Best laid plans

• home education

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now]

Stuff to keep going

Bookwork for pocket money was working out nicely (up to the point where it fell apart catastrophically from September while the dental work was being done and then again in December because of silly season). Been pinged for not doing literacy and numeracy every day again but none of us feel like bookworking it every single day and I honestly don’t know how much more literate and numerate I’m supposed to be getting after reading every single night (they are read to and the big ones read passages aloud, more if we can get them to read more), voluntarily playing Reading Eggs, counting how much pocket money they’ve saved up and how much more they need for whatever it is they want to get and working out how many blocks they need to build this thing in Minecraft and other random bits and pieces that seem to magically crop up without too much deliberate intervention by me.

Kung fu is also working out well. I’d like to go to the second kung fu training night as well but it may clash with Auskick which both the boys have expressed interest in doing (again in 8yo’s case).

Stuff to work on

At the end of last year all the kids were given a notebook (the kind you write notes in with an actual pen that uses ink, not the small portable computer kind) each by my parents. 8yo enthusiastically decided he was going to use his as a diary, but then declined to actually write anything in it because he was apparently on the lookout for something extra special to put in it and nothing was quite special enough. Seeing as he really needs to work on his writing (and I can actually start focusing on that seeing as his reading as improved to the point where it’s not a major headache-inducing stress anymore) I’ve since put forward the suggestion that he just write in it as we can get him other interesting looking notebooks to use once he’s filled that one up.

I’m quite aware my record keeping skills in the homeschooling department are pretty abysmal, however the moderator told me that the blog and photos are fine, so going to concentrate my efforts on that instead of splitting between the blog and a notebook like I have been doing resulting in neither getting done well or at all.

Stuff in the works

Signed the big kids up for a term of Scitech homeschool classes and will probably continue to do so throughout the year. I hadn’t done them previously as for some reason I’d thought it was necessary to get a group together and go as a “school group” but apparently the classes are just run for homeschooled students and all you need to do is sign up and give them money. I also had the problem of having to be in there and what to do with the one that wasn’t old enough to participate but apparently all you need to do is remain in the complex, so the smalls can hang out in the rest of SciTech while the Bigs have their classes. A couple of the usual crew have also signed their kids up so if some of us need to be in the lab as well we can split shift. Once I finish this project I’m hoping to do more Scitech and zoo visits. Alternating them every fortnight might be a bit much, might try for alternating months. And not on parents at kids prices day.

All three kids expressed interest in doing music lessons this year. One of my crew send their kids to the Canningvale Forte Music School. She raves about it, but says it’s also expensive and using the prices she sent as a guide, it’s looking a bit cost prohibitive for us. I’m going to talk to the neighbours one over about music and Malay lessons as he can apparently play at least the guitar and may know a few other instruments and she is from Malaysia and fluent in Malay. Have also found some WAAPA final year students and other miscellaneous people offering music lessons on Gumtree and the prices some have listed are a lot more within budget.

Last year we tried horse riding and all three loved it (they still talk about “their” ponies), so going to try to squeeze that in monthly as well.

The crew (self included) are slowly planning Hub and group excursions and the like.

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