So we're officially back to study!

Times they are a changin'

Well, this is new, the layout of blogger, and I must say I like it!!

Today was our official day back to study after a 3 month sabbatical.  The children took it easy today, by writing, but it's going to be hard work all around this year. 

I gave Dante and Kai a scenario to write about:  You are a leader of a lion pride.  You are tranquilised and wake up in a zoo.  How are you feeling what do you see.  Well, almost immediately, Dante turned on tears and didn't want to do any work at all.  It took him in the end 5 hours to do one paragraph, once he finally realised we were not joking and we expected him to get over it and begin working.  Kai, though not wanting to, did a good effort. 

Labyrinth put on hysterics about not being able to find the book we brought for her as an easy getting her into the groove.  I've written in my other blog about her learning disabilities?  Well, basically she has GLD (Global Learning Delay or an IQ of 72), auditory processing disorder, and this is why her learning has been so slow and frustrating.  She is now at school one day a week so she can access a speech pathologist and other specialists (if we can actually get her into one).  It's all been a little, ah... problematic, to say the least.

Raven and Monika, as always, love to do their work and did a fantastic effort.  Oozing pride.

I am also back at university, after sitting last semester out with major depression.  Somehow I snapped back out of it and I am back to some decent semblance of my former self.  The exciting part is I made up my own subject and I get to do it, only two other students were approved.  I am going to write a hypertext narrative about trains and death.  I am also doing German 101, as an easier subject, but I am keen to finally get qualified with it.  And finally Film: Style and Story for a really really easy subject, however it got upgraded somehow I found out today.  Whatever that means.  And I'll have my degree by the end of this year, and I'm weighing up what to do next.  I'll certainly have the numbers to get into honours, that might be fun OR really kick in my heels and be boring and have a post grad in education by the end of next year (you so can have a ed qualification in a year, I was shocked!)

Wouldn't that be a shocker for someone like me?  Die hard homeschooler selling out to work in an enemy camp!!  Well, I might for a while, but I would absolutely LOVE to work in alternative educational institions like Lambert, or Steiner, or even better found a FREE School!  That would be really fantastic, and I am so excited.  That would require money though, I imagine.  However, I stumbled onto a near perfect building method, so it could be fairly cheap to make the structure at very least.  Then grants and funding - but it usually comes with a price tag such as handing more control over to the funders.  So really, not so much a sell out, so!

We also did the mentos/coke experiment with the children.  That was interesting.  We will let them do it themselves at a later date.  Other changes to the homeschool: Raven is of age so he has to be officially working.  Monika is easily up to his standard, not saying he isn't bright, not at all.  He is.  She just shines, she recognises whole words now, and can say for example (we were watching a documentary of David Attenborough Life of Mammals) and she comes out with "This is what was happening in America pre-dinosaurs, wasn't it?"  This is typical for Monika.  It might not have been totally accurate, but it still shows through.

Oh, and my secret?  I've become a witch.  I have embraced my pagan heart, I've come home.

Hand Art

Kai felt rather inspired by the Rainbow Serpent Aboriginal art he did last week, and today he drew the above picture. Its a hand drawing with his favourite animal, the elephant, at a watering hole. I was so impressed I used it for inspiration to get the children to all do an ink print of thier own hands and see what might emerge. I was happy with the results!

Above top is Raven's Raven. He chose the black ink, and he knew what he was going to create before he began. So cute! Below Raven's is Monika's face. There are distinct eyes in there, and an oval face too, with a wide smiling mouth! She had a lot of fun creating this.

Above is Labyrinth's Jelly Fish. I love her interpretation! Her colour choice is also very pretty and suits her subject matter. Below is Kai's man in chicken suit. He has put baby chicks around the man too. At first he thought he had done it wrong, but then Andrew gave him some inspirational humour to work with, and it was OK. I think he did a wonderful job.

Last, but by no means least is Dante's Rooster with baby chick. It is very much the way he is with Monika, he really loves and looks out for her, almost parental in his relationship. This picture he made was great. I was so pleased with how organic it all was, a natural progression, and they really enjoyed doing the art activity.

We have been studying Monsters We Met a BBC documentary series. So far we've covered the first two in the series, and they've been making a 'natural' science journal, where they draw a picture of a chosen animal from the episode, and write a few sentences about the animal. We've covered a few so far: Demon Duck of Doom, Red Kangaroo, Caribou, Saber-tooth Cat, the Woolley Mammoth and the Devil Dragon. I've been grabbing various information sheets and pictures of each off several sites and printing them off. They read aloud to each other a paragraph from each animal - such information as diet or anatomy, and we talk a little about what they've learnt. Much like what we've done with the Life On Land series. We will be completing the Dragon Myth lapbook and unit shortly and revisiting and making a lap book about Greek Myth next. It's been great discovering different cultures with them, and we have been discussing Aborigines a lot in the last week or two. That will be nicely highlighted with an Aboriginal excersion that's been organised by a fellow homeschooling mum.

I might not be so tired after tomorrow. I finally get my sleep apnea machine and might have some good sleep so not be so dopey. One of the benefits will hopefully mean more bloggin! And lots more other kinds of things. We have also done music lessons, language, reading, writing, lots of other natural learning.

Crazy last two weeks!

These two pictures are what Raven and Monika get up to. They are most of the way through the first workbook of Reading eggs, and they love it. above is Monika's and below is a particularly good example of how well Raven can write, albeit a poor scan.

Above, Dante's picture... I'll let you the reader decide what he's trying to say (in other words I'm still confused). The picture below is Labyrinth's trippy cat.

This is so cute I had to share. She's changing so very fast! I wish I could remember to be more snap happy, but with everything that's been going on its been a bit difficult!

So this has been our fortnight, we've completely rearranged the whole house, reorganised and reshuffled everything, so far its on a whole been working.

I have my study in the master bedroom whilst Andrew has his in the loungeroom. This has not been ideal for Andrew as the children like to try and use his computer etc while he and I are still asleep! Solution? We're going to have to lock them out and give them a new TV for the boys room.

Yep, that's right the boys have a room, and the girls have a room, both have functioning computers and desks to work at. Friday we'll have a set top box in the boy's room so they can have access to TV in those very wee hours of the morning.

Other than that, we've cleaned out the kitchen/laundry/bathroom. All the bookshelves are now at maximum so we need another of those. No nook and cranny has been left undone... OK we still need to clean out the fridge/main food cupboard then well be done.

As for homeschooling. well for a week that didn't get done, but I did use it to organise the homeschooling much better in anticipation of the THEAC (Tasmanian Home Education Advisory Council) visitation last Wednesday. Well that didn't happen. I was glutened that morning and feeling rather worse for wear, and the inspector was ill too. So it's been put off until tomorrow. We've done weeding and kept the watering up to the garden as needed. We've got Raven on a dairy free gluten free diet and keeping a food diary up to keep on an eye on progress/problems. More on that in the other blog.

In the last week we've been back at normal schooling again. This is our daily routine:

Writing, Reading a chapter from a chapter book and reading aloud to the youngest two, Mavis teaches Typing, Clue Finders (for spelling/eng comp etc) and Volcanic Panic/Garfield for Math. That's our morning. About once a week we do a written draft and they blog it, they all have their own active blogs now but only have a couple of posts each. We also do IT lessons, science, cooking, and they see the glenorchy homeschoolers on Fridays for a play in the park. We are still doing our mythical creatures, but I'm going to intersperse that with continuing our units on Life On Earth now that we seem to be going so well. So, that's once a week, as is mythical creatures. Last week we attempted to make dragons from air drying clay, unsuccessfully - so I'll get some Fimo on Friday.

I'm rather pleased that all is going so well, we seem to slowly be overcoming some reluctance (translation: slow writing - hell I know it isn't stimulating but they know good things happen ie they get to play PS3 or surf the net if they get it done well and quickly).

I'll update the blog much more regularly.. there is always something though isn't there? I've got my three final assessments due back at UNE in the next half month so I've actually whenI've got a spare minute been frantically reading to try and keep up! I've read The Changeling by M Mahey, followed by Goldman's Princess Bride, oh such torture, not. I'm loving it, Charlotte's Web is next! But then I've got to go read all the boring academic papers to accompany it... so over that part... but the great news is... next year I'm stopping Uni to write novels and children's books. One of my assignments came back which was a book proposal (genuine one that I intend to do next year, testing the waters so to speak), and I got one mark shy of a HD. Why wasn't it a HD? Because I didn't quote enough of the boring academics (although I included all the readings I had to do anyway). So what! I'm very aware that the overall consensus that the writers who write children's books say about academic writers... and I am a writer not an academic I suppose. (They basically say that its the academic's domain and they have no real interest in it BTW ~ I'll add here my bit... the academics are just making a living squabbling over sucessful writers).

So that's it for now, long I know but I had a bit to catch up on. 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.