Somehow it is week five and we are nearly at the midpoint of this term! The time is just flying. The boys are working hard and putting extra effort into their written, structured school work and we have discussed taking two extra weeks of school holidays in October. We are hoping that by then we'll be able to get out and about a bit more as Australia is beginning to unlock, and the weather is generally lovely as well. So that gives us a term and a half to snuggle in at home and while away the winter with some good learning.
We rely on quality books from the library to cover our learning in science, history, geography, the arts, health/PE, and Monster's Marine and Aquaculture Technology elective. So we are ecstatic that we have the "click and collect" option available to us at our library now. The above photo is our first haul of new books. The library isn't able to disinfect the books thoroughly and they are only able to quarantine the books for 24 hours. Since most library books have a plastic coating on them now, when I bring them home Thursday afternoon, they go directly in the garage until Sunday afternoon, at which time I bring them in the house and put them on our designated "library" bookshelf.
This is our designated "library" bookshelf. It is located in our front entryway and is right next to our lounge/living room which is where 90% of our reading aloud happens. As you can see, there is still room for LOTS more books. We have six library cards and are allowed 25 items per card. That means we can check out 150 items, and we regularly do just that.
I've designated the top shelf for our BIG and heavy books. These are all books that I'm reading aloud to the boys so they don't need to be at a level that they can access. It will take us awhile to work our way through this group of books so I'm glad that there are no return dates on books for the time being. We only have to return books if someone else puts them on reserve. Otherwise the library just keeps automatically renewing all our books. It is heaven!
This shelf is SUPPOSED to be for novels I'm reading aloud to the boys, but I can see that a few independent choices have joined in. It doesn't really matter, provided everyone knows where to find their books when they want them.
As I slowly gather all the books on my extensive list, this shelf will be exclusively WWI books for Monster's unit study. Yes, a lot of the books on the shelf are picture books... I always try to start a unit study with quality picture books... they will get replaced with more non-fiction books as time goes on. My list of WWI books is HUGE!
The bottom shelf is for picture books for Munchkin. He has really missed having picture books for the last three weeks. The librarian and I were working so hard to make sure we had science, history, geography, the arts, and health/PE covered that I completely forgot about picture books or even novels for the boys. So we are making sure to fix that problem now.
The only picture I managed to take of structured learning this week... Monkey working hard on his math assignment for this particular day.
The weather has been rainy and overcast for the better part of a week now, making getting outdoors for exercise a bit tricky. One day I decided to make life easy and just pulled the trampoline out during a dry spell.
Winter may be on the way... but there are ALWAYS flowers to photograph. These grow in our side yard along our driveway.
The neighbour's tree has nearly lost all its leaves and the bare branches always look stunning against the sky... especially in the late afternoon and early evening.
Monster got some puzzle work in... this is by far his most difficult puzzle. It is still 1000 pieces, like all the puzzles he puts together, but the picture and the colours makes it hard work.
The boys were thrilled when daddy was able to join us on a couple of our walks this week.
After walking along the new footpath, we took a walk on the boardwalk... enjoying the beautiful river view...
And admiring the gorgeous spiders...
This is my husband's hand for size reference... I just hope everyone can see the spider too.
This is another spider we found along the way... the boardwalk has these Golden Orb Weavers everywhere and we really enjoy seeing how many we can find while we walk.
The trees along our walk to the library are just beautiful in late autumn.
Some more puzzle progress...
Finally on Friday the boys worked on their perspective drawings a bit more. Monkey finished all his drawing, got the outlines done, and started on the colouring.
This is the instruction page they had to work from...
This is Monster's progress so far...
This is the "example" picture that goes with the lesson...
Munchkin chose a different perspective drawing and he did two different versions.
The "direction" and "example" pages for Munchkin's lesson.
Munchkin is thoroughly enjoying having the Elmer books in our house again...
All three boys are enjoying reading the Wizard of Once series...
Some of the WWI picture books I read to Monster to begin his unit study...
Some of the independent reading the boys did this week...
More WWI/ANZAC picture books that I read aloud to Monster...
Three other read alouds that all three boys enjoyed this week... though they are preferring the novel "Wonder" to the picture book about it.
We finished this lovely devotional book that was given to the boys for Christmas by a dear friend of ours. We will read it again later in the year, or perhaps next year, but now we will move on to myths and legends of the world.
Munchkin's independent reading for the week.
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