Introducing our newest homeschooler

Introducing our newest homeschooler
Louis Samuel
Born on the 29th of March
Weighing 9 pound 10 ounces



Oh the places you'll go!
You'll be on your way up!
You'll be seeing great sights!
You'll join the high fliers,
Who soar at high heights.
You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed.
You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you’ll be the best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest
Dr Seuss

Through his eyes

Taking a teenager to a child's activity day doesn't always run as smoothly as one would hope
There's the inevitable "uncoolness" of getting in with the 5 year olds to craft
The dragging time spent looking after your younger brother
Or just the fact that there is no electronic entertainment to be had for 50ks
But bring a camera with you and you can have all of the above with minimal eye rolling
Just so he can be free and wander off on his own to catch the world through his eyes










*These pictures were taken by Ryan, aged 14 at the Gold Coast Botanical Gardens*

Am I ready for this?

After a few nightmares and seeing in the beginning of another year,
I have worked hard with myself.
This year will bring about another family member...
Homeschooling grade 3...
as well as grade 8... a highschooler!...
Working with my 14 year old and making this year the best for him, at school...
Dealing with more health issues, this time with my 1 year old...
Entertaining this 1 year old and feeding his thirst to learn.

Well, Im confident enough now to say bring it on!
I am ready, I am willing and we are going to rock this year!

I have bought copious amounts of work books and all of the highschool text books.
We are enrolled in the important online exercise programs for math and english

Pencils are sharpened and books are covered!

Although we did start a few weeks back I finally feel like we are getting in the swing of things

When i look back a few years ago when we first started homeschooling,
It makes me feel happy with where we are today. All those butterflies in my stomach!
The worrying about whether we were making the right decisions, choosing the right books
and leading our children in the right direction have all gone away.





Now we can be happy with where we are, where we are headed and enjoy this time we have together.
Wouldnt have it any other way!

Home schoolers mini fair

One of the blessing of being part of a homeschoolers social network
is attending the events that are created by the wonderful parents.
Last month we found ourselves at a mini fair
The children were to man the stalls
create the product and sell it
So refreshing watching the little entrepreneurs at work



These had to be my favourite consumables!



Such pretty lolly pop bikkies



Garden produce



Im not sure what happened when you guessed the amount of marbles. Did someone win the jar?



The wrestling arena.....oi vey!



Honey joys, water bombs and bubbles....a child favourite things



Oh i didn't get to taste this





Angie hard at work creating masterpieces



The imagination behind some of the stalls was great!



Boys selling their mother jewellery
(their mothers created jewellery...no diamonds or ruby bargains to be had today)



I think my favourite had to be the experience that my girls had at this fair
It was Sarah's idea to busk as she has been asking to do so for at least a year now
They made such a lovely racket
Thank you to all our lovely homeschooling friends, big and small,
that dropped their coins at their feet
Egos were boosted and their creative hearts content

Schools in! Last Term of 2011

We had an extra week of school holidays due to health and organisational issues this month.
It was so good to take that extra time so we could easily slide back into out homeschooling routine

First day back
Wake up at 5.30
School starts 6.30
Maths first up, Ellie flew through her book work and got to have some play time on Boost Maths
Sarah is just finishing up her grade 5 maths review. We aim to have Grade 6 Maths finished
by the end of the year. The beginning of next year will be spent on Grade 7 maths moving onto
Grade 8 maths half way through the year. She is looking forward to being up to the same level
as her old school friends.





During break time the girls took it upon themselves to do a music lesson. Sarah teaching Ellie
the basics of keyboards, then practicing their songs for a busking session they will be doing
at a Homeschoolers Fair in November.





By this time (9am) mumma has the slow cooker on and bread in the oven, bubs goes down for his morning sleep so we can get stuck into English.

Sarah is still continuing with her Narnia literature unit
I found quite a few websites that pulled ellie out of her normal book work
I printed out a few activities and Ellie loved it.
There were many stickers to hand out!

Ending the school day with some Auslan
and baby play in the backyard.





Ryan is home from High School now so its time to put on the homework hat for me
We are finding that full supervision for the rest of the year is the best way to go to get him
in a good habit for next year. More on that one later!

We enjoyed our first day back for the term, it wasnt as productive as i had hoped it would be
but i do like to add too many things to the "to do list" for the day.

Ellie has many stickers and work sheets to show daddy when he gets home
and Sarah is feeling proud about adding to her vocabulary. Its such a big world out there when you are learning new things everyday.





Tonight i plan to sit down with the girls and do some embroidery.

Thats a great start to the ending term i think!

Strawberry Fields Forever!

With friends, we ventured up to Strawberry Fields in Palmview



The strawberries were plump and juicy



As soon as we got to the open fields
the kids rocketed off to find their own juicy treasures









Such a full day, ending it at Kings Beach



There was jam making and strawberry sneaking to be done
Looking forward to finding another field to explore next month!

The Circulatory Sytem: Working on the Heart

We had such a wonderful lesson today on the heart
One that I have been looking forward to since ordering my whole lamb
We were given organs as well
Makes for a more exciting lesson id say!



Ellie explaining to me what she knows about the heart.... blood flowing right around her chest
and making her eyes feel better!



No tongs or gloves here, its all hands on!



Sarah wasn't too keen on getting hands on but we talked her into it
They were pretty grossed out by it all but in the end wanted to get as much out of the experience



Sticking fingers in valves



And working on learning about the blood



And naming all the parts of the heart while listening to one
of our fav bands

We found the Human Body work book the most useful for this lesson
We also used the incredible human body flip chart
Science essential 1
as well as The Human Body Coloring in Book

After all the poking and prodding mumma cooked up the heart,
the kids got to try a bit of it and the chooks ate the rest up!

Tomorrow we are working on the tongue and kidneys!