The Amazing Sea Monkeys....Part 2

And here they are, finally:



Young Dante has been hassling us since back here. Apparently the ones we use for feeding the fish (frozen and in cubes) are simply not the same. A very good thing about Dante is he makes sure that we get what he wants. Originally, we agreed to do it and let him spend his pocket money, we went to the shop to find they weren't in stock there or anywhere.



We later decided OK, we'll do them as an Easter present, he won't have to buy them. Easter can and went without sea monkeys because it was still dry. He reminded us then, and we managed to find them last pay, and we had a choice of three types, the ordinary kind, a castle and the above one - Mars. So, the homeschool money paid for it (not some money we get out of the government, unfortunately, we just put $40 aside for such things out of our pay, more if needed).
Above is Dante stirring in the salts. It takes 24 hours to "purify" and salinate the water.

Above the eggs have been stirred in, and we await for them to grow. Ugly little buggers. The pictures they use to market them don't do them justice. Here is what they really look like:

Here is a picture of one of my favourite artists, Frieda Kahlo, in a spoof Sea Monkeys picture to commemerate our leap into owning some sea monkey pets of our own.

sourced from: 7deadlysinners.typepad.com/sinners/2006/01/monkey_sea_monk_5.html - 33k -

I love how the sea monkey is holding a sachet of a real sea monkey.

Garden of Earthly Delights...er I wiish...part 3

Osirus' Rose, growing every day, and ohh so thirsty *)

My Jasmine Plants, slowly growing, but sending out new shoots which is a good sign!

Herb seeds, planted on Thursday, still no sign of them poking out of the soil just yet. There is mustard salad thingies and Rocket.

Until Easter...

I know this is slack of me, but basically I finally got my uni books last Thursday and I hit them pretty hard to catch up, plus homeschooling the kids and Easter and birthday parties I haven't had time to ***. You get what I mean.

Reading: Dante was sent back to the yellow level to revise, but he's doing it so easy.
Labyrinth is doing great, she's 1/3 of the way through the red level.
Kai is up to book 3, about 1/3 of the way through yellow level (which is a surprise, he's doing great!)
Raven knows his alphabet, and numbers. Still working on colour and shape.

English: The big three have all been doing sentence structure worksheets. Blah! Worksheets! Reader Rabbit variety, but they love them so I let them do it.

Maths: Andrew was sorting out all of that stuff, and testing the children to see where they are at exactly.

Crafts: Well, there's something.
On Saturday we headed into Spotlight for a free craft session where the children made cards, chicks and little egg shakers. So cute! They were given a kit each to take home to do. That has been going really well. The big three have half stitch tapestry. Then Labyrinth took to hers with scissors and lost her needle, and I am yet to sort that one out. Raven and I sat down on Tuesday and did some "sand painting". We rarely get to do anything on our own and I was sooo happy and so was he. I must make time to do that more often!

The Land of Lessons...

Yes, it's true, they all love worksheets, and they will write a fair bit without complaint because of worksheets (but just try and get them to write in their journals - impossible!). Raven's been learning all about rectangles and the matching stuff thats the same, while the others have been working on sentence structure and phonics.

They also did their reading lessons, which I am happy to say, is coming along famously. Dante may need to go back over what he's learnt, since Labyrinth has she has absolutely taken off. Just tonight she insisted on reading Hop On Pop by Dr Suess to the whole family, and it wasn't ardous, it was very pleasantly read and she is developing such a sweet reading voice! Dante just wasn't trying, but when he does he cruises, and Kai is doing very well. Raven and Monika, of course, just love being read to and being cuddled up while I read them a story.

After lunch was a game of The Very Hungry Caterpillar counting game, which was good, everyone felt good because they got to be beautiful butterflies at the end and fly around the room. It was sweet, too. After that I set the two older children up on a good math's site called Rainforest Maths. It is well worth the visit for any child, having Australian standard curricula in a fun and engaging environment and my children really enjoy it.

I got in contact with an old friend who hasn't been well of late, and has had to give up work. What is tragic is her inability to do her illustrations, which I would have to say the world is temperarily deprived of a beautiful artists expressions, and her inability to play bass which is also a great talent. Get well, dear girl!

I'm very happy with what the children and I were able to achieve together today. However, I would have to say I'm even more impressed with what the children achieve with no imput from me. Above is a lift the flap page that Labyrinth has made and she decided she wants to make a book of them!

I'll post more of their work now the idea has been sparked, what a way to record it!

Anyhow, I'm tired, I'm going to bed. Nighty Night, Sleep Tight, Q.

Little Uns Group at the Train Park and The Forum

Coming right along is our Forum for Tassie Homeschoolers. Its going to be good, if only we could find other non christian homeschoolers... are you out there? I certainly hope so, and I hope they aren't afraid to join either, after all its for all of our benefits!

Besides getting the children to clean their room (frustration), we did very little this morning before leaving to go to the Little Uns Homeschool Group meet today. It was meant to be lunch, but we ended up just drinking and sheltering from the very hot sun and gusty winds. But it was very informative, and very good to meet others. We met two women and their children, Linda and Polly, Hey I remembered! YAY! There was a boy and a girl around Raven's age group who I really went to the meeting for, so he can socialise with other children of his age so he gets to be less shy... and it's kind of working.

We then had to do some fresh food shopping, ie go to the fish markets, vege and fruit market and meat shop too... and laybyed some really great boots for Labyrinth (boots really suit her), and some slippers for everyone but Dante and Kai, which we will be on the look out for coming up to the cooler months. Boots just don't go for me, unfortunately! Children just seem to grow out of things so incredibly fast, don't they?

We then headed home to do a few groceries and took an alternative route home, where we came across a sign stating baby budgies for sale. So, we went and got one (beautiful colbate blue I think). We are using an aquarium to house him, with natural branches and a plastic toy (which I plan to get rid of in favour of making our own by threading branches and gum nuts together), that will be a great crafting activity.

We may be calling him/her (unsure of sex) Birdy-Boo, in favour of Raven's nick names. (He created Monika's which I won't disclose here...) Any how, I was pleased with today, and finished off with some lovely trout and garlic, fetta, olives, pasta and cabonara chicken salad and some fruit and hot chips on a platter, YUMMY!

The Forum is slowly getting out to people, we handed out flyers today, and plan to do the same thing just keep handing them out to people, leaving them around places and hopefully we might get a following.

Well, more lessons tommorrow, and I'll take some pics of the budgie and the fishies for the forum,
all the best, Q.