Term One: Week Eleven ~ Bonus School Holidays

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.

Term One: Week Ten ~ Easter and Autumn Storms

Week Ten had a very relaxed feel to it. We started the week with a lovely Easter celebration at church and then a relaxing Easter Monday public holiday before back to normal routine on Tuesday. The boys know, now that we are nearly done with school, that as soon as they finish their math and writing assignments they will be done for the term as there won't be enough time to complete another chapter or math, or do a long, detailed writing assignment. 

It is always interesting to see who is most motivated to finish early. Despite the "carrot" of an hour of computer per day instead of thirty minutes, someone always drags their work right out to the last day!! We shall see if this first term of the 2024 school year is any different.

We finished lots of excellent books this week... These two are specific to unit studies for Munchkin and both were enjoyable. The community gardens book was US based so not exactly what we were after, but it did give him an idea of what to expect when we start attending our local community garden meetings later this month.

I never tire of learning about Cleopatra and therefore thoroughly enjoyed reading these two books to Munchkin. The right hand book was a new addition to the library collection and we really enjoyed the humorous twist they put to it. I will be looking for some adult non-fiction books to read about Cleopatra in the near future plus I have a Colleen McCullough book about Antony and Cleopatra that looks fascinating and is now thoroughly tempting me.

The book on the left was EXCELLENT and I highly recommend it. The boys and I really enjoyed learning more specifically how Aboriginals us fire to manage and look after their Country. The photo on the right was a re-read as I read it aloud to Monster a couple of years ago. I really enjoy learning about specific people (be they men or women) who do exceptional things in tough times. Sadly this book was damaged when we received it and I don't have a lot of faith in the library to either repair it or replace it, so not sure it will be available when it is Munchkin's time to study the World Wars.

Left Photo: another book for Munchkin

Right Photo: Monkey and I are enjoying learning more about the Industrial Revolution as it pertains to England and Australia.

Monkey's elbow wound is nearly healed and now he simply hopes that he'll have a fabulous scar.

Monkey and I worked hard to finish off our math chapter and are now done with math until next term. All Monkey has left to complete to be on school holidays is a final narrative writing assignment on Daniel in the Lion's Den, and a drawing as well.

The cucumbers Munchkin grew from seeds died (we're not sure why) so he decided to plant some garlic in the pot. After watching several videos about how easy it is to grow your own garlic he was keen to give it a try. According to all the videos we are planting in the correct season so hopefully it will be successful.

After talking to the neighbour up the road we think we planted the cucumber too late!

I'm hoping the people at the community garden will have some answers for us as well.

Left Photo: I have been participating in a daily push-up challenge with Monster and Monkey. Basically, on the first of January we started with one push up. Each successive day we add another push-up. So two push-ups on 2nd Jan, three on 3rd Jan, and I think you get the idea. We are nearly up to 100 push ups and I have to do them in batches of 15-20 throughout my day. I finally got around to getting a photo - and YES I do push-ups on my knees. Maybe next year I'll attempt full push-ups from my toes.

Photo Credit: Munchkin

Right Photo: Our tomato plants have flowers. It is a cherry tomato variety so we are hoping we will get some fruit before the weather gets too cold. 

Friday and into the early hours of Saturday we got hit with an East Coast Low. Some areas of the state saw rainfall between 100-200mm and there was flooding EVERYWHERE. Our dam was already close to capacity so I imagine it spilled (though I haven't checked yet) and at least two rivers flooded their banks. Many areas were evacuated and lots of people suffered local flooding, power outages, and branches and trees downed. I tried to take a trip to Riverwood library Saturday (late morning) after everything was over, but a large portion of the train line was underwater so that plan failed. I learned a valuable lesson about checking train information on my computer rather than relying on live updates on my phone (which were still showing that all trains were on-time despite a dozen or more being cancelled).

This photo above was taken just after 5am as I stood on the front veranda, sipping tea, listening to the thunderstorm, and watched the street and footpath flood. The water flooded our driveway, but thankfully didn't get past the footpath this time around.

I only managed two walks this week. One on Tuesday and one on Saturday.

Term One: Week Nine ~ Baptism and Good Friday

This was a VERY special week for our household. Monster made the decision to be baptised when our Pastor announced a few weeks ago that another church member was getting baptised and opened it up for anyone else. I have also contemplated for many years about water baptism and felt this was the right time for me as well. Curiously, Monster and I knew nothing of the other person's decision until after that particular service. We each made the decision independently, but simultaneously.

So on Palm Sunday, after our regular service, several of us travelled to the beach to be baptised in the ocean. The other gentleman and his wife were there, as well as six other members of our congregation. The above photo is a beautiful shot of the beach.

Photo Credit: Monkey

Two wonderful shots of Monster and I as we emerged from the water.

Photo Credit: Monkey's godmother - Auntie H

Wound photos - sorry if anyone is squeamish. I texted my mum frequently through the week with updates on Monkey's healing elbow wound. It was nice and healed up and no longer needed creams and bandages by the end of the week. I love that my mum is able to "nurse" her grandchildren from afar.

We are nearly the end of the term and I generally take a break from reading aloud (aside from the Bible and sometimes their literature) so we worked hard to finish books. As they wrap up chapters in math and finish last writing assignments over the next two weeks, school will be reading and hopefully we'll finish off a few more that we started at the beginning of the term.

Just some photographic proof that we DO structured written work. This week the focus was on Munchkin so next week I'll have to try to get some photos of Monkey.

Nature photos from this week. With Good Friday ending our week I got more walking in. This photo was taken Thursday when Munchkin and I took a walk to the shops for some groceries.

More Rainbow Lorikeet photos at the house that feeds them. I tried to get closer to this guy, as he seemed fairly tame, but I got too close and then he was spooked and wouldn't let me get any closer than these shots.

Some of the beautiful flowers in our church garden - taken after the Good Friday morning service.

I went for a LONG walk in the afternoon on Good Friday. All by myself. It was lovely.

I forgot to photograph the other plants, but our tomato plant is growing so well we are noticing the changes almost daily now. I'm hoping we'll get some fruit as the daytime temperatures are really quite warm still.

My step count totals for my walks from Thursday, Friday and Saturday.