April School Holidays

Here is my HUGE post about our school holidays.

It didn't pan out quite how I had planned, but we enjoyed LOTS of down time, which is exactly what we needed since we had big social events three of the four weekends of the month of April.

We started the school holidays with a bush fire... it was the closest one to us since I moved here nearly 18 years ago. The smoke was worst in the middle of the night as the firefighters worked on containment burning, but we stayed indoors for most of the first week. 

School holidays just aren't school holidays without Bingo at the library. 

The boys and I worked together to put together an ANZAC day care package for an Australian Defence Member.  If you use a certain box (sold by the post office), keep the weight under 2kgs, and stick to the approved items, then the post office sends the box for free. Our box included socks, deodorant, lip balm, some puzzle books, a personal letter, and TIM TAMS!! We are waiting anxiously to see if the person who receives our box writes to us. This will likely become a yearly tradition now that the boys are older!! 

We spent some time playing new games... Tenzi (top left), Qwixx (bottom), and a new Marvel cube game given to Munchkin for his birthday (top right). 

 We DID do a LOT of reading... Independent reading selections for the older boys.

Some of Munchkin's MANY picture books he chose for read aloud sessions. 

Premier's Reading Challenge choices for Monster... 

 ...and Monkey

 Evening read aloud chapter books for the older boys (left - Monster and right - Monkey)

Silent reading choice for Monkey... 

More pictures books for Munchkin. 

Old favourites along with some new selections were featured in our LONG ANZAC day read aloud session. We also watched a video documentary online that a class at the Victoria School in France made for an ANZAC day competition. 

Silent reading selection for Monster... 

I love that our library has so many wonderful picture books now for Munchkin! 

 Munchkin is starting to get the hang of reading, so we'll be borrowing early reader books regularly again soon.

 And still more picture books for Munchkin... hubby and I read well in excess of 100 books to him during the school term.

 Yes, Storm Boy is featured twice - that was not a mistake. First I read it aloud to Monster and then he read it silently to himself to count it as a Premier's Reading Challenge selection. Meanwhile Monkey worked hard to finish this Minecraft chapter book as part of his independent choice reading.