February Homeschool Miscellany

At the end of January Homeschool Miscellany we were re-establishing routines and trying to get into good habits and making new plans.

Two of those things are somewhat working out for us.

I’m still struggling to go to bed on time x_x

There were a few unexpected shenanigans quite close together which have thrown me right off with AER and hive and training which is about normal, and in way too many cases excursion days were postponed as well.

July Homeschool Miscellany

WARNING: there are fake wounds made of Vaseline, flour and red food colouring about halfway through this post.

Broke the habit!

For now.

My head is still all over the place and and trying to get and keep organised is presenting its usual massive challenge, exacerbated by the fact the children have been staggering being exhausted for no apparent reason lately (a possible reason is growth spurts, because they’re lethargic and sleep a lot and suddenly they’re bigger, especially the boys).

April/May/June Homeschool Miscellany

I think I’ve inadvertently set that precedent I was trying to avoid x_x I blame covid.

During the period of “self isolation” (we were advised to not go out unless it was for essential purposes such as grocery shopping but full lockdown was never enforced), aside from occasionally trying to push bookwork (which is always destined for failure when everyone hates it so much), we all ended up just doing our own thing.

June/July Homeschooling Miscellany

The mess that has been this year continued along with my sustained failing to manage one in school and two out. I’ve ended up palming most of the school-related stuff off to JJ, which has mostly been parent/teacher meetings and he’s supposed to be helping her with homework and doing the admin stuff too but somehow I’m still getting stuck with that (guess the 12yo is just used to me dealing with most things).

November Homeschooling Miscellany

November had to be cruisy after the insanity of October, plus we usually start winding down about now anyway. We stayed home a lot.

We weren’t completely lazy. The boys played with the snap circuits, 13yo mostly building his own. 9yo experimenting with food (in the picture he was doing arty things with strawberries and cream before consuming them), and 11yo was mostly experimenting with and learning about makeup (and spending a lot of money on it).

March Homeschool Miscellany

March kicked off with Perth’s first steemup. The kids got to have some interesting conversations with new friends and encouraged to continue blogging (except for 9yo who disappeared off to the pool for most of the thing).

The steem colours I sported in my mohawk so everyone knew where to go are still in!

November Homeschool Misc

The kids wanted to go trick or treating for Halloween, so we ended up doing some quick Halloween research and reading and decided that the proper way to do things was not to do the commercialised going around begging for candy but to give the neighbours candy. However we had no time to prepare for that and 10yo’s birthday was kind of vaguely in the vicinity so we decided to do a “spooky themed” birthday party instead.

May Homeschooling Miscellany

May was a pretty cruisy month for a variety of reasons. Initially, we were recovering from an April that managed to be both crazy (but not nearly the same level insanity as the end of the year usually is) and relaxing. Then everyone took turns being sick. We’re all good now.

12yo seems to be headed into the know-it-all self-righeous phase and it’s a good thing he has a lot of different aged and types of people around him to bounce things off as it tempers his views and stops him from being insufferable. We’ve had quite a few interesting political and philosophical discussions usually on car rides, which are great except when I need to concentrate at a busy intersection. Trying to get him to be more observant of his surroundings is still an ongoing battle. He went cold off gymnastics at completely the wrong time, declared he was bored and didn’t want to do it anymore. I figured he was being hormonal and told him that he was doing it this term whether he wanted to or not because I’d already paid for it. He has found his love for it again, and I have told him that while I won’t make him keep doing it if he completely loses interest in it and really doesn’t want to do it anymore, I do want him to keep doing it as it’s something that he struggles with and I want him to keep working at something that is hard for him as a lot of things come pretty easily to him and he’s not used to struggling, so needs to learn to build some resilience from somewhere. Anyway he went cold at completely the wrong time and when he should have been working hard to qualify for badge testing he did his absolute best to skive off, and by the time he got back into it, it was too late. He initially tried to blame me for the fact he couldn’t qualify but eventually had to accept that it was his own refusal to train that has led to him having to remain in t he same level til this time next year.

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…