Maths workbook – subtraction sums revision. As I have mentioned before, maths is not Miss 6′s strong point but she has grasped the concept.

More ‘ir’ revision words. Reading has not been Miss 8′s strong point – she reads in patterns, not single sounds/blends, so she enjoys these word shape worksheets. There has been mention of dyslexia by someome and I am investigating this further although at this stage I am not convinced.  My feeling is that she is a pattern reader and so learns differently and also gets bored unless it is something that interests her…. well, who doesn’t? She is very good at Maths and can’t be good at everything.  If your child had reading issues, I’d love to hear about them.  She does get words mixed up eg. ‘on’ verses ‘no’, and does give up trying sometimes, but other times she suprises me with words she knows. She sometimes forgets sight words but when she makes a mistake, she can correct herself.  The jury is still out.

Maths games on the Nintendo – a favourite. I am not a fan of gadgets, video games, playstations & the like, so I will never buy them but they are allowed to have this DS lite because we can take it out with us.

We revised ee and ea by making a pEAch trEE with words on each peach. As time is an issue with baby, I just printed off the words then quickly drew a tree on the window and they did the rest – they loved it. We also did high-lighting ea/ee on a worksheet.

Finally we did some of the Kidpower safety program in light of recent events in the news of a little girl being abducted.  The girls drew a picture of themselves to show where their ‘internal alarms’ are – like that little voice in your head that says something isn’t right. The other sheet shows what you should do if someone asks you to go with them for some reason.  Along with the Yellow Dyno program, my girls have skills to help keep them safe.

So as I sit here with baby asleep in my arms, typing one-handed, it seems we have not had too bad a week and I’m suprised at what we have achieved.

 Miss 8 has had some reading issues (she reads by patterns which is quite different for me) so I am taking it slower to learn new sounds like ‘ir’ as in bird. We made this with a cute bird stamp I had for their little baby sister to watch. (it served a double purpose). We might concentrate/revise this sounds for at least 2 weeks so they really ‘get it’. I also choose this sound because Miss 8 is very much ‘into’ her birds at the moment – fits in with my ‘make learning emotional’ philosophy.

Miss 6 actually ASKED if she could do Mathletics on Tuesday (I nearly fell over as she had become bored with it) and both girls wanted to do several pages of their new Maths/sticker workbooks that Grandma gave them (hooray!) Here, Miss 6 is hiding her answers so I can check them at the end. (She loves games).

So…. here’s what I think is happening.

MONDAYS – sounds combined with a craft idea.

TUESDAYS – Reading eggs/Mathletics (computer programs)

WEDNESDAYS – Mums day off to keep her sane

THURSDAYS - Workbooks plus riding bikes to Grandmas to read to her.

FRIDAYS – TBA.

Miss 8 drew up some plans for a sceptre like the one she had seen on Tinkerbell.

Then the girls got busy making one.

And you could hear me cheering from here, Miss 8 also sat and did a worksheet – hoorayyyyyyy!!! With no issues. They learned the ‘ir’ sound because she loves birds, so I used the opportunity. And she actullay read the words – her reading has improved as well as her concentration.

So we made a start and I am going to have to take things as they come, not plan too far ahead, not plan too much on a day, and not expect too much from my little one (who is even now pulling on my arm for me to get away from the computer!!!).  My main goals for this year are:

• Practise reading - use www.readingeggs.com, read to Grandma once a week, go to the Library to encourage bedtime stories, do a worksheet once a week.
• Maths – use online programs, do a worksheet & hands-on activity once a week.
• Christian input - use Bible Stories about character traits as a theme
• General Learning - follow the girls interests as the theme.

If i can manage to achieve these goals this year, I’ll be pleased.

She got a pair of adult budgies which she names Bluey & Peppercorn, a pair of zebra finches, named Stripey & Snowflake and a neighbour gave her a baby budgie which she called Rainbow.

She spent the day helping her Dad build the avery and moved them into their new accomodation that night.  She has learned about how to care for them and she gives them fresh vegies most days, water and of course, plays with & admires them.

Meanwhile, she became interested in the 2 sections of her books which classified birds as  PASSERINES (meaning birds that perch) or NON-PASSERINES.

Miss 6, who was also interested and loves cutting, helped a lot with making this chart of Passerines we see here on our property. We also made a non-passerines one.

This year Miss 7 has really grown up a lot and made the decision to earn some money by helping to pack fruit. She actually set her own fee of twenty cents per tray and managed to pack a huge 26 trays one day, earning herself a $5 note, which she was thrilled with (and has since earned another plus some gold coins).

Miss 6 has been earning herself some baby sitting money entertaining her baby sister while Mum & Dad pack fruit.

Miss 6 has also become quite the little cook lately. She made these yummy sugar-free anzac biscuits.

However, most of the time its a case of hitting the workbooks mostly as a source of revision because there just isn’t enough time in the day to organise activities during our busiest time of the year – fruit picking.

We finally visited the Pet Porpoise Pool this time at Coffs Harbour and learned more about these fascinating creatures (one of Miss 7′s favourites), but she wasn’t game enough to actually touch one (they felt like rubber tyres to me).

We read road signs & how many kilometres to places.

Had swimming lessons. Miss 7 has really improved and can now do doggy paddle, swim under water and some freestyle.

Miss 7 also continued her study of birds and enjoyed photographing any wildlife we came across and identifying it.

We visited the botanical gardens at Tamworth and the girls did drawings of different plants that interested them and wrote their names.

We also visited the Hunter Valley Gardens, which the girls really enjoyed (of course Storyland was their favourite) and they learned to read the map and lead us around the whole garden.

And of course we did some of the regular stuff such as computer CD work on the laptop and reading books. Both girls were allowed to choose a workbook suitable to their learning level and they started these while on holiday.

Here we are at Burleigh Heads beach just around the corner from this…

This is the girls looking back at where our caravan is in the camping park.  Its a beautiful place to holiday and they have a brand new heated pool.

As you can see, the girls had a ball! 

More on what homeschooling we did later…..

We printed off a protractor from here then glued it to cardboard, attached a ping pong ball with cotton (as shown in this experiment worksheet) and measured the angle our string got to. Ours hit 10 degrees, which converted to more than 60 kph.

Using the Beaufort wind scale chart, we discovered the wind was blowing GALE FORCE .

Miss 7 was very excited (probably a result of the wind!) and thought she would practice giving a weather report on the wind to her grandparents later.

Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoos!  Woohoo!

We took off after then because we were sure they were nearby, still on the property and sure enough there wer 6 of them. It was so exciting.

Here’s 2 that were having a bit of a tif.  They only come for a short period each year and usually its only the red-tailed ones, but this year we got YELLOW ONES!

Here’s another shot.

We don’t think this one really had a white head, we think its just the angel of the sun in the camera lens but LOOK AT THAT EYE staring down at us.

They landed right in front of us near our dam so we got a great look at them – they are so interesting to watch – like kids fighting. You could imagine them really messing up your house (lol).

We also managed to get a shot of these red-browed finches eating seeds in the grass.

And also of this bird that had been illuding us for weeks. We think its either  a grey Fantail or possibly a Willie Wagtail?  We also think it has a nest in the tree just near it. If we can locate the nest we’ll know which bird it is because they are different. Its so much like Spring here already and Spring is still 3 weeks away.

We started with making a crown each because every little princess needs a crown, right? Miss 6 is practising her courtesy.

I found a great list on the web called ‘HOW TO BE A PRINCESS’ and we have roughly followed this with me adding in my own ideas.

We also watched some Youtube videos of Princess Mary and Princess Diana to see how graceful, modest and charitable they were.

First on the list was GROOMING and dressing MODESTLY. Here’s the girls are learning how to care for their nails and they also learned about wearing clean clothes and brushing their hair.

We found some photos and made a scrapbook page story of the first 4 rules we learned.

We are up to the part of being CHARITABLE. The girls went onto the World Vision Australia website & watched the movie about the ETICA free trade dolls & we decided to sponsor a child – the girls can contribute an amount of their pocket money to help).  We choose a little girl who was also 7. The girls also donated a chicken to a family for just $3 each – very charitable. They were thrilled to get their little keyring dolls in the mail.

Next the girls made cards to send to others while learning to be THOUGHTFUL – they only needed to make one but ended up making about 7, which I will post off this week.