Going Against the Flow: April School Holiday: Week Two ~ Reading, Resting, and ANZAC Day

Week Two of the April school holidays had no outside (as in out of home) events planned, and as Monkey, Munchkin, and I were still recovering from our head cold, I deemed it a rest week with as little work as possible. I stuck to only necessary things (cooking, grocery shopping, and laundry) and spent a good portion of the week camped out on the front veranda reading.

So I start this blog post with photos of me reading. The first photo is a "selfie" of me reading on the veranda on Sunday afternoon. The second photo is a quote from the book I was reading at the time. Given that the reading statistic is from 2016, I would sadly believe that the percent of students who read daily has dropped even further than 16%. Finally, the last two photos are taken from the blog post just before the school holidays started. I commented in week eleven that I went a bit overboard borrowing all these books to read independently... But thanks to my head cold, I finished reading ALL these books during my April School Holidays of resting and reading. It has been a VERY long time since I've been able to read so many books in so short a period of time. I needed the break as well after our busy summer holidays spent packing, moving, and preparing for homeschool registration.

A couple of photos of the tomato plant after Munchkin and I did some work on it. Because it was getting taller and taller we needed to figure out how to add the third ring despite not having the pole that attaches to it. We found a stick whilst out on a walk, and with some twist ties, manage to make it work. Now the top of the plant has much more support and hopefully it will continue to grow and flourish.

Update photos for these plants... the garlic (left) is continuing to grow well AND the sunflower (right) has started growing leaves again. I may suggest to Munchkin that we transplant it to a larger pot and see if it continues to grow.

This is a wonderful plant that a lady from our church (who is part of the other congregation we share the building with) gifted to Munchkin. We've discovered new sprouts on it so we know it is also growing and thriving.

With my DSLR camera working again, I had some fun with macro shots of the tomato plant.

Thursday was ANZAC Day and per our yearly tradition, I borrowed lots of excellent picture books from the library for our special read aloud session.

While I read aloud, the boys and I enjoy nibbling ANZAC biscuits and sipping hot chocolate.

Two of our favourite books by this author. We always enjoy reading about Simpson and his Donkey and also about Midnight and his roll in the Light Brigade Charge in the war. These are wonderfully written books with beautiful illustrations.

Two books about the roll that animal mascots (be they real or stuffed) played in the war. The book on the right is specific to Villiers-Brettanoux and is a (sort of) replacement for our favourite ANZAC book called "Do Not Forget Australia" which hopefully our library will try to reorder. A warning to anyone who may want to read the book on the left, if you don't handle animals being in dangerous situations, give the book a miss.

These wonderful books are about the roll that music and instruments played in the war. Both are excellently written and beautifully illustrated and the boys and I always enjoy reading them.

The book on the left was a new addition to our reading this year and was an excellent choice as we LOVE Mark Wilson books. I always make sure to read about women and their roll in the world wars so I'm glad there are quality picture books about them.

Finally, two books about Aboriginals who served in World War I. There was another book that we've read in the past, but I was unable to find it this year. These are both well written and are always good additions to our ANZAC observance.

I read this junior non-fiction book aloud to Monkey in the evening as it is part of his WWI study and fit in with ANZAC Day. Normally I would have read it during the term, but found it would fit in well with our ANZAC observance this year. It was well written and a good addition to the day.

Friday, Munchkin and I took a trip to Riverwood library to pick up all the books we need for Term 2 (or at least the books we need for the first 2-3 weeks)!! The left photo is just a shot I took of the train station while Munchkin made up his mind as to whether he would take a selfie with me or not. The right photo is all our books packed into two library bags and fitting well in the pram for the long trip home.

I don't take selfies very often and I'm definitely not good at taking them - but here it is! A selfie with Munchkin while we waited for our train to arrive. There is a very good reason why I don't take selfies often!!

I forgot to take photos INSIDE Green Square library, but here is a photo of the garden area taken from the street, showing the library underground. It is a (visually) cool library. However, it is only a backup library for us because they don't have a lot of books that we want and need.

Our library shelves at home are happy again.

Notice the plastic box on the bottom right - that is an Atari that we were able to borrow from Green Square library, along with a Makey-Makey kit. For those of you who don't know what that is, click on the words for a Google definition.