Bunnings Gardening Session - Homeschool Group

  

Bunnings in Burnie generously hosted a gardening session for the younger homeschooled kids yesterday, with all materials provided free of charge.

There were 2 activities. First our boys planted spring bulbs in a little pot. Afterwards they got to decorate a little cardboard pot with paint, glitter and foam shapes. Each family was also given a box of gardening magazines and each child got to take home a bag of bulbs.

Stanley Seaquarium, Tasmania

A recent trip to the Seaquarium at Stanley with the homeschool group...



 
The rock pool... And shark egg cases.

  
Hermit crab... Female cowfish... Seapen.

 
Spider crabs... And a cute but rather melancholy looking cuttlefish (Beanie thought he looked sad because he was lonely and wanted a friend).

Harpoon with sperm whale jaw bone that washed up on the west coast of Tassie in 1967.

First Aid

The three bigger boys recently did a St.  John's first aid course, organised by the homeschool group.

  

 

And then we did a trip over to Devonport and the boys and I visited the library while The OH ran some errands...

  

Slipstream Circus

The OH, Shmoo and Loo went to the Slipstream Circus schools performance today in Ulverstone with the local homeschool group. They loved all the acrobatics and juggling etc, and I was regaled with stories about people climbing up knotted scarves hanging from the ceiling. The OH said that he thought it was the best performance they'd been to yet.

Homeschool Group - Kitchen Science

   

 

The homeschool group did some kitchen science experiments today... using red cabbage water as a pH indicator; making milk plastic; exploding snaplock bags, inflating balloons with bicarb and vinegar; popcorn lava lamps; and making sherbet.

I think the boys enjoyed the sherbet making the best! Shmoo and Loo were in one group and Beanie was in another. Beanie found it all a bit overwhelming so The OH had to do a lot of it for him but in the end he could be persuaded to help with holding and pouring (even if he did wash his hands a lot in between). I even managed to convince him touch his milk plastic.

 Every time we've been to Otto's Grotto lately we've come across big, black, hairy caterpillars congregating under the gum trees. I'd had a couple of quick looks online but hadn't been able to identify them. Until today, when I added 'gum tree' to my 'black caterpillar' search and came across a picture of steelblue sawfly larvae ('spitfire' grubs). They're not caterpillars at all but larvae of the sawfly (related to wasps). Fascinating little critters. Apparently when threatened they secrete a substance made from the oil of the eucalyptus leaves that they consume. And they communicate with each other by tapping their tails.

In The Bag

*Phew* I've just finished wrapping the kids' Christmas pressies that we've slowly been collecting in online sales over the last year, apart from a couple of things that are still on the way. Feels good to be getting things organised (plus I'm just excited about a lot of the pressies - I think I'm gonna have fun playing with them too ;) ). Next I just have to wrap the boys' birth and birthday presents and that should take care of the main gift-giving until next Christmas! Ahhh I love online shopping. Why battle the crowds at shopping centres when there are so many wonderful online stores (and Fishpond)?

Christmas:

Individual presents - they're each getting a Viewmaster set and a drawing kit (Lyra Groove coloured and graphite pencils, Stockmar block crayons, sharpener and eraser).

Family/shared/'school supply' presents - paint storage pots; 2 x wooden puzzles; solar powered rainbow maker; magnetic drawing boards; small wooden tabletop puppet theatre; set of jungle animal hand puppets; Giotto face paint pencils (we got sick of them using hard-to-remove felt pens to draw all over their faces, especially when a random squiggle on a forehead ends up looking remarkably like a swastika...). I have restrained myself and not included spare glue sticks and erasers in with their Christmas gifts. I'm sure my kids wouldn't mind in the slightest if I did include them but somehow they just don't seem quite exciting enough to me :)

Stocking fillers/Santa's contribution (he only gets credit for the small stuff ;) ) - they each get a little wooden magnifying glass; wooden animal clicker toy, wooden kaleidoscope/prism viewer thing; novelty pencil; handful of little chocolates.

Birthdays:

Baby Bear's Birth -  4 x wooden puzzles with storage rack and a DVD (yet to decide which one!) for the big boys to share; lovely, snuggly, super-soft teddy bear for Baby Bear.

Beanie - wooden pirate puzzle; wooden magetic ice-cream stand; noisy animal book.

Loo - set of dinosaur hand puppets; dinosaur novel (The Enormous Egg by Oliver Butterworth); set of nesting measuring cups.

Shmoo - wooden science toy kit; DIY vacuum science kit; rolling pin/biscuit cutter set.


Hmm, I may have gone a bit overboard with all the puzzles but they've all been really into working co-operatively to complete puzzles lately. It's so lovely to see them playing nicely and helping each other. Plus puzzles offer a much needed quiet and independent play option when there's a newborn to take care of...

Homeschool Group - Imaginarium Science Centre

Yesterday, while I took Loo and Beanie to their ECIS sessions, The OH and Shmoo accompanied our local homeschool group to the Imaginarium to see their 'Body in Action' exhibition. Lots of interesting things to learn about the human body...

   

 Including a demonstration of the digestive process ^^

  

 And the group even got to make eyeballs out of marshmallows and Lifesavers ^^

Forwarded through our homeschool group list. Glad to see it's not just our shelves that are crammed full of books like that :)

EI Group

Yep, Shmoo has his fingers in his ears - they turned the siren on 

While The OH took Shmoo and Loo to a homeschool group police station visit, Beanie and I went to our first early intervention group session this morning.

Bean did much better than I expected. He was very clingy, refused to look at most of the staff and cried a little but he warmed up fairly quickly. Sitting in my lap he could be persuaded to cautiously touch a few toys, look at some books, and play with playdough. Then he was introduced to the big tray filled with multicoloured grains of rice with toy cars and trucks. After a few minutes he was happy to play at the tray with T (I think each of the staff have a one-on-one thing with each child), while I sat about a metre away. Bean was a bit freaked out by the other little ones there, only another 4 or so I think but they were loud, one cried a lot, and others pushed in a lot and snatched toys away from him.

One thing that really bothered me though was that nearly all of the comments directed at Beanie were along the lines of 'good/clever boy!', said in a really saccharine sweet voice. Not just on the odd occasion but after every single thing that he did. I really don't like constant, automatic praising of kids. It's so patronising. It's not something you notice until it's pointed out but so many people do it. Over the last few years I've made a concerted effort to cut way back on saying 'good boy' or 'good job'. Instead, I try to focus on being encouraging by asking questions about what they've done, how they feel about it etc. The occasional 'good boy' does slip through but I'm aware of it. The OH struggles with it as it is such an automatic response. Now my automatic response to 'good boy' is 'woof!'. It acts as a bit of a reminder that they don't need to receive all that empty, fake-sounding praise - they're not dogs.

Ohhh and another thing that annoyed me... what the heck is the deal with saying 'Ta for X' when you want a child to give you something?!? Poor Bean had no idea what she was on about and then saw she was holding out her hand and made the connection that she wanted him to hand the toy/car etc to her. What's wrong with saying 'may I have that please?'. I'm not really a fan of 'Ta' for thank you either but accept that some other people think it's easier for little kids to say. We've never taught any of our boys 'Ta', it's always been 'thank you' which they learned to say fine (Bean's been saying it for ages now) and before they could say it they would just use the Auslan sign for thank you. No big deal really I guess, it's just one of those little things that I find mildly annoying LOL.

Indulgence

Vanilla cake with lemon cream cheese icing. Extra icing. Gluten, dairy and egg! Mmm. The OH's birthday cake

The OH's taking Shmoo and Loo to a Slipstream Circus show tomorrow. Part of our homeschool group's programme. Poor Shmoo couldn't get to sleep tonight. He called me into his room to tell me he was scared. After chatting to him for a bit I managed to work out what it was about - he was worried that it was going to be like last time, overwhelming, lots of kids, and a class that he would be expected to participate in. I reassured him that it would just be a show, that other people would be performing and all he had to do was watch, like at the Playschool Concert. He must have been reassured as he happily went to sleep. A 2 hour show is a bit beyond the attention span of an 18 month old so Beanie and I are looking forward to some quiet time whilst they're out.

ECIS Update

We had the visit with SJ from the Early Childhood Intervention Service a couple of days ago. It was just the initial contact so she could meet the Bean and discuss where we go from here.


No surprises in the way Beanie reacted to her. He buried his face into my chest and refused to look at her.


SJ is going to talk to the other people she works with and come up with a plan for us.


Funny coincidence: one of the people that SJ works with is F... who organises the homeschool group meets.

Homeschool Group Fire Station Visit

I wanted to get some better pics of the boys but it was really hard to get far enough away from Shmoo. He was very curious about the fire station but was a bit freaked at the new environment and loud, sudden noises. He clung to my side for a good deal of the visit. But both he and Loo enjoyed the visit.


Beanie spent the visit on my back in the Ergo, desperately trying to avoid making eye contact with anyone. Kinda hard when standing in the middle of the big group with people all around so, for the most part, he buried his face into my back.

Getting Better

• Loo is looking much better thankfully. Still a bit sore but healing up nicely.
• Shmoo's reading skills continue to impress me. He asked to read the book 'Hist' by CJ Dennis the other day and when we sat down with it he read most of it by himself, needing very little help.
• Yesterday we went to our homeschool group's 'playgroup in the park' and the kids had so much fun. The Bean loved stalking seagulls and trying to eat gumnuts and it was great to see Shmoo & Loo becoming more comfortable with approaching other kids.
• Today Shmoo and I sat down and tallied up some of the data that he's collected through his weather observations and drew up some bar graphs. We had 437.5 mm of rain in January alone! Impressive!

Photo Update

A week or 2 ago Loo had part 2 of his 3.5yo check and Beanie had his 12 month check with the child health nurse. While we were there Loo and I found lots of little pinecones. So we made some little mice out of them...

Yes, I know the one in front is missing ears. The boys pointed that out to me after LOL. They had to get the glue out again and give him some ears so he could hear.

We all love baby-wearing in this family!

 

Homeschool group astronomy night.

Homeschool Group Astronomy Night...

Tonight, 8pm, our place! Complete with our very own astronomer and telescope!

Homeschool Group - Devonport Aquatic Centre

The Bean didn't like it at all. I'd read that the baby pool was supposed to be 30 deg and the other ones 27 deg but they didn't feel anywhere near that and it didn't take long for poor Beanie to start shivering. So Beanie and I only spent about 20-30 mins in there before getting dressed again.

Loo and Shmoo had a snack before hopping back into the little pool. I had to tie the back of Shmoo's swimming top closed as it inexplicably developed a big rip. Must get him a new one before swimming lessons start in just over a week!

There were some ominous looking clouds. We had to wait by the kiosk for a bit when we first got there while a storm went by. We had little patches of sun between thunder and a sprinkling of rain.

'Tis the Season

Can't believe how quickly this year has gone by! Christmas is just around the corner!! Thankfully I've had the boys' main presents stashed away since the start of the year (train sets for the big boys; wooden bug-themed shape sorter for the Bean) and their stocking pressies 'from Santa' are organised too. Have just gotten all their birthday presents ordered for next year too... how organised am I this year?!

Today we made heart and star shaped Christmas tree ornaments out of salt dough (gifts for the rellies). Was our first go at working with salt dough and I guess I didn't roll it out as thin as I should have (was about 1/2-3/4 of a cm thickness)... but nothing that a good 6 or so hours in the oven couldn't fix!! They seem okay now, nice and solid (but SO not a good day to have the oven on for all that time - it was really hot!). Shmoo & Loo kept staring into the oven, asking 'Are they cooked yet!?!'. The boys will paint the ornaments tomorrow and then we'll get some ribbon hang them with on the w/end. I wonder how long salt dough will last, if I should put a layer of varnish or whatever over them??

I am having a go at making my own vanilla essence/extract too - just vanilla beans and vodka. I love vanilla! We'll see how it turns out in a couple of months.

Hoping to make it to the next homeschooling group meet on Thursday and someone from our community has offered to take us for a ride on her school bus on Friday so the boys are really excited about going on a bus (they have only been on a bus once before, about 2 years ago in Melbourne, and Shmoo was terrified back then!).

Imaginarium Visit

We went to the Imaginarium Science Centre today with our Home Ed group to see the sports exhibit. No photos though as I forgot to take the camera! Shmoo and Loo loved it and had lots of fun - doing things like seeing how fast they could run/throw and kick a ball/press a button etc. They could have easily stayed there for much longer than the 1.5 hours allotted.

Hopefully the Imaginarium will be just as good when it moves to its new location in December!

Mount Gnomon Farm Visit

Today our Home Ed Group went on an excursion to Mount Gnomon Farm. The kids had a great time getting up close to Wessex Saddleback pigs, chooks, ducks, guinea pigs, kittens and rabbits. They also got to check out the poppy fields.

The Home Ed Group is made up of a fantastic bunch of kids ranging from babies to young adults. It's lovely seeing them naturally interact with each other and the older ones are so good with the littlies. It has been wonderful to see my boys gain so much confidence from interacting with the other kids who have all been very kind, generous and responsible (see the pics of the guinea pig and kitten holding - the older children, 10-12 year olds, made sure that the younger ones all got to have an equal cuddle... there was no fighting or pushing/shoving!). Am thrilled to have found such a great group! There are a couple of large families that attend too... 7-9 kids in each. Makes me feel all clucky seeing the big families! :)