In my life this week...
A decluttering week - we only have a tiny house and any clutter seems to fill it! Our dining table seems to fill with not only homeschooling activities, but newspapers, letters, laptops, and miscellaneous junk. I've also been watching Hoarders, and am very keen to not hold on to "junk" - love or lose it has to be my motto! The kitchen it sparking clean now and has lots spacious bench tops. What a pity I went to my favourite kitchenwares store today and bought more stuff!
In our homeschool this week...
We continued reading A Chemy Called Al. This book is linked into our Acid, Acid Everywhere unit of work on acid base chemistry, and the kids (and I) are loving it and it's prequel A Gebra Called Al (which conveniently also linked into order of operations in maths!). The author, Wendy Isdel, wrote the first book when she was in school. There is also a Teacher's guide which has lots of fun activities which match to the chapter.
Video Boy did a fabulous oral description of a banana (before consuming it!) and Wombat Girl did a detailed description of a carrot - both part of the Writer's Jungle course. They spoke and I typed and we will use that later to create a descriptive paragraph.
My reluctant writer Video Boy then shocked me by requesting to write a booklet - a procedure list of the Okami Brush video game. It is very detailed and well illustrated and I was so floored that he voluntarily wrote something!
Wednesday was Dr Seuss' birthday, so we digressed with lots of read aloud Dr Seuss and a trip down memory lane watching the DVDs of The Sneetches and Cat In the Hat. What a fun morning! It was also World Maths Day, and so many hours were spent trying to out-compute kids from around the world!
Include Fibonacci numbers, Lego mazes, discussions about Australia's legal system, listening to Peter and the Wolf, finding out about the parts of an orchestra and thinking of an orchestra as a system, we had a pretty well rounded week.
Places we're going and people we're seeing...
More gymnastics and tennis. Outing with the dog to the park and the quaint Mogo where fudge and kitchen gadgets were purchased!
My favorite thing this week was...
Watching the kids finally riding a two-wheeler bike! We have been slack in this regard, and I didn't want them to have to learn when they were adults (like I did!). So it was a sight that warmed the cockles of my heart to see them balancing away!
What's working/not working for us...
Having a plan of action for the week (well, for the term), but being flexible enough to go with the "flow" when events such as Dr Seuss' birthday and World Maths Day come up. This keeps us loving learning and enjoying homeschooling.
Homeschool questions/thoughts I have...
After a discussion with a teacher from the kids old school in the supermarket (as you do), I don't feel as though they are missing out on anything by homeschooling. This week we went further and faster in maths, discuss history and civics, developed our love of music, made huge gains in gross motor skills and loved our learning. They are friends with their friends, enjoy meeting people from all walks of life and importantly, are happy. What's not to like?
A photo, video, link, or quote to share...
A Chemy Called Al has a bunch of "periodics" - horse-like creatures that represent the elements. I showed my kids this video and they loved it!
Then we found this video of Daniel Radcliffe from the Harry Potter films showing what a cool dude he really is!
Hey there Ingrid!
ReplyDeleteNice new blog ... very perrrrty. ☺
I'm going to enjoy reading your blog entries, esp. if you share such great resources. We love science here, too. My son's got a history focus for most of this year, so we've started the year off in science learning about various scientists and theories that were thought to be true (once).
Looking forward to reading more from you!
Catherine (aka alecat, TRP)
.. oh, btw, if you want to use the little starfish TRP logo, feel free to copy it over at my blog. Fliztea has the actual codes somewhere on TRP also, if you want to use them. (See my blog footer for the bigger logo).
Thanks Catherine!
ReplyDeleteI hope I can continue to share lots of resources with you. The history of science and how what we "know" changes with the scientific process is a really important concept to understand, so we can look at issues such as "global warming" with scientific literacy.
Thanks for the starfish logo tip - still finding my way through all the technology - it's fun! I'm glad you think the Blog is pretty too!
Your house is small? :) It's gi-nourmous compared to mine!!!
ReplyDeleteWhat great resource information! I ran into my son's teacher recently....it was awkward at first, but I walked away knowing we made the right decision. I love your sweet post....
ReplyDeleteI love the video of Daniel Radcliffe! I have to show this to my daughter - so cool! I'm glad to have found your blog!
ReplyDelete~mary
Had to laugh...and cringe...when I read your comment about Hoarders. That is the one show I am NOT permitted to watch...it literally freaks me out. My family has said no more because I get so obsessive. Glad to see I'm not the only one that is bothered by it. :)
ReplyDeleteGood morning! I too have felt like cleaning,and organizing. Maybe its the need for Spring to come too. I homeschool little ones, so its always refreshing to see how moms homeschool when they get older.
ReplyDeletewe are cleaning things out here too. clutter piles up SO fast especially with kids stuff!! visiting from the homeschool link up!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your lovely comments ladies! How cool is the Homeschool Chick link up? I'm new to the blogging world, but finding it a wonderful, rich source of information and support. So glad I can contribute!
ReplyDeleteIt's cleaning morning here again - thankfully the table is not too bad after the week's cleanup. Wish I could say the same about the loungeroom.
Love Tom Lehrer and Dan Radcliffe! Spring cleaning is a year round activity I think. :)
ReplyDeleteYeah - it's autumn here, and we need to keep on top of the chaos (or before you know it, the Australian version of Hoarders will be in here filming!).
ReplyDelete