Posted by: amber in Home School, family on
Sep 02, 2009
A few weeks back I started Xavier making steps using C-rods (OK on second thoughts it was probably a couple of months ago). He caught on very quickly and was happy to sort anything from shortest to tallest including the cut straws in one of our activity bags.
This week we started to make some connections. I brought out some number cards which we practiced putting in order 0 to 10. Then we built Duplo towers and matched them to the numbers. He immediately made the connection to the steps he has been building for the past few weeks.
Today we built steps using both the c-rods and the AL Abacus which he has seen Ethany using. This was painless. I know he knows that the c-rods represent different quantities and that is a huge first step. Yay Xavier!
Posted by: amber in Home School, family on
Aug 25, 2009
Today we finished up our picture study on Van Gogh. Ethany and Xavier have really enjoyed learning about Van Gogh, both his life and appreciation of his paintings. Here is our Van Gogh wall, we have studied each of these paintings for 2 weeks. We have also completed our own version of several of his works.
Over this time we borrowed a number of books from the library about Van Gogh. The latest one being the one Xavier liked best.
Ethany provided an oral narration about Van Gogh today which reads -
"Vincent Van Gogh only lived for a short time and he only sold one of his paintings. He loved his brother Theo and he wrote a lot of letters for him when he was in London. Theo sent him lots of paint. Van Gogh shot himself that is why he only lived for a short time. He is famous now. Van Gogh went on a job hunt before he went to Paris."
Ethany also completed some copywork about Van Gogh, she was quite fascinated by his job hunt.
Posted by: amber in Home School on
Jul 25, 2009
There isn't a blog yet that I have looked at that has not had a comment on Workboxes and mine will be no different! I took a long time, looking, reading, learning, thinking about workboxes and how they may or may not work for my family. After all that thinking I decided it could work for us, but not how written.
Here are our Family Workboxes.
And this is how we use them.
- We have 1 set of boxes for Ethany and Xavier to use.
- Each box is loaded with 2 activities, one for each child. A lot of the curriculums we use are teacher driven so in every box someone is working with me while the other is working independently.
- We move on to the next box when everyone is finished which means that the person not working with me is usually working on something open ended to allow that flexibility of time.
- We are only working 7 boxes, in the pic you can see above we were almost through our day.
The main reason I feel that workboxes actually work is that everything is carefully planned out and everything is on hand ready to go. Previously if we were having a busy day it was easy to push school to the side because it meant getting things out and ready and working out what the other children would do while I worked with one. Now everything is ready to go, so if we have to go out, we work until ready to leave and then when we get back it is still there all ready to go and we just move on to the next box.
Workboxes are awesome and helping our day to stay relaxed but organised.
Posted by: amber in Home School on
Jul 25, 2009
After much consideration and almost purchasing LEM Phonics I decided to get All About Spelling, and I am soooo glad I did!! We just LOVE it!!
As Ethany is reading fabulously I didn't feel it necessary to put her through normal formal learning to read phonics, and she hated Explode the Code with a passion! So I decided to move on to teaching spelling which provides a backdoor route for phonics and it is a hit.
Today we taught Bindi a few new phrases.
We are almost through Level 1, Ethany doesn't complain at all and we can make it as fun and silly as we like. If you have not already checked it out I can't highly recommend it enough, please have a look.
Posted by: amber in myblog on
Jul 25, 2009
Owing to some changes occurring in our life at the moment we are at present unable to offer Dandy Bumz for sale. We are hoping to release our pattern at some point in the future so you can sew these wonderful one size nappies at home.
We have also changed our shipping policy. As we are homeschoolers and VERY busy during the week we will be posting all items on Saturday mornings. Postage will be on the Saturday following clearance of funds into our account. So if you place an order on Friday or Saturday and the funds don't clear until Monday your parcel will not ship until the following Saturday.
We do apologise for any inconvenience caused by these changes.
Posted by: amber in Untagged on
Jul 16, 2009
It is Ethany's Birthday today and we got her a pet mouse which she has named Annie. She is a very cute little mouse and Ethany picked her out at the shop herself.
Posted by: amber in myblog, family on
Jun 01, 2009
Just wanted to drop in quickly to let everyone know that I am still here. We were having some major internet problems, then my beloved iMac died and we have just been super, super busy!! My Blog was the last thing on my mind.
Things are now getting back to normal so I hope to once again be posting regularly.
Posted by: Dandy in Home School, family on
Apr 15, 2009
Posted by: Dandy in Nature Study, Home School, family on
Apr 10, 2009
It's hard to get a good picture of Imogen, because as soon as she sees the camera she pulls a funny smiling kind of face and runs right towards you. Here are a couple of shots.
Being a little Mummy wiping her drink cup with the tea towel.
There's the face.
These are new books for Xavier for this year, they arrived on Wednesday, it was like Christmas opening all of the parcels. They complete his books from our 3yo curriculum which you can find a link to on my side bar. They are all Sonlight selections and I am sooo impressed. We have started reading them already!
Ethany deep in thought making a collage from one of the activity bags I put together last weekend. They have proved a hit this week but I can see I am going to need to rotate them often.
An unidentified moth we found on the wall of our shower last night. I took him outside and he flew away. When he crawled onto my finger we could see that his legs and underside were a very bright orange colour. I have never seen one like that before. Kids thought it was great! We couldn't identify him in our field guide.
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