home education
Writing and thoughts on school
From writing and art not really being his “thing”, 9yo recently had a sudden explosion of doing a bit of it without me yelling out that it was bookwork o’clock and him coming and doing some or not as he felt like.
He made a new character which is supposed to be a roleplaying character (though I have already told him I’m not sure how well it would fit into the WoD Changeling system we have but I can usually make things work and if there is a next time maybe it can be after Winter if I ever get my paws on and head around the new version) and spent a couple of days writing notes and a backstory:
Is this real?
9yo hopped into my bed in the early hours after The Linux Geek left for work. After chilling for a bit he asked me: “Is this real or is this a dream?”
“I think so,” I replied after a moment’s hesitation. “There’s a creation myth, can’t remember whose, maybe one of the Native American tribes, about how the entire universe is the dream of some god and when that god wakes up we’ll all stop existing.”
Mundaring Sculpture Park and Weir
Last time we were out this way was a few years ago for a Truffle Festival. This time round we came out this way on the weekly excursion (which he hadn’t done for a couple of weekends due to some major works including replacing the fence out the front and helping friends lay some cable to a shed) and because 7yo heard there was an art gallery.
We stopped by the “village” to pick up maps and things for 7yo’s collection and she also bought a butterfly spotter’s book and to hit up the bakery for lunch. We took the food to the Sculpture Park and the kids had a play at the playground before we checked out the sculptures, read and followed the track up to where there were some rail switching levers and an amphitheatre. 7yo put a performance on the old platform (now a stage).
Not schooly stuff
Duplo ‘i LOVE U’ by 9yo with a little blue heart in the O
7yo’s pic of Hootabella, one of the owls from the Giggle and Hoot show on ABC4Kids. She has since added in a magic wand and we will be sending it in to the Giggle Gallery along with one she helped 5yo with
1900s
me: We’re going to find out how people lived in the 1900s!
7yo: how long ago was that?
me: so long ago not even Great Nanny was born then.
7yo: the Stone Age?
me: …[trying not to laugh]…not that long ago.
7yo: Romans?
me: not that long ago either.
7yo: [thinking]…Tudors?
me: that’s probably closer.
This work by ryivhnn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License
Duplo tablet stand
5yo likes to watch mocies on his tablets when he’s eating alone, but sometimes struggles to hold the tablet up with one hand, and often gets told off for gooping up the tablet if he uses both hands to eat for whatever reason (I’ve also tried not allowing him to have the tablet while eating but that doesn’t always work). Yesterday after watching 5yo struggling to eat a bowl of pasta while watching a movie, 9yo built him a tablet stand out of Duplo:
Aviation Heritage Museum of WA and Army Museum of WA photo post
On two different weekends, we hit up the Aviation Heritage Museum of WA in Bull Creek and the Army Museum of WA
in Fremantle. I think the boys got more out of those trips than the girl did so next stop might have to be the Perth Museum (she has a special liking for the butterfly corridor) or Art Gallery and I suppose SciTech or the Zoo can also be considerations, somewhere she enjoys at any rate. Both these places are great, the guides are extremely helpful and are often floating not far away and are happy to answer everything about everything.
Unschooly things
Yeh I’m not doing the week by week anymore.
In addition to pocket money, daily bookwork is really good for basics when I’m sick or otherwise blargh from staying up too many late nights in a row and the kids are not (if they are sick they get to veg out and I try to get them to watch docos, we have recently discovered the TED Education Youtube channel and the kids have been consuming the snippets rabidly. There are full lessons on the TED-Ed website but we haven’t really explored there yet. The animations are short (usually under 15mins) which is perfect for 5yo’s attention span, and could potentially skim a huge variety of topics in 2 hours. Just off the top of my head from passing they’ve watched clips on the Higgs-Boson field, icebergs, eel migration, vampire mythology, why glass is transparent and the Fosbury Flop.
Attitude
As he approaches 5, the 4yo has been much less…well…4. While still prone to bouts of 4 year old raging tantrums, he is much easier to reason with and manage because he listens sometimes.
The attitudes of the bigs hae shifted dramatically from towards the end of last year where I have no idea what was going on (but the stress I was feeling at the time wouldn’t have helped) but I was fully prepared to pick up enrolment forms from the primary school down the road.
Breakthroughs
[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now]
9yo seems to finally be over his writing hurdle. Yesterday he reported that writing seems to be a lot easier, and as a result he hasn’t actively resisted/refused doing bookwork when I’ve put out the call to come and do it. Maybe he’s also realised that if he just comes and does the two pages he can go back to what he was doing quicker than if he tries to ignore me, then has a tantrum and argues about it, then does it with all of us in a cranky mood and then isn’t in the mood to do whatever it was he had been doing beforehand because the world is obviously dead set against him having any fun whatsoever. He still needs to work on some letter formation and is occasionally writing some things backwards but it seems to be coming a lot easier to him now which is great. I’ve told him it will get easier as it goes into muscle memory and his writing will slowly get neater the more he practises.