Advent Calendar part 2

Lots of crafty activities on our advent calendar this year, like air dry clay decorations, duct tape flowers, and felt softies. We finally put up the Christmas tree and decorated it with all our newly made treasures.  Another day we baked a huge batch of gingerbread cookies which we ate non stop all day.  Other days saw us donating bags of toys and clothes to Savers, doing The Hour of Code, visiting the Gingerbread Village at the Melbourne Town Hall, and seeing the film Nativity! at ACMI,

Little snowflake people from here

air dry clay decorations

duct tape flowers

Totoro under the christmas tree keeping company with some wise men and other clay characters

Advent Calendar 2014

Our advent calendar this year is big and bold, made on a budget and takes up lots of space in the kitchen.

I have reused the little envelopes I made for last year's calendar; the frame is an old one we've had for years and the decorations were leftovers from Dr P's year 9 class. Total cost: $0!!  I have more baubles to add as we progress through the calendar. Each morning we'll cover up that day's date so we'll always know what day we're up to.
Yesterday's activity was a day out at Funfields with loads of other homeschoolers to celebrate the end of another year. An awesome day out complete with all kinds of Melbourne weather - cool winds to start with then an almost thunderstorm, some rain, sudden humidity and then scorching sun.  All that in just five hours!

Day two - Make beaded bubble wands.

We made a pile of these as presents for Moomintroll's birthday party guests.
With the bowlful of leftover beads we also made some sparkly new decorations for our tree.

The girls are desperate to put the tree up now, but we'll have to wait until the Advent Calendar says it's the right time.  I've actually forgotten which day it will be so hopefully I'll get a surprise that day too!

Painted faces

Painted funny faces

acrylic on canvas

"..no more teacher's dirty looks."

So, we've pretty much come to the end of our 'school' year. We've all decided enough is enough and it's goodbye workbooks, worksheets, essays, maths, and whatever else is considered too 'work like', and hello to iMovie, Photobooth, Magic Piano and other fun stuff!
The last few days have been quite arty. We've done 3D hands, Mondrian inspired paintings and Selfie Portraits. It's nice to be getting the paints out again after such a long time. I don't know why we haven't done much art. Sadly it's one of those activities that is easy to forget once you let it slip.
Well, we're trying our best to make up for it now.

3D optical illusion hands from this site.

Paintings inspired by Piet Mondrian

Selfie Portraits. They were supposed to be done in lovely smudgy oil pastels but after turning the house and my brain upside down trying to remember where the pastels were, the portraits were done with boring old twister crayons!  Gotta remember to put new pastels on the shopping list...

Oh, and we went on another fun walk and Scavenger Hunt yesterday. The results are on the Ready Rosie and Oobi Doobi blogs. My camera is officially dead, so I didn't join in. Maybe Santa will bring me a new camera this Christmas?

Venturing further afield

Yesterday the Snork Maiden started the first leg of her new journey and attended a pre-orientation day at our local high school. She was so nervous in the days leading up to it but as usual she rose to the challenge, mastered her fears and came out all smiles when Moomintroll and I arrived to pick her up. According to reports, everyone was lovely: the girls, the boys, and the teachers.  The woodwork teacher held them all in thrall as he manfully demonstrated how not to use the wood burning tool.
The science teacher had them experimenting in the lab with such rare and dangerous chemicals as vinegar and bicarbonate of soda. Amazing styrofoam block prints were artfully designed under the guidance of an art teacher and the day ended with a rousing game of general knowledge a la Million Dollar Minute, complete with nifty hand held devices.
The Snork Maiden is chomping at the bit to start school next year; it's really satisfying to see her so eager and keen to spread her wings. She's ready to move on to the next phase of her life and to see her embracing it with so much enthusiasm makes me so proud!

Someone who is not too happy about the thought of losing her favourite playmate, however, is Moomintroll.  She has absolutely zero desire to do anything remotely 'school' related, so yesterday while her sister enjoyed her day, Moomintroll and I went on our own adventure.  I devised a list and by incorporating her desire to 'just jump on a bus and see where it takes us', we embarked on our first photographic scavenger hunt.

Just to set the scene, this picture tells you where and which bus we took:

As I was enjoying the ride Moomintroll suddenly pressed the next stop button and we screeched to a halt. Our scavenger hunt began.

1. Something round

2. a tree from an interesting angle

3. your reflection

4. Eyes

5. a green car

6. wheels

7. an insect

8. a barcode

9. water

10. something peaceful

Then my camera suddenly ran out of battery, so I missed out on clouds, an animal and a 6 sided shape.  Kind Moomintroll took the last picture for me:

11. a 6 sided shape

I am linking up with Ready Rosie for The Scavenger Hunt Linkup.

'Nite 'nite Cuddles, sleep well.

Our little Cuddlepie passed away this morning. Her friend Hazel was sitting quietly by her side when I went out to unlock their hutch and give them breakfast.
We buried her in the front garden alongside her sister Snugglepot and niece Mary.
This afternoon the girls and I devoted our Poetry Tea Time to Cuddlepie and wrote some poems for her.

Cuddles by the Snork Maiden

Soft, friendly, happy
Beautiful and full of life
Run little Cuddles!  Into the night.

How I love Cuddlepie.

by Moomintroll

Cute, pinecone-y,

Eyes turn red in the light.

It's like hugging a fluffy ball.

Talking to her; when she squeals

I try to make her feel safe.

Feeding her celery, broccoli, cucumber,carrots, 

capsicum, lettuce on the couch.

Runs alot, squeals alot,

Hides alot, plays alot,

And eats alot.

I'm very much sad that she's gone.

Cuddlepie

by Moominmamma

Long ropy white hair

Scuttling and darting for cover.

Lady-like, affable

Measured and precise with her words

Secret, calm and peaceful.

A hairy pancake on my lap

Spreading outwards.

Kancil Story Writing competition entry and winner! by the Snork Maiden

Kancil Saves The Forest.
 
Kancil was resting under his enormous old tree in the middle of the forest when all of a sudden he heard a very strange noise.
He sat up thinking it was Mr. Tiger come to bother him and said, half asleep, “Go away Mr.Tiger. I’m resting so leave me now and come back later.”
Kancil then opened his eyes but Mr. Tiger wasn’t there.
“Hmm…” thought Kancil. He was a bit puzzled.
“If it wasn’t Mr. Tiger then who was it?”
He decided to have a look around and see what was making the noise.
He looked here, he looked there, and he looked everywhere! But he couldn’t find what was making that strange noise!
“Hmm…” he thought again, “I wonder where that strange noise is coming from.”
Then all of a sudden Kancil saw what was making the noise. He was terrified.  It wasn’t a bear, it wasn’t a Komodo Dragon and it certainly wasn’t Mr. Tiger.
In fact it wasn’t any type of jungle animal. It was a... Human! Cutting down some of the big forest trees!
“OH MY!” yelled Kancil. “WHY IS HE CUTTING DOWN OUR PRECIOUS TREES?”
He yelled a little bit too loud because the human heard his yell and started chasing him!
“AHHHHH!” thought Kancil. He was really terrified now. “THIS IS WORSE THAN WHEN MR. TIGER IS CHASING ME!”
He suddenly saw a big tree with a hollow in it and decided to hide.
He ran inside the tree and stayed there all day and night.
The following morning Kancil had thought of a plan. He ran out of the hollow and went to visit his friend Mr. Birdie. Mr. Birdie was delighted to see Kancil. 
“Good morning Kancil,” he said. “Why are you here?”
Kancil replied, “I am here because I have a plan.”
“A plan?” said Mr. Birdie excitedly. “What kind of a plan?”
“Well,” said Kancil, “Have you heard a strange noise recently that goes Bang! Bang! Bang!?”
“As a matter of fact I have,” said Mr. Birdie. “Do you know what it is?”
“Yes.” said Kancil. “It’s a human, and I need your help to stop him from cutting down our trees.”
“OK,” said Mr. Birdie. “I’d be happy to help stop this human from cutting down the trees.”
“Alright,” said Kancil. “We’ll need some more help as well. Let’s go visit Mrs. Orangutan. She could help us too.”
When they found Mrs. Orangutan she was up in a tree as usual.
“Hello Mrs. Orangutan!” shouted Kancil and Mr. Birdie.
“Hello Kancil! It’s very nice seeing you. What brings you here?”
“I have a plan,” said Kancil.
“Oooh, is it a cunning one?” asked Mrs. Orangutan.
“Yes, very.” replied Kancil. “I need your help to save our trees.”
“Alright, I’ll come,” said Mrs. Orangutan.
“Lets go find some other animals to help us.”
Kancil and his friends ran off to find other forest animals. They found Mr. Monkey, Mr. Gecko and even Mr. Tiger. He told them about his plan and off they went.
Kancil and his friends went back to the big tree in the middle of the forest. But it wasn’t there!
Kancil was very sad. It was the tree that he was brought up under. He watched all his memories disappear and he thought to himself, ‘That horrible hideous human has cut down my tree!’
“I think I can hear the human nearby,” he said. “Is everybody ready?”
“Yes we are,” said all his friends together, including Mr. Tiger.
“Alright, places everybody! Do you remember what you’re going to do?”
“Yes Kancil!”
“Alright, here we go!”
As the human was busily cutting down another tree, Mr. Birdie said in a big scary voice: “Why are you cutting me down, Mr. Human?”
“Huh? Who said that?” said the human.
“It is us - the trees!” said Mrs. Orangutan.
“Did you know that if you cut down trees there won’t be any oxygen?” said Mr. Gecko
“And if there were no trees,” chattered Mr. Monkey, “there would be no places to live for animals like orangutans and tigers and geckoes.”
The human shivered in fear.
“Rooooaaaaar!” went Mr. Tiger.
“AAAAAAH!” yelled the human, and ran away and was never to be seen in the forest again.
“Good job everyone,” said Kancil. “I am very proud of you all.”
“Thank you Kancil, for thinking of this wonderful plan,” said all his friends, including Mr. Tiger.
“Goodbye everyone,” said Kancil. “I’m off to find a new tree.”
“Goodbye Kancil. Good luck!” replied all the animals.
And off Kancil went.

Kancil Story Writing competition entry by Moomintroll

Kancil and the Banana Tree House

Once there was a Kancil - a small, smart and very fast mouse deer.  He was meditating under a banana tree. It was a lovely warm day and Kancil was relaxing after having a cucumber lunch from the farmer’s field.

Just then Mr. Tiger was standing a few yards in front of Kancil.  He was a bit nervous that a tiger was standing in front of him.

Mr. Tiger came closer and he said, “I’ve got you Kancil. You won’t get away now!”

Kancil replied, “If you eat me I will be turned into a little piece of cardboard by Prophet Suleiman for not taking care of his crunchy, tasty, luscious, succulent, mouth watering meat pie, in his banana tree house.”

Mr. Tiger said, “Where is this house?”

“Just behind me,” replied Kancil. “And this is the key,” he added, showing Mr. Tiger a small stick.

 “Let me in now!” roared Mr. Tiger. “If I can’t eat you then let me have that pie!”

“Ok, Ok, you can have the pie.”

Kancil gave him the key to the house and said “Go inside, lock yourself in so no one sees you eating the meat pie and throw the key out the window.  I’ll take the key into the forest and when you can’t see me anymore then you can start eating the meat pie.”

“Alright, alright! Just run away now Kancil.”

Then Mr. Tiger started climbing over the tree, looking for the key hole. When he got to the top of the tree he got stuck and all tangled up.

Kancil ran away giggling because there was no such thing as Kancil being turned into cardboard by the Prophet or a meat pie in the banana tree house.  He had tricked that silly Mr. Tiger into getting stuck in the banana tree!

The End.

MuBoMaStu

It's June already and winter is here at last. What better time for a new Brian St Learning Centre Learning Plan?  Winter is not my favourite time of year - it seems to bring out the worst in us - it's dark alot of the time, sometimes the sun barely breaks though the clouds, we're feeling lazy and unmotivated. All we want to do is sit in front of the heater, look at iPods and computers and eat all day long.  And we've all been sick. Blecchh!  
Well, as the saying goes "A change is as good as a holiday", so we've ditched the Table Time, the workbooks and the maths stuff and replaced it with MuBoMaStu:  Music, Books, Making Stuff.
The girls and I have spent most or our days playing piano, cornet and drums, reading books for the annual home ed readathon, and making things with our needles, hooks and rainbow looms.
Our first project was to yarn bomb the letterbox:

Ok, so I did do most of the crochet and knitting, but the girls helped dress the letterbox and the Snork Maiden crocheted alot of the metres of chain needed to wrap the curly metal bits. Plans are afoot for more yarnbombing.
Getting everyone reading again is proving difficult. I'm not sure why but it's like they've forgotten how or that they are out of practice. Signing up for the readathon has helped a little with motivation, and read alouds are a favourite once again.
We've also been watching alot of classic movies and docos which is a lovely way to while away a rainy afternoon. We started the BBC's The Human Body series  and  I plan to make Mondays 'Campfire Day' where we will watch and (hopefully) discuss a range of thoughtful short films from around the world via Campfire.
So, I think our new plan for the winter season should be a really relaxing yet re-energising time for all of us.

Last night was Just Brass' end of term concert. Both girls performed solos this time. The Snork Maiden even had her own backing band.

MineCrafting

Moomintroll has a passion for Minecraft, as many young people do nowadays.  I set her a challenge the other day: Could she build our house on Minecraft?  Well, after a short time talking about how our house is constructed and discussing what was important enough to include in the rooms (the tv and couch were a must) Moomintroll built it. It's pretty accurate and I particularly like the way she made the shower.
Here's a short movie I made of her talking us through our home.

After a trip to Kryal Castle recently both girls have been designing their own Minecraft castles. They are also working on rollercoasters, hotels, restaurants and farms.

After many months of searching for a healthier Nutella substitute recipe and many failed experiments with said recipes I have finally found a winner! And I made it up on my own out of sheer exasperation.  It should have known it would be easy but as usual I got sucked in by all the flashy looking blogs and websites out there showing off their beautifully presented superfood laden creations with all natural, organic, gluten/dairy/sugar/everything else - free ingredients.  I love spending time sifting through all those blogs getting wonderful ideas but sometimes the pictures are so intimidating and the instructions are so complex that it's easy to forget that I can just do it myself without a professional camera, lengthy explanations and pretentious looking Mason Jars.
So this is my recipe:
150g packet of hazelnuts
175g dark choc bits (I used Coles' Homebrand ones)
a slurp of oil. I used Rice Bran Oil as it's what I have in the cupboard and I didn't think extra virgin olive oil would taste right.

Throw it all into Vera the Vitamix who will kindly grind it all up into a lovely dark chocolately paste.
Moomintroll is happy with her chocolate sandwiches now and that's all that matters to me.

Rainbow Looming

The latest craze has been here at our place for some time now. The Snork Maiden's skills are getting better everyday, and I do mean everyday!  She spends hours in her room with You Tube and her looms and our house is littered with stray rubber bands. Moomintroll also enjoys looming, but not as much as her sister does.

L-R: Rose Garden; Beaded Fishtail; Chevron; Butterfly (own design)

L-R: Triple Single Starburst (own design); Triple Single; Zippy Chain

L-R: Ten Pin Dragon Scale; Sailor's Pinstripe; Triple Fishtail

After mastering bracelet designs and coming up with her own patterns, The Snork Maiden moved on to bigger and better things.

L-R: Snow White, Cinderella, Princess Aurora

L-R:  Someone; Elsa and Anna (from Frozen)

just a bunch of people

more people just hanging around

another person and Ponyo (from the movie Ponyo)

The Simpsons

iPod covers

pencil toppers; Penguin, frog, Hello Kitty, duck (?)

a bird, Jake from Adventure Time, a Seussian Barbaloot

more bracelets

more bracelets. The THINK bracelets help us to remember to speak nicely to others. Is what you want to say Thoughtful, Helpful, Intelligent, Necessary and Kind?  If not then don't say it!

purse

more bracelets..

DNA Double Helix bracelets. These were custom designed to Dr P's specifications.

and some more bracelets..

and finally....

headbands for unruly hair.

So you see, there's no time for maths books and art lessons. There is way too much Looming to do!