Well, over the past week we've been busy catching up with friends near and far, going to the beach and parks, bike riding, kids stayed at nannie and grampies, goign to playcentre and generally just hanging out.

We've spent time in the garden, digging holes, smashing frozen toys out of ice, reading books and drawing.

Today we made some playdough and used beetroot coloured water to provide the pink colour.

We read quite a few books together this afternoon and Nathan's right into his second Tintin comic book. At bedtime we're now reading the 5th Little House book (By the Shores of Silver Lake),

Just as he was jumping into bed Nathan pulled out a little paperweight abacus my mum had given to him about a month ago (I remember playing with this as a kid). He asked what it was for and I replied that it was used to add numbers. So he turned it up longways and used it that way to add different numbers but didn't want me to explain the 1's, 10's, 100's etc at this stage (but he understood that it was the same concept as one of the CD-Rom reader rabbit math games that he plays where the monkeys eat the bananas and they add up to larger numbers). So he sat there for a while asking me to give him numbers to add up.

Hmm, there's a pattern here...

We had another really nice relaxed and easy-flowing day. I looked back at my previous similar blog entry and it was also a Tuesday. Our Tuesday's always start off with Playcentre, then we just hang out at home for the rest of the afternoon. Seems that it's a good balance for all of us. The kids get to be active and a variety of activities on offer for 2.5hrs and then after lunch (and myself a rest and a cuppa) we just hang out together.

Today we spent our afternoon...

~ Kids watched a DVD while eating lunch while I chatted to a friend on the phone (a common sight of my two snuggled while watching TV)

~ The kids wanted to refill our bird feeder on the front fence, then they moved onto filling up the paddling pool and had a play around in that for a while while I weeded the herb garden
~ I made a mid-afternoon cuppa and grabbed a pile of books and we sat outside in the sun and read from a kids book on Ecology. We discussed food chains and food webs (and herbivores, carnivores and omnivores), an area map showing local ecosystems and discussed what our area would show on a map, recycling waste and what we do in our family (Nathan got enthused and talked about using some tin cans (flattened with a hammer) to make a house and glass bottles for windows ??) and acid rain. We then heard some noisy birds in a neighbouring tree and Nathan raced inside to get his binoculars - so we spent a bit of time trying to spot nests in the branches to no avail.

~ Nathan wanted to play on the computer on the Lego website with a game called junkbots. After about 10mins he decided to copy some of the game screens using his own lego (funny, last time he played this game he created his own game on the floor using newspaper and would move up "levels" when he passed).

~ Danielle headed off and dressed up Nathan's cuddly dog with her bracelets and hairbands before falling asleep on her floor
~ We went down to the garden to collect some lettuce for dinner (Danielle in particular loves to collect vegetables and herbs for our meals) and feed the chickens.

Last night we were looking at our kids library book on Rembrandt. One painting that Nathan wanted to investigate further was of the Anatomy Lesson where the professor was dissecting the body of an executed criminal. Obviously this led to many interesting questions.

We're in between chapter books at the moment, so Nathan picked out the AA Milne poetry book which he enjoys listening to.

Nathan and understanding months, weeks, days

Nathan's been asking when Christmas is over the last few days. So I told him it was about 2 months away. "Wow, that's not long, 1,2". Hmmmm, yeah, that's about 8 wks. "Oh yeah" (still sounding encouraged). Yeah, about 60 days. "Oh man, that's aaaaggggeeeeessssss". So this evening right before he was heading off to bed he decided to make a calendar of the two months so he could cross off the days (oh boy, it's going to be a long 2 months lol) - especially since he's not going to start crossing off till November. So we got down the calendar and he wrote out November's dates. Then made a start on December and this time wanted to write the days at the top of the page too. He got up to Tuesday before deciding to finish that off tomorrow.

I then asked him if he remembered listening to the story of baby Jesus that we read last year, which he didn't. He then wanted to get the Bible out and read the story of Noah's Ark (since I was tidying up our Noah's Ark puzzle at the time). So we sat down and did that (we are non-Christian so this not a part of our daily life) which lead to conversations about violence and what it was. He was a bit disturbed that God left all the babies and children behind to drown and found it difficult to understand why that would be. I guess I'll be off googling tonight to widen my own understanding when facilitating this sort of discussion!

A special afternoon out with my daughter

Danielle and I went down to the mall this afternoon while Simon and Nathan headed off to the mountain bike park for a few hours. My gosh, how did she turn into a pink-sparkly-girly girl? LOL. I was saying to Simon that for her first year of life we didn't have any "girl" toys in the house and it's not something we've purposely done either way. Nathan had a lot of typical boy toys, but equally he got a doll, he plays with the baby buggy, dresses dolls, uses the play kitchen and does (or did) all those "girl things" including going through a big stage of dressing up in Danielle's clothes. So really, although we have all those things, all toys are pretty much viewed as both of theirs.

But, my daughter! We went into a few clothing shops and she was gushing and taking things off the racks and holding them up to herself and saying how cute they were and would they fit her (they were women's clothes) and giggling at the "boobies" on some of the halter neck style tops lol. Then we walked around a large department store and she was honing in on the pink and sparkly stuff. I just don't often get the one on one time with her nor the time where we just wander to get this sort of snapshot of her interests like this.

We had a fun few hours out for mummy and daughter bonding time.

Again, and again, and again...

What I just love to observe is how the kids come back to the same activity over and over until they seem to be done.

I have noticed this more so with Nathan (perhaps because Danielle is younger and really only just starting to take on her own strong interests so haven't really seen them pass yet).

The past few months were all about string, knots and their many uses...making pulleys from hooks on the roof with items attached to the bottom (and the difference in weight, likelihood of item jumping off the hook based on weight, whether the item them swung etc), the means of making flying foxes down the hallway, attaching items to the back of trikes and the running bike, making a web of interlinking strings across his bedroom, skipping with, tying things together, asking me to tie fancy knots from our knot book etc and he wants a large rope to attach to a tree branch to tie knots in to scale up which we just haven't gotten around to sourcing yet.

Then there was the sellotape phase - everything was taped up - we still go through tape, but it's more likely used just for constructing the thing of the moment now (although Danielle is still keen on taping and taping and taping lol).

The train track and wooden block phase - when he was 3 the blocks were used to make tunnels and indicate houses etc, and pretty much used daily, then over time until now they help to raise the track up, create hills and become a part of the track opposed to just under it or over it. He uses these less and less these days but then will rediscover them and I notice a shift in the way they are used again.

I suspect he is moving into a more tools based stage at the moment. A few months ago I bought him a small "real" hammer from the Playcentre shop which was the same as the kids use there at the carpentry table. I also gave him a pocket knife that I found while decluttering which I felt he was ready for. At the time he had a go at whittling and just generally checking it out. On Saturday we were just pottering around at home and he came running out of the toilet to ask where his knife was - so I retrieved it for him where it's been for about the last month (on my dresser) and he raced back into the toilet. Being busy doing other things I didn't think what he might actually be using it for, anyhow about 10mins later he announced that he'd removed the broken bracket off the wall that had previously held the toilet roll holder (using the philips screwdriver attachment). He then wanted more things to work on and I had to redirect him away from banging screws into my nice wooden seat out on my porch after retrieving his hammer lol. He then was wanting to carry it around with him and was pondering how to attach it to his belt-loop. After riffling through his junk drawer I found a keyring with a spring attachment thingy so he's been carrying it with him since. He put on a different pair of shorts today that didn't have belt loops so had to put on yesterday's shorts. I can see I might need to attach some loops onto the inside of his waistbands for this purpose... However, the knife came in handy today! We went out this afternoon and I took a couple of whole apples. The kids usually like cut pieces, but rather than chop them up and them not eat them and get wasted I decided to just take them whole for them to eat off the core. Nathan came up with a solution though to use his knife for the purpose.

This morning I saw him catching his sister as she tried to run away by lassoing her with a bike tyre inner tube that DH had left lying around...what will this phase bring?

I have noticed a lot of cut paper lately and that Danielle has taken a real interest in cutting out shapes and mastering her scissor skills. She's loving a lot of the collage type craft at the moment and goes through a lot of glue and sellotape!

Just a day in the life...

We were back to Playcentre today after the school holidays and the kids were right into it and I think spent the whole morning outside busy.

~ Nathan and a couple of the other kids rigged up the swing barrel and had quite a cool thing going on. They twisted it up as far as it would go, one would hold it while the others gathered up all the balls and filled up the barrel. Then they'd all run clear and watch the barrel spin around and fling all the balls out the side opening as it rotated around. More physics at work...
~ One of the parents made a soapy gloopy mixture which both kids were into, then Nathan took the remaining mixture, added more water and added remainders from the nearby paint pots and did a heap of pouring, mixing and experimenting.

Just as well playcentre is conducive to free play, all about experimenting and not concerned with kids using the materials and equipment in only the "right" way lol.

This afternoon was spent...

~ Watching a Little Einsteins DVD I'd picked up at the library yesterday
~ Danielle discovered some long lost puzzles under her bed and proceeded to do them all and decided to work on one that she hadn't tried before so I sat down with her while she did that.
~ Nathan came down to her room after a while and announced that he wanted to write a story - so he came back with paper and pen and dictated a Three Little Pigs story to me for me to write out.
~ We went down to the garden for a while and Nathan carried on with his "hut building" theme and decided to make a bed. So he collected up bunches of grass clippings and leaves and made himself a designer pillow (I saw him filling in gaps with leaves and continuing to build it up).
~ Nathan wanted me to read the Tintin book to him that I'd also found at the library, so we sat down to that for a while.
~ We then looked through the van Gogh paintings from our library book and suddenly halfway through Nathan was inspired to paint one of them himself. So we got out the water colours and brushes and the kids spent a while painting while I prepared dinner.

~ On the Banks of Plum Creek is really making an impression - I had the book thrust in my face while still sleeping at 7am this morning and Nathan wanting to hear more. He then wanted to make the fish trap as described in the book. Unfortunately we don't have a river and waterfall to catch any lol, but I'm sure we can give it a go anyway and try it out at one of our friend's lovely clear water streams that apparently gets fish. So he's drawn up his plan and this weekend he and Simon can have a go at making it.
~ While I was making dinner tonight which had a cheese sauce, Nathan was watching as I took it steamy hot out of the microwave and wondered aloud how hot it was - so we got down the thermometer and placed it in to see how hot we had gotten up to.

My own education

A part of what appeals to me about home educating the kids is having the time to further my own education and learn cool new things alongside them. As time goes by I am further affirmed that the kids will learn from every experience only I didn't always notice or rate what they were learning before when it didn't come under a "schooly" category.

I read A Thomas Jefferson Education last year and it really got me enthused and helped shape the way I wanted to approach things. I believe it is quite compatible with a natural learning style - only we don't structure our time as we have our own natural routine that works for us. The biggest thing I took away from the book was to read classic books - but not only for the kids, but for myself too. So I'm reading books that I've heard references to over the years but have never picked up. I have a longing to know what it is that I'm missing out on, but have never done anything about it until now.

So, from today (since visiting the library this afternoon) I decided I was going to bring classical music and art into my life. By exposing myself I will also be exposing my children. I am not forcing it on them, but I figure that if it's there in my environment because I enjoy it then the kids at least get the opportunity to take an interest or not. Both kids appreciate classical music anyway and we have a 12 disc compilation set that was gifted to us last Christmas that they often put on to listen and dance to, but it doesn't do much in helping me recognise each composer's style. So today I grabbed a Beethoven disc along with several art books in which each had a focus on one artist. I opened up the van Gogh book first and have propped it on the dining table and I intend to turn the page daily. The idea being that just having one constant artist or composer a week will give me (us) the familiarity with who we are listening to or observing.