Ready or not...here I come....

Today the boy next-door stayed home from school because they had car trouble and couldn't get him to school. He knocked on the door around 9 am this morning (I was still in my jammies) and the kids have been playing all day, even during bouts of rain. I called them in at 5 pm because it's getting dark by 5:30 seeing as it is Winter here.

Anyway, I've probably blogged about the poor choices of children there are to play with in our neighbourhood already...they really aren't desirable friends and have even been nasty on occasions. However, this boy next door (who is so quiet that on the odd occasion we ever saw him we thought he must have been a visiting step-child!) is polite, well-behaved and just plays great with the kids. He is 10 years old and his mum's expecting a baby in a couple of months so he loves to play with Little Chicken. The main game they've been playing for the last week or so has been hide'n'seek! No fighting games...no loud crazy behaviour...just old-fashioned simple fun. I remember playing hide'n'seek all the time with our neighbours as kids. They interspersed their games with bike-riding or the playstation, and during some rain thi afternoon I spotted Sparkle running around the yard in circles by herself just enjoying the feel of the rain - no raincoat or umbrella. In the past I would have told her to get out of the rain but I am wiser about such things since we started home-based learning.

I did have to calm the playing down this afternoon when the other neighbouring kids finished school and joined in playing. Amazing how quickly other kids can join in and turn the activities into rough games of tag and dragging others around by their arms. Ugh! :-(

Anyway, I got a lot of enjoyment out of knowing that my kids were playing happily with a good friend all day today. :-)

Watch out!

Guess what? We are going to be a karate family starting next Wednesday!

A guy came to our door last Friday arvo and said that karate classes were starting up at the local highschool (just around the corner) and would anyone be interested in finding out more. I have always intended to find out more about martial arts classes for the kids so I thought this was a great coincidence. The guy said he'd come back later that evening, talk about what they do, and do a little karate with the kids. Great!

Well, turns out that it is very much a 'family' set-up and the guy had the kids plus DH and I up doing some basic karate and self-defense moves. It was heaps of fun and he couldn't believe that none of us had done martial arts before. I know...sounds like a line...but he said later that he started instructing at age 15 (he's now mid-20s) and when he says we are good, he really means it....I believe him...LOL.

Every family will be starting from scratch at this new location so we won't feel intimidated. They actually have HEAPS of groups throughout the city (and I think all of Australia). They focus on non-contact karate-do and work through a lot of self-defence situations which I think is good.

We signed up as lifetime members that night and will pay $5/wk per person to attend the class each week. Now I just have to figure out what to do with baby from 6:30-7:30 each Wednesday night - her dinner and bedtime! Yikes!

Anyway, the kids are excited (and you can probably tell I am too) and have been practicing the moves they were taught with the boy next door. Apparently we can all be black belts in 4 or 5 years! Scary! :-)

Watch out world - don't mess with us!

P.S. The reasons they are coming to people's homes and spending an hour or so with them is that they are screening for suitable families...keeping out the riff-raff I guess. I like this as I think you can get a good feel from people by spending that aount of time with them and seeing how they react to the instruction and interaction. Plus, there is quite a few 'undesirables' in our area...believe me!

Anyone care for a game of garden tennis?

Last night we went shopping as there were some sales on at K-Mart. I bought Little Chicken a 'Pop-tivity Table' for just under $30 - save $20! She loves it and is even getting herself up onto her knees to play with the buttons, twirly bits, and musical button which also spins balls in the central dome. She loves musical things. BTW, I'm sure she is only days away from crawling!

I also picked up a garden tennis set at 20% off, which the kids and I assembled this morning. The tennis balls are a little lighter than normal and the racquets are springy plastic so you don't have to hit the ball very hard. The net is 3m long and attaches to poles set into bases that we filled with water. Each end also has a rope and stake to help secure it. It is great fun but note...WEAR SHOES!! I jumped onto an upright stick - ouch!

Well my dear 6 month old is showing her Scorpio temper so I better attend to her.

Edited to add: One look at the big orange stain on the back of baby's clothes explained the reason for her discontent! The one thing I hate about starting solids. Ew!

Can you write some sums for me to do?

That is what I was asked this afternoon by J-bird who handed me a pen and piece of grid paper. Where the idea came from I have no idea! I wrote out some addition problems for him which he did with no problems (did up to hundreds place and included renaming). I then made up some subtraction problems and I just needed to point out that you don't just take the smaller number from the larger. Sparkle wanted to do some 'take aways' too, so I encouraged her to use the centimetre cubes and write her answers. She didn't always write the answer in the right 'place' so we did a little bit of place value stuff. Soon enough they lost interest and are now out rollerblading (something they've just come back to after about a 6 month break). I don't know if they got anything from the maths and I don't really care as it wasn't related to any real life stuff and I think it is just a left over idea from their early schooling.

Our Camping Trip - Part 1

We arrived home on Friday from two weeks camping at Cressbrook dam near Crows Nest in Qld. It is about a 2 hour drive from home and we took the trailer for all our camping stuff plus took the canoe on the roof of the car. We had a great time and was no hassle even with a 6 month old! The biggest benefit of going on holiday outside of school holidays is that there were very few other campers around and we even got a couple of nights totally on our own (a little spooky actually).


First morning of fishing and J-bird brings in the big one!


Sparkle with her first catch - a nice size garfish.


J-bird also caught some garfish.


We did a lot of walking as the dam was only at 33% capacity so we had about a 150m walk down the hill from our campsite...and then back up again.


We made a HUGE damper in the camp oven. We also roasted a chicken which was YUM!


J-bird took his Action Man and we rigged up a zip-line with a bit of a splash at the end. Action Man had so much adventure on the holiday that his head split in half and he lost half an arm! At least he gave it his all until the end!


We went for an hour-long drive to Toowoomba to buy some warmer sleeping bags and we picked up a metal detector on special for nearly half price. This came in handy as J-bird and Sparkle had started a collection of beer bottle tops that they found around the campsites. They'd find them, flatten them with the mallet so they look like coins, and sort them by name of beer (or other drink). They were continually sorting, stacking, and analysing their collection...counting, ordering, and basically creating picture graphs with them. I was very impressed and of course the bottle tops have some home with us and the collection is continuing to grow.

We saw heaps of wildlife and even saw creatures that we've never seen before! I'm surprised out torch batteries lasted!


Heaps of kangaroos were about each morning and afternoon - some huge and some little joeys in the pouch still!


The brushtail possums came out each night to try and raid our food so we had to keep it all in the tent. They still clamoured around our pots and pans and ran across the tables when we went to bed. We even named the regulars! Above is 'King P (for possum)', who we knew was a male because of the dark scent gland on his chest. There was also 'Tipsy' who had the tip of one ear missing and 'Short Tail' who was missing half his tail.


We saw this little creature one night - we think it is a bandicoot!

Camping Trip - Part 2

I stuffed up and sent the first photos before these were queued with them...


Here is a cute pademelon - sort of looks like a cross between a wallaby and a possum. It hops and has a cute little face. We had never seen one before but saw quite a few on this camping trip.

There were some pelicans hanging around the dam on our last few days so we think one may have eaten this tortoise. It was cool to see the inside of the shell though.


Here's the underside of the tortiose shell.

Camping trip - Part 3

Due to my dodgy uploading of photos - here is the last photo I wanted to add...


Last morning where we used the camera's timer to take a family pic.

A full two days!

Last week...

"Kite Making & Flying" day with the Learning 4 Life group.

Dad had the day off so he got to come too. Here are J & S decorating their kites...


At this park by the ocean there's a 99.5% chance of being able to fly a kite on any given day....just let go of the kite and up it goes!


Next day we took dad to the Science Centre & Museum...

First we went into the 'How to Make a Monster' exhibit where we learned how they make animatronic creatures for movies. We got to wiggle the giant crocodile's tail from Peter Pan, see the gorilla guy from George of the Jungle 2, and heaps more. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take photos in there.

Then we looked through the museum...






Look! A black swan....


Is this a Giant Petrel? Looks like one in a recent postcard we received...


Is it lunchtime yet?


After lunch we entered the Science Centre. The big blast of air keeps the ball suspended when we let go...


Peeling away the layers of the Earth until we get to the core...


Jump on the ground and see how big a quake you can make. J-bird's huge effort was caught on this shot...


Which structure is best when an earthquake hits? The solid tower tumbled while the springy structure wobbled but stayed together...


Each bottle represented the weight of gravity on each planet. Sparkle concluded that Earth was heaviest...


We made a tornado! Cool! J-bird followed up a couple of days later after I bought a cappuccino frother. He put it in a glass of water and could see the void down the centre of the tornado...awesome!


Every one of us could lift this 80kg refrigerator! How? By pulling a rope at different intervals along a lever, we could find the distance that allowed us to lift it up! The further away we got, the easier it got. Of course, dad showed off by lifting it from the closest section on the lever!


Playing with pulleys. We each got to lift ourselves up while sitting on the chair. No wonder cranes have pulleys to lift heavy things!


Will the arch be able to stay up by itself?


YES IT CAN! J-bird tests it out by standing underneath...


Honey, I shrunk the kids...AND the husband!!!


Woah! I feel dizzy! You try walking through while the outside revolves around you!


Feeling hungry? I'll have your head on a platter!


YOU figure out where our bodies went! After all this action it's time to 'head' home for a rest!!!


ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ...

Early April Activities

We had a bit of wet weather a couple of weeks ago but that wasn't going to stop us going on a barbecue brunch on a Friday! Dh had the day off work and we invited mum and her friend along too. We took the gas bbq, pancake mix, bacon and eggs, fishing rods, etc. and headed down to a park along the river. Luckily the tables are set under nice big shelters. Bub slept all rugged up in her pram and J-bird and Sparkle donned their raincoats and played as they normally would. We also took their bikes down so they could ride along the bike path. It was a really nice morning and we appreciated the experience, knowing that others were sitting in classrooms and offices.

Playing in the rain...


As usual, the kids have been their creative and constructive selves...

We bought a packet of matchsticks and the kids have made towers and started using them to spell names. This is my name...(I didn't want to show the pics of my kids' names for privacy reasons)


They've also been creating usuing the Play Doh set and have made their names using that as well.

Sparkle decided to sketch Little Chicken's teether toy the other day (they also love doing their own photography)....


Lots of great structures have been made lately using the MAB blocks... (don't mind the messy house - it is a sign of a naturally learning environment! No, really...it is!)


We had a family game of Monopoly on the weekend and I almost beat DH! Yep, he always wins and remains undefeated, although this was the closest I had come to beating him. Sparkle lasted around half an hour before her attention was elsewhere and she left the game. Though, she remained nearby most of the time, attending to Little Chicken who was having her first time in the swing (we were playing on the verandah). J-Bird lasted well but a lack of properties was his downfall in the end. One thing DH and I have noticed is that J-Bird seems to have a natural ability for mental maths. He can add numbers quicker than DH or I sometimes (which isn't hard to do!).

J-Bird's latest passion is for a computer game called Insane Buggy Racing. It actually takes a lot of skill to play the game and he has regular conversations with his dad about it as he also likes to play.

Sparkle seems to be going through a phase of making connections about anything and everything. For e.g. when we were shopping at Best & Less ( a clothing store), she stated, "I know why it is called Best & Less...because it's the best clothes and it costs less!" The same statement has been made about all sorts of things for weeks now and it is very cute, but also shows that she is always thinking about and processing the world. There have been lots of reading of environmental print and simple text. She likes to try and follow when I am typing.

Sparkle is currently waiting on her first letter from a new penpal in the U.S., so that will be a great experience as she can draw and write and mail her own letters. How exciting!

J-Bird's email penpal (also in the U.S.) has been waiting for a reply for a few weeks now, as J-Bird keeps forgetting to write an email reply. I think the fact that emails are sent back and forth so quickly was a bit overwhelming for him as he would only just spend time typing an email and would then feel he had to reply straight away to the next one which would arrive in the next day or two. I'm going to propose that they become snail mail penpals as this will give them both a break of a week or two between letters. I was actually a bit suprised how motivated J-Bird was to correspond as he hasn't been writing much at all since leaving school and his spelling ability dropped off (though his reading is still fine). So he requires a fair bit of spelling help when he is writing but he isn't self-conscious about asking for it which is good.

There has also been a lot of playing with neighbouring children lately. The young boy and girl on one side of us have started visiting their grandparents again so the kids have been going over there again. Sometimes just the girl is there during school hours because the boy has preschool, so Sparkle often heads over by herself. Although, sometimes J-bird is happy to play woth the girls too. Then, on the other side of us is (finally!) a lovely natured boy that we were introsuced to recently. He's the same age as J-bird and goes to private school. He is such a quiet, calm and polite boy and I just LOVE that we've finally got a child around who doesn't have an attitude! J-bird has been spending a lot of time with him on the weekends and after school.

Tomorrow we have a Kite Making Day with our home learners group which should be fun and DH has the day off so we will drag him along too. I am actually glad he can come so he can drive. It is about an hour away and I have a head cold which isn't much fun at the moment.