Sept 26 - Oct 9

September 14th was the anniversary of the death of John Holt.  We love Holt's books.  They were the reason that we chose to home educate. When our toddlers were nearing their second birthdays all the mums in my mothers' group started discussing kinder and school, but the idea of sending H away to learn, grow and play just didn't feel right to me.  At around the same time my mother in law gave us some of the books she had read while she was teacher training, and two books that really enlightened and inspired us were Holt's "How Children Learn" and "How Children Fail". 
In memory of Holt, his collegue Pat Farenga has recently made all the past issues of Growing Without Schooling available for free here.  I'm really looking forward to spending some time reading through these - if I can find some time, that is.

P's holidays flew by as usual. Here are some scenes from the first week:

William Ricketts Sanctuary

possum, koala and lyrebird carvings

shadow play

Tulip fun at Tesselaar's Tulip Festival

Making bath bombs - Saturday Science

Making lavender body lotion - Saturday Science

Oma's 70th at The Pig and Whistle, Olinda

We also visited Sky High in the Dandenongs for a treasure hunt, saw Spy Kids in 4D and went to a fantastic concert by the Indonesian National Orchestra which included a huge variety of instruments from different regions, singing and dance. To finish off the week, on Sunday evening P and I performed with Permai at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne. It was for a concert called SoundSekerta, put on by Monash University.  In the end, despite long delays and general chaos backstage, it was a great experience to play in such a beautiful theatre.
The second week of holidays has been full of the Sound of Music. H and R have been coming with us to rehearsals and pretty much know the show backwards now.
H had an early birthday sleepover party with eight friends on Friday night.  They played pass the parcel, stuffed themselves with chocolate and lollies, made their own pizzas for dinner, watched My Fair Lady, camped out in the tent in the backyard in the rain, stayed up till 1am, then woke everyone up at 5am. It was a huge success.