucy & Stephen Hawking.

Audio books: Jack Russell: Pet Detective by Darrel & Sally Odgers; Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

Independent Reading: Boyz Rule: Race Car Dreamers; Boyz Rule: On the Farm

Other: Playing scrabble and learning about spoonerisms.. (eg a lazy dog = a dazy log)

Maths: Whiteboard puzzles, watching an episode of cyberchase and playing the Cyberchase Quest on the computer.

Science & Technology: He went to a Science day with the CSIRO for kids aged 7-12. They made an environmental flycatcher, carried out food testing experiments with iodine etc, and made (and ate!) dry ice slushees!

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): We watched James May's 20th Century about body parts, artificial limbs etc.

We attended Steamfest - a celebration of steam engines. We looked at steam trains, steam farm machinery, steam engines of various types. He had a ride on a miniature steam train!



Creative & Practical Arts: We went to see a play at the Civic Playhouse called Grubble - about a mischievous goblin in an Enchanted Forest. It was very cute and well done.

While in Newcastle we also checked out 2 of the art galleries - one of which is currently exhibiting drawings by my very talented cousin!

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): He (and the rest of his class) were awarded with a white tip for their belt at martial arts - a step towards his next level belt. He was very excited!

Also Auskick (Jnr AFL) training started back with lots of basic skills practice.



Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): We weren't really home enough to do much!

School shows: -

Other fun stuff: His triplet cousins had their 4th b'day party!

If you're wondering why things have been quiet around here...

Last week was insanely busy.. Next week doesn't look much better... This week looks like the week from hell...

*deep breath*

Crime Investigations Unit

For those who expressed an interest in the Crime Investigations Unit we did...

I've managed to scan the printed sheets I had back into a PDF so if anyone wants a copy of it, email me through my profile and I'll send it to you. The PDF is about 25Mb.

We used the worksheets that were in the middle of the document, but there are copies at the back, so that's why there are page nos missing.

How Low Can You Go Challenge: Day 11-14

It's been an expensive few days! but generally all budgeted for.

Monday - $35.55 Cubs uniform, $35.50 fruit, vege & eggs and $10 martial arts

Tuesday - the Home ice-cream van did its rounds, so we couldn't resist the lure of the bell :) $6.90

Wednesday was an expensive day! We caught the train to Newcastle ($10.40), went to a kid's play, bought a programme & magic wand ($8), ate lunch out ($9) and then caught the train back.

The play was excellent though and it was all budgeted for.

On the way home, we called into KMart and bought Billy a new pair of footy boots and some socks ($33). Then into Foodworks for butter, ham & soft drink ($31.39) - not all budgeted for, but we resisted pretty well!

Thursday wasn't much better! Billy had a science workshop in Newcastle ($70), and while he was there, I had to go shopping for b'day presents. They come out of the gift budget account so I won't count them - they came in on budget though. I bought lunch out of my spending money - I should've been good and taken lunch with me, but I didn't.... The spending challenge did stop me buying a few things that I looked at and would've bought, but didn't need.

Running total - Food - $139.79, extras (budgeted) - $186.95.

I can't really remember what we've been eating each night, but we did make a very nice upside apple cake (adapted from an upside pineapple cake recipe Billy found on taste.com.au). Oh and I pulled some sweet & sour sauce out of the freezer that I made a while ago and made sweet & sour pork one night.

Head on over and give my friends who are also attempting the challenge some encouragement too - Korina and Renelle.

Our week of learning - 11th April - Crime Investigation

Most of this week has been focused around the crime investigation unit I blogged about earlier.

English:

Current Readaloud: George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt by Lucy & Stephen Hawking.

Audio books: "Specky Magee and the battle of the young guns" by Felice Arena and Garry Lyon.

Independent Reading: Jack Stalwart: Australia by Elizabeth Singer Hunt.

Other:

Maths: Measuring tracks in the Crime Investigation Unit, magic squares and word puzzles on the white board.

Science & Technology: Crime Investigation Unit - tire tracks, fabric analysis, fingerprints, chromatography, powder & drink analysis.

He also watched an episode of The Happy Scientist about measuring volume of air.

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): We watched James May's 20th Century about the history of space flight.

Creative & Practical Arts: He made up a story based around the 'crime investigation' and videoed it.

He's been making up songs and playing them on the keyboard.

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): He went to Martial arts twice this week. Jumping on the trampoline at friend's house.

Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): Lots of cooking & food prep this week - making fresh pasta, gingerbread men, breadcrumbs.

School shows:

Other fun stuff: We went to visit friends and he played Twister for the first time (as well as lots of other things).

How Low Can You Go Challenge: Day 8, 9 and 10

Spending over the last couple of days:

$4 bread
$10 martial arts
$5 soft drink for Pete

Running total - Food - $57, extras (budgeted) - $20.

For Friday's dinner I made the most delicious bolognaise sauce and Billy & I made fresh pasta to go along with it. Yummy! With the sauce, I used beef stock instead of the red wine, and also added a rasher of bacon and a couple of sliced mushrooms. It was really rich and tomatoey. Even better, the recipe made enough for half of it to go in the freezer for another night.

Saturday night Pete had a mate over to watch the football, so for dinner we made a couple of homemade pizzas (ham & pineapple, and a meatlovers style with ham, bacon, frankfurt, mushroom & tomato, plus a small garlic pizza). For dessert we made golden syrup dumplings and homemade ice-cream. The ice-cream didn't set properly, but it was nice with the dumplings anyway. There were not a lot of leftovers from the meal!!

Tonight was pork chops, mashed potatoes, squash, zucchini and carrots.

Lunches have been toasted sandwiches or leftovers.

Oh and someone asked about Mountain Bread - it's a flatbread that can be used for wraps etc. Quite versatile!

Crime Investigations Unit

Some time ago (like a year or two) I downloaded and printed out a unit called "Crime Investigations: A Science Workshop for teachers in grades K-3" by Linda S. Hodges. Unfortunately I have no idea where I downloaded it from, and I can't seem to find the original either on the internet or on my computer. So you'll just have to take my word for it that's its great!! (I'd appreciate it if anyone comes across a link!)

I filed it away at the time because Billy was a bit young for it then, but knew it would be perfect for this 'holiday' week when I came across it again recently.

So over the course of 3 days, we put on our detective hats and tried our hand at crime investigation...

Analyzing tire tracks:

I gathered several toy cars with different tire treads on them (the Police car just came along to investigate - I'm not sure why the tank was there! :) ) While Billy wasn't looking, I ran one car over the ink pad and onto the worksheet to make tracks.

Billy then had to make the tracks of all the cars onto another sheet, examine them under the magnifying glass and note any uniqueness to the patterns. He measured the width of the sample and the tracks he'd made - that narrowed it down to 2 possible cars. He then had to examine them closely to determine which car had made the tracks.


After it was over he made up a story about all the different cars and the investigation, and filmed it on the video camera!


Investigating fabric samples:

Apparently the alleged criminal had ripped his shirt at the scene of the crime. I cut out 4 sample pieces + the unknown one from old white fabric in the rag cupboard. I think I used calico, t-shirt material and cotton.

Investigation involved examination under the magnifying glass, feeling the different fabrics and then dyeing them with red food colouring to examine how the different fabrics dyed in different ways.


A combination of the tests was enough to work out which fabric the unknown sample matched.



Taking & comparing fingerprints:

Using the ink pad and also rubbing our fingers on a sheet of paper where we'd rubbed a soft graphite pencil, we took our fingerprints. (We even took Pete's fingerprints as well). Billy then examined the fingerprints under the magnifying glass and determined whether we were arch, whorl or loop. We tried lifting fingerprints from a glass but were unsuccessful...


Doing chromatography on the ransom note:

Billy collected 3 different black textas from around the house, and I wrote a note using one of them on a strip of paper towel. He then had to draw a line on the other strips using each of the textas, and put each of the strips into a glass of water with the strip just touching the water. After a few minutes, the ink separated into its different colours and it was easy to match which texta was used to write the note. We tried initially using a couple of permanent markers and interestingly they didn't separate. It was a bit of a duh moment for me when I realised hmmm, that is probably the point of a permanent marker lol.


Billy wanted to expand on this one using different coloured textas - we saw this one at a homeschool meeting recently. So he set up another experiment using different colours.


Identifying foreign drink samples:

The criminal stopped and had a drink while he was at the crime scene and left behind a drink of an unknown dark liquid. I made up glasses with tea, coffee and pepsi and left them out overnight so they'd be harder to identify.

He started off by smelling them to try to identify the mystery drink. We decided tasting wasn't a good idea since it could be anything!, so then tested their pH. I was quite surprised to see how much more acidic Pepsi was than tea or coffee!

Once again we then expanded the experiment to test the acidity of orange juice and apple juice. (Both were still less acidic than Pepsi!)


Identifying foreign white powders:

We also found some white powder at the crime scene!

I made up bags to test with salt, sugar, plaster of paris, corn flour, bicarb soda and talcum powder. He tested a sample of each with vinegar to see if there was a reaction, then a separate sample of each with iodine. Finally he mixed the rest of the sample with water to see if it dissolved, what colour it was and whether the powder floated or not.


There was another unit involving lipstick smudges, but since I don't wear or own the stuff, we skipped that :)

It really was a good unit, and it was the ideal time to do it when we had a week at home without rushing out to other commitments. We only did 2 experiments each day which was more than enough for Billy's attention span - and mine too I have to admit! It took a fair bit of time to set most of them up, but it was quite enjoyable and something out of the ordinary!

Book Review: House Rules by Jodi Piccoult

After I saw this reviewed on a couple of other blogs, I had to grab it when I saw it in the library. I have to admit I've only read one other Piccoult (My Sister's Keeper) and really struggled with it - the story was really well written, just very confronting.

House Rules is the story of an 18 year old boy, Jacob Hunt. Jacob has Aspergers Syndrome and is obsessed with forensic science. He turns up at crime scenes and solves the crime for the police, and is obsessed with a crime show. When his tutor is found dead, his Asperger's traits like not looking people in the eye, and showing little emotion, lead to him being arrested and charged with her murder.

The story is told from the points of view of Jacob, his mum Emma, brother Theo, the policeman Rich and his lawyer Oliver. I don't know how accurate the portrayal is of someone with Aspergers - I suspect some of the characteristics were emphasised for the sake of the novel. I found it quite a compelling read, though I had to put it aside for a few days half way through as it got a bit intense.

Recommend.

Camera Fund

Yesterday, to my utter dismay, I dropped my camera on the wooden floor.. Fortunately it still works - as in it still takes photos. Unfortunately, the clips that hold the battery flap closed broke off, so the flap needs to be held shut with packing tape. Not ideal... Especially when you need to change batteries while out.. "Hang on while I just tape my camera back together..." :)

I don't want to depress myself too much, so I've only had a cursory search to find out how much I'll be up for. I very much doubt it would be able to be fixed as the clips are part of the main camera case. It looks like I can probably get a similar quality one for about $600 - $700.

One the plus side, I have been wanting a new camera for a while (esp since I tried my mum's with the 20x zoom - and mine still has a 10x zoom). This will just focus my savings intent!

So I'm starting the 'Camera Fund' to save up - and hopefully my old one will keep working with tape until then!!

I have some ebay auctions up atm that are doing quite well (for books), so that'll be the first deposit when they finish.

How Low Can You Go Challenge: Day 5, 6 and 7

We had to go out to the library on Tuesday so while we were out I ducked into Aldi for 5kg flour and 4L milk. Oh, and then I put some sausages & buns in the trolley as well because I was feeling lazy and wanted something quick & easy to cook for tea before I went to yoga. And the apple juice that DH asked for - he's cutting down on diet cola so I was happy to help with that! All up $18 - not too bad - the flour should last the rest of the month and the milk will last a couple of weeks (I put one 2L carton in the freezer).

My box of fruit & vege arrived yesterday - I'd already paid for it online but I'll count it in here. The produce looks quite good quality and will force me to be a bit creative as there's a few things I rarely buy (button squash, zucchini, mushrooms). It was light on our staple of potatoes, but that's not a bad thing - it'll break me out of my comfort zone! $30

Lunch for me was chicken noodle soup using the chicken stock I made the other day and toasted sandwiches for the boys. Dinner was chicken schnitzel made using our home-made breadcrumbs with chips.

Today we went to visit friends for morning tea and made some gingerbread men to take to share. The kids then decorated them while we were there which was fun :) Lunch was the leftover sausages from Tue night, and dinner tonight was beef stirfry using the last of the hoisin sauce and the last of a packet of stirfry frozen veges. I'm slowly but surely using up odds and ends.

The only spending today was $10 for Billy's martial arts.

Running total - Food - $48, extras - $10.

Oh and I figured out how to set the timer on the washing machine so that it starts about 6am and finishes before the off-peak price period ends. Now to figure out if I can turn off the little tune that it plays as well!!

I have a sewing room!

What used to be a guest room, is now my sewing / craft room!! It still needs some shelves or something to put my bits & pieces in, and to put some of my nick-nacks on display, but that will have to wait until April is over :)

How Low Can You Go Challenge: Day 3 & 4

It's certainly a lot easier to not spend when you're staying at home :)

No spending again for the last 2 days - we've been busy decluttering our spare room, so I've listed a heap of books on ebay. Hopefully I can even make some money today! I've given away a lot of books on Freecycle as well.

We ran out of milk but I've survived with powdered milk in my tea. I've been fairly busy in the kitchen:

• making crackers out of Mountain Bread (cut mountain bread into smaller bits, put on an oven tray, spray with oil and sprinkle with salt - stick in the oven for a few minutes until the desired crispness),
  
  
• starting to make breadcrumbs out of the crusts of bread in the freezer - I put the bread in the oven tonight to dry out while tea was cooking; will stick it in the blender tomorrow,
  
  
• I made my own BBQ sauce to go on the pork ribs we had for tea tonight. I had to substitute a few ingredients, but all in all it was quite yummy!
  
  
• I made chicken stock out of the leftover chicken carcass from lunch the other day.
  

Speaking of food - does anyone have any ideas for what I can do with a can of chickpeas in the cupboard? We're legume novices, so something innocuous looking that we'll eat!

Our week of learning - 4th April - Easter

A fairly quiet week with one of the activities already finished for the term. Much of it has been focused on Easter activities.

English:

Current Readaloud: George's Cosmic Treasure Hunt by Lucy & Stephen Hawking.

Audio books: "Beware The Gingerbread House" by Emily Rodda.

Independent Reading: Boyz Rule: Basketball Buddies, Simpsons' Comic Collection.

Other: He played several games of Scrabble online as well as a 'proper' (ie non-online) game with me.

Maths: He solved some riddles that I put on the white board in Morse Code, and a magic square puzzle.

Science & Technology: We watched an episode of Bill Nye The Science guy about light. He informed me that he prefers Robert Krampf's (The Happy Scientist) videos.. We also watched one of Krampf's about inertia.

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): He started listening to the Horrible Histories "Terrible Tudors" audio book. We also watched James May's 20th Century about how the "world has shrunk" through the use of the plane, car & television.

Creative & Practical Arts: Drama class.

Chocolate making at the homeschool FBI get-together.

We attempted egg-blowing (ewww - never again!) and then dyed the eggs with food colouring & a splash of vinegar.


He drew patterns on some of the eggs with a candle to stop the dye absorbing in those places. So while the candle was out, he also did some wax-resist painting.


PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): Martial arts. He showed off his circus skills at the FBI homeschool meeting.

Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): He's getting more comfortable handling our cat; he came along with me to the vet while the cat got his needles and spent the waiting time reading the posters about animal care in the waiting room!

We made another couple of batches of Hot Cross buns together.

He helped Pete build a couple of flat-pack bookcases and has been helping declutter our spare room.

School shows: Behind The News Extra.

Other fun stuff: Lots of Club Penguin, Webkinz and other websites.

How Low Can You Go Challenge: Day 2

Another no-spend day today.

Pete's parents came out to visit us for lunch and brought along a BBQ chook and some buns, so we had chicken & salad rolls. I also made hot cross buns for afternoon tea which were pretty yummy! (based on this recipe on taste.com.au)

We'd had a large lunch so we didn't feel like much dinner - we made do with leftovers.

So a very frugal day. Unfortunately I've used up the last of the plain flour now so will have to buy some in the near future - I do have enough bread mixture made up for another 3 loaves though, so will put it off as long as I can. We're also running short on milk.

How did everyone else go?

How Low Can You Go Challenge: Day 1

Today was a good day for spending - we didn't go anywhere :)

I made some vege soup for lunch with a can of tomatoes, some stock & celery from the freezer, a couple of carrots and some herbs & spices. It proved quite adequate with a freshly baked baguette - I started back making bread a couple of weeks ago from the Artisan Bread in 5 minutes a day book. I don't try to make all the bread we eat, but its nice every few days when I have the time to make a loaf fresh for lunch.

Dinner was crumbed fish from the freezer with home-made chips.

Thanks for everyone's good luck wishes!

April Challenge: How Low can you go?

Cindy's Porch are having a How Low can you go? challenge during April. I'm going to join in as things are rather tight financially at the moment. That's one of the joys of working for yourself I guess :) We do have money set aside in our Emergency Fund but I don't want to dip into that unless I have to.

My main money leak currently seems to be food - both takeaway and ducking to the shops to buy a couple of things... which turns into $50 worth of stuff you didn't really need..

I just did an inventory on the freezer - I have 19 meals worth of meat in there. There are 29 dinners left to make in April - we should be able to get a night of leftovers each week, and another night of meatless / low meat each week, so that brings it to 27. Close enough!

So my challenge is to not buy food other than eggs, fruit & vege, bread & milk. I can get bread & milk quite cheaply at the local servo, and I've just signed up to get a box of fruit & vege delivered weekly (they sell local free-range eggs as well). My incentive with that is to try and be forced to cook and eat more veges. All going well, I shouldn't need to step foot in the supermarket all month.

The other part of the challenge will be to not spend anything unless its already budgeted for.

Wish me luck :)

A quick look behind the scenes

It was a busy week this week, but I took care not to let it get too overwhelming. We were out some part of every day, so the rest of the day we spent relaxing or doing non-strenuous things.

I got my priorities in order on Tuesday and rather than rush home from the rockclimbing so Billy could go to drama class, we spent the time instead with family and gave the class a miss. It was much more enjoyable and good to spend quality time with my sister and nieces who are busier than we are!

Billy came down with a heavy cold mid-week, so that was another reason to take it easy. He seems to be pretty much over it other than a bit of a cough at night. Between his cough and a kitten that thinks 4am is a great time to start batting your owner's face to wake them up, I've been rather sleep-deprived! I'm sure the lady in the chemist thought I was a bit slow as I was really struggling to focus to answer her questions about what sort of cough Billy had!! I did have a 2hr nanna-nap yesterday - that really helped!

As I was half expecting, I became secretary of the Scouts Parents Committee on Thursday night - I knew the old secretary had resigned, and no-one else was jumping up to take her place, so decided to volunteer if no-one else did. Needless to say, they didn't..

I did get to my BodyBalance class (yay!) but didn't get to the gym other than that. I've also been falling into the trap of eating everything in sight to keep awake (mainly sugary or starchy food), so I really need to focus on eating more healthily this week.

I got most of the stuff crossed off my to-do list this week - I don't know why I go away from lists, they really help me. I'm slowly making an inroad into turning our guest room into my sewing room - we got rid of the spare bed on Freecycle this week. Next is to get the bookcases set up in there.

So while it was a busy week, it was a good week on the whole.

Our week of learning - 28th March 2010 - Rockclimbing, Archery and inventions

It's been a busy week again this week with lots of new experiences!

English:

Current Readaloud: Jack Stalwart: The Search for Sunken Treasure (Australia) by Elizabeth Singer Hunt.

Audio books: "Does my head look big in this?" by Randa Abdel-Fattah; "Cry of the Cat" and "The Gingerbread House" by Emily Rodda.

Independent Reading: Boyz Rule: Skateboard Dudes and Boyz Rule: Battle of the Games.

Other: He created a poster advertising his AFL tipping competition (writing for a variety of purposes). He's been playing several games of Scrabble online.

Maths: He spent time using Timez Attack, we watched an episode of Cyberchase (about enlarging using grids) and using an idea I found at Risa's blog, I gave him a couple of problems on the whiteboard from the Problems of the Day sheet. He particularly liked the code and made up one for me to solve too. (Thanks Risa!)


Science & Technology: He used Microsoft Publisher to make his AFL tipping poster. We learnt a bit about Thomas Edison (sparked by an episode of The Simpsons), looked at some of his inventions in the "How Nearly Everything was Invented" book and he set out to make some of his own inventions. Most didn't make it past the conceptual stage :)

We watched 3 videos on The Happy Scientist website - how mirages work, floating bubbles on a layer of CO2 and how to make butter from milk.

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): He got some quiz cards handed down from his cousin, and spent some time with her doing some Arts, Sports & Leisure questions.

Creative & Practical Arts: He made up a play with his cousin and they performed it for the family.

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): Rockclimbing at a local PCYC organised by one of the homeschool mums.


"Feral Archery" - indoor archery - with the Joey Scouts.


Practising his diabolo circus tricks.

Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): He's learning how to care for our new cat.

We made Hot Cross Buns. The recipe was very yummy (esp the one Billy added choc chips too), the texture was good - but it was more like a fruit bun than a hot cross bun. The search for the perfect recipe continues...


School shows: Behind The News Extra.

Other fun stuff: They learnt the reef knot at cubs - I must get him a bit of rope to practice with now!

Our new baby!

Meet Kit Kat - the newest member of our family. He's a 14 week old Russian Blue and we picked him up this morning. I'm starting to remember what it's like to have a toddler in the house :)

Our week of learning - 21st March - Goblins, canoeing and da Vinci

Quite a mixed bag this week - very busy and lots of fun.

English:

Current Readaloud: Finally finished The Adventurous Four by Enid Blyton

Audio books: "Does my head look big in this?" by Randa Abdel-Fattah

Independent Reading: Jack Stalwart: Peril at the Grand Prix (Italy) by Elizabeth Singer Hunt.

Other: We watched "Prince Caspian", the 2nd in the Narnia movies.

Maths: He took part in a play about goblins (teaching multiplication by 2s, 5s and 10s) at the FBI homeschool group.


He spent some time playing Timez Attack.

Science & Technology: Participated in an experiment involving chromotography at the FBI group.


Made a lava lamp using oil, salt & food colouring.


We went along to a Da Vinci Machines exhibition - it was very good with quite a few hands-on exhibitis. They had a working Archimedes screw to move water from a bottom trough to a top one, a bridge challenge that you could pull apart and put back together - that one took us a while - I was glad hubby was there lol. There were templates to make a little Da Vinci parachute out of paper and string - all the stuff was there to do it on the spot. A mirrored room that you could go into, a pulley system to demonstrate that pulleys make lifting easier and heaps of cogs & gears of various types to turn.

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): We caught the train home from the Da Vinci exhibit, had lots of discussions about the role of the conductor etc and he practiced reading the train timetable.

The audio book he's listening to at the moment is about a Muslim girl who decides to wear the hijab (head scarf). It's given him an awareness of Muslim culture.

Creative & Practical Arts: Drama class. Making a goblin mask & acting in the goblin play.


PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): Martial Arts. Canoeing with the cubs group at a local dam - it was a good introduction to it as it was quite shallow. Very muddy though :)



Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): He's starting to get some good habits of keeping his room tidy.

School shows: Music Moves, Behind The News.

Other fun stuff: A picnic with the secular homeschoolers group (for a brief time anyway!)

I wish I could think of an inspiring title..

I've felt really out of step this week.

Last weekend Pete & I went down to Sydney for the night to see Bell Shakespeare's King Lear. It was very well done btw, John Bell as usual was outstanding but I felt some of the other actors were a bit weak for the roles. We quite enjoyed it. It was a late night though - well late for me anyway :) The play didn't finish until after 11pm so it was about 11:30 when we got back to our motel room.

By the time we picked up Billy on Sunday, did some shopping and got home, it was time to launch into a new week. Which has been fairly busy. I haven't slept very well this week for various reasons so I've been dragging through the days - lets just say there are a few things undone that should have been done by now :)

I didn't get to the gym this week at all. I didn't feel up to going to my BodyBalance class on Tuesday and I was watching the cubs canoeing rather than go to the gym on Thursday! I did go for a walk instead on Tuesday and I think I might go for one this afternoon once it cools down. I bought myself a new MP3 player ($30 at Dick Smith!) last weekend which is much easier to walk with than playing music on my phone. It clips on rather than having to go in a pocket.

I tried to fit too much into yesterday. An eye appointment for Pete, a homeschool get-together for us, the library and the Da Vinci Machines exhibition for us all. We picked up frozen pizza for tea on the way home and collapsed for the night :)

I'm trying to do a brain dump on stuff I need to do but the brain isn't co-operating. I know I have to get some paid work done by Monday so I can install it at the clients. I have emails to answer, forms to fill out, bills to pay, stuff to put away. It would help if my brain wasn't so fuzzy that thoughts appear and then disappear straight away. Or if I didn't keep getting interrupted - like I just did - Billy just lost another tooth!

Right, off to see if I can kick-start the brain!

More musings...

Further to my post last night, I've been contemplating what Billy actually needs to learn in the next few years - let's say by the end of Yr 6. (He's "officially" in Yr 2 atm but he works at all different levels.) It seems hard to believe that not that long ago, many kids had left school by the end of primary school and were out working and learning a trade. In fact neither of my parents have much more than a primary school education.

I have no idea at this stage what job Billy will want to do. In fact, based on his love of technology, the job he ends up doing probably hasn't even been invented yet. So how do I know what he should learn? The Australian states can't even agree on what should be in the curriculum, let alone the rest of the world.

So after some contemplation, this is what I consider the "Must haves" in his education:

• "Consumer level" maths - budgeting, measuring / weighing, basic maths skills
• Understanding of the maths processes, not just rote learning
• Ability to read
• Ability to comprehend what is read
• Legible handwriting
• Computer skills - typing, word processing, email, web surfing, web searches - how to find & interpret information
• Life skills - looking after himself, household skills like washing, cooking, etc
• Understanding of significant events & people in Australian history
• Tolerance & appreciation of other cultures, religions & people
  

The following things would also be desirable but he'd still get by without them.

• Ability to speak in public
• Love of reading
• Not afraid of maths
• Understanding of significant events & people in World history
  

To me, everything above & beyond that is just 'icing on the cake' - just expanding his mind and exposing him to new ideas.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. What skills or knowledge do you consider as vital?

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I'm left wondering what the point of high school is (other than to keep kids out of the workforce and stop them competing with adults for jobs!). It's not really to specialise - when I went through school, you couldn't choose subjects until about Yr 11 - and that was if you were lucky enough that the subject you wanted was offered and fitted in with your timetable. That's why you go to uni - 6 years later! How much of what you learn at high school is actually used later on in life? I'm struggling to think of anything I learnt that is critical to my life now. Writing an essay on Shakespeare? Nope. Trigonometry? Nope. Pretty much everything I needed to do my job, I learnt on the job. High School seems a very broad brush approach - let's make everyone learn how to dissect a poem to cover the 1% that will actually use it! (And turn the other 99% off anything to do with poetry for the rest of their lives!)

Would we be better off going back to the days of early leaving and apprenticeships? Its not like today's youth appear to be any happier than previous generations!

Just some ramblings - what do you think?

Plenty of time..

Sometimes I get antsy that we don't seem to be covering enough stuff in our "homeschooling" - it usually happens after I've been talking to more curriculum based homeschoolers, or like tonight, as I look around at all the incredible resources we have in our house just waiting to be read / watched / played with. It just struck me though that with the new school leaving age of 17 - I have 9.5 more years of "teaching" (or should that be "learning alongside"!) Billy. Even at the very conservative school estimate of 5 days / week for 40 weeks - that's another 1900 days of learning. Maybe I should just take a deep breath and trust we will cover enough stuff in that time :)

Our week of learning - 14th Mar

Lots of Science & Maths this week.

English:

Current Readaloud: The Adventurous Four by Enid Blyton

Audio books: Raven Hill Mysteries by Emily Rodda - "The Disappearing TV Star", "Green for Danger" and "Cry of the Cat".

Independent Reading: The Mystery of Banshee Towers by Enid Blyton

Other: Another game of Rainbow Scrabble - he's getting good at it! We'll have to invest in a grown up version soon!

Maths: We celebrated Pi Day as blogged earlier.

Science & Technology: Billy pulled out one of the kits we'd bought earlier in the year and he went through the book to find something interesting to do. He settled on making a tsunami - very simply, a jam jar lid with a string through it, in a container of water and pull on the string sharply to disrupt the water. I found a couple of suitable video footage of Tsunamis on YouTube and we watched them together and talked about what was happening, including the fact that so many people had died in the Indonesian ones.


He spent a full day making some movies on the digital camera and the webcam, and trying out a few free bits of software I'd downloaded to integrate them.

He created a very basic footy tipping website for himself and Pete to use :)

We both spent far too long on this game trying to create the circuit. It used lots of different methods to generate electricity like steam, air, solar & laser - quite educational, frustrating and fun! Thanks for the link, Karen :)

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): We've started watching James May's Toy Stories - the series involves Top Gear presenter James May taking toys he played with in his childhood, and making massive versions of them. We watched the first episode where he makes a giant Spitfire model airplane. As well as the history involved in what toys were like "back in the old days", this episode also tied in again with what he'd learnt about WWII last week via Narnia and the Adventurous Four. See, learning really does happen in the most unexpected places!

Creative & Practical Arts: Drama class. He also spent much of the weekend watching his cousin dance at an eisteddfod, so he got to watch tap, jazz, classical and modern dance!

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): Martial Arts.

Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): We cooked Anzac biscuits together before his friend came over for a play.

School shows: Music Moves, Behind The News.

Other fun stuff: Lots more Webkinz this week! Plus a visit from a friend.

International Pi Day

We celebrated International Pi Day a little early today - it should be on Sunday but we'll be busy. (Given that it doesn't really work in Australian date format anyway - its 3/14 in American format but 14/3 in Australian, I wasn't too concerned lol).

We started off the day by me telling him it was Pi Day and that pi was a cool number that had something to do with circles. So we had pancakes for breakfast :)

When we settled down to explore more about it, I explained to Billy that pi was a special number and we used a symbol from the Greek alphabet for it. I recapped the term radius, and introduced the terms diameter and circumference (he was able to recognise that the diameter was twice the length of the radius - yay!). We used this worksheet from Enchanted Learning as the basis as measuring some circles with a piece of string and working out the circumference / diameter ratio. Due to some rather haphazard measuring, especially since the small circles were rather tricky for small fingers, our numbers weren't very consistent - but at least they all started with 3!



(We had a brief interruption with some silliness from Master B and a bit of a tantrum from me but after we got that out of our system, we continued - see, that's the bit of homeschooling blogs you usually don't read lol).

We looked at how to get pi up on the calculator (which went down well! - he loves my old scientific calculator) and used that to work out what the circumference of the circles should have been.

I pulled the "Think of a Number" book off the shelf and we looked at some significant times in history for pi. I explained that it was an irrational number and what that meant and we read the first 30-odd digits - he got a kick out of that too :)

We took a break with some round Tick-Tock biscuits, and watched an episode of Cyberchase dealing with Pi (Series 6, Episode 10).

He wanted his Mountain bread cut into a circle for lunch, so I did and then made him measure the diameter and tell me what the circumference was lol.

After lunch he told Pete what he'd learnt about pi and they did some "boy examples" - eg if the diameter of the SCG is x metres, what would be the circumference?

We watched the featured Brainpop video on Pi and then decided enough was enough. Hopefully he'll have an idea that at least pi has something to do with circles, even if he doesn't remember all the details!

Oh, and of course, we had pizza for tea :)

I hate change.

Yesterday Billy & I headed down to Newcastle for our usual 6-weekly chiropractor visit. I've been going to this same chiropractor for 10 years - I started going to him when I was having troubles with my back from sitting all day at work and I chose him because a) he was close to my work and b) my mum used to go to that practice. It's meant an hour drive to see him now that I'm not working in the same town but I was willing to do it because he was fantastic. I'd have other chiros on the occasions that he was sick or on holidays but the adjustment never felt right. He was also fantastic with Billy - he's been seeing him since he was born - he even treated me while I was pregnant! We both adored him.

So you may be able to imagine the devastation I felt yesterday when we walked in and the receptionist came and sat down next to us. "I don't have Michael for you today" she started. I was a bit disappointed, but then she continued "He's decided to retire from seeing patients". Nooooooooooo!

So we went in and had our appointment with the replacement chiro - I'd had him before once when Michael was away. He's lovely and does a good job but he wasn't Michael :(

So I bit the bullet afterwards. I spoke to the receptionist and explained that we'd try to find one more local to us - if I had to "break in" a new chiropractor anyway, it would be better to find one I didn't have to travel an hour to see. She was completely understanding and even suggested one locally with a similar style that Michael had worked with sometimes. I signed out my X-rays and brought them home with me.

I felt so sad for the rest of the day - I hate change :(

Our week of learning - 7th Mar - new experiences!

Several new experiences this week. It was a pretty full on week with planned activities so we tried to keep the home side of things nice & cruisy.

English:

Current Readaloud: The Adventurous Four by Enid Blyton

Audio books: Raven Hill Mysteries by Emily Rodda - "The Disappearing TV Star", "Green for Danger" and "Cry of the Cat".

Independent Reading: The Mystery of Banshee Towers by Enid Blyton

Other: We watched "The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe" and discussed it. We played a game of Rainbow Scrabble.

Maths: I picked up a board game the other day called "Number Rings". Each person has pegs numbered 1 - 18, you roll 3 dice and then use numerical operations to make whatever numbers you can out of the numbers you rolled. You place your ring over the numbers you make and try to fill all your numbers first - for eg, if you roll 3, 6 and 2, you can put your rings on those numbers or on 3+6 and 2, or 3+6+2, or 3*6-2 etc. We started by just playing using addition and subtraction, but it became very difficult to get the last few numbers over about 15. So we pulled the multiplication table out and used multiplication as well. You can also block another player by putting your rings on their number pegs! It's a great game, and I love how it can be used by any skill level.


He also played several rounds on the World Maths Day site. He learnt about Cartesian co-ordinates by playing this fun game to feed Billy Bug.

Science & Technology: He did several 50 question science quizzes on Quizzy's Corner (Webkinz World).

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): The children in the Narnia movie are sent away to the country during the London bombings in World War II - the opening scenes are of German planes bombing the city. That led to a discussion of WWII, Hilter (without too much detail) and the fact the Germans were fighting Britain. Co-incidentally it then popped up again while reading The Adventurous Four - it was also set in that era and the children discover a nest of enemy submarines & seaplanes.

He participated in Clean Up Australia day with his cub group.



We had a natural learner's picnic at Blackbutt Reserve and had to go back around and check on all the animals again. He has "adopted" a black-winged stilt that he calls "Chuck" lol, so we have to make sure he's ok :)


Creative & Practical Arts: Drama class. He watched the show Music Moves and was then making up his own rhythms and ostinato.

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): He had his first martial arts grading this week, and was promoted to yellow belt.



Lots of running around at the natural learner's picnic.

Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): He's been making lots of the tea-cup biscuits in the header of my blog :)

School shows: For the Juniors, Music Moves.

Other fun stuff: He had his first night up at Cubs this week. He & several friends have started the process to graduate from Joeys to Cubs - they have to attend 4 cubs meetings, go back and tell the Joey's group about the things they've done and are then able to start Cubs for real.

Lots of Webkinz this week!

Where's the cave?

I need to hibernate...

It's been a full on week and I feel like sitting life out for the next week or so. That's not going to be possible so the day and a half I have will have to do :)

I've been out every day this week and have done lots of chatting - client meetings, a homeschool get-together, a birthday party, afternoon tea with my friend, a chat with a potential new homeschool mum. All rewarding, but exhausting to little old introverted me!

Our BodyBalance class launched a new routine this week - I survived but boy it hurt the legs!! I was also brave and went back the next day for my first gym proper session. Yay me!

I also have a confession to make - I started playing Scrabble on Facebook :( I'm playing the games where each player can have 24hrs to make their move so it shouldn't take up too much of my time - if I'm careful!! (Of course, the fact that I have 6 different games on the go atm is a worry!)

Bits & Bobs..

Last Friday I finally got brave enough to have my personal gym program designed - I'd been putting it off citing lack of time since I joined the gym in January! The trainer was very kind to me and took it fairly slowly. My goals are a bit more weight loss and some toning, so she has me doing treadmill, bike (which almost killed me!), some reps on 4 different bits of weight equipment (the technical term lol), and some crunchies. Now to be brave enough to go back and try it on my own!!

I'm still going to the BodyBalance class (ta-chi, yoga & pilates) and still loving it. I'm a bit concerned about this week though - I'm finally starting to get the hang of the routines, and this week they all change!!!

On Friday night Pete & I went to see Tim Minchin - he's a comedic musician who is very, very talented, clever and funny! (Also very, very rude and pushes the boundaries at times so don't check him out if you're easily offended!) It's been years since we saw live comedy - probably Billy Connelly was the last one we saw. It was a great night - I laughed so much my face hurt. The only thing that spoilt it for me were the idiots in the crowd who liked to prove how 'clever' they were by heckling or spoiling the punchline :(

We also went out for dinner beforehand - it was very pleasant sitting in the sunshine on the waterfront eating a lovely dinner prepared by someone else! Unfortunately the service was so slow we ran out of time for dessert! It was a travesty :)