Monika Baby Brag Book

I believe that is what they are called.... to me its my almost finished off the page project. I hope to gift this to Monika on the arrival of her first baby or some other significant event in her life...

I've had so much trouble getting this thing to work! In the end I had to call in Andrew's expertise in HTML to get it to work. It has taken well over 24 hours (broken up times obviously). I haven't finished binding it yet, but I'm going to do some purple whipstitching and add ribbons and lace later.

Yesterday, we went and visited a friend who is giving away her puppy (her X partner gave it to the children on their visits over the holidays). Being in rented accomodation and the size he was growing up to be and the expense made it impossible to take the puppy on. There were many tears shed and hearts broken. I feel so sad for their little family at the moment... we went to have a nice visit and see the puppy and see the angora bunnies they are bunny sitting right now for a friend.

For some stupid reason theres this whole big gap between the typing and the images, and the frustration of trying to get them to be side by side and in the right order has left me and Andrew frustrated. But at least they are actually in the right places now, so here they are: Back and Front pages, first and second, third and fourth, fifth and sixth respectively... M is For Monika, my cut-out baby :D

Wasps...stories...*black and white paintings*

Rather short today, I fear. Monika is being difficult.... that age really.

Today we looked at yellow jacket wasps, wrote stories, did a maths/alphabet solve the code worksheet and painted pictures in b & w.

Across: Labyrinth - "The mouse ran down the hill to meet the possum at night".

Above left: Ravens Dora colour-in. Above right: Dante's Wasp Story. It reads, "The wasps sting the snake to protect the babies and the queen."

An example of the break the code worksheets below and Labyrinth's Swan Mother with cygnet and clutch.

Raven's wasp and story *)

Dante's Raven in Stormy Sky

Across:Raven's Tonal Study

Across: Kai's El Elephante and below: Kai's Bee Story. It reads: "The wasp stings a man in the army. Ouch!"

And lastly, Kai's picture of the Yellow Jacket Wasp.

I
Incidently, these worksheets come from eTap,

and Enchanted learning, right off the web. All was free, but because they have been amazingly helpful to us I thought I might give them a plug and say we intend to purchase a membership to both places...

I really enjoy teaching the children, they are full of curiosity and excited to learn. However, personally, I would prefer not to have to teach them out of worksheets, but they like them so... hence forth we use them, at least until they tire of them.

Also, they did reading lessons. Even little Raven! Today he repeated about 1/4 of the phonics alphabet to me, and the other 3/4 he knew! Kai is quick, he'll be finished the yellow level very soon. Dante is quick too, if he just wanted to finish a lesson, and ditto for Labyrinth! OK, we do about 3 lessons on average, and they do enjoy them unless it's just page after page of new words, it must wear them down a bit. But if it's a story its a completely different attitude, or a game or spelling or similar. So I tend to break it up a bit. They like to read things off the shelf by choice instead of doing a lesson, which I'm very pleased to let them do.

I loved their paintings today! But now I must fly.... Q

Queens Birthday... Whatever! We do our own thing...

Maths - Fractions and Addition:

Dante and Labyrinth are plodding along and

getting it, but Kai is soaring for his age!

Here we have the first day of our bug unit (inspired by The Bee Movie.) Not because it was particularly good or anything, more opposite really, correcting those pesky untruths they loaded onto the children such as Bees 2 legs and 2 arms when we know that insects have 6 legs, and other wonderful, factual tales. Actually, my mother insisted they take her copy as it was so educational... umm well enough said. Below Kai's says, "The bees live in hives with honey, their babies hatch from eggs."

Raven's done a lovely picture, tis a shame this bloody scanner doesn't pick up yellow very well. Below is the poem about bees. Further below is Labyrinth's Bee Poem and picture. "Bees Buzz, Flowers Grow, Honey is made and its Yum, Yum, Yum!"

Above is Dante's. His states, "The bees make honey from flowers, and fly around looking for flowers."

We also looked at Haiku poetry today, and we discussed how it relates to a moment in nature, and tries to capture a feeling. I read these:

The breeze brought it--

a moment of moonlight

to the hidden fern.

-Foster Jewell

After I step

through the moonbeam--

I do it again

--George Swede

The fog has settled

around us. A faint redness

where the maple was.

--Claire Pratt

and two from children

Soap bubbles!

My face is flying

too!

-Masahiro Suzuki, Japan, Gr. 4

Mr. Ant,

do you mind if I set you

on my leaf boat?

-Norimasa Oikawa, Japan, Gr.1

The fog poem particularly caught their imaginations, as we could see the fog outside, thick and cold. So we rewrote it together to suit our own environment:

The fog has settled

around us. A faint greeness

where the trees are.

We also played guitar and did some singing. I read to them - Mem Foxes Possum Magic, A lift the Flap Thomas Adventure and Steve Parish's Mother Duck's Family.

They played really well in the cold stillness of the afternoon, and hugged each other before disappearing to sleep. Monika is in the process of cutting her newest tooth, and suffers for it. We made pizza tonight (dough and all) and the children made individual ones, faces etc.

So, why I haven't been busy here for the last 2 days:

I've been finishing off my semester, but since this relates to my homeschool, feel free to drop by and check it out:

http://creativeartsjournal.blogspot.com/

*) Q.

Our little bit of paradise

Today I have worked all day on doing the last of this semester's assignments. The children more or less had the day off to run around and play outside, and I took a short break to play with them outside too... and observe how our garden grows and to get them to play nicely with each other, which they did and really had good time doing.

I then put on a music DVD for children for them to sing and dance to. That's it, that is all we officially did today. Andrew finished off the paludarium though, so I am happy to say I've got the pictures of them to finally post!

Above: Apistogramma McMasteri and Nannacara Anomola

Below: Snake Skin Discus

Above: SS Discus again

Below: Paludarium full shot favouring the Jasmine, small pot of 'erbs, Maiden's Tears

Further Below: Favouring the right side showing ferns, more Jasmine and the Spider Plant

Below: Showing a closer look at the front of the aquarium and the plants growing in the planter pot, ferns, venus fly trap and over the back there is the Aloe Vera
Below: The Aquarium

Above: Full shot of Paludarium

Below: Apistogramma McMasteri

Far Below: Nannacara Anomola (Golden Dwarf Cichlid)




Below: The Blue Acara girl that I've raised from hatching
Far Below: The Salvinni





Above: Schools are for fishes! The Neon Tetra School of Indiscriminate Grappling *)
Below (all 3 shots): of our wonderful living science experiment of the dreadful Sea Monkeys TM, modelled by our wonderful Dante.




That's All Folks... Q.