Dragons: Myth or Real?

Is this myth or real?

This is the question posed to my children today. We watched the mockumentary entitled The Last Dragon a.k.a Dragon's World: A Fantasy Made Real. It fell so well into learning about myth and legend, and when Andrew discovered it, it definately made its way into our learning environment.

Done so well, my children very nearly believed it was true, the eldest two were skeptical originally, which is good. However it even made me really wish it was true. How wonderfully made! Find the wiki here and the official site here which includes a lot of learning and thinking information.

While the sun has shined, we've been very busy in our garden, which unfortunately meant I didn't get any photos yet - but as soon as I don't have dirt all over my hands/grass through my hair/and the sun is still shining I'll get pics up. I'm really pleased about how we are progressing! We've got real gardens with real plants growing, some of them are th*s big!

Every time I tell the children a mythological story, I get them to retell it in some way. I'll have to get some examples up about that too. Unfortunately so much has been happening and I haven't been keeping up to it on here! Really attempting to do well at Uni has something to do with it, that is changing though. I'm getting real serious and am putting Uni off next year to concentrate on writing a novel/children's books/poetry.

The children are coming along very nicely, and there is a the official THEAC (Tassie Home Schooling) picnic coming up on the weekend too. With any luck we will get there, but Andrew doesn't sound enthused about it, unfortunately.

Raven is a smarty pants, he can write really well, he is beginning to read, but oh so lazy. It's unfortunate. He wrote for me "A Bug" today and wouldn't write any more. The big three are slowly working through their writing workbooks, we have a routine now - chores/maths/writing/english/computing/typing/reading lessons daily as a standard, plus we have myth lessons. Although we've taken off the last couple of days to work outside and the children have been helping or playing, as they will.

I hope there may be some readers still out there! Q.

In Recovery

Nasty tooth extraction! I have a sore mouth - no excuse not to blog really...
Yesterday we met up with a few fellow homeschoolers, who were great. We had a little get together at a bush family style cafe.
A visit today from my sister and her two littlies.
Other than that we have been doing our Animal studies unit.
We watched Spiderwick Chronicles (the kids absolutely loved it, particularly Labyrinth who is soo into that sort of thing and now has the attention span to enjoy it).
Considering a puppy for christmas, and lots of other decisions weighing in on my poor bewildered brain.
Not spent much time near my computer, unfortunately, as we've been so flat out.
Some nice people from freecycle gave us a bed :) made entirely from wood. It's beautiful.
We have brought some plants so we will be doing gardening soon as this weather settles itself down a bit. Wind - rain - wind and more wind.
Other than that wishing we had more money and looking forward to hopefully working next year...
Monika prefers to walk now, and Dante had an ear infection, looks like Raven is ill. Not to mention Raven has grown 3 cm in 6 weeks, one cm in one week! He's catching up!
That's all for now, I'll do a better job next time when my poor mouth isn't so sore and I'm not so tired.
Q.

Random Art and The Party

Above: Labyrinth's Scrap of 2 memories... Bob The Builder Dance and riding a bike in Brisbane.

Below: Dante's Octopus
A gem... Dante did this gorgeous seascape and only just saved it by being eaten by the Monika Monster and was very impressed!
Below: Dante's Menangerie
Kai's Beneath Our Feet:
Today they did a page about the party on Monday, Labyrinth loves to do decorative writing. Shall introduce her to calligraphy some day.

All in all, I'm very happy with their reading progress and their arty progress. Raven loves to do his lessons, and he is relearning the alphabet phonetically (plus we do counting and watch U-Tube learning things and visit such places as KneeKnockers and enchanted learning websites. I am partial to the older Sesame Street stuff, that has humour, has style and class that is sooo lacking now. Kai has knocked me over with his very quick intellect. Not 11 months ago he knocked me over with his ability to handle a broken leg (until he had an X-ray, they didn't realise just how bad a break it actually was), now it's his mind. WOW for Kai! Dante is plodding along, advanced in science and reading, slow with writing. If he puts his mind to it he is fine, just getting it there is the hard part (everything really has to be centred upon his interests, obviously FISH orientated.) Labyrinth's fine. She's now doing her 3rd grade reading, I'm looking at purchasing the 4th grade Hooked on Phonics in August. Her art is improved amazingly, she is very sensitive and emotionally intuitive, which is abolutely beautiful. Finding an interest that takes her breath away is our challange, it is yet to be found.

We did scrapping off the page today. The two eldest are making board books, while Raven and Kai did paintings and got all stuffy about not having board books to make. Going back to last pay day, Labyrinth and Dante opted to get some board books while the other two got things to build wooden toys.

We made pizza tonight, with the children's help naturally. We made it with cheese crusts.

Hopefully the paludarium will be finished soon. Really looking forward to it Andrew *)... Have a nice night, Q.

Birds and Pictures.... and X-rays

Today several things happened.

First I'll talk about Kai. Kai didn't do any school learning today for the simple fact its coming up the the yearly anniversary of his broken leg. What a nasty episode that was, he split his femur in two, broke the long bone diagonally narrowly missing his growth plate (small mercies) and it was a third of the length of the bone. This is the kind of injury that is more common to skiing or car accidents. How did he do it? He was running down a small slope at Tolosa St Reserve, not noticing a large, stepped hole, he fell over bang onto his knee and Snap!!!

It was terrible, one of my nightmares is to see someone with a leg bent the wrong angle, and there he was my own son in this predicament, not 2 weeks off his fifth birthday... He was in a hip sica for 6 weeks, after half a week in traction (that week was hell. We kept a bedside vigil, as you do, but it was heartbreaking because everytime he needed to be moved ie to toilet or to be pulled up the bed because they screwed up the wieghts and he had to be dragged back up after he slid down X distance). Well, today is the week before D Day for poor young Kai. Simply put... as the injured area is stimulated to heal, it is also stimulated to grow. However, this means that if he overshoots he'll be lame unless he gets it surgically rebroken. So, after today's X-Ray, and next weeks visit to the registrar, we will be aware of which road we'll be headed. Another 6 weeks of pain for Kai for the sake of his leg, or he'll be all clear. Time will tell, but I'm nervous as hell for him....

So he and Andrew spent an hour waiting to be seen as the room was occupied by a naughty child who they could not settle for a long time for their X-Rays.

Meanwhile, at home, the remaining children and I did some lessons about birds. We were inspired by the bird watching on the way back from the picnic, and the swans we love to see on the way back home from being 'out'. The lessons for the big two were matching bird names together (ie half and half) and writing them out, then writing and drawing the birds we counted on the way home. So inspired were they that they've asked for some more bird lessons tommorrow! They are so curious, they really want to learn. So without further ado, here the pictures are...
Labyrinth's Swan and Cygnet:



Raven's star to star Swan:
Dante's picture of himself and his friend A from the picnic:

Labyrinth's bird name matching worksheet: Ditto Dantes:
Below is Raven's glow in the dark painted bugs he has worked on over several occasions. I love the colours - so glossy and he was so very careful. So very cute:

Here is Raven's bird pictures, he actually told me when he was drawing them that he was drawing a bird and a raven (that's a milestone!), and you can see it down the bottom right:
I'm so impressed with Dante's and Labyrinths birds today! They are fantastic, don't you think?




Above, last but not least is Labyrinths cut out drawing of a cat. I so think they are all getting better at writing and drawing, and their confidence is soaring!

In regards to reading, Dante finished off the orange level of HOP tonight, which means officially half way through grade 2 reading, Labyrinth is nearly finished the red level which is the one above, but her reading level is beyond that really, with what she reads now for pleasure!

They both will be getting an extra $10 pocket money for their wonderful progress!

Also they watched a documentary on dolphins (National Geographic) and I read some books, we revisited wombat stew, and the children helped me to read Green Eggs and Ham in front of a lushly roaring fire!

Hope you are enjoying a nice warm evening/day, Q.

Old Fashioned H/Edder Picnic, 14 Ravens and 6 Magpies

Young Master Raven, above, using a baton in a rather cute but unconventional way!

Below is Dante with his new friend, A.

Raven is looking cuties, this is inside the Ross Town Hall.
Outside, Dante poses for his shot. That there t-shirt is now well-known amongst home edders in Tasmania.



This young lady was stealing hearts, as usual... and below her big sister is playing and experimenting!

Caught unawares, Labyrinth looks like she's having fun! Below are examples of the creativity of homeschoolers amongst us:

Children playing and having fun at the picnic (Ross Town Hall in background):



Another of pretty princess above, and Kai inside the hall below in amongst the girls:

What a wonderful day we had with such a diverse mix of homeschoolers. What lovely people they all are. NO bickering or nastiness, just relaxed, healthy good fun! I got the word out there about the little forum, but it is quiet! No one new has joined yet. Apparently, twas tried a few times, but no one supports it because Tasmanian Home Edders are factioned and isolated, and seem to prefer to stay that way, unfortunately. The community is wonderful, but almost seem fearful of extending beyond their own groups, for some reason.

On the upside, the children made new friends. Dante met a girl and they spent a long time playing. Labyrinth was more accepted and more socially happy with the older girls, and she made some new friends too. Kai took much longer to settle in, but then he was having a ball with a bunch of girls inside the hall and didn't want to leave! Raven, though shy by nature, got in there and had a go with batons and juggling stuff - that really sparked his attention!

To think that this is the first home edders event state wide! I am hopeful it will happen more often! It was wonderful! Turn out was 150+, but they only expected 100, but it doesn't matter anyway, everyone pretty much catered for themselves. Met some wonderful people, and hopefully some will join the forum, and some were people we knew from before. Thank you to all who attended, it was a wonderful day and it is great you showed support to our wonderful community!

On the way there and the way back we noticed some interesting and wonderful things. For instance, bush sculptures of animals, iron sculptures of bushrangers and surveyors and animals etc and we counted 14 ravens and 6 magpies (although the magpies were all in one area). We also got to see a hawk. Not to mention the farm animals...!

I hope you and yours are safe and well,

Q.

Tolosa St Reserve BBQ

Off to a family BBQ on Friday, with the last of the beautiful weather too, I imagine! Here are the children playing on the slide:

Sitting on the wooden throne (I could only get the biggest three to pose):


*Check out Labyrinth's new boots! She looks great in boots *)

A few beautiful Ravens were about, this one stopped by as we were leaving, and was only like two or so steps away from me!

This is the throne: Someone went to some effort to carve this stump!
Some nice natural shots of the world all around our little BBQ area:
And sweet little Monika, no she wasn't in the pram the whole time!

Garden of Earthly Delights...err...I wish... part 5

A couple of cuties: Raven and his Dora...

Monika wanted to have her photo taken she was pushing herself at the camera lens:

And here we have the garden efforts of today: Some for the Paludarium, some for our little garden that will be veges and herbs.

Kai was trying on a jacket that almost fit him last year, how cute:


This is what the children thought they wanted to do for tea... so we let them! French toast with shapes cut out of them with cookie cutters, with egg fried inside topped with olives, sundried tomatoes, and cheese. Sides were cheese and bacon balls with carrott and apple!

So, today we obviously did some gardening, maitenance, plus some cooking lessons... experimentation in the kitchen. We did a fair bit of reading and the children played in the back yard. I've done more scrapping and I've read another chapter or two of The Watchmen. I got my butterfly stitches off today, and gave it a good wash, doesn't seem too bad... pretty healthy really.

Labyrinth and Dante are at logger heads to try and finish off the last pages of their prospective levels, which makes Dante ahead by half a year! (Reading). They get an extra $10 pocket money when they finish a new level, so they are determined. Kai and I are just going slow, I'm not pushing but he's picking up stuff quicker than I thought he would, so that is great.

One of the best things though, is since we swapped bedrooms and changed our living spaces around, we now have a routine which means everything has a place and the children want to keep a tidy room, most of the time anyway! Mostly so they can do fun stuff like paint and scrap, I believe!

Anyways... life goes on... Q.