Monday, January 29, 2018

First Day Photos

With all three boys officially registered with the Department of Education for homeschooling, we are at full capacity this year. The boys and I have been chomping at the bit to start this school year. So it is with much excitement that I post our "First Day of School" photographs.

Monster - (nearly) 12 years old 

Monkey - 8 years old 

Munchkin - 5 years old

Saturday, January 27, 2018

School Holidays: Week Six ~ Bubble Show at the Library

Our last week of school holidays and we laid low.
The weather has been extremely humid and so aside from one library event (see photos below) we spent the week at home trying to move as little as possible!!

Tuesday and Thursday we walked up to the library. 
Tuesday morning we enjoyed a WONDERFUL bubble show, and Thursday was our routine visit to the library for returning books and checking out new ones.



 Demonstrations on how you can use your hands to blow bubbles.

A caterpillar! 


A cube inside the bubbles... 



 Some HUGE bubbles!

One of the big bubbles popping... the air conditioner was affecting the bubbles somewhat. 

 Monster got to be an assistant!


Monster inside a giant bubble tube! 

Flat Stanley came to visit us all the way from the US! 

Monster's silent reading...

 Monkey's silent reading...














And picture books galore...

Saturday, January 20, 2018

School Holidays: Week Five ~ Science Experiments, Nature Walks, Craft and Games

It is definitely summer here in Australia, and the warm/hot weather has officially arrived. This makes getting outdoors every day difficult, but we get out when we can, and stay home when we must.  Monday we went to the park for a little while and the boys enjoyed some time on the playground equipment.










I picked up a simple volcano "eruption" kit from Kmart last year with the intention of incorporating it into our Letter of the Week program with the Munchkin. 

 We spent an afternoon at the library enjoying a 3D animal craft creating event. I didn't take photos of all three boys because they sat in separate areas, and I spent much of my time cutting out bits for Munchkin!!



We got given this awesome board game for Christmas from our co-op friends. So we gave the game Hyena a time! The instructions were a tad confusing, but we eventually created a version we could all live with.  I wouldn't mind some help though if anyone out there has played before and knows the rules well...

We had grand intentions of walking to the FAR bridge you can see in this picture, but it was just too hot... so we opted for checking out the fish in the river. 







Finally we sate down one afternoon and taught Munchkin how to play Skip-Bo! He grasped the concepts of the game pretty quickly and I think he'll really enjoy it. 









As always, we did a LOT of reading!  The library got a HUGE order of new books in so we took as many as our (already nearly full) cards would allow!  Munchkin also enjoyed some old favourites, and a few that have been in the house so long I've insisted they go back soon. 

We got the chance to have proper evening routine several evenings this week, so I finished off another book in A Series of Unfortunate Events. Monkey has REALLY enjoyed this series. Then Monster and I finished up his Shakespeare stories book. This is written by the same author who writes the Horrible Histories books and it was excellent. 

 Monster and I also finished off our government unit from Term 4 last year. These two books were EXCELLENT and well worth the time it took to read them. I HIGHLY recommend the Karin Cox book (right photo)!  Lots of information but not boring to read at all.


 Monster knocked off two more chapter books during silent reading. They will both count towards his summer reading challenge at the library.

 Two more pictures books that Munchkin enjoyed with daddy at bedtime!

 Monkey is working hard to silent read all the books in this series. We have had them on loan from the library for a VERY long time and I have insisted that we take them back. Having said that, they are BRILLIANT books and the boys have really enjoyed being creative with them.


Finally, a glimpse at a book I read this week. Jackie French is an AMAZING Australian author and I LOVE her books.  She has a Shakespeare series that is wonderful and has really unlocked Shakespeare for me as I've been reading them. If you can get your hands on her books easily, I highly recommend you read them!!