December Homeschooling Miscellany

December is always an odd time of year due to having to wind up kids activities, business for the year and organising whatever is going on for Christmas so I rarely have much homeschooly to write about.

The kids had their gymnastics end of year performance, the theme was "Back to the 80s".  Costumes were fantastic, the performances were great and I completely failed at taking any good photos.  The Christmas party followed directly afterwards including a visit from Santa.

At some point 6yo figured out how the juicer went together and proceeded to chop up apples to juice.  I came out when I heard the knife rhythmically chopping on the bench.  He was using it safely so I put down the chopping board, told him he needed to use that rather than cutting directly on the bench and supervised from a distance.

9yo found some scrapbooking paper I'd acquisitioned ages ago and on being told that she could use it for crafty things (and only crafty things and not just writing on or general scribbling as she does sometimes as the paper is expensive) she produced some adorable tiny cards.

We did a December Solstice/Abysmal Intercalary celebration where the kids opened the Christmas presents they'd gotten from us and my aunty so that we wouldn't have extra luggage to haul up to Jurien Bay, and then headed there for Christmas.  It was really blustery and windy so we couldn't go out in the boat or even the beach, much to the kids' disappointment.  We did try the marina which was slightly less windy with freezing cold water.  The frigid waters didn't stop 6yo from jumping in (and JJ had to follow him as despite being told that the darker coloured water was a very steep and sudden drop off, he absolutely had to go and see for himself).  The older two paddled for a bit before chickening out, attempting to build sand castles and beach combing.  There was a plethora of bivalve and crustacean shells among the usual fare.

We had some discussion on how sand dune vegetation is generally different from more inland vegetation, and differences between inland vegetation near water or not near water.

We have a few more Jurien trips planned in the near future as JJ's parents are going to be up there for an indeterminate period of time which will hopefully allow some exploration of the surrounds.