Term One: Week Six ~ Endless Rain

We're have a monsoonal autumn... warm, humid weather and LOTS of rain!

Seemingly endless rain.

Not as many photographs this week. We're all crawling the walls a little bit. But we are busy every day... studying and learning.

The sun came out for awhile on Monday... allowing for a quick dash to the library as we missed it the Thursday previously due to torrential rain.  I took the opportunity to snap my photo for my weekly Facebook photography challenge.  The theme was shadows. I loved my idea, but not my composition of it!  I was rushing because the sun kept going behind the clouds, so I didn't notice where the footpath/sidewalk cracks were!  SIGH!! 

Munchkin is LOVING his maths book. He is nearly halfway through it already (after only three weeks) so I'm debating what to do next.  If he shows readiness and understanding of the concepts I will move him into a Year 1 book when he completes this one. If not, and he starts to struggle with the later concepts in this book, then we'll slow down and review.  He is my guide since he isn't officially registered for school yet. 

 Thursday co-op with our friends included a chance to get outside (undercover) to make our own siphons.  All the children enjoyed this activity.

We missed homeschool group on Friday but did make it to the park in the late afternoon for a run around with our Thursday co-op friends.  The boys were thrilled when we arrived and found a construction crew at the park.  It appears we are getting a whole stack of new equipment (we think), all they could get the guys to tell them was that they were laying concrete for a HUGE new sandpit!!  The boys will be fairly begging to go to the park just to check out the progress. 

Term One: Week Five ~ Textbooks at Last

This week felt like our first week of school all over again, as we FINALLY had all our textbooks!  It was a crazy week, with hubby away much of the time dealing with a disaster recovery job with work, but we powered through and got all the work finished that I had planned for the week.  It felt GREAT!

Monster working on his Chapter 1 Pre Test in his new Year 7 math book. 

Year 3 math is proving to be easy for Monkey so far. 

Easing into handwriting slowly with some basic stroke pages to start with. 

The letter of the week this week is Tt but Munchkin is a tad behind and still finishing his Mm page in his handwriting book. 

I will continue the Five Minute Frenzy pages (hopefully daily) even though we now have catch up work to do in our textbooks. 

Munchkin is absolutely IN LOVE with his kindergarten maths book and did numerous pages per day - well more than the two pages per day I scheduled.  It is also very easy work for him so I may start him in a Year 1 math book mid year if he shows readiness for it. 

 A simple cut and paste worksheet for Monkey to introduce him to a bit of grammar. Just a simple sorting page to show knowledge of the terms noun and verb.

I decided the best thing to do now that Monster is tackling high school maths, is to tackle it right along with him.  So we each have our own grid notebook and work the problems separately and then go over the answers and anything we didn't understand completely, together. 

I am VERY pleased with my choice of textbook for Monster.  This book came highly recommended to me, both by homeschool friends, and people who are familiar with the public system.  We will continue with Cambridge all through high school unless I stumble on something better. 

Monster's colouring page... 

Monkey's colouring page... 

Some free drawing that Munchkin did through the week ~ can you spot the shark? 

Tt is for "truck" so he put truck stickers all over his lowercase Tt. 

Monkey spent quite a lot of time with the "Magic Eye" book ~ a book of optical illusions. 

Sometimes we can all work at the table together successfully. 

We enjoyed some simple science demonstrations...

First up was the spinning test to determine a hard boiled egg from a raw one! 

Then they played with two sets of balloons - one with a marble in it, and one with just air. 

Tt is for Tiger - so we painted capital T in orange and black stripes! 

During our co-op time the younger two enjoyed some serious playdough time... 

While the older children learned a bit about the history of medical treatments, did some acid/base tests, and were introduced to the days of the week in Latin.