Wednesday

Nathan's contraption...

Danielle's aeroplane ready for passengers...

Danielle's restaurant ready for customers...

Busy reading their menus...

Oops, we forgot about homeschool gym...so we went out for a walk around the big block for 1/2 hr.

And then friends popped over for a play after school...

Lego, reading, computer games, trampoline, painting...

Today was one of those ambling along and meandering kind of days - we decided to have a home day since every other day this week has something on. So, no plans and no outings. The kids just seem to melt into days like this without "waiting" to go out, or "asking" to do anything more than what we are - it's very in the moment kind of stuff. They just seamlessly moved from one thing to the next. I do still get surprised at the end of the day at how many "different" things they have either discovered or become interested in. I know I shouldn't really, but I do.

The morning involved various games using all the cushions, pillows, duvets and blankets of beds etc.

We then put the finishing touches on our Italy display.

Danielle got out "The Amazing Mammoth Hunt" game for her and Nathan to play. One of them uncovered the Spain picture which was a bull. Nathan started showing Danielle what the bullfighters in Spain do.

We then had a bit of a discussion about this not-very-nice sport and watched a youtube of one. So although neither liked the idea, they did spend a bit of time in the afternoon pretending to be a bull and matador.

While I was on the phone to a friend this afternoon, Danielle got out the paints...

Meanwhile, Nathan was writing me notes...

I pointed out to Nathan that he wrote "she's" correct and he replied "yeah, because if I didn't put that thing in there then it would be talking about lots of shes". LOL, I have no idea how he knew that!

Nathan then moved on to some painting...a bullfight...(the bull won because he only had 2 spears poking out of him).

Earlier on in the day Danielle was interested in reading one of our Dick and Jane books (these books were given to Nathan when he was younger and I personally couldn't stand to read them since they asked for them to be read as a bedtime story). However, I can see how they are giving Danielle confidence in her early stages of reading. When Simon got home she raced off to get the book so she could read to him.

 

Today we got cracking back into our Italy presentation and headed to the stationery shop to buy the display board and get some photos printed to add to it.

The kids then put together a collage of Italian food pictures that we'd cut out that will be the "table cloth" part of the display.

We then decided on how to display all the different sheets of information that have been put together. Nathan potted up the bowl of herbs for the Herb Garden part of the display. We're pretty much done now!

After lunch Danielle got stuck into some Lego and wanted to measure it out to see that her house would be the right size for Polar Bear.

There was trampolining, playing with a ball of string (again!), watching a DVD....

Then off to Keas. We were helping out the Dept of Conservation today by planting some trees in a wetland area they are trying to repopulate with birds.

As I was getting something out of the freezer for dinner I discovered a bottle of water that we'd put in last week to observe how much the water rose when it was frozen. It was then given a the bash with a hammer...

Our Winter Holiday

DAY 1 - VISIT TO THE SNOW

DAY 2 - A LONG DRIVE AHEAD WITH A STOP-OFF AT THE HAMILTON GARDENS (AWESOME) FOR LUNCH BEFORE HEADING ON

DAY 3 - A VISIT TO THE WWII TUNNELS AT NORTH HEAD

LUNCH AT THE BEACH MAKING SOME VITAMIN D

DAY 4 - A MORNING VISIT WITH SOME LONG-TIME INTERNET FRIENDS BEFORE HEADING TO THE ZOO FOR THE AFTERNOON

We loved this little fella and his sack. The kids spent ages when we got home playing with pillow cases (climbing in and out and flinging it around) and pretending to be baby orangutans lol.

DAY 5 - A VISIT TO A TIBETAN BUDDHIST MONASTERY

THE AFTERNOON WAS EXPLORING THE PROPERTY THAT WE WERE STAYING ON

DAY 6 - THE LONG DRIVE HOME

I now have a bunch of questions to follow up on volcanoes, the depth of Lake Taupo and how it was formed, what happens to the earth if volcanoes keep erupting around the world and where does more and more magma keep coming from...

After the morning grocery shopping followed by lunch, we looked at a few more things to add to our Italian display.

We had been trying to think of a "stamp" that we need to offer "visitors to our country" (they will add it to their passports). I also wanted to include some sort of little activity for our visitors. So I suggested to the kids that we provide a plain white mini-label that each child can colour in as an Italian flag and they can then stick that in their passports. So Nathan wrote an instruction sheet for the activity and cut up all the labels. Danielle then put them all into an envelope that she'd decorated with a flag too. We then went through our assortment of crayons to find green and red ones for people to use. Phew, I think we've almost got enough to put on our display (just need to put together the Italian herb garden (with plant labels), make a welcome sign and print off our photos to make the cooking chart).

We then set about organising what clothes we'll need since we're going on a roadtrip next week. First up, we'll head to the snow for a day/night. Then onwards to a slightly warmer climate to stay with my mum for 5 nights - she travels away every 2nd week for a job she's been doing - and there will be heaps of different things around there to explore.

Then we'll have a few days after getting back to finalise our project!

Tomorrow night we have a campfire for Nathan's Keas group before heading off early in the morning.

Mid-morning we headed out to the Mediterranean shop to buy some ingredients to try out our pasta dish that we'd chosen to take photos of for our Italian display.

Had an interesting discussion with the woman at the counter upon her question to Nathan "no school today?". And it was all positive, and genuinely so, to the point I think she either must have homeschooled her own children or knows homeschoolers going on her responses. Was the first time we've been asked that while out and about, so was good to have a good first-time experience lol.

We then proceeded to make our lunch.

Later on in the afternoon, Nathan dictated me the recipe from the book while I typed it up. We intend on having copies of the recipe available and photos displayed of the process we went through to make it.

We have been sifting through a box of magazines a friend dropped off for various vegetable and cooking pictures to add to our display.

Researched a few facts about grapes...found some words and phrases we'd like to include on the display...Nathan made an Italian flag out of Lego to include too...

Photos from a few days ago that I found on my camera.

Nathan posing like a person  in an Egyptian drawing

Pirates