Back in the swing

I really love this time of the year. Last year is in the past and there are so many exciting possibilities looming in the future.  A new year brings with it the most exciting thing of all - a new schedule! I'm a big fan of plans and schedules and time tables and even though we often don't stick to them religiously it's comforting to know that when things are going pear-shaped and out of control we can look at our schedule again and be reminded of what we could be doing and when. The Snork Maiden especially is liking having a time table and is suddenly very eager to do her work and learn new things.

We kicked off our new year at the annual Not Back To School Party at a water theme park not too far from home. About 250 other homeschoolers were there taking over the park. It was a great day to relax and have fun with friends.

a ride that looked pretty tame but really wasn't!

driving a mini car

racing down head first!

The time came to get stuck into our work.  I won't go into the details of our time table but it mostly consists of Table Time, Indonesian language, the usual maths/English stuff and our project for the year: The Middle Ages.
Table Time is a new thing I've come up with after reading many other blogs and their versions of Circle Time, where families spend time together learning scripture verses, prayers and/or poetry and copywork.  I have adapted this into Table Time where we spend every morning choosing and writing out an inspirational quote and decorating the page, then learning a poem.  At the moment we're using one of my very favourite childhood books called "A Child's Garden of Verses" by Robert Louis Stevenson.  It's a Golden Press publication with beautiful handstitched artwork by Virginia Tiffany.

These are some of the images from two poems the girls have learnt so far: At The Seaside and The Swing.

We choose uplifting quotes from "101 Moments of Joy and Inspiration" by Meredith Gaston.
Both girls really love starting the day this way - settling our minds and being creative puts us all in the right mood for the rest of the day and they are easily able to move onto other studies without any fuss.

Table Time on the deck

Moomintroll's work from today

The Snork Maiden drawing happily

one of mine

Indonesian studies are taking off at last, with the help of these free podcasts from the Learning Indonesian website. They feature a native speaker who has a beautiful melodic voice - that helps alot when learning a new language.
Our big project for the year is the Middle Ages. As it was Chinese New Year last weekend I thought we'd begin with Ancient China. So far we've read about the Tang Dynasty, read poetry by Li Bai, Wang Wei and other famous poets, learned about inventions from that time period including toilet paper and the first moveable type (woodblock printing) and explored Confucianism - a blend of Buddhism, Taoism and local Chinese beliefs and practices.

Buddhist shrine at our local Chinese New Year festival.

the Snork Maiden found her lookalike

having a go at woodblock printing, using polystyrene blocks. It proved challenging carving out the letters backwards!

 Confucius says...

"I hear and I forget.  I see and I remember.  I do and I understand." 

                               "Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated."   

Alone Looking at the Mountain

All the birds have flown up and gone;

A lonely cloud floats leisurely by.

We never tire of looking at each other - 

Only the Mountain and I.

Li Po

The Brian Street Learning Centre

The girls have come up with a name for our homeschool - the Brian Street Learning Centre. That should keep those pesky supermarket cashiers happy when they ask the inevitable question.
We even have a theme tune sung to the tune of Play School. It's lovely to hear them singing it loudly in the garden whilst performing synchronised jumps on the trampoline.  I'm sure the animals enjoy it.

This week we picked up where we left off last year with Life of Fred for maths. Both girls are enjoying the quietly humorous stories of Fred and Kingie. The level of maths is just right for Moomintroll. It's way easy for the Snork Maiden but we think the revision will be handy for her. I'm letting her get through the books at her own pace; she's already onto book 2.

We then revisited Mapping the World with Art. We went right back to the beginning which wasn't really far at all seeing as we had only got as far as chapter 4.  This time around Moomintroll is joining in too; maybe not with the map drawings but certainly the historical readings and activities. This week we made Babylonian cuneiform tablets out of cookie dough and created maps of various rooms of our house in ancient Polynesian style.
My plan is to merge MTWWA with our Around the World scrapbooks that we began last year.  This way we'll cover ancient history with present day geography/culture at the same time.

Babylonian edible clay tablets

ancient polynesian style map. just imagine reeds with shells tied to them instead of blue paper strips and stickers!

For science this week we began Taxonomy using this great free resource.  We learned about the five Kingdoms and looked in depth at the animal kingdom. The accompanying activities are great fun; we created a bean classification chart and by taping up our thumbs we learnt how important having opposable thumbs is to survival.


Our read aloud this week has been Those Dreadful Children by Enid Blyton which was a great favorite of mine growing up. I remember reading and rereading it endlessly and desperately wishing that I were friends with "those dreadful children". Actually they're not dreadful at all - the Snork Maiden said "they sound just like us!"

One thing we are making more time for is craft. Not just the cut and paste style but real, proper handicrafts that everyone needs to know.  With my help the Snork Maiden repurposed a tired old black crocheted cardigan into a very hip and happenin' sleeveless vest. Think Madonna in the 80's. Very cool.
Moomintroll tried her hand at dry felting and made a little fuzzy face which she attached to her painting from the week before.
Next week we hope to make a skirt for Moomintroll and I may teach Snork Maiden how to crochet something very exciting - dishcloths!  Which leads me to our other fun activity that we've started each morning called 'Tidy Up Time'.  I have a list of jobs that are kid friendly and the girls pick one to carry out. So far so good; the toilet is clean, the washing has been put away and the floor mopped (for the first time in about 6 months I'm afraid to say)!

Finally, our Saturday Science prac was fossil hunting. P and the Snork Maiden collected more 405million year old rocks from our favorite site and brought them home for some serious whacking with hammers and chisels. Most of us found small brachiopod and crinoid fossils and we all made a terrible mess.

a lovely neat presentation.  it didn't last long

Always learning

Despite the girls spending alot of time doing this ...

... their brains have been in overdrive since we got back from our holiday.
R is suddenly checkmating me at chess, spontaneously spelling words off the top of her head and contantly sharing insights that are beyond her years. 
H is immersing herself in all things bookish, learning about grammar and her spelling is taking off too.
At a recent trip to the aquarium they shared all their knowledge about marine animals with our friends.  I am amazed at their ability to retain and explain all the facts and figures they soaked up at Heron Is.  What really impresses me is that they don't need to write things down to remember them. They hear it, find it interesting, file it away in their brain somewhere and that's it. Done. Remembered. For ages!  Unschooling does indeed rock!

Botswana was the next destination on our Around the World trip.  After the decidedly "meh" attitude whilst in Mexico it was a welcome change to go to Africa.  We watched our Wild Africa DVD a few times, read a book by Alexander McCall Smith about Akimbo and the Lion, and listened to great music via the AccuRadio app.  H enjoyed spending our virtual money on airplane tickets and a two night stay at the Mashatu Game Reserve in Botswana. She also did some extensive research on the country, typed it up using her emerging typing skills learnt here and printed out copies to paste in their scrapbooks.
R was keen to do some writing and made some puppets of an African man, meerkat and a crocodile.

Here are some snippets of life around here.

Clockwise from top right:  Happy Birthday P!; chess anyone?; currently reading about Marco Polo's adventures; chilling out with good friend W; Nutmeg the bunny; beautiful colours from our prism on a sunny morning; spot the real animal; what's going on behind those beautiful big blue eyes?;  another doodle.

Dinner with friends C and W turned into a henna tattoo night:

Around The World

Mexico

We took a short trip to Mexico some weeks ago, flying with Delta Airlines and staying at the Plaza Suites in Mexico City.  Then after doing some research we decided that staying in Mexico City probably wasn't the best idea seeing as it is one of the most polluted cities in the world. 

Mexican books and movies were a little hard to come by, so we made do with a screening of The Three Amigos and a taco night at home.

The girls also made some mexican paper dolls, did a Mexican Symbols word search and learned about the flag's very complicated symbols of an eagle eating a rattlesnake while standing with its left claw upon a nopal cactus, with a half circle of green oak on the left (strength) and laurel branches on the right (victory).  All this is from an Aztec legend in which the god Huitzilopochtli described to his people where they would find their promised land. And they did find it, exactly as he described. They named their home Tenochtitlan ("Place of the Nopal Cactus").  It is now Mexico City.

Our next stop is R's choice - Botswana.

Term 1 wrap up

The end of first term is nigh, so before we leave on our very well deserved holiday to Heron Island, here's a record of what the girls have been up to.


Sport - Ballet, Gymnastics, Kids Cardio, Circus classes.

Music - Choir, Piano lessons, attending concert band rehearsals, concerts and citizenship ceremonies.

Personal Development - Girl Guides.

LOTE - Latin, learning phrases and words relating to the countries studied in our Around the World unit.

Art - Artist Trading Card swap with fellow homeschoolers, batik making.

History - Brief histories of the countries studied in our Around the World unit; Indigenous study (tool making, edible plants, culture and music); Horrible Histories books/DVD; French Revolution video from Khan Academy.

Geography - Around the World unit; preparation for our trip to Heron Island, Qld.

Science - Crystal growing; Tadpole watch; Saturday Science sessions; Rockpool study; marine life study; growing pumpkins; dog, rabbit and guinea pig care; "Hands in the Dirt" excursion involving planting seeds, grasses, analysing compost, identifying animals under a microscope.

English - Shakespeare (H); Headsprout (R); library days; H is writing her own Mr. Men story; writing and performing original plays; atttending a performance of Hamlet; research skills for Around the World project.

Maths - Smartkiddies website; Cool maths games; math workbooks; Pi Day; selling raffle tickets at band concert.

*Around the World countries studied were South Korea, Mexico, Canada and Mauritius.

...and all done in our pajamas! (well, most of it anyway).

a bucketful of egg cases(?) need help identifying these!

investigating at Rickett's Point

snail trail

common sea star

crab shell lineup

Stage 1 of batik making using flour paste instead of wax. Instructions here.

 

Crystal making using Borax, food colouring and boiling water:

 

Torn paper craft:

Hands in the Dirt excursion:

planting Lomandra

Circus time.  R is working towards her Level 1 certificate:

The Doctor is changing daily now.  One day he sprouted a front leg.  The next day the second one popped out:

We will most likely release him back to the creek where we found him at the end of this week.