We spent most of the last week recovering from whatever plague we had and trying to get back into the bookwork. What this meant was that we stayed home all week and I let the kids do whatever books they wanted which meant Ruan only did Reading Eggs books all week when they are supposed to pick different subjects.
Which reminds me I do need to buy them new books for next year.
This week we got back into the swing of things. My grandmother is staying with my uncle in Malaysia for the next three months so it was just my aunty at her place when we dropped in. She was going on a mad cleaning frenzy so we didn't stay too long. Next stop was a friend's place and the kids went to climb trees and explore the bushland behind the house armed with walkie talkies. I inadvertantly started a trend when one of the kids claimed to be stuck quite high in the tree so I jumped the (1.7 odd metre high) fence to leap to the rescue but she managed to work out how to get down on her own. Next thing we know they all started jumping the fence.
We made training and the kids didn't train much, they were too busy catching up with a similar-aged friend who comes along with his parent to the classes. Josh decided to "start their education in the classics" and has been reading Australian poetry to the kids before their bedtime stories. So far we've had Clancy of the Overflow by Banjo Paterson and My Country by Dorothea Mackellar.
Some G+ friends also found an Oatmeal grammar guide that the kids quite enjoyed (seriously contemplating getting the grammar pack, though it's entirely possible some of the content may be considered not quite age appropriate for the intended recipients):
Oatmeal comic, click through to read the whole thing, and read the other ones while there because they're awesome
I occasionally need to be reminded just how great Oatmeal comics are.
A different G+ friend posted this 5min explanatory video on Thorium reactors which Tao wanted to watch because he thought the metal ball in the thumbnail looked cool:
He was captivated for the entire video.
Ruan found one of my ink bottles and decided she was going to go to Hogwarts and write with a quill. This particular adventure required going outside and finding a large feather to use as a quill. As we have chickens this wasn't exactly hard. I did tell them they were technically supposed to cut nibs into their quills but they were happy enough, and more importantly they were extremely careful about their clothes like I told them to be and didn't spill any ink.
6yo sketching with chicken feather quill and red ink
The result of the 8yo who doesn't draw much experimenting with a new medium
It was definitely a lot more fun than the bookwork we had been looking at.
The writing of the big two has been improving quite a lot, and I'm really happy with how Tao has been focusing on improving his writing. Both bigs are reading independently. On Christmas Island Tao spent a few nights reading a space atlas targeted at kids in bed, and I was thinking that my reading to him days might be numbered. Last night I had one of those parental pride moments when he fell asleep reading a Boy vs Beast book in bed. Ru can also read independently but only a few pages before it seems to tax her brain.
Right up at the end of the week we very briefly covered voting, the election and political parties and I explained major and minor parties, Upper and Lower House (very very briefly because I am quite rusty on particulars and they weren't that interested anyway) and explained the voting system with the fictional Free Pizza Party and No Free Pizza Party.
Our mushrooms have been mushrooming, we have lost our ruler so can't measure the things, and things flowering means spring is here.