When Easter is early (in March instead of April), it falls outside the April school holidays, and we end up with an eleven week term. As per usual with any of our school terms, but especially a longer one, I tell the boys that as SOON as they are finished with their assigned work they are on school holidays. They get 60 minutes of computer per day during holidays as opposed to 30 minutes in the term, so the natural reward is there and it is always interesting to see how early they "earn" their extra days off.
This term they were both finished and enjoying holidays by Tuesday so that was good for them and excellent for me because it meant more "free" time for me to pursue my own other interests (or tackle big jobs I can't do while also teaching).
Due to the early finish, there are no photos of structured school time, but I hope you will enjoy the visual representation of our final week of Term One.
Monkey is hard at work on the "Daniel in the Lion's Den" drawing he is completing for our pastor's wife. Stay tuned for a photo of the finished product next week as he MUST have it done by Sunday.
I finished off three books with Monkey this week. I will now take a break from reading aloud to them. This is a new tradition I started a few years ago that I really enjoy. As much as I LOVE reading aloud to my boys, I need a break. We still read three chapters of the Bible and their character development book (currently reading The Book of Virtues) but otherwise I focus on my own personal and independent reading during the school holidays.
This year I may break that rule a little bit as I'm attempting to read "The Iliad" aloud to Monster. We had trouble finding good times to read it during the term (schedule conflicts) so thought perhaps the holidays will give us more opportunity. It will be an interesting experiment.
Friday I took a trip to our old library. I returned something in the vicinity of 50 books that we finished, and picked up the 35 books you see stacked here.
Here they are all bagged up and in the pram for the train and bus ride home. I even had room in the pram for two (3 litre) bottles of milk and a loaf of bread! Thirty five books is a small borrow for us but it is because they are "holiday" books mostly - although I borrowed our stack of picture books for our annual ANZAC Day read aloud session as well since I won't get back to the library before then.
My next planned trip is the 26th and likely I will borrow the maximum of 60 books (10 reserves on each card) in preparation for our learning in Term 2. Along with my independent reading over the school holidays I will be browsing the library website and the curriculum content pages for both boys and deciding what wonderful books to bring home from the library.
I went a little overboard with personal, independent selections for myself. These are the books that I borrowed JUST for me. It is a really good thing we are officially on school holidays. Thankfully none of they books are on reserve so I should have the full nine weeks (one loan session of 3 weeks and two renewal sessions of 3 weeks each) to read them. I started all seven of them Friday night despite the fact that I'm already reading seven other books independently as well. I think it is some sort of an addiction - but at least it is a good one!!
Munchkin is ALWAYS happy to have new books to read. He spent most of Friday afternoon curled up on the lounge eating and reading several of his new selections.
Last youth group meeting for the term and Munchkin got to attend as well. It was an evening of firsts for him. His first taste of karaoke (which he LOVED) and his first trip on the bus and train with just his older brothers and no parents.
Creatures creatures everywhere.
Saturday morning Munchkin had some fun catching and holding this little tiny skink in his hand.
In the afternoon, on our trip to the shopping centre for groceries, we saw this beautiful spider. I've circled it in white to help you find it. If you click on the photo to open it up larger you might have a better view of it. We have no idea what kind it is, but it is beautiful.
I'm pleased with my walks this week. The book "Move" will probably inspire me to walk even more which is exactly why I borrowed the book. I will keep you posted as I learn more about the importance of moving our bodies and particularly the health benefits of walking.
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