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Mar
09
2012

Music session with Child's Play Music (and other things homeschooly)

Ru and Cub on the drums during a Child's Play Music session at Learning HubThe most recent session at Natural Learning Co-op (formerly known as Learning Hub, apparently there's another group in the northern suburbs also called Learning Hub, and which I'll probably shortern to the last word as I'm lazy like that) involved a music session with Alec from Child's Play Music.  He had a huge van full of musical instruments that he'd constructed mostly from recycled materials.

Feb
19
2012

Life and !schooling in 2012

Apparently there was a bit of a kerfuffle in the moderator department, which meant I completely forgot about the moderation until the new moderator rocked up on my door towards the end of my work period.  Oops.  Fortunately I work from home and can make up hours easy, and I hadn't gone out to pick up my shiny new computer yet, though I had gotten dressed to do so.  So all she saw was that my place is a mess, which is about normal and I don't clean up for anyone!

We chatted and she seems like a nice person.  I gave her enough information to write a happy report and get us approved for another year.  She also sent me the literacy outcomes to help with the learning program which I have only just worked out that I do actually have (I'm a bit slow, I seem to do a lot of things because they make sense or because I need to do them to do other things etc and never realise they are processes that have names or that I'm implementing a program).

So what's been happening around here, we've managed to cram a bit into the couple of weeks we've been back.

Feb
12
2012

Massive Christmas Island photopost

Everything that happened after the dangers of parking your ship next to a cliff, which I would have posted if my sites hadn't been playing silly buggers.  Everything is okay now, which means I'll be posting about as much as I was inclined to post before.

Spider

Weird looking spider

Have I scared off the arachnophobes yet? It's okay, this is the only spider photo this post.  I have no idea what kind of spider it is; I don't recall seeing it when I was growing up.  Sprat seems to think it's fairly recently common.

These are all more or less straight off the camera (aside from any incidental modifications that happen because I resized them down to 500px on the long side from over 4000) because I'm lazy and currently trying to make presentable some lion dance photos I took under bizarro lighting that a complete non-photographer like me has no idea how to deal with.

Jan
07
2012

Family themed photos and miscellaneous ramblings

Yesterday, we went out for a drive.  Christmas Island isn't the biggest island in the world, if you point the car's nose down the road and drive without stopping along any major track you'll end up back where you started in about half an hour.

We went out in an exploratory mood and took many photos.  Of course all the photos Josh took while we were out and about were with Kerchunk and nothing on Snap so there's nothing I can post.  We'll just have to go out again and take more when the battery charger arrives.

I'm rather annoyed with myself that it didn't occur to me to take a photo of at least one of the egg laden robber crabs that we skirted around in our trek.  Not doing so had something to do with rain and being in the middle of the jungle and swarms of mosquitoes.  Yeh I know, excuses, excuses :)

swarm of mosquitoes

stock photo from LindaMarieB

Nov
16
2011

Photos. Lots of them.

Not quite intelligent enough for a coherent post, so have lots of captioned photos instead.

kids storyboarding on a storyboard template

Homeschooling art and English: storyboarding with Mummy (who was working on AR storyboards)

Oct
13
2011

Drawing on the Cintiq

Ruan likes experimenting in all media.  Recently I let her have a go with Pixelmator and my Cintiq.  This is what she came up with.

Small girl and some of her friends

Now I have to go to Carousel to get her more paints and a canbus.

Ru: Can we get more paints and a canbus?
Me: Canbus? Canvas?
Ru: the canbus is what I paint on, silly.

Sep
26
2011

The Mythical Farm of Legend

Since I first got together with Josh, I have heard stories of the farm which has been in his family for generations (or at least, his grandparents ran it, and it's now owned and operated by his uncles and their family).  It has a name but is just referred to "The Farm".

For the last seven years, Josh has told me he will take me to "The Farm".  For various reasons, we never quite got there.

Recently, I found out that the place isn't a collective hallucination.

Farm house roof, house hidden by trees

There is a house in those trees.  It's a bit of a dark splodge in the photo.  On the other side of the tree to the right of the white thing.

The farm is a decent size, and got some pretty scenery.  I couldn't piece a decent writeup together (and the farm visit was a couple of weeks ago now), so have a bunch of photos.

Aug
22
2011

You're doing it wrong

Here was supposed to be yet another whingepost about how I'm doing everything wrong and there is now nothing that I "can" drop.  So I'm going to see if I can somehow write myself into doing "it" right.

The computer room is a f***ing mess

There is more crap than there should be on the desk.  Most of it is paper that needs to be filed or recycled, and I have just been too damn lazy to process them into the appropriate location.

It needs to be cleaned up, if just so I can find the stuff that usually lives on my desk (phone, wallet, Lightwave dongle) easier and the cables are slightly less likely to get tangled.

Jul
09
2011

Not quiet on the !schooling front

I just haven't been writing about it.

Last week, Tao drew a picture of Venom from Spiderman with black whiteboard marker on paper, including sounding out the name and checking with Josh after writing it out.

Venom drawn with black whiteboard marker on paper

This week just gone has been crazy.

Jun
03
2011

Reading and writing

Cub loves being read to, and is constantly bringing books to us and demanding "Wead book!"

Happy toddler with a book

I can also say "duduk" to him and he will sit down.  All three kids understand "makan" and "bagus" (Tao used to pronounce it "ba-goo-doos" when he was Cub's age :) and that's as far as I've gotten with Malay; my vocabulary is shocking and grammar non-existant.