Tao

Tao decided to do Khan Academy for maths, and happily worked through a few addition/subtraction stacks.  After he giggled at me a few times for taking longer than he had to work out the problems, I told Josh that he could supervise at least Tao's maths from hereon (it won't happen as I've said that a few times from about two thirds of the way through last year, and I'm still supervising everything except when I've asked Josh to supervise due to work).  He didn't watch any of the videos as he understood the basics behind the stacks and just needed some assistance with the 4 digit stuff.

Tao's Khan Academy progress report

First thing I noticed attempting to swing to theAbysmal time, it's HARD now, because Monday was technically the middle of theAbysmal week and we kind of like having weekends with the person who works full time out of home, and also I've just noticed that something awkward has happened between my two copies of the converter.  The form says it's C03r and the block in the blog sidebar says it's C04c.  Meantime the official version says it's Month 2 Day 2 (I expected to be a day ahead and two days sometimes due to observing leap years on different years).  So for now I'll have to keep track of tAT but continue using Gregorian.

Tao

Seeing as I'm rejigging everything else anyway I think when I throw the boulders back in the river it will be following theAbysmal Calendar.  It's going to make date conversions interesting (suppose I better write that module at some stage) but even in the current rudimentary stages I'm finding date projections and calculations easier with theAbysmal than with the Gregorian (where I need to look at the calendar because it doesn't always visualise correctly in my head).  Yes I have actually had a plan for this year (since November in fact), no I haven't written it down and sorted out all the final details yet, I'm working on it.

Tao

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.

Maths

Forgot Tao already had a maths book so he's continuing on with his old one.  He got away with doing only one page instead of two as I also made him read the thing by himself which taxed him quite a lot as he was already a bit tired and we started later than we should have.  Kumon book is much too easy for Ru so will have to get another one that's slightly more challenging.  Seems like it would be a good thing for Cub so either he will get Ru's book or I'll get him another one like it.

English

In which I once more attempt weekly updates on the homeschooling side of things.  Going to see how I go just writing about the bookwork and if I remember to add the Other Stuff we do as I go (and I found out after reading the curriculum outlines that we actually do most of the stuff in the curriculum without making much effort to do it, wonder how long I can get away with that... :).

Also I changed the generated url as punctuation gets dropped.

Maths

Because I don't blog it nearly as often as I should.

Tao's reading is now well and truly away.  He reads everything from street and shop signs that we're passing to books.  His current favourite book is his Pokemon Black & White Handbook that Sprat bought for him. It's not unusual for him to wander around the house with it, have it open on his lap while watching tv, and sometimes he'll be multiscreening, watching tv, playing Pokemon White on his DS and have the book open beside him for reference.  I've known for a while and I think both Tao and Josh are discovering that he can actually parse what he considers large blocks of text when he wants to.

"Where is the Green Sheep" is a picture book by Mem Fox and Judy Horacek.  It's been a favourite for all three kids and it's pretty easy (repetitive sentences with one-two word variations).  In the interests of LOTE I decided to translate it into lojban for them.

Unfortunately, I completely destroyed the lyrical rhyming thing while doing so.

Happily it seemed like a mostly straightforward task (which means I'm slowly getting better or conversely I fubared it and don't realise it yet).  I can't find a word for "clown" and I don't think {sakli} is the right thing to use when describing playground equipment.

And of course the Lojbanic Translator is being excruciatingly slow/non-responsive so I can't check my work.  Will just have to get the people that are actually fluent to shoot this thing down in flames help me out :) Here goes.

F=Faham (Photo credit: :Salihan)

Not "versus" because it's not a contest.  Not really.

Just randomly (and because they asked nicely), we decided to go down to the park at the end of the road on bladei (okay, fine, Thursday, to be followed up by a trip to City Farmers to stock up on roo meat and mutton, and more flea meds).

The day was lovely, and of course I hadn't brought the camera, missed out on some awesome shots.  I really need to buy something that will cart just the camera with my favourite lens attached, don't really need the monstrosity that is Josh's camera bag (I have enough crap to haul as is).

While Cub slid down the slide, I heard that distinctive crackle as his clothes charged up with static electricity.  Then he ran back up the slide and grabbed onto the metal frame up the top to assist his ascent.

CRACK! "OW!" The surprise on his face was adorable.