We made it to the final week of the term! All three boys were finished with all of their structured, written work, but Wednesday afternoon so they scored themselves two bonus days of school holidays.
Munchkin, Monkey and I enjoyed some game time together. First Munchkin and I played a round of Battleship Card game, and then Monkey joined us for a game of Qwirkle. I'm looking forward to playing many more games with the boys over the school holidays.
As Munchkin and I were returning from our daily walk one afternoon we spotted several Crimson Rosellas in the playground of the Montessori school. I raced home for my DSLR camera and we did our best to capture some good photographs. These birds are gorgeous, but they are not the least bit tame (unlike Cockatoos) so we had to be really careful, but I'm fairly pleased with the photos that I achieved.
Munchkin requested that I buy a big bag of oranges (you can just see it behind his head) so that he could make himself some freshly squeezed orange juice.
The cleaning bug bit me this week. My husband mentioned that this tall bookshelf is largely wasted space using it for library books because the shelves can't be moved, nor can we add additional shelves. Meanwhile the bookshelf in the hallway closest to the front entryway was absolutely crammed to overflowing with our board games and card games... so I swapped them around! Above left is the BEFORE photo of the tall bookshelf with the library books... and the AFTER photo on the right now that the tall bookshelf houses our board games and card games.
The above photo is what the bookshelf in the hallway looked like with all the board games and card games in it. Clearly it was full to overflowing...
This is the AFTER photo and it is SO much better. The top shelf holds all our library books (for now) but this is only about half of what we would normally have from the library. So when the library opens up again, and we can pick up the 44 books that are waiting on the reserve shelves, then we will utilize the bottom shelf for library books as well. Right now the bottom shelf is holding books we own that I'm going to start reading aloud to the boys next term. I'm looking forward to the day when this bookshelf is full of library books.
I promised Munchkin that on Wednesday, to celebrate the last day of the term, we would bake chocolate chip cookies. So once schoolwork was done, we got busy...
Ready for the oven...
Freshly cooked and absolutely delicious...
Monkey working on another creative endeavour...
Munchkin working on his unit test for Khan Academy... I was impressed that he continued to work on this past Wednesday, as he really wanted a score of 100%.
Monkey's creative endeavour... another book for his dear homeschool friend...
We made use of the trampoline on two different days this week... The boys were required to jump for a minimum of 30 minutes.
While taking down a load of laundry one afternoon, I found this tiny little spider. You can't really see it, but he was a beautiful green colour, and it was a reminder that it is spring and the bugs are EVERYWHERE.
I love this series of photos of Monkey on the trampoline because of the funny things his long hair was doing. He is enjoying trying out long hair and we shall see how long it continues.
The three boys enjoyed an online gaming session with two of their friends on Saturday afternoon. This event happens once a month, and it still needs some adjusting and tweaking to make it enjoyable for everyone involved, but I'm ever so thankful they have this technology to stay in touch with their friends right now, so I'm keen to help them make it work.
While the boys enjoyed their online gaming session, I got busy cleaning and sorting again... and again it was more books. My plan was to make the chapter books that we own and the boys have NOT yet bothered to read, more accessible and appealing to them. The first thing I did was sort through the picture and information books and weed out the ones they no longer read or that are too young for them. That is the stack of books you see in the above photo and to give it a size reference it reached to just below my knee when I stood next to it. I will further weed through this pile sometime in the future and only keep cherished books meant for grandchildren, but for now the entire stack was packed away into our cupboard that is used for game and book storage purposes.
Next I sorted and cleaned these two giant, side-by-side bookshelves that are on one wall of our playroom area of the house. I made the two shelves that are nearly eye-level on the right-hand shelf the chapter book and novels shelves. Some of these books are their favourite "fluffy" books that the love to read and re-read like the Tom Gates books, the Deltora Quest books, and the 13-Storey Treehouse series... but I also added books we own that they haven't tried yet in hopes that they will see them and get interested in them. These include some Paul Jennings books, some Ranger's Apprentice books, and a stack of fun books that a friend generously sent as her boys are older and finished with them.
Finally, I got to work on the other two bookshelves that line one wall of our hallway. The bookshelf at the playroom end of the hallway now houses my books that I haven't read yet on the top shelf, and chapter books that I want to read aloud to the boys on the bottom shelf. Those books include the Harry Potter series, the Series of Unfortunate Events books, and The Hobbit.
Finally the middle bookshelf in the hallway. The top shelf is now picture books and information books that the boys still love and read but not every day. The bottom shelf contains Monster's collection of board games that he has been given as gifts, and some of his personal books that were gifts as well. All in all it was a HUGE project but in choosing to work on it while the boys were entertained with the computers, I worked largely without interruption and was able to move things around and even throw a few things away without having to deal with the weeping and gnashing of teeth!!
The next few photos are out of my chronological order of the post because they were taken on my phone as opposed to my DSLR camera. The top photo is a progress photo of the construction that is going on a few blocks from our house. They had to stop working for several weeks during the lockdown, but they are back to work and the second level is growing daily.
On our walk together this particular day, Munchkin and I spotted two Black Cockatoos on the wires and they were kind enough to stay still for a photo. They weren't squawking at each other so we knew that no rain was in the immediate forecast.
More trampoline fun and more funny hair photos for Monkey!!
Thursday night AND Friday night were family games night. Thursday night we played Five Crowns shown here in this photo, and Friday night we played Quiddler which is basically a word version of Five Crowns. But I totally forgot to take a photo of us that night...
A few of Munchkin's independent selections for early in the week...
Two read aloud selections we finished this week... I read the 2nd half of the Story of Australia book to Monster only as it focused on more mature subjects from World War I onwards... now the book will be packed away until Monkey and Munchkin are ready for the second half.
Periodically Munchkin pulls out this set of books and reads the entire thing in one sitting.
Both Monkey and Munchkin are enjoying the books in this series that a friend of ours recently sent them.
Munchkin LOVES the Minecraft series books... he reads and re-reads them all the time. It reminds me of my love of The Baby-Sitter's Club books when I was just a bit older than he is now.
The book on the left is a book I read on my own and finished this week. I've decided to start sharing the books that I'm reading when I'm finished with them. I also finished reading the next Narnia series book to the boys this week as well.
Another big stack of Munchkin's independent reading to finish off this week's photos.
No comments:
Post a Comment