Saturday, September 24, 2016

Term Three: Week Ten ~ We Made It

FINALLY!
We made it through this crazy, upside down, wild, relatively unstructured, bizarre term!  I am actually looking forward to typing up our Term Review as I'm sure it will show me that we got a LOT more accomplished than it feels like we did.
BUT, until then, week ten was mostly filled with natural learning, so here are the photos that showcase that!



 Munchkin spent lots of time playing with Suspend, a very cool Melissa and Doug balance game.

I love it when I catch the older boys helping out their younger brother. Here Monkey is showing Munchkin what to do on one of his computer games. 


Despite some rainy weather through the week, we were able to get outside for some fresh air and exercise.  The boys scootered while I played around with my manual settings some more. 

There was fort building... 


Target practice (with Lego mini figures and the Nerf gun) - sorry my photos are shocking because I wasn't doing a good job of working with the lighting. 

This plastic construction set is the BEST and all three boys still enjoy building creations. 


We finished off our week with our homeschool group meeting at our very favourite park.  All three boys enjoyed scootering, climbing, and Monster practiced his newly learning bike riding skills. Despite how bad the weather looks in the photos, it cleared up around lunchtime, and we were there from 10:30am until 4:30pm and then we walked/scootered the 2.5kms home. 

We checked Lego Robots and Lego Castles out from the library, and I have been spending some of my evenings sorting through the many boxes of Lego that the boys were recently given by a friend of ours, so there has been much imaginative Lego building going on. 

This is MY reading for the week.  The first book in a series called The Matilda Saga.  There are five books in the series so far and a sixth will be out in bookstores in December.  I have read the whole series once already, but decided I will read it all over again while I wait (NOT SO PATIENTLY) for the next book!! ;-) 












Monster's independent reading for the week.  He is loving this history series. Each book showcases a person who is portrayed on the Australian currency (the notes). 

I FINALLY found my Ramona books - I had packed them in a plastic box that is stored under the back porch/verandah.  So I read this first book aloud to Monkey this week and he LOVED it.  He is eager to listen to the whole series. 

 

Monster's geography/history and science independent reading for the week.  The Greek book is WAY below his reading level.  It is even too easy for Monkey now, but the boys enjoyed the story and the information even if it was easy reading. 

Munchkin was super pleased when we could check out his very favourite book from the library again.  I am thinking this just might have to be a Christmas present for him this year so he can keep it forever.  But we'll see if the obsession continues that long!! 

Some more Easy Reader books.  The library had stacks of new books when we arrived this week.  This is a whole series of books so I grabbed them all and both older boys are enjoying reading them independently when they have a few minutes of waiting time.

Saturday, September 17, 2016

Term Three: Week ~ Literature Focus

My photographs this week focus only on the literature we worked on.
If he were still alive, Roald Dahl would have turned 100 years old this week, (on Tuesday) so we spent a couple of days focusing on him.  The boys listened the the audio book of The Twits (probably my FAVOURITE book of his) while making a collage beard.  It was a fun activity.






I intended to get photos of all three of them modelling their beards, but it didn't happen.  Munchkin created a very imaginative beard and therefore I could not cut it along the proper lines, but he was happy with his creation!! 







We enjoyed our reading through the week as well.

Saturday, September 10, 2016

Term Three: Week Eight ~ Finding the Balance

This was a good week.
I feel like (at least this week) we've found our balance between structured learning, play time, and screen time.  Who knows what next week and beyond will be like... but balance is good. So here is my selection of some of our activities.


Monkey decided he wanted to start a new puzzle so we set up this beautiful Ravensburger 500 piece puzzle.  I'm not sure if his motivation will see him through to the end, but we got quite a bit accomplished our first night - since Monkey was convinced we wouldn't have time to get the edge pieces put together! 

We enjoyed a bit of a science afternoon one day - though not without some frustration and disappointment.  The above photo was supposed to be a homemade thermometer but we couldn't get it set up correctly.  I think we need a different kind of straw, so we abandoned that and made note of supplies we need to buy. 



Next was this fun experiment about hot and cold air.  We started by filling the bottle with very hot water, left it for a few minutes, then emptied it, put the lid on and plunged it into cold ice water.  I think the bottom photo does an okay job of showing that the bottle has indeed crumpled a bit as the air cooled inside. 


Next we did an experiment about conductivity of heat.  We stuck the buttons on to different spoon handles with butter, then filled the jar up with boiling water and waited to see which spoon lost its button first.  The boys LOVED this experiment - as it was a competition of course!! 




Finally an experiment to show how warm liquids (this was vegetable oil) rise, then fall again as they cool.  We had to be VERY patient for this one, but in the end we were rewarded when little bubbles of green food colouring rose to the surface of the oil, stayed for a few seconds, then fell again as they cooled! 

Monkey tackled our Crazy Kiwi game again - we have had this game for a couple of years now and still have NEVER solved it! 

There was time spent scootering - in the back and the front yards. 

Munchkin enjoyed having his older brother read aloud to him. 

 Monkey has discovered the Treehouse series.  I bought him the first two books to get him started and he has raced through them.  Monster already owns the whole set (there are six or seven in the set now) and has graciously agreed to let Monkey borrow them.

 Two fantastic information books we read aloud this week. All three boys LOVE learning about dangerous and freaky creatures.







We read some WONDERFUL picture books this week.  Favourites were "The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig", "A Bus Called Heaven", "Ten Kisses for Sophie", and "That is NOT a Good Idea!" 

This beautiful Mark Greenwood book was a GREAT introduction for Monster and I as we will squeeze in a little mini-unit on Ned Kelly over the last two weeks of the term. 


 I read all three of these books aloud to Monster this week. Ancient Greece is fascinating.



Bedtime stories that daddy read to the Munchkin this week.  All three are fantastic and I suspect it will be awhile before I'm allowed to return them to the library.  Good thing we can renew things twice thus allowing us to keep books for UP TO nine weeks. 

 Finally, Mum's reading for the week.  I really enjoyed this short biography about Roald Dahl. It was written for older primary children really, so a super easy read, but fascinating to learn a bit more about him and his life.  I'm keen to read the two books Mr Dahl wrote about his life.

The book on the left was FASCINATING and FRIGHTENING all at the same time.  I knew the evils of sugars, and has a little twinge of knowledge that seed/vegetable oils were best limited or avoided, but had never bothered to do any research as to why.  Well, now I know why and I intend to drastically reduce our use of these oils.  I highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in knowing more about what is REALLY causing the rise in obesity, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease... hint... it is NOT saturated fat!!