biology
Liddelow Homestead, John Oakey Davis Park and some miscellany
The City of Gosnells recently had its Homegrown Festival, but due to many clashes of things the only thing we ended up making was the Liddelow Homestead Open Day. It has a really cool corridor. There was also a stove which the kids didn’t initially recognise as such, we spent a few minutes talking about what it might be before I told them what it was, and we then discussed how one might control the temperature of the stove when cooking.
Massive Christmas Island Photopost 2014-15
Minimal text, many photos, some videos. Mishmash of scenic, happysnaps and homeschooling stuff coz that’s how we roll. Grab a drink and a snack before commencing. First couple of weeks… The airport wait wasn’t terribly exciting but at least there were planes to watch being loaded, taking off and landing. Big asam tree across the road as seen from my bed. It’s always good to be home. Kids helping Nanny and Aunty Sprat put together loot bags for Carols by Candlelight
Homeschooling stuff
We’re reaching the end of the year so it’s been a bit slack on the socially accepted learning front as everyone is a bit tired and over it. There’s been a lot of playing going on and in our usual fashion the 2015 program has already been modified before we could even think about starting it. Instead of doing bookwork every day, we’re alternating with cooking where the kids will choose a recipe, check we have all of the ingredients before commencing (and write out shopping list to be able to do something next session if they really want a thing we don’t have all the ingredients for) and do it themselves from start to finish.
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.
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.
Schooling 0000m00x m06z
[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] Weeks are getting slower as far as socially accepted “schooling” goes and ramping up with Silly Season. We did our usual park meet and roleplaying and a quick stint at the library this week but missed out on a chunk of the boring every day stuff such as grocery shopping as 4yo has been very 4 lately and taking him out anywhere is more unpleasant than it needs to be.
!schooling 0000L06z-13z
[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] We had one day where the smalls played Maths Seeds and 8yo found himself a doco about octopi (or at least the bit I saw of it had an octopus glooping through a “maze” of clear plastic pipes) just because it was fun. We had a kerbside collection recently which meant there were a lot of people kerbside collecting, including JJ who picked up an outdoor setting, three tubs, a shelving unit and two working monitors.
!schooling from whenever til now
[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] Due to stuff (some it was the parents coming up to visit for a couple of weeks, some is that business has picked up dramatically), I haven’t been keeping track of the homeschooly stuff. Also we’ve been finding better things to do than sitting and doing bookwork, so it’s a really good thing that’s not the core of our homeschooling program (I need to write one of those for next year by the way, and also a booklist).
Christmas Island: long photopost and fyn's bad luck saga
[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now] Back in Perth now and this post is going to be a long one. The holiday has been great because I was home and crap because in the second week, I got a swollen gland or lymph node that pressed onto the nerve of one of my back teeth and caused a LOT of pain and made eating difficult, and the kids got sick.