August

This post is so long overdue I can't quite remember all the hilariously funny and deeply interesting events and conversations that must certainly have happened.  I could make some up I suppose but at the moment I'm sitting in a crowded corridor at Box Hill TAFE. There are so many other ballet mums chatting and laughing and rogue ballerinas running riot all over the place that I can hardly hear myself think. The conversation next to me is extremely distracting but as I don't know these women I'd better keep on typing and pretend I'm not listening.  

So here's a list of the worky type things the students at the Brian St Centre have been up to.
The most exciting new experience for the Snork Maiden is her debut into adult society as a volunteer at the Eltham Toy Library.  She was very keen to start working in a library shelving books, but all our local libraries were most unhelpful and couldn't offer her any kind of work experience as she is "too young".  So after perusing the Volunteering Victoria website we found the Eltham Toy Library was in need of a couple of volunteers.  After emails, phone calls and a rather stressful interview with the lovely lady in charge the Snork Maiden began her new career and is now, two months later, practically running the place.  Well, ok that is a slight exaggeration but she is doing very well and her boss told me that she's working so much more reliably and competently than many of her adult helpers!
Her duties include:

• receiving returned toys -  checking for damage, counting parts, ticking items off the receipts

• setting up and putting away toys

• returning toys to shelves

• tidying shelves

• using the computer to borrow new items and print out receipts

Moomintroll also enjoys coming along to the toy library sessions because of all the very cute toddlers that come in. She's made friends with some of them and will happily keep them occupied while their mothers browse the shelves for new toys to borrow.  While the girls go about their duties,  I spend a lovely hour sitting in the adjoining Eltham library engrossed in the land of Westeros and the saga that is The Game of Thrones.  From time to time Moomintroll wanders in and does some maths, and we always visit the Teapot cafe in the same building for lunch afterwards, so it's a very productive and tasty morning for all of us.

  *It's getting harder to concentrate here. The conversation next to me has suddenly decreased in volume and they are talking in low, very serious tones. No matter how hard I try I can't make out much beyond "...thirteen years of school..." ,  " ...the teachers can't...."  , "...a lot of parents are complaining...",  "....get serious now because you have another 6 years of school ahead of you...".  
It's intriguing but I've heard all this so many times before from nearly all of the school mums I know. Perhaps I should step in and quietly offer them an alternative.  It's times like these I need some  "Home Education? Ask me how!" brochures to casually strew about the place or drop in their path. 

Back to the important stuff now. Stop eavesdropping T!

Just Brass practices are going great guns. At the end of term all the kids put on a concert and we heard some beautiful and not so beautiful renditions of Rain Rain, Good King Wenceslas, Indigo Rock and Campdown Races over and over and over and over again.  Besides the massed band pieces there were 51 solos and duets, one of them by Moomintroll and her friend Hayley which was a huge surprise for us all. It was awesome by the way.

Other learnin' done included starting our own newspaper called The Daily Brain with chief reporters Paul Robinsons, Jane Brain and Marge Areen.  You can read some of the fascinating reports on Paul and Jane's blogs here and here. 
Those two intrepid reporters have also filmed an interview with their tennis coach J.





The Snork Maiden is blitzing through the Life of Fred books. She's now on the third to last book. The moomin child is working her way slowly though her maths books and has just completed her first one, making her a 'Maths Wizard' apparently. She has a certificate to prove it. She even wrote her own name on it.

Well, that's pretty much it for August.    So far September is proving to be a productive month but more on that in my next post. 
I think the ballet class is wrapping up now, so I shall do the same.

Coming up in the next post: Jane Brain and Paul Robinsons's must see interview and rare footage of Moomintroll's debut duet!

Passing notes

I remember when I was in grade 2. We were writing innocent jokes and messages, passing them around the class, trying to stifle our giggles. We thought we were so funny and clever, until we got caught and my best friend dobbed on the rest of us.  I spent all afternoon sitting outside the principal's office, my nose red from crying. He took pity on me as it was my first offence and I got off lightly. Other kids had to go home with red strap marks on their legs.  Such a shame, seeing as we were all having such fun. We certainly learnt a lesson that day, but I don't think it was the one that the teachers had in mind.
The students of the Brian St Learning Centre have started passing notes around too. One student in particular is obsessed with it. She just can't stop herself writing pages and pages of special notes to people. It is really wonderful to see her spontaneously working so hard and seeing her pride in herself. This is her note to me:

"I know how you are. You are good and happy. And the best thing of all is you."

I have a growing collection of these notes on my desk and I love to read through them when I'm feeling down. They never fail to cheer me up.

Other notes that have been passed around here lately are musical notes.  Both girls have joined Just Brass
- a local music initiative by the Salvation Army. We now have a percussionist and a cornet player in our midst.

I haven't filmed the Snork Maiden on the drums yet because she only has a rubber drum head to practice on at the moment. Once we get her a snare drum watch out!

So that ticks off two subjects - English (written expression) and Music.  Oh, and maths too from working out all those tricky drum rhythms and timings.
We've had a change to our PE program. Goodbye Kids Cardio after five happy years and hello to tennis at Silver Grove.  J is a great teacher who fits in tennis classes for home educated kids between his regular classes for preschoolers.  The girls are really enjoying the lessons and have made some new friends too, so that's a bonus.

Moomintroll had her first ballet exam this week. She was in a line of three girls, so had to do many of the exercises and dances on her own (usually they are done in pairs). It didn't seem to bother her though, and she enjoyed the experience.  Now they are setting their sights on the final performance for the year and she is beside herself knowing that she'll be dancing in The 12 Dancing Princesses.  The Snork Maiden may be an Outlandish Creature in a ballet inspired by William Morris' writings.  Did you know that besides being an amazing artist he was also a writer?  I didn't.  I consulted Mr. Wikipedia and discovered that Morris was so prolific and famous as a writer that he was a huge influence on C.S Lewis, James Joyce and J.R.R Tolkien!  There you go, you learn something new everyday.  I have downloaded three of his books from Project Gutenberg and can't wait to begin reading.  What I'm really looking forward to though is the set design for the Morris ballet. Mr H from the girls' ballet school is a superb artist and creates wonderful sets. His Medieval Scene backdrop a few years back was amazing.

one of my favourite Morris designs - The Strawberry Thief

Song of Love

Yesterday we visited Healesville Sanctuary where we were very privileged to hear a lyrebird practicing his courtship song.

Later in the day we passed his aviary again and noted that it was closed. He must have really impressed his lady friend!

April/May

I've been very slack at recording what we've been up to lately so here's a recap.

Our remaining guinea pig Cuddlepie is doing very well and is enjoying living inside with us. She gets regular cuddles and has even started speaking again after a very very long silence. I think she stopped because her nieces both talked constantly and Cuddles didn't see the need for another loud squeaky voice. A very sensible animal indeed.

Both girls took part in the ANZAC Day parade with their respective Girl Guide Units. Here they are proudly wearing their great-grandfather's and great-great grandfather's medals. They are holding little explanations of the medals but they didn't come out so well in the pictures.

Here are the details magnificently hand drawn by P. Names have been removed for security purposes ;)

Some scenes from the parade:

Our latest Saturday Science Session was Pond Dipping. We visited two local ponds to check out the huge variety of aquatic animal life and to assess the health of the ponds.  The first pond was beautifully filled with healthy water lilies, fish and ducks.  Unbelievably we didn't find any tiny creatures in the water!

looking, looking...

still looking, looking....

 We then moved onto another area where the water was smelly, dark and boggy.  Large rushes grew on the edges of the water and frogs were heard calling melodically.  We hit the jackpot here!  We found freshwater snails, water mites, backswimmers, mosquito larva and most exciting of all, some sort of water nymph - possibly a dragonfly but we're not convinced. Some more research is needed to identify it.

recording the findings

spot the macroinvertebrate

lovely little nymph

All these Pond Dipping photos are courtesy of Mr L who always brings his camera.  Thanks!

Work time!  We are continuing our study of Taxonomy with the Plant Kingdom.

This is our new best friend - the whiteboard.  Learning about plants is so much more fun with a whiteboard!
Moomintroll especially enjoys using it together with her other new love - the calculator.  Most mornings now the board is covered with sums that she has made up. Anyway, back to the plant kingdom.
Our first experiment was to recreate flowers opening up their petals. The girls cut out flower shapes, folded them up to simulate a closed flower, then put them in a dish of water. The capillary action forces the petals open, much like it does in a real flower. We timed different sizes of flowers. The smaller the flower, the quicker it opened.

The next experiment was to observe the way water moves through the xylem in plants. We used celery sticks and coloured water.

before..

 after

The Snork Maiden has been tackling Life of Fred with renewed zeal. She is now onto the fifth book and is loving it. The other day she spent a quiet hour at her desk doing her maths. What I love about Fred is that it not only teaches maths but other important things too, like time management, literature, astronomy and whether or not to trust a large talking duck.
 Moomintroll is taking a little break from Fred but is more than happy with her Distance Ed maths work and a calculator.

Other things we've been doing include creative writing, making movies about dinosaurs, Indonesian, art, hula hoop and juggling practice, piano, visiting the zoo and our new favourite subject Bike Ed. With the weather so mild we've been taking our bikes out and about and practicing riding on the roads.

So now we're all up to date at last. Until next time,

Moominmamma
x

Goodbye Mary

RIP Mary McClive
Our dear little Mary, sister to Laura and niece to Cuddlepie left us suddenly last Wednesday 17 April due to kidney failure.
She is now reunited with her mother Snugglepot and sister Laura. We'll miss you Mary. The garden is now so quiet without your beautiful voice that used to greet us everytime we stepped out the back door.

Mary (one week old) and the Snork Maiden 2009

family portrait: Protective mother Snugglepot and her two babies Laura (r) and Mary (l).

Movie making

The girls have caught the movie making bug.
Here is the Snork Maiden's latest blockbuster.

Electromagnets - Saturday Science

Hi this is P here for my second Saturday Science entry - this time on electromagnetism.

artist's impression of an electromagnet by P

 A little while ago Moomintroll was playing with a magnet on a string and picking up various items.  When it came to getting them off the magnet some vigorous shaking led to the topic of magnets that you could switch on and off.  Well, here we are on a Saturday and it's finally time to do the experiment!  We started looking at some of Moominmamma's art, and a bug on it seemed to come alive!  Actually, a bug paperclip with a magnet underneath (and some happy memories of a magnetic car driving game as a kid).

How strong are our magnets?  Well, they can hold a paperclip suspended in the air.  SnorkMaiden discovered she could make the paperclip spin by pulling the magnet in and out.  Interesting stuff!

What about electromagnets?  We watched a great video of one in action at a scrap yard

and then made some from a variety of bolts, some insulated wire and a C battery.  Talked a little bit about how all electricity generates a small magnetic field, and coiling the wire around a bolt increases the effect.  We picked up paperclips and a nail clipper and saw that some magnetism remained in the bolt for a short while even when the battery was disconnected.  Watch out for hot wires!

Tried to make a solenoid from wire wrapped around a nail in a straw.  It was much more fun to short out our battery-operated doorbell and watch the doorbell solenoid striker hitting the metal tone bars!  We finished with another video from my new science hero Derek Muller from Veritasium.  We strayed into induction theory, but left with the great image of a levitating BBQ plate