Fun!

Here is my new goal - more fun! I want to dance, skip, laugh, be myself without censorship. My daughter is playing T's guitar, singing songs - her words - "do you love me? I love you so much, we are friends, we will hopefully be friends forever." All to a beautiful tune. It is all so precious.

We had a lovely day today celebrating a little friend's birthday. The mums, dads and grandparents chatted and helped make the little girl's day so special. The 15 or so children changed dynamics on a constant basis - older boys being chased and playing with little girls, two girls playing together cracking macadamias, big groups of children playing on the trampoline, little groups playing dress up in the bedroom, snuggled up watchng a movie, joy at pass the parcel, enthusiasm, laughter, friendship, warmth, decorating cupcakes.

What more is there to life, seriously?

Tea Party

Having a girl is soooo different to the boys. They played a lot outside - jumping on the tramp, riding their bikes up and down the driveway, drawing with chalk on the concrete, making soup out of mud and all types of plants while stirring with a stick and playing imaginary shooting games. Maybe because K is on her own and the boys had each other to play with but she is definitely an indoor girl when at home, playing for hours with her teddies/puppies, colouring in, drawing and dressing up and dancing to music. A whole different kettle of fish to what I'm used to!

K made up a big list of things we had to include so we didn't forget anything and she marked them off as we went - she's her mother's daughter - I am the list queen! Cookies were on the menu, the more M & Ms, the better.
We set the table in the finest drapery with a single red rose from our garden.
The tea's poured, the delicacies are set out and it was time to wake D, the only other person at home, so he could join in. Mmmmm, cookies for breakfast, he said.
Then there was the fun of washing up. She did about half of them, I suppose I have to be happy with that. It was a lovely morning. I don't get much time with her one on one for a length of time so it was pretty special.








K watched a 3D movie the other day and I couldn't resist these photos. She looked so serious while watching the movie with these funny glasses on but, of course, ........


she had to play up to the camera as soon as she saw it.

Organic Learning

How can you ever record the learning that happens in everyday life (without driving yourself totally crazy)?

It is a rainy Saturday so we popped on a movie this afternoon that T picked up for two dollars yesterday. It was a cheaply done 2D cartoon type called Globehunters - an around the world in 80 days adventure.

Well, the conversations it generated. Firstly, there was the travel which we followed on our world map to see how far the three escaped animals travelled - Miami, China, Italy, France, Russia, Germany and India with references to the Himalayas and Mt Everest. Then there were the animals in the different areas - pandas in China, leopards and baboons in the Himalayas. Also the different countries' monuments - Great Wall of China, Eiffel Tower and Leaning Tower of Pisa. When the 'baddie' was chasing the three animals, K asked why he could catch the cheetah because aren't they the fastest in the world?

It had issues of animal cruelty as the animals escaped from a lab in America. When the chimp decided to join the circus after escaping, there were discussions about whether that was just trading one kind of cruelty for another and was the animal really free if it made the choice to work in the circus.

At one stage the parrot asked when they were going to be fed as it had always been fed while in the lab while an insect passed under its' wing which led to a discussion about the dangers of hand raised animals being let back into the wild.

I'm sure there were many more topics as well. So, how do you record all of this on a day to day basis to meet the KLAs?, Well, you could always blog about it.......

Update on our busy life

My eldest, D, has finally got his P's driver's licence. Aaah, freedom. I remember it so well. He has been getting up really early (for him) to take his brother to work - just because he can! He has spent the last week driving his Dad's car to and from places and drove our car for the first time today. I stood on the driveway, just like my Mum and Dad did the first time I drove off independently, and pretended to be biting my nails in fear but just so, so proud. I have really enjoyed seeing him grow up over the last couple of years. He is quite adamant he will join the army. Having already filled in the forms, we are just waiting for an interview and more information so he could be gone in two months or six months for at least four years or so. I am enjoying every last minute with my big baby while I can.

We visited a Macadamia Farm a couple of Fridays ago.
The staff got the children involved in a game of "collect the most macadamias" and you could win a prize - cheap labour, I call it - cough, cough.
They then had their buckets weighed. N, K and one of her little friends collected a bucket and a half which is a LOT of macadamias but, alas, were beaten by a group of teens. After that they were shown through the factory to see how it was all done.
Then it was time to browse in the shop to drool over all of the delicious products and enjoy a hot chocolate and cup of coffee. We had about 70 people turn up from the home school group - our group and support network is definitely growing.

Other than that, we have been doing more trampoling training with M with Qld championships coming up on the June long weekend, NSW championships in June as well and a couple of other qualifying comps just before then.

We have also bought an extension part for T's bike to make it a tandem for K to ride on. She still just fits in the baby seat on the back of my bike so we left that on my bike in case she got too tired on her first long ride but she loved it, staying on the back for the loooong ride and only hopping in for about a km or so. Looking forward to lots of long rides now with her on the back of T's bike. I was flying on mine, riding solo after five years of carrying her. She weighs about 20kg now, so the extra weight was great for my fitness and strength!

K's reading is coming along well. We are working through the Fitzroy Reading program which I have had for ages and involves a fair bit of phonics, practicing letter writing, etc. Yes, we are using curriculum, but she has always enjoyed her "schoolwork", loves the workbooks, so we are just going with it. Her face lights up when she recognises the letters or small words so that's joy enough for me.

Other things we've been loving are:

Ranger's Apprentice series - N is up to book 9 and whipping through it.

Horrible Histories on ABC3 - funny, funny, gross and funny

My Place on ABC3 - Australian history series about the same house that has different families living in it every decade or so. Set against cultural, political and economical issues at the time throughout history back to 1883. Fantastic series.

Fun Brain Institute - a group meeting fortnightly ages from 4 to about 10 run by a primary school teacher who has an absolute passion for teaching and it shows. She now home educates her two littlies and has organised a three hour session of art, craft, logic puzzles, maths, literacy, reading time, music, etc based around a theme. Last time it was puppets, next time transport and the time after that is dinosaurs and fossils. It is such a fantastic get together and to see the kids work in groups on projects or just playing with the games, puzzles and playdough is lovely. Of course, it is a great support time for the mums as well.

There's part of our busy life. Looking forward to the next couple of weeks as well.

Cheers, Karen

Our Chaotic Dining Room Table

I had made us a big pot of vegie soup for the cooler autumn days and as I served it up with lovely crusty bread I had to push and move things around the table to make room for us to eat. This is pretty typical of our days of learning. This particular day was on the go and as I served the soup over the top of art work, writing practice and science kits, I had a little chuckle about the choas some days bring.
I thought photos would say it much more clearly than I could but every home educator can relate to this, I'm sure. We had gone from doing a jigsaw puzzle on world flags to phonics practice to watercolour painting to putting a science kit together to running out and buying batteries for our new talking globe (we love it!!). There were books to be read, colouring to be done, paper planes to make, a motorbike meccano-type kit that was being put together, a game of 20 questions that has been lost for a while..... I seriously didn't have time between one enthusiastic thing to the next to make a clearing so it just kept getting piled on the table until I stopped and took a breath at lunchtime, served up the meal on top of all of the activities and had a good laugh.
Here's our new globe. K loves trying all of the national anthems, finding flight times between cities and practicing pronouncing the capital cities names. I love the busy, productive days.

Playing at Home

K will often go to the games cupboard and pull out a game to play on her own while I'm busy with the older boys. Yesterday was one of those days. She spent her time weighing her teddies and marbles and we recorded their weights, comparing their weights as well. She was surprised that some of the smaller teddies weighed more than some of the larger ones. She also played with the marble game, the louder the cascade of marbles the better.

Then she hopped onto the computer and played her favourite website at the moment, www.physicsgames.net. I often sit with her while she does it to help but I am amazed at how quickly she has learnt to navigate and work out the skills required to make the ball explode or wake the box up :)

We are reading The Littles at the moment by John Peterson along with lots of Dr Seuss. She often runs her hands under the words or asks me to and asks what a lot of the words say. She recognises a lot of letters now and can hear the sound of starting letters.

We are going to visit the Australian National Maritime Museum exhibition Mythic Creatures: Dragons, Unicorns and Mermaids in April so are working on a few resources and preparation from the American Museum of Natural Science education section. We played the map game and made masks and puppets using the website resources. We are going to watch Eragon (N, not K, she's a bit young) in the next few days and do more activities from the website over the next few weeks before we visit the exhibition.

Learning this week

We have had a really good week. Monday and Thursday were stay at home days so just did the usual subjects. Wednesday we went to a friend's place as she was holding a soap party. Yes, soap, not Tupperware but soap. It was so interesting. The lady explained how it was all made and we tried them all and were given samples. I also bought a few as they have the most divine smell and I can tell they were made with complete love and passion. Hopefully we are going to organise a day where she will show the children how it is all made and let them create some of their own.

We are back to our usual Tuesday afternoon history days with another family. We studied Queen Elizabeth I, listening first to the story of her life on CD, having a discussion and then doing map work pertaining to the area of the world relevant to the topic. Usually we do some sort of art, craft or cooking to do with that part of history but as this was our first day back there was too much for both the kids and the adults to catch up on. Next week is Shakespeare, I think, and we have a little surprise for the other family - have been working on it for a while. Hope it comes off :)

Friday came and the two middle boys decided they would go to work with T as he is setting up a new warehouse to display all of our products. I was going to pick them up after a couple of hours but they stayed longer because they were having too much fun - cleaning racking, moving grates? Oh well, I'm happy having them work if they're having fun! N (13) has gone back over there today (Saturday) to help T again. I think it's wonderful. We have been talking about managing N's academic and work life, hoping to encourage him to do quite a few hours work a week in the next couple of years as at this point we can't see him doing upper education but if he's keen now to work, we're very happy to provide him the opportunity.

D (17) has been hardly here between quick shifts at work (therefore staying at his dad's as he lives closer) to gym to army cadets to social life. I saw him briefly yesterday afternoon to drive him to cadets but before that it was for five minutes on Wednesday morning (oh, just remembered, James Bond Wednesday night as well). He will be home tonight though after going to the movies with friends and then tomorrow the whole family is going to see Breath of Spring, a play put on by the Maitland Repertory Society. I have bought a season pass to four plays this year, one of them a Shakespeare play. So, nice family day tomorrow.

With trampolining, cadets, D's working a lot more now school holidays have finished and T training two guys and setting up the warehouse, we have had a busy week. Throw in some DVDs - Backyard Science, All Creatures Great and Small, Magic School Bus (thanks, KB) and our James Bond Wednesday night family night (Thunderball this week) and we have had lots of learning, laughing and fun.

Love Karen

A day in the life...

We often get asked what we do all day. Last night one of the boys' friends from trampolining was asking if they were allowed to sleep in until 9am (picture eyes as wide as saucers) and I said no, but 9:01am was fine with a cheeky smile. Then they were asked how much school work they do and I replied at least 3 or 4 minutes a day. His jaw hit the ground at this point until I told him I was only kidding - sort of. Schooling at home is so radically different to school as people know it that it is often hard to define what we do all day and how learning takes place.

So today I will list what we have done so far - it is still only 1pm so there is much more that we do that won't be recorded.

K (5) wakes up at about 7:30am and snuggles then watches television while having breakfast. I put a load of washing on, make a green smoothie and make a pile of the books and resources we will be using today. N (13) and M (15) venture out at about 8:3am, drink their smoothie, have breakfast and do the usual things - dressed, make beds, teeth, hair. While they are having breakfast I read First Language Lessons to N - a basic grammar book. Then I read The Success Principles for Teens to them. I like to read it aloud as we have discussions as we go.

K is drawing in her diary, a book that she dictates to me, I write it in pencil and she traces over it. She also gets out her own "schoolwork", quite a few books from The Critical Thinking Company which cover logic, writing, mathematical concepts and drawing conclusions (which sounds very fancy but is very in line with what I want to help my kids learn - to think for themselves, find solutions, think outside the square and to stretch their minds) but I have to sit with her to do these as she is not quite reading yet. Instead she draws a beautiful snail all over one of the pages and very carefully decorates it with lace. Her fine motor skills have taken a great leap over the last couple of months. She plays with her doctor's kit which we bought a couple of days ago. I figure that can be instead of having to pay for her school uniform. She takes her puppies temperatures, puts bandaids on them and takes their blood pressure, keeping up a running commentary as she goes. We make ice blocks out of orange juice and freeze them and make some scones because Nanna and Grandfather are coming to visit for D's birthday (17). She also gets out our chemistry set, complete with test tubes and makes up potions out of match sticks, little furry craft balls and paperclips, mixing all the while.

K also has a list of chores which she is willingly doing each day. I have written the words and drawn little pictures next to them so she can "read" it herself. It includes make bed, have breakfast, get dressed, clean teeth, brush hair, tidy room, check the clock (learning the time) and adjust the calendar with the new day, date, weather, season, etc. She loves going through her list each day and seems to feel a sense of accomplishment when these jobs are completed.

N and M work through a daily list of subjects. N reads for 20 minutes a day (Ranger's Apprentice series)and we compare the similarities between the British and European maps with those fictional ones in the book, writes in a Gratitude journal 5 things he is thankful for, does latin Word Roots from The Critical Thinking Company, is doing revision in maths using Excel and Life Of Fred, reviews a memorization of a speech from Shakespeare's Macbeth and reads aloud to me from Scientriffic magazine. We discuss a trip to Lightning Ridge to mine for opals as sparked by an article in the magazine and I show him my opal earrings and the way they change colour according to the light.

A couple of days a week N works on science in a book from The Critical Thinking Company, I read aloud from a novel and we watch on DVD Physics and Biology lectures from The Teaching Company. We are also watching the entire James Bond series as a family and writing down every country he visits to see how much of the world he covers in his travels. He also has chores - recycling, cleaning the mirrors/computer screens, etc and helps with groceries, washing, dishes, etc.

M is pretty much self-directed. He chooses to study Italian through Rosetta Stone, does Social Studies, Science and Latin Word Roots from The Critical Learning Company, Maths Online, colours an Anatomy colouring book (learning the basics as he may study fitness/personal training/body therapies or something that correlates with his trampolining goals), reads and writes in his Gratitude journal, plus of course, those things we do together with N. He jumps on the trampoline on a very regular basis and helps out a LOT around the house. He cleans the kitchen every Monday, does dishes, waters all of the plants, helps with washing, takes the garbages in and out and goes to the bank, post office and grocery store on nearly a daily basis. He also is our number one babysitter for K when urgently required.

On other days we might do science experiments, watch DVDs, visit the community gardens, bike ride, socialise with other home edders, study history with another family or go on organised excursions like an upcoming swimming carnival that is being organised.

Nanna and Grandfather arrive and the discussion ranges from Mac vs Microsoft computers - pros and cons, iPhones, internet connections, cost of phone plans compared to what is being paid now and working out whether usage amount now is worth paying the extra for the Iphone, plans vs prepaid, etc. Also Grandfather needs some shading for his orchids and the sheet comes in a certain width and length so there is much working out done to try and get the exact amount required to the exact width with minimal left over. The conversation flows over army cadets, getting P's licence, costs of running a car, borrowing money, trampoline schedule for this year - interstate and local competitions and travel plans for my parents. Throw in some hairy questions and brainstorming by Kate on where we are going to live when she blows up the house in a science experiment and many more topics are covered.

D (17) has officially finished his schooling according to the Board of Studies but he has done Maths Online this morning, worked out internet connection/modem problems, enjoyed the company of his grandparents and is now reading some of the top 25 books on an application I downloaded onto my iPhone, a free reading app with 22000books on it - the inaugural speech by Barrack Obama and The Art of War.

While taking the recycling out N discovered some lizards which he tried to catch in a box to show K (the recycling often makes its way back into the house!) but it escaped so a trap has now been laid. He then gets on the drums and works up a sweat for about half an hour while K watches one of The Land Before Time DVDs.

Who knows what the afternoon will bring? Probably a lot more conversation, eating the ice blocks that were made this morning, jumping on the tramp, playing computer games, Nintendo DS, games on the iPhone, riding the ripsticks, texting friends and a date with James Bond when K goes to bed tonight.

Phew, I'm exhausted, I didn't realise we were so busy and this is a quiet day!

Love Karen

Update: The four kids are all in one bedroom of our rather large house. K is playing a gameboy (new life for old technology - she thinks they are wonderful), N is playing Bookworm on my iPhone, M is reading Jurassic Park and after I had discussed seeing a careers advisor with D as he has NO idea which direction to take, M quipped, "What does a career advisor advise? (deep voice) 'For those who don't know what you want to become, become a career adivsor'." It was very funny.