Week 7, Term 1 2012

We have had a long weekend in South Australia and we took the opportunity to lay a new floating floor in our school room. It looks lovely and neat and very smooth. Here is a photo, sorry it is sideways!

 Because we had to take everything out i had a chance to sort out the bookshelves, here it is all neat and tidy, with the new floor!

Yesterday morning Josiah and Simon spent some time making some models that they had been given in the past couple of months:

 Pterandon

Model Plane

 

These last two pictures are a model of a town we made this morning.

We have changed the way that we do school at the moment in that we let Josiah choose which subjects he wants to do each day and then we tick them off from a list. There is one condition is that he needs to do phonics everyday or else he would leave it all till the last day and have too much work to do! It is working really well and in the last 2 weeks we have finished most of our school work early and have had Fridays off.

Week 3, Term 1 2012

This week and the end of last started really hard, Josiah has developed a poor attitude towards schoolwork and is procrastinating to the MAX!
This has caused us to have a closer look at the way we do things and whether we are a bit heavy on the bookwork side of things and not enough fun happening. I have been reading a few different homeschool blogs including this one: http://heartofthematteronline.com/

I think we do need to do a bit more lighter and fun stuff, but i am struggling to see how i can fit anything else in to our week. I think this is going to take some serious thinking and reorganising of my life and priorities and about how i view homeschooling.

We did some brainstorming about how we can get him to do the necessary bookwork but trying not to force him to do it. This recent poor attitude is coincided with bad behaviour in many areas of his life so a complete overhaul or reminding of the boudaries and why we are in charge is necessary.

So far this is working and his attitude has improved. We have discovered that anything to do with writing with a pencil he procrastinates. This is something we are going to ask other teachers about and our friend who is specialising in special needs/dyslexia. He often confuses letters and numbers, writes them backwards and subsitutes appropriate words when he is reading.

A friend on facebook posted a link to: http://www.handmadekids.com.au/?p=10766
So today we attempted sewing for the first time. These are the results of our sewing:


The finished Product


The finished product

Sewing in action!

A few things over the holidays

We've had a lovely break from formal school work but the holdiays are over and we are all keen to get stuck back into it. We have nearly finished our first week back to school and we've had a great week. We have a new kindy routine and a much lighter schedule this term than last year. This week has seemed quite easy and quiet but many of the extra curricular stuff hasn't started yet. I am enjoying it.


This is us doing health/PE this week. We traced around Rachel's body and stuck some organs on her. She lay very still (suprising) and the kids are very proud of their picture. It is stuck up in our hall way and they have shown it off with pride to all who have visited our house this week.

In January Josiah did VACSWIM. This is him in the blue and orange shorts diving. He really enjoyed it but it was very cold. Some of the kids had to get out part way through the lesson because they were too cold!

We found this lizard in our driveway, it intrigued the kids for ages (and Dad too!)

This year we attended CMS Summer Encounter and this is the kids performing on the last day.

They really enjoyed the childrens program and learnt about Ecclesiastes.

This week has also been eventful because we enrolled Josiah into school and submitted our homeschool paperwork for exemption/registration. It is his birthday today and he now legally needs to be enrolled in school (although he wont attend because we are homeschooling)

The application process was not too difficult but did mean i had to plan some of our subjects a little more than i had in the past. I guess i will find out soon what happens next.....

Josiah has invited his friend along to kids club tonight instead of having a party and i am making a cake.

I am really looking forward to this term, i feel refreshed, renewed and energized for the year ahead.

December 2nd

Well, we have finished school work for the year but there will still be plenty of learning going on. I have found this last term very tiring and have finished early after discovering that when i thought i only had 1 week left i actually had three. I am planning for us to do a bit of work in the holidays but for now i need a rest.

Yesterday we had a homeschool excursion to the fire station to learn about fire safety. It was good fun but unfortunately was cut short due to a fire somewhere in town.

We have started doing an advent thing from my friends blog:

http://www.mustardseedbeginnings.org/p/resources.html

THe next few weeks are going to be busy with musical theatre rehearsals. THe concert is next weekend. WE have two long (5hr) rehearsals this week in the evenings which will mean late nights and grumpy kids, WE have tried to prepare in advance for this and will prepare some meals tomorrow (Sat) and have scheduled sleeps during the days.

Other things we have been doing:

Making Christmas biscuits

Christmas cards

Practicing ball skills

Watching Steve Irwin the crocodile hunter

Planet Earth series

Christmas pageant is tonight

Kid club service is this sunday, Josiah is playing a sheep.

22nd November

I am counting down to the holidays. I keep forgetting to blog about our school days.
We finished our science course today and only have two weeks of maths and phonics left, next week will be revision.
Today Josiah spent a long time reading a graphic novel i borrowed from the library for him. Reading is definitely his favourite thing at the moment and looks forward to reading in bed with his light on at night.
He also spent a bit of time playing lego by himself.
This afternoon we had a presentation of awards for the "make it a fresh snack" poster competition.

Josiah won first prize in the poster competition that i blogged about : http://hardinghomeschool.blogspot.com/2011/10/yesterday-i-was-feeling-very-very-tired.html

Receiving his prize

In front of the winning entries, his is top left.

The certificate

His prize was a $200 voucher for the local surf shop, not really an ideal prize for a 5 year old. We went there to see what we could buy but couldn't find anything suitable or that we were willing to pay money for. We made a deal with him that we would buy him some lego and that we will buy some things that we need from the shop in exchange, he was very happy with this arrangement.

I was suprised and very proud that he won. i

November 15th

We had a day at home today preserving, we made pasta sauce, tomato paste and onion marmalade. Well, actually i did most of it and the kids came and went, did a bit here and went back to playing.

This is Josiah at family night last night.

Josiah had his first piano lesson today, i taught him after we had done some phonics. Initially he was resistant to the idea and now he wont leave the piano alone. I don't want to force him to learn but i think it will be a good skill to have. He seems keen at the moment so we will run with it for now.

Josiah watched the crocodile hunter vol 11, he still loves Steve Irwin. He also finished a small kids novel he has been reading about chocolate. We will go to the library tomorrow and get some new books.

14th November

Well, obviously i haven't blogged anything for a while, I was sick for a while and got a bit overwhelmed by everything. Last week we went to Adelaide for my friends wedding.
Here are some pictures with the bride and groom, Anna loved the wedding and has been looking forward to it for such a long time.
The other photo is Josiah at playgroup a couple of weeks ago, a great action shot that my friend Kate took.

Today we had my final Breastfeeding Association meeting and the kids tagged along as usual and played in the creche and joined a play group in another building at the centre.

We had a good school day and Anna had musical theatre rehearsal.
Tonight we had the kindy family night, the kids put on a bit of a concert and there was face painting and balloons. A good night out.