Thursday, November 3, 2011

3rd november

Yesterday we didn't do any school work, i can't even remember what we did all day except go to the library in the morning. By the time afternoon came round, i was exhausted. Have been that way for days, so I went to bed and Josiah watched Finding Nemo and had musical theatre.

Today we didn't do any bookwork either. I am feeling a bit better today but decided that i might buy some chooks with the birthday money i recieved from my MIL. So today we spent the afternoon modifying and preparing the chook yard for some new chookies. Josiah helped with this, we still have a bit more work to do but once again i got exhausted and had to stop.
This morning we went to playgroup.

I have a busy couple of weeks coming up and am not expecting to get school done every day, it will be especially hard if i don't start feeling better. Hopefully i can get on top of this tiredness quickly.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

1st November

A better day today, a bit less tired and a bit more motivated.
This morning Josiah wrote a letter to his Nanny on a piece of brown paper covered in drawings he did.
He was very helpful to me this morning with the housework and actually did a lot of the tasks that i asked of him.
All the kids helped me make a second batch of orange and date pikelets for snack time, Anna in particular enjoyed mixing and spooning the mixture into the hot frying pan.
Today i made a wordsearch for Josiah's word list, which was something new and different to help learn his words.
He had a good attitude throughout school today and we achieved a lot.
We spent a bit of time in the garden today planting peanuts, corn and carrots.
We have been putting shredded paper mulch on the existing plants as we don't have any straw.

Monday, October 31, 2011

31st October

We had a big weekend away this weekend and are all a bit sluggish and tired today. We had a discussion in the car on the way home yesterday about how I can make my life a bit easier and keep on top of the housework a bit more. I have tried flylady.net before and have decided to give it another go. I found in the past it was very helpful but I would forget about it all or get out of routine and find it hard to get back into it. We are going to try and make it a bit more of a family effort with hubby helping out a couple of times a week so I don't feel like I am the only one doing anything. This morning I did 15 minutes of kitchen/breakfast clean up and 15 minutes in the current zone and I have also added 5 mins in the school room, but am thinking of increasing it on the days I have more time. Hopefully this routine will help to keep on top of the housework a bit more and allow me to feel as though I don't spend all of my time doing housework but feel as though I achieve some each day. I have also included time each day for washing as there is always lots to do. Flylady says that a load a day keeps the chaos away, so I am trying to do this too, by washing, sorting and putting it away on the same day I hope to get on top of it.

This morning Josiah spent a bit of time doing reading eggs on the computer. He was learning about reading rules, capitals and full stops etc.
We had a Fight to get him to give back my phone on which he has been playing games and then we started our school work with some bad attitude. I was tempted for both of us to go to bed because we are so tired but I persevered and Am glad we did. We had quite a successful bookwork time and ran out of time before we hd finished to go and pick Anna up from kindy.

Friday, October 28, 2011

Yesterday i was feeling very, very tired at the end of the day and actually went to bed before the kids did, and so i didn't blog.

Yesterday Josiah's friend came with us to playgroup at the kindy around the corner. It was an open day and there were lots of young children there. It was great. The boys spent a lot of time shooting baskets with a small basketball ring. They spent most of the time outside playing.

Anna was at kindy for the whole day yesterday and so we had a quiet afternoon. After doing a small amount of bookwork, Josiah and i sat down to watch the third episode of Planet Earth which was title freshwater. I fell asleep a couple of times during it and can't tell you what it's about except for fish and grizzly bears.

Josiah also went to play with another friend in our street after he got home from school.

Today we had an easy school day too. We didn't do any bookwork because we had finished it all. I bought home a poster competition entry for him to do. Today he made his poster. The entry form said posters could be drawn, painted, collage, digital imagery or photos. I explained this to him and he chose a collage with photos. The theme of the poster was Make it a Fresh snack.

He cut pictures out of junk mail and we talked about fresh snacks and healthy food as he did it.
He also wanted to take some photos for his poster so we made some fresh snacks:

Traffic Lights


Funny Faces



The finished product


Tonight Josiah had kids club, they are starting to learn about christmas as it is last term. He came home with a sheep that he had made and a shepherd. He explained to me that shepherds are like farmers and they look after sheep.


Today i downloaded a great Christmas resource that my friend Stacie wrote

You can get it from her blog











Wednesday, October 26, 2011

26th October

Today we planted some seeds and seedlings given to us by a friend. The kids took it in turns planting the plants. We used some strawberry punnets as mini greenhouses to grow some chinese cabbage seeds. Whilst in the garden we found some peanuts that had started to sprout so we planted them a bit better. I will try to plant the peanuts i have in the shed tomorrow.

Josiah has finished most of his phonics work for the week already. His word list were relatively easy words and so he hasn't needed to spend time learning them. We mostly just have maths to do for the rest of the week.

This afternoon Josiah had musical theatre and he watched the second episode of the planet earth DVD. It was about mountains and the animals that inhabited them.

I recieved a poster competition thing tonight and so i think we will do this for art in the next coming days. The poster is about healthy snacks.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

25th October

Josiah had a friend come for a visit this morning and they played on and off. They couldn't agree on something to play, or stick to something for a decent period of time.
When Anna went to kindy, Simon did some maths with Josiah. He has been home sick the past couple of days and has been able to help me with the homeschooling a bit. Josiah really loves it when Dad teaches him school and it helps me feel like i'm not in it by myself.

Josiah's reading amazes me everytime i hear him read. Yesterday after he came into our room first thing in the morning he went and read a whole box of readers that his Nanny had borrowed from the library. His reading is quite fluent and he really enjoys it. We have started reading a book together called Jungle Doctor and the whirlwind, which i bought at the conference on the weekend. I plan to read him a chapter or two each night before bed.

We borrowed/hired the DVD documentary called planet earth and watched the first episode of this today. It was title Pole to Pole and full of lots of migration and other animal stories, starting at the poles and working in towards the equator.
He was puzzled about the difference between a cheetah and a leopard. After watching this, the kids played/acted a game where lion's and cheetahs were chasing an impala. I was pleased to see they learnt the name of a new animal. We plan to watch the next episode tomorrow sometime.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

24th October

We have had a really big weekend at a Missionary Conference which was excellent. They ran a children's program with a group from OAC ministries at the start of a tour of the Eyre Penninsula. The kids had a great time with this and Josiah attended all sessions, even those at night. I am not too sure about specifically what was taught but they were very active and very loud! Josiah was the youngest of the group and they looked after him well. He enjoyed himself very much and enjoyed playing with the bigger boys in particular.
Today being Monday, we started a new word list for Phonics, but we are all a bit tired and patience is low. We finished Phonics and Maths for our bookwork but didn't do any science. I have decided that this weeks science is stuff we have done many, many times before and am altering it a bit. We are growing alfalfa sprouts.

A book called lets teach Art came in the post today along with a new science book for when we are finished our current science course. I ordered the Art book because i don't really know much about it or how to go about teaching it. It was written with homeschooling parents in mind and i think will be a useful resource. It is a year 1 book.

Josiah and Anna spent much of this morning creating things out of some special scrapbooking type paper that Anna got for her birthday. The creation is still in progress and currently takes up the kitchen table. Not sure what we'll do with it for dinner!