Learning Land

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

2005-06-10T17:43:00.000+10:00

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!

2005-06-01T10:28:00.000+10:00

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?

2005-05-27T16:23:00.000+10:00

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?

2005-05-26T15:12:00.000+10:00

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

2005-05-25T11:26:00.000+10:00

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

2005-05-25T11:24:00.000+10:00

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

2005-05-25T11:20:00.000+10:00

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!

2005-04-29T15:51:00.000+10:00

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

2005-04-12T18:06:00.000+10:00

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.

Lately....

2005-03-13T18:03:00.000+10:00

Sparkle's drawing of a farmer, a pig, and a chicken outside it's coop...

Sparkle's drawing of..."a bridge over the water with a boat in it. The people have umbrellas because it is raining. There is a road with a car carrying a mattress on its roof and it is heading for the traffic lights. After the traffic lights there is the car's home. On the road there is a bike with a girl on it, with an umbrella on its handle bars. It is sunny even though it is raining."

A combined effort by J-bird and Sparkle...

Magnetix creations...J-bird's....

...and Sparkle's creation...each take their own photos using the digital camera...

J-bird's Magnetix Xtreme creations...

A day at the water with our weekly home learners group (that we have only been to 3-4 times so far this year)...

J-bird helping out with Little Chicken as usual...

Little Chicken enjoying J-bird's final baseball games on the tournament day...

J-bird running to first base after hitting a ball pitched by his dad!

The day after DH's birthday.

2005-02-21T09:33:00.000+10:00

At the moment S & J have just finished watching 'Numbers Count' on ABC TV and are now in the lounge room doing Twister Moves - trying to follow sequences of dance moves from a CD...it is really hard because it goes fast and takes a lot of coordination. At 11am we'll watch two episodes of Hazards, Disasters and Survival, followed by five episodes of Handmade which the kids LOVE. They are five-minute shows with no dialogue but you watch an artist create something. We've seen a Russian man carve a traditional wooden bear and use it to create a mechanical toy where the bear splits a log of wood with an axe. There has been candlemaking, lino cutting and printing, folkart painting of a handmade pot (done by a man which was a bonus I think), making an extremely light aircraft out of balsawood and a thin bit of film over the structure for the wings..and more. Coming up there is someone making ballet shoes and another artist making a cricket bat. They are fascinating shows because they are not something you usually get to witness. Sparkle even declared that she wants to be a carver now instead of making McDonalds (something she has been saying for a couple of years that she wants to do when she grows up!).

Later there is a Mysteries of Easter Island documentary on SBS which I think we've seen before but is is really interesting so we will watch it again (or tape it).

We've been watching a lot of great documentaries/series lately like the Nile series, Naked Planet, Wild Tails, The Future is Wild, the IMAX presentations, World Around Us, Go Wild, Catalyst, The Colony, Mythbusters (which is great because it is fun but the guys also follow the scientific process a lot and you see their trial and error processes).

Backyard Science starts up again tomorrow at 6:25am weekdays. This is another favourite show and usually sparks off experimenting and creating things that were done on the show.

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On another note.....

The children have started playing with a boy who moved in across the street a few months ago. He's the same age as J-bird. They been riding their bikes around the street mostly. They've also been playing with the kids next door when they are there (they are the grandchildren of the owners).

Sparkle seems to have an interest in 'teenagers' lately. One day in the car she was asking me about teenagers and I explained that time is also called 'adolescence' and it is when you start changing more to prepare for becoming an adult. I said that the word 'teenager' was made up by someone because the of the age range being 'teen numbers' (which we recited together). She's been using the word a lot lately to refer to older kids I think because it is a new word in her vocabulary and she understands what it means. I personally don't like the term because it is just another label given to people.

J-bird has a renewed interest in playing pool (billiards) since we had another pool night on Saturday with people from DH's work. We are pretty tired because we also had family over all day yesterday because it was DH's 31st birthday.

BTW, we are finally going to buy our new car this afternoon!

Postcard Collecting

2005-02-18T13:15:00.000+10:00

We have started receiving postcards! We have already sent 2 batches and are expecting 68 cards so far (and have sent that many out). Our stock of cards to trade has changed a few times and we have found some cheapers cards which helps.

As we receive postcards from the US we shade in the states map and alphabetical list of states so we can keep track of where the cards are from and where we still need to get cards from. We have also got some Germany cards coming (from someone now in the US) and mum has bid on a few collections of vintage cards on eBay....especially European countries, as it is mostly Americans on the Postcard Kids group. Today the moderator of the Postcard Kids group pointed us in the direction of a group especially for trading horse postcards so we've joined that so Sparkle can build her horse card collection! If only there was a baseball group for J-bird too.

Mum has just created (another!) blog specifically to display our cards to trade and our growing collection - Collecting Postcards.

Photos

2005-02-15T15:22:00.000+10:00

Sparkle with her jazz ballet leotard and new leather dance shoes!

Sparkle's Penelope Paper Puppet

Library, history, socialising, and the art of telling time!

2005-02-11T14:59:00.000+10:00

We went to the library a couple of days ago and got an assortment of books and videos. I even found a 'how to bushdance' book for kids that comes with a CD. We'll have fun mucking around with that! I found a book with fantastic horse photos for Sparkle as she is into horses at the moment. I would love to find somewhere she could have a ride on a horse. It is something I think every child should do at least once. She also chose several picture books and a couple of videos such as The Enormous Crocodile by Roald Dahl. I was asked to read one of her library books to her last night and instead she ended up reading most of the first couple of pages herself. I noticed that her sight words have increased and she is still using re-reading as an effective way of making sense of what she is reading. After all, when you have a lot of decoding to do you tend to forget what you were reading. Re-reading is a strategy S has used for a long time without prompting. She will read a few words and after spending a moment working out a new word will go back to the start of the sentence and put it all together, sometimes a few times in a long sentence. She realises that the purpose of reading is about making meaning. If something is obviously taking too much decoding time then it is time for mum to read some. What is the use of struggling through and losing the meaning? I've found many conventions are picked up while following along as I read to her.

J-bird didn't borrow any books but loved going to the library to play on their fancy new computer with an assortment of interesting games. The computer wasn't turned on to begin with but he soon had it turned on and found the games he wanted to access.

I found myself a heap of great drawing and illustrating books so I can get an insight into more techniques and try and improve my skills.

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Something S and I have been enjoying is the series on SBS called The Colony, where people are living as the first colonies did in Australia. It gives us lots of talking points and is interesting to compare how these people with modern day views adapt (or don't) to the experience.

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Yesterday we attended the home education group for the second time and boy has the group grown! We didn't get there until nearly 1pm because we were sorting out our postcard exchanges and had other errands to run. There was free face painting but Sparkle waited too long to decide whether she wanted her face done and then missed out. J & S explored the large shady playground set in amongst the fig trees and got blisters climbing along a large tree branch - they loved it.

While we were there I asked J-bird to look at the mobile phone and tell me the time. He not only said "2:15" but added "that's quarter past two" with a look that told me he was happy that he had finally clicked on that aspect of time-telling. It must be hard for kids because we refer to the time in so many different ways including rounding to the nearest 5 minutes. So, it is quite an occasion when one of those methods is finally grasped.

Meaningful Geography!!

2005-02-11T13:32:00.000+10:00

We have joined the Postcard Kids Yahoo! Group and are now exchanging postcards with people around the world, but mostly in the US. We are referring to the world globe and have enlarged a couple of maps of North America from our atlas. We hope to eventually collect postcards from each of the 50 US states and are well on our way, having just sent cards to North Carolina, Alaska, Washington, Florida, Wisconsin and Maryland, who will be sending us cards in return. We are also organising exchanges with North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Oregon, New York, and more - many of these are in response to our request for postcards of horses (for Sparkle) and baseball (for J-bird). We created a blurb about Australia which we typed and copied several times into the one A4 page so we can cut and paste them onto the cards we send rather than re-write on every card.

Our blurb is:

Australia’s indigenous people have been around for over 40,000 years, while the Europeans only arrived in 1788. We celebrate Australia Day on 26th January each year. Australia is unique for its lamingtons (cake dipped in chocolate and coconut) and Vegemite.
Queensland’s weather can get very hot and humid in Summer. We have a lot of bush land with tropical rainforests in North QLD. The bush is full of Eucalyptus trees which house lots of our fauna such as koalas, cockatoos, possums, rainbow lorikeets and galahs. Some of our native flora includes bottlebrush, wattle, and grevilleas.
We love Australia and having prawns on the bbq at Christmas, but would also love to experience a ‘White Christmas’ one year!

Many people will be telling us about where they live too.

Sparkle helped me find and choose a range of postcards to stock as we often exchange 5 for 5 if someone has a range of interesting cards available. We have a couple of mixed wildlife cards, a Brisbane night scene, Brisbane riverside with Endeavour ship replica and River Queen paddleboat, a rainforest card, Queensland card with map and 4 photos, Australia's capital cities, and Flowers of Australia.

Our trading postcards...

Sparkle has already been lined up with a couple of penpals through our exchanges. Well, one is an epal (email penpal) who is a 7-year-old girl living in Illinois, USA. The other is a regular snail mail penpal who is an 8-year-old girl living in Nova Scotia, Canada.

J-bird has also found an epal in a 13-year-old boy from New York who plays and has a passion for baseball. There is another prospective boy (10 years old) who plays baseball and lives in New Bern, North Carolina.

We should start receiving our first postcards next week and we can't wait!! We've already bought a photo storage box to keep them organised.

Catching up

2005-02-04T15:44:00.000+10:00

I've been a bit slack in writing updates this week...guess that's what happens when you've got three blogs to maintain!

My memory is a shocker so I'm having trouble remembering what we've been up to. Here's an assortment of activities from this week (not in any particular order):

TV: Walking with Beasts - Mammoth Journey - We watched this together as we always get a lot out of these shows where we are amazed at how the archeologists and scientists put enough pieces together to conclude what extinct animals looked like, sounded like, acted like, ate, and interacted. They make the shows more like documentaries of live animals (and people) by creating a story that follows a group of the creatures and/or people.

Fairy Puzzle - Sparkle wanted me to note that she has been doing her fairy puzzle book. There's a puzzle on each page.

Board Games - S & J have been playing with the board games book.

Skip-Bo - J-bird, Sparkle, and I have been playing Skip-Bo for the last couple of days. I have been realising how much thought and planning goes into playing this game, especially when you get a Skip-Bo card (like a wild card) and you need to assess what cards you have in order to decide which pile to put the card on. You also have to be aware of cards your opponents have because it may mean not putting down certain playable cards if it will advantage others.

New Books - at the Post Office I came across a pack of 4 Pamela Allen books for $9.95 total! Sparkle enjoyed me reading them to her and she was already familiar with a couple of the titles (e.g. Mr McGee)

Literacy Quest - J-bird tried out one of the new cd-roms that is an interactive space mission style game where you have to solve various literacy tasks to unlock doors, etc. It has puzzles/tasks involving spelling, antonyms, synonyms, anagrams and so on. It is good because if you don't get something right the first time you get more chances (e.g. they show the word to be spelled for a few seconds each time so you are not blindly guessing).

Funbrain.com - J-bird has continued to play the games on this website when he gets a chance (got to fight mum for the internet!). He particularly likes a space game.

Typing - J-bird has continued typing the numbers 1 to 1000 in Wordpad on the older computer. He is nearly up to 700. He's also beoming familiar with word processing conventions - using backspace, delete, arrows, saving, finding and opening his document.

Jazz Ballet - Sparkle started at the Silhouette School of Dance instead of going back to the PCYC. We bought her a leotard and still have to get the special shoes (at a cost of $66 mind you! Ouch!)

Baseball Training - This week the players (J-bird included) who will be going up to Under-12s next season started being taught how to pitch. Of course, it is DH teaching them because he is the pitcher for the team at the games because the coach (one of the mums) can't pitch too well.

Bargains & Games - Yesterday we spent 6 1/2 hrs at the shops with Grandma to avoid the heat outside. We cashed in on lots of clothes on clearance and the kids got to choose various items and make decisions when we had to cut down the numbers. In the afternoon Grandma took the kids to the games arcade where they challenged themselves with various accuracy games, counted how many tickets they each had won, used the ticket machine, and worked out what combination of prizes they could get for their total points earned.

Continents - Sparkle was checking out our world globe (it is often held while watching the tv) and wanted to know how to correctly pronounce 'Antarctica' so we were saying it in syllables and I wrote down the parts to make it easier. this led to discussing continents and I listsed them on the same piece of note paper. She also wanted to add another couple of country names like China.

Little Chicken is reaching out and grasping toys and shoving them in her mouth (or your hand if she gets a chance!).

Typing, scrapbooks, and cane toads...

2005-01-30T21:30:00.000+10:00

Sparkle drew her toy hairdryer and asked me to add it to this blog.
She is like her mumma - likes to be creative.

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Today Sparkle typed the alphabet in Wordpad on the old computer (the kids have been exploring word processing and typing for the last couple of days). She added "now I know my abc next" and then asked J-bird to finish it off with "time won't you sing with me". I only needed to give them a little spelling help and had the opportunity to draw their attention to the silent 'k' in 'know' and link it to the word 'knowledge'. I showed them the various fonts and sizes and they chose 'Curlz' font for their bit of typing. There isn't a printer hooked up to the old printer so they witnessed saving a file to a floppy disk (haven't done that for a LONG time) and loading it onto the new computer. I pasted a second copy of the text onto the page and printed it out so they'd both have a copy.

Sparkle types the alphabet song.

J-bird typing numbers from 1 to however many it takes to fill an A4 page!

Recently I bought some scrapbooks so the kids could record some of the things they do throughout the year - photos, etc. Today we started them off with their bit of typing.

Sparkle had already drawn a picture on the first page in her scrapbook...of a family (us) but with huge ears. It is a monster family. After a little encouragement she narrated a few sentences about the picture and I wrote it on the page for her. She enjoyed reading it a couple of times during the day and then to her dad when got home from work (yep, DH works one Sunday a month). We then added her alphabet typing and photos and I wrote what she narrated about it. We also added the photo of her doing her Jigsaw Maths activity book and one of her holding the little lizard that J-bird brought inside the other day. They had narrations too.

J-bird's scrapbook had similar additions and I wrote most of his as well as at this stage he isn't keen on writing.

The kids watched a few nature documentaries this morning and one was on cane toads. They had experienced cane toads at the park the other day so they were interested in all the information about them. I took the opportunity to look them up on the internet and printed a couple of photos - one with labels, one of toad eggs, a photo of an adult cane toad, and a map of Australia showing where the cane toads are located. I also printed a little bit of interesting text and downloaded a short humorous animated film.

We ran with it...pasting the photos and text into J-bird's scrapbook and he narrated a lot of interesting information he learned from watching the documentary and I was his scribe. We left room for a fancy title - J-bird is going to use the lettering book for ideas.

We've taken the scrapbook idea as a way to share what the kids are doing with their dad as he is often at work and can't always be there when interesting things happen. It gives it a real purpose and I am not pushing for either of them to write their own stuff at this stage as I don't want to put them off. I think scribing their words gives them enough ownership and they then like to read what they have written. In time I expect that they will get impatient waiting for me and will start to make their own little notes and labels for photos.

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This afternoon I showed the kids the webpage I set up for them with links to fun and educational websites. We spent a few hours exploring Funbrain.com which J-bird really enjoyed and mum was hopeless at the games.

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Little Chicken sleeps in the big cot now and cuddles her blankie. She is such a sweetie.

Sparkle catches the drawing bug

2005-01-28T21:36:00.000+10:00

Here are some of Sparkle's sketches from today and yesterday. She has been watching me closely as I sketch all sorts of things and use trial and error. One of the first things I sketched was the tape dispenser and S sat next to me and sketched it at the same time (see below). She has done several still lifes as well as a couple of drawings from her imagination. I think they are great for a just-turned-7-year-old.

Stickytape dispenser and pencil

Nail clippers turned into grasshopper
(S thought her attempt at drawing the nail clippers looked more like a grasshopper, so that is what it became.)

Wooden bear - our doorstop
(S experimented with smudging after seeing me do it)

Baby toys

Our Foxie - Pippy

Stapler
(S found the bottom hard to do)

Snail
(from imagination/memory)

Duck?
(S: "Don't know what this is"...Mum thinks it looks like a duck)

Aunty Suzy
(using imagination/memory)

Home Ed Group

2005-01-28T10:43:00.000+10:00

Yesterday we attended a new home ed group for the first time. It was a rainy day (again) but a lovely park with a pond and a farmhouse theme playground. Some of the trees were enormous and must be hundreds of years old. J and I imagined a family dressed in their high collars and long skirts having a picnic under one of the huge trees around one hundred years ago.

I think we met about 6 other families (though there are several more who were put off by the rain or had other commitments). Sparkle was pretty much straight into playing with the other children (who ranged from around 1 year old to 9 years old). They discovered heaps of tiny baby cane toads (I doubt they were even 1cm long) hopping through the grass, a pee wee nest in a tree which was overhanging the pond, water hens, ducks, ibises and other birds in and around the water, and a toad under the water which was piggy-backing a dead toad (eewwww!).

The farmhouse play area was great. It is like a homestead with rolled tin roof, water tanks (which are little rooms to play in), a windmill, a water pump that you could actually get water through, and an old flat-tray ute (not a real one!).

I took along a tray of bubbles and handed them out after lunch. They had a great time blowing bubbles all over the park.

S tells me they also played a 'treasure game'. One of the children drew a treasure map and they followed it around the park. I asked if there was any treasure and apparently they saw a "yellow lily-pad that we pretended was a gold one".

J stayed with me the whole time...keeping an eye on his baby sister I think...rather than playing with the kids. Though, I know he was listening to one of the adults telling another boy about the snake that has been eating her chickens. I am sure that he has a feel for the group now and will start to interact next week as we will be going to a familiar park and he already intends to climb the huge net/tower. I wish I took some photos but I didn't want to get the camera wet.

We left just before 2pm, came home for a while, then went to meet Aunty S at the shops before picking daddy up from work at 7pm.

Australia Day

2005-01-26T13:54:00.000+10:00

So far today we have been lazing about. It's still overcast, slightly rainy weather, so no use going for a picnic or anything.

J has played a few hours of Petz5 this morning, looking after virtual puppies, growing carrots(!), teaching the puppies tricks, and oh so much more. S was alongside helping and discussing and eventually got to play with her own puppies.

J and dad are playing Tony Hawk Pro Skater together on the PSX - J likes spending time with dad and we are fortunate that he has today off work even though it is a public holiday.

Tomorrow we will attend our first Home Ed Group get-together. It is 'Not-back-to-school-day' and I am handing out surveys for the yearbook I suggested, as well as taking a few packs of bottles of bubbles for the kids to play with.

Grandma might be coming over later today....she has a few little goodies for the kids.

A computer kind of day

2005-01-25T18:41:00.000+10:00

Well it was weather for ducks today along with what seemed like two mini cyclones with massive wind and near-horizontal rain. J and S watched their usual morning shows including Backyard Science, Magic Schoolbus and a suspense series called Jeopardy. The spent most of the rest of the day on the two computers playing various games:

Rodent's Revenge - old-style strategy game - J & S played at same time on different computers along with animated voices and dialogue for the game's characters
Minesweeper - another strategy game - J and I read the rules together and he did well working through the game
Life Genesis - J & I read the rules for this yesterday - it's based on living cells...you have to add one of your cells and take away an opponent's cell. Then the grid regenerates...only viable cells will survive and grow (having at least 3 touching cells and no more than four to survive). You lose if you can't maintain and grow your cells. Sounds complicated and sort of is...we need to read the rules and description better I think.
Chess - J is exploring chess as we don't know how to play it yet. He's using the 'hints' to figure out how each piece moves, etc. We want to learn to play it properly (I was taught when I was younger but totally forget how to play!).
Word Search Deluxe - S played this because it has pictures as well as the words.
Petz5 - adopting virtual puppies and looking after them. J & S played this for a few hours co-operatively. They took their puppies to all sorts of virtual locations, played games with them, dressed them in costumes, planted and watered seeds so they would grow, taught their pups what was good and bad behaviour, fed them, decorated rooms, and heaps more. There was heaps of conversation about the whole thing and lots of cooperation. It was good to watch.
Phonics & Spelling 2 - S installed(!) this new game herself and started learning lots of letter blends. I helped her figure out how to play a crossword (hasn't done crosswords before) involving finding the word to fit in the sentence.
3rd Grade Clue Finders: The Adventures of Mathra - S decided to play this and had a good grasp of what to do having watched J play it through last year. Lots of problem-solving and maths (BTW if she went to school she would be starting Yr 2 this year - not that we really care about equivalency).
5th Grade Reading Blaster J checked this game out for the first time. He had a bit of trouble with the activities because some of the words were unknown to him (vocabulary) even though he can decode (read) most words. I noticed that there are all sorts of word lists and each time you play you can choose a word set or select 'random'. I think you can also make your own word list. If he is interested in playing agian we might choose this option until he gets more familiar with the program.

So far this month...

2005-01-23T17:28:00.000+10:00

Sparkle turned 7 on the 3rd January!

We gave Sparkle a fairy dress and the 'Twister Moves' game.
It's hard! Even Nana couldn't do it fast enough!

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Four-legged reptile!

J-bird found a tiny lizard in the garden and brought it inside so we could all have a closer look...

J-bird put it back where he found it in case it had a mumma lizard.

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Self-control!

Little Chicken started reaching out for her toys...

BTW, she hates it on her tummy, unlike her brother who was pushing himself way up by 6 weeks! L-Chicken does want to sit up all the time though - must be a 'vertical' personality!

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Fun with Maths!

Sparkle decided to do some activities in her Jigsaw Maths book and J-bird followed suit. Sparkle was organising numbers in ascending and descending order, while J-bird did a 3D shapes activity to find the answer to a joke.

Intro

2005-01-23T15:39:00.000+10:00

This blog is for recording photos and comments about our day-to-day activities as we learn naturally outside of school.

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Meet 'J-bird'...

... our 9 1/2 year old son who loves baseball and the computer.

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Meet 'Sparkle'...

...our 7 year old daughter who loves singing, dancing and drawing.

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Meet 'Little Chicken'...

...our gorgeous and happy little girl born 29th October 2004.