Schooling 0000d25c e01n apr 8 12

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now]

Last week and a bit have been slack and uncoordinated partially due to Easter and mostly due to the sleeping pattern going seriously out of whack resulting in myself and the kids going to bed way too late (me because I was staying up late to finish stuff off and also to make sure the bigs were asleep before turning out their light, and them because I have no idea).

!schooling 0000C11c-15n | Feb 25 - Mar 01

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now]

8yo

8yo 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 JJ that he could supervise at least 8yo’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 JJ 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.

Socially acceptable !schooling: 3-7 Sept 2012

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… :).

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

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now]

The 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.

Reading and writing

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now]

2yo loves being read to, and is constantly bringing books to us and demanding “Wead book!”

I can also say “duduk” to him and he will sit down. All three kids understand “makan” and “bagus” (6yo used to pronounce it “ba-goo-doos” when he was 2yo’s age :) and that’s as far as I’ve gotten with Malay; my vocabulary is shocking and grammar non-existant.

The initial homeschool moderator visit

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now]

We had our initial visit yesterday, with the next one scheduled for another couple of months. Everything went pretty much as expected. The lady was nice, and was happy with all the learning areas except for English and maths, and also wanted to see more “scientific communication”.

6yo and 4yo set up an experiment to turn a flower blue, directed by 6yo, who had seen a demonstration on some science show on ABC. They made the blue water with paint and water (as we don’t have food colouring). They then went on to do some other arty crafty thingies while they waited for the colour to be drawn up to the flower.

Basic literacy and numeracy sans formal lessons

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now]

[imported from livejournal and backdated]

Pocket money and birthday cards.

And that’s just two of an infinite number of possibilities. 5yo has recently started writing the names of his friends from !school group on the backs of envelopes. It all started with the first birthday party of one of them a couple of months ago, in which both 5yo and 3yo, with a little help from me, wrote “Happy Birthday from [their name]” on a piece of paper, decorated it, and then stuck it into a similarly decorated envelope, and wrote the child’s name on the front.

Catchup, Tapfish economics, cartography and Lojban

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now]

[imported from livejournal and backdated]

[this post got a lot of interesting/amusing comments mostly about people apparently annoyed by my decision to use Lojban as the IAL (international auxiliary language) for AEfter Ragnarok - bit sad to lose them]

Catchup

No posts for a whole year. That might have something to do with being slightly manic with what I calculated was roughly the equivalent of a 24/7/365 on call full time job and two contract/casuals. And I’m only getting paid for one of them, and only if I can find contracts. Sprat and I have gotten down to srs bizness and are now doing design and websites for money, along with the mass plethora of other people doing the same. We’re better than 90% of them ;) I am also still working on AR (formerly referred to as The Comic and then The ComicAnimation, you know, that thing I’ve been plugging at constantly and more or less consistantly for the last 8 years or so). It’s come a long, long way. It’s also because I thought I’d try my hand at this record keeping business. So I (very intermittently) kept records in a Smiggle notebook.

Individual learning styles

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now]

[imported from livejournal and backdated]

Again with the attempt to keep up recording. I have a funky silver Smiggle diary which I’m going to be using for homeschooling notes, and if I remember I’ll transpose them on here and point the relatives at it, as well as anyone else who’s interested in homeschooling or unschooling, just on the offchance :)

Good day

[minor pseudonymising edits during Drupal to hugo migration for all the good that will do now]

[imported from livejournal and backdated]

Had playgroup today. It’ws one of those nic days, warm in the sun but not hot, cool in the shade but not freezing. It was particularly nice today as Tiny had great fun playing with his friends, there are four of them including Tiny around the same age (3-5) and for almost the entire time they were playing together, who knows what but pirates and dinosaurs and sticks were involved. The boys went up with one of the mums at some stage and played around the memorial pond and the rest of us were watching from the usual spot and thinking how adorable they were and it all was. I’m wondering if the other mums were thinking the same thing I was, like this was the way it should be with the kids having fun playing together as they were.