Term Four: Week Ten ~ That's a Wrap

Our final week of school for 2023 and it was extra exciting as it means that Monster is officially done with our homeschool experience. On to bigger things for our eldest boy.

We continued to read Christmas picture books this week - Ninja Claus, A Bush Christmas, and Christmas Always Comes being our favourites for this week.

Our traditional Last Day of School photos and I love to throw the First Day of School photos up next to each boy so that we can really see how much they have grown and changed through the year!!

For those of you who don't already know - hear are the immediate future plans for Monster. He has enrolled in a Certificate 4 TAFE course in Financial Services. (This is our version of community college for my America readers) This course follows an interest of his (probability and statistics) and will also give him entry in college/university should he need it down the track. He will also be looking for a part-time job and may continue doing some web design as well.

These photos don't really go together at all - but just show the random aspect of life right now. We are dealing with an infected wound on Munchkin's knee (thankfully ever since having his appendix out he has had very few infections) and I saw this cicada on the side of the road one morning as I went for a walk to the shops.

Thursday After School Activity at the library was board games and Munchkin enjoyed a game of chess with his bestie.

A fun science experiment (again from his DK books he LOVES from the library) - 

"cloud in a jar"

 

Term Four: Week Nine ~ Snapshots of Daily Life

The term (and the year) is nearly over and my blog posts always seem to get shorter. Enjoy this selection of photos that highlights little snapshots of our daily life.

We continued our tradition of reading Christmas picture books this year. The bottom two books are two new ones we tried this year. We LOVE any and all pigeon books and the Andy Lee book was just for fun. "The Christmas Tree" by Julia Donaldson is a favourite of mine.

Munchkin enjoyed some arts and crafts this week - carefully creating this lizard from one of the DK craft books and he did a great job as it turned out super cute.

Monster showing off his "L-Sit" (left photo) as he has been lifting weights and doing calisthenics all year. He is also trying to get Munchkin to do some exercises - the photo on the left shows him working on some sit ups.

On our walk home from the library we spotted a bunch of Sulphur Crested Cockatoos in the tree and were able to get some cool photos of them...

Lego at the library for Thursday After School Activity...

Munchkin enjoyed some swimming with his besties on Friday...

Excitement when Munchkin discovered that his strawberry plant is flowering.

Independent reading for Munchkin.

Term Four: Week Eight ~ Natural Learning

As we creep closer to the end of the year, the focus of my photography (and thus my blog posts) changes. As the boys complete more and more of their structured written work, they shift to more self directed, natural learning experiences. 

Enjoy this short blog post of our learning fun.

Sunday at church - Monkey and his godmother decide to check on their height again. It seems that Monkey has JUST overtaken her and he is quite pleased about this. That leaves only 2-3 men who are still taller!!

I finished reading this aloud to the boys this week. It was a birthday gift to Munchkin many years ago and we decided it was a great way to finish up the year. There are 100 short bits of information about math and numbers so we read one a day. The book also includes lots of puzzles and brain twisters to try out so it will be interesting to see how many Munchkin attempts in the coming weeks and months. These books are not for the faint hearted.

Munchkin spent some time this week with science experiments and his plant recipes. He made some aloe vera gel concoction that is supposed to help him with his plant propagation so it will be interesting to see if it works.

He also spent some time working on a cardboard creation...

A nifty looking lizard that he carefully painted once he built it.

Finally, on Friday night he made pikelets while his brothers were at youth group.

Only two walks this week - definitely not my best effort.