No.. the birds aren’t evolving (lol), the study is though. Miss 7 has taken quite an interest in the different types of birds around our property and bugged her parents to take her on a bush walk to see more last weekend.
So here we are bushwalking on our property on a lovely winter morning.
Here is the little bird watcher sitting on a rock. She spent about 15 minutes just quietly searching for the illusive Spinebill – its very flighty.
After watching the news the night before with all the floods featured, Miss 7 made a brochure to tell people what to do in a flood (this is the inside alongside her Noah minibook from DLTK). The reverse side had a title page and some emergency phone numbers written on it.
We read a newspaper article and measured how highthe floodwaters came into people’s houses – she got a shock how high it was.
We completed some worksheets for kids from the SES website and then we pulled out our old Emergency kit and checked what was in it. We decided to re-pack it because the clothes we had put in, they had outgrown.
The next thing to think about was where did all the EXTRA water come from to make a flood big enough to cover the whole earth when Noah was alive? Stayed tuned.
As you may know, we have started a study unit on WEATHER, which became topical when parts of Australia were enduring heavy rains & floods (namely Queensland and northern NSW). The perfect time to introduce NOAH.
We began, of course, by reading the story – the girls made up their own little booklets available from http://www.dltk-bible.com/genesis/noahbook/index.htm then we made a cardboard box ark and incorporated the 2 times tables, counting the plastic animals in pairs as they boarded the ark (thankfully we also had a plastic Noah & wife).
Miss 7 thought of using the beanbag as Mt. Ararat, which we discovered was in Turkey. Then we set about proving that the story was true – as I think it brings the story to life when we start delving into the possibilities.
We read some accounts from eye witnesses ( http://www.arkonararat.com/) focusing on one written by a young boy (now an adult) – the girls eyes lit with excitement. I also read this article beforehand http://www.westarkchurchofchrist.org/library/noahsark.htm, which was for my own information & was fascinating.
So…next thing is to help the girls unravel the mysteries, and we started with FLOODS.
Recently, I was contacted by the developer of a computer program called SPELL QUIZZER and asked to try it out and do a review and am very glad I was asked and here’s why.
I’ve never seen the girls learn to spell so many words to quickly and actually ENJOY doing it. One of the best things about it was the girls had fun recording their own new words onto a list & thinking up a sentence to go with it. Its quick and quite motivating to get the spelling correct but if they don’t, it doesn’t make a big deal of it, giving an opportunity at the end to have another go. Being totally customizable, we can concentrate on words from a particular book, like Dr Seuss HOP ON POP – very handy! You can even include names as you are the one entering how each word should be spelled, eg. ‘Mum’ or ‘Mom’. There are also some lists of sight words already available. If I had any criticism of it, there was a minor annoyance with 3 different windows popping up with messages asking them what they wanted to do next but I believe there is a new version coming that probably won’t have that. Anyway, I would recommend this software for both good and struggling spellers. My girls can be quite picky about computer programs but they enjoyed this one, so to me, its definitely worth the modest price tag.
We provided extra incentive telling them that they could earn a $10 giftcard for the local bookstore once they had completed 3 lists and could spell all the words in them proficiently. Of course we didn’t expect them to do this in a matter of days!!!! But they did. Hmmm – new rules for the next gift card maybe???
PS: well its now been 3 weeks since they first tried Spell Quizzer & I’m pleased to say they are still using it – HORRAY for Spell Quizzer!
Well, I thought this might make a good follow up to my other post ‘Homeschooling with a newborn baby’. Its taken quite some time to get used to the new dynamics of the family and we certainly have our ‘write-off’ days. From other forums and blogs, I had noticed people talk about when to start work again after having a new addition to the family but it was difficult to imagine until it actually happened in front of my own eyes. You don’t get to just hold this little bundle in one arm, or watch her sleep in the pram while you merrily homeschool away – its a lot harder than you think, in my experience.
Anyway, here’s some tips that seem to work for us:
1. Take 1 day off a week planning to do nothing much – no homeschool, no housework, no going out. Sure, we might end up doing some of these things, but we don’t HAVE to if we don’t feel like it.
2. Get help if you can. Grandma sent over some workbooks for the girls to do called eg. Friday Fun book. Simply a bunch of appropriate stencils, a few fun ones with maybe dot-to-dot (revising numbers), a maze, an activity of something to make or do, something to read, like a poem, plus a few harder stensils featuring some maths work or Language.
3. Use ‘baby-sitter’ resources. I would pull out the educational dvd’s, like Jolly Phonics or computer software/games/programs/websites. Also, I could sometimes take one child and work with her on her weaker learning area, say Miss 7, who needed reading/writing practise, while Miss 6 would do computer work. She might do www.Mathletics.com.au , working on her weaker learning area.
4. Let them play! After all, it definitely doesn’t hurt, especially when it comes to imagination (something so many children lack these days – don’t get me started or I’ll pull out my soap box).
Our little girl is now nealy 5 months old and I would say we still aren’t totally settled in, but we are on our way. Give yourself time – after all, its not like they are NEVER going to learn how to read or add up.
