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Jun
06
2018

May Homeschooling Miscellany

May was pretty quiet and boring as well.  Think we just ended up gaming most of the time (occasional bout of Skylanders with the small one, and a few rounds of Monopoly with everyone, and I think there was some Exploding Kittens in there somewhere as well).  Magic and Pokemon cards were sorted (at least by colour and type, and further sorting in the case of the Magic cards depending on how pedantic people were, I think 13yo just sorts by colour and 9yo sorts by colour and type til he gets bored).  As per usual when we're stuck home there was a lot of docos, again mostly concentrated on Horrible Histories and David Attenborough.  Very hard for other types of docos to get a look in against those.

9yo got back into making paper planes and made me this tiny little one complete with a pilot:

Feb
03
2018

January Homeschooling Miscellany

Two weeks after getting home we were back in Jurien Bay again, this time for the kids' great nanna's 90th birthday party.  As usual we were only there overnight and stayed in a different beach cottage with a backyard nicely set up for kids.

11yo-standing-swing

Jan
30
2018

December Homeschooling Miscellany

Early in December we realised we hadn't been swimming for a while.  After a hefty argument (JJ prefers swimming in fresh water, the bigs and I strongly prefer the beach and 8yo doesn't care as long as it's swimmable) we hit up Serpentine Falls with a friend and their kids.

Serpentine Falls, Western Australia

The first thing we noticed was that the blackberry bushes had been cleared out and when we got there the top carpark closer to the falls was closed, though there were some cars in there (either ignoring the fact the gate was supposed to be shut or perhaps they were in there before it had been shut).

Dec
10
2017

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.

10yo did up a master list comprising of other lists, and lists for food shopping and various party supplies.  JJ took care of the food as he usually does and Nanna and I split shifted picking up party supplies over a couple of weeks.

One of the things 10yo had wanted was a banner so she and 8yo worked on making one up:

Oct
20
2017

July/August homeschool miscellany

July and August were a bit of a blur as some not fantastic events occurred which monopolised my thought processes.  We got reacquainted with death when my last two cats died within two weeks of each other (the one before had died Christmas last year and we had also lost a guinea pig recently).  There were some extended family dramas which didn't involve us directly which fortunately resolved before getting down and dirty with the legal system became necessary rather than advisable.  Sprat was up for the semester break which is always great and the kids and I had lots of interesting conversations.  Unfortunately I can't remember any of them.

Jul
10
2017

June Homeschooling Miscellany

Really nothing much happened this month, mostly because I did something to my neck which had me pretty much out of action for a couple of weeks and I spent most of it in bed, and then took it extremely easy for the rest of the month.  Unlike Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, the types of plays written by Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripedes and Aristophanes (all of which the kids kind of know about and have a very passing interest in thanks to Horrible Histories) were not so interesting for children (and to be perfectly honest not doing too much for me either).  12yo has been reading our Manga Shakespeare collection again though, mostly Midsummer Night's Dream which is a favourite of mine.

Great Book 5 apparently

May
03
2017

April Homeschooling Miscellany

We spent almost the entire month of April on Christmas Island.  This post is part homeschool log and part "travel photos" therefore more picture heavy than usual so grab a drink and a snack.

kids-on-plane

The idea behind going up for Easter was to avoid getting crabbed in as often happens when we go up for Christmas.  Being a tropical island we just got rained in for a bit of it instead.  Additionally we spent a fair bit of time hanging with family and general chilling.  In the first couple of days we decided to go out foraging and see if we could find some limes for Mum.

Oct
02
2015

Day trip to Jurien Bay

Do you know how hard it is to do a coast to hills transect with three kids under 12?

Not that hard actually if you go with their interest levels.  I would have liked them to observe how the vegetation and soil changed as we went from the eastern outer metro to the coastal part of the Wheatbelt.  They were mostly interested in getting to the beach so we just ended up pointing out sand dunes that were covered in vegetation and having quick chats about why the vegetation is important for holding the sand together, and how the soil colour changed from browny-red clay to sand to white sand.

Heading towards Jurien Bay, Western Australia

Sep
07
2012

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... :).

Also I changed the generated url as punctuation gets dropped.

Maths

Jan
28
2011

Organisational skills? What organisational skills?

What's been happening at Wannabe Farmstead? Feels like a lot.  I was out with the dogs at the oval when it occurred to me:

  • I can sort out and adjust training "schedules" in my head fast from observing the dogs while working with them
  • I can work out learning styles and interests of the kids from observation and interaction and work out where to go and things to do that they might find interesting
  • I can work around family stuff with minimal dramas
  • I can do things for clients on time (provided they get me what I need when I say I need it by)
  • I cannot organise my own way out of a paper bag

I should probably do something about that last point.