My littlest boy loves playing Monopoly, but we’re often too busy to play it with him…. then, he plays on his own… he always wins 😀
It’s amazing how many maths skills can be learned while playing Monopoly 😀
We play as a family, as well, when we can… lots of fun! Sweetie Bean loves being the bank, and he’s good at it….
….not that I have THE secret 😀 I just pick up some things relating to my sweet beans, and how they relate to the world….
Yesterday we went back to “school” after the Easter break. We started off fairly quietly, just easing into the week….
Now, with my biggest boy, since he’s previously had a few years in the school system, I know not to label too many things as “school work”. He seems to automatically equate that with “boring”. He still needs to do the work, but I try to emphasise the work/learning part of it rather than the school part of it…. that’s not to say that he can get away with not doing things to the best of his ability if they happen to be tagged as “school” – learning to do the boring things with grace and diligence is an important life skill….
Anyway…. the secret… 😀 I suppose it’s to know when to separate the “school” from the “work”, and show them that learning new things is a joy… here’s the story that got me thinking about it…
My littlest boy finished his maths workbook before the holidays. We couldn’t manage to get the “proper” workbook for him, but I picked up a cheap maths book for a couple of dollars at a book sale. It looks slightly different, but the work is almost exactly the same.
Nevertheless, he sees it as a new adventure… a new book he doesn’t associate with school, but is like a puzzle book to him… I started him with a few pages yesterday to get into the week. He came back to me three times to ask if he could do more – I had to stop him eventually, as he would have finished the book before this week was up!
I’m working on changing the schoolwork/boring thought pattern -it’s not so much of a problem with littlest bean, as he’s only been in kindy, but he still feels it, a bit….
… but it’s lovely when they find something that interests them so much, it transcends the “boring” label…
Yayy for exciting learning adventures!… and may your day be filled with love, growth and laughter! 😀
Rewind to when we had the tadpoles/froglets…. the first one to grow legs and hop left us for pastures new….
or so we thought…. 😀
The other day, while hubby was doing the mowing, he came across our own intrepid little froglet, bravely traversing the wilderness we call our yard…..
He didn’t seem to want to visit…
…..and tried to get away as soon as possible….
I don’t know…. you feed them, nurture them…. and they still can’t wait to get away 😦
It was a thrill, though, to see our wayward froglet, alive and well. 😀
I’ve just subscribed to another homeschooling online group (that’s not the joke…), and I came across this while checking out the posts….
Next, everyone studies the history of lighting methods, wrapping up with dipping their own candles.
Next, everyone takes a trip to the store where they compare types of bulbs as well as prices and figure out how much change they’ll get if they buy two bulbs for $1.99 and pay with a five dollar bill.
On the way home, a discussion develops over the history of money and also Abraham Lincoln, as his picture is on the five dollar bill.
Finally, after building a homemade ladder out of branches dragged from the woods, the light bulb is installed.
And there is light….
We went to the “How to Make a Monster – The Art & Technology of Animatronics” exhibition at the Ipswich Art Gallery today. Had a great time looking at the various monsters, as well as their inner workings….
Suggested to Biggest Boy that he could one day use his love of building lego and meccano to do something similar 😀
There were some other animatronic things from other movies – Inspector Gadget, George of the Jungle II….
Go, go, Gadget…. hands?…
Little boy next to Big monster..
I should probably know what these are… can’t remember, though.
Alien guts… you can put your hand in it….
Unicorn!
I wanted to include a video of the boys controlling a dinosaur, but I can’t upload videos 😦 We got to draw our own monsters… I wasn’t going to, but I got bored….
BOO! 😀
I would recommend the gallery for a fun day out, for anyone with kids…. or even those in their second childhood!
Today we said goodbye to the froglets. They were at the stage where they were climbing out of their container, so we thought it would be safer to take them down to the creek. It was a little sad to let them go… they seemed happy with their new surroundings, though…
Going Home…
Letting go.
Small Froglets in Big Pond
This is their new home…
Exploring!
So ends the frog saga (our part of it, anyway..) Hope they’re happy (hoppy?) in their new home..
I haven’t been here for a few days, and will probably be patchy for a few days more… the computer needs a new fan, and is apt to complain if I’m on it for too long (which at the moment is 30 minutes or less….)
In the meantime… Hoppy Easter! 😀
Cleaned out the tadpole habitat again….
….once we could see through the murk, we found one with all its legs, and one just missing one (with the other on its way) Most of the rest are very close…
froglet 😀
We finished cleaning, watched them for a while, then turned our back for a couple of minutes…..
Hello, world!
Facing the giant.
In other news…
The beans are doing well.
Hard to see, but they’re there.
Nice big leaves… the marigolds are growing well, too.
The biggest of the beans so far – looking forward to it curling round the tepee branch.
The biggest of the marigolds, showing its secondary leaves.
Lovely rain today, as well! 😀
Our beans have sprung into life. Yesterday there was one popped up… unfortunately that had disappeared by this morning (birds?). This morning there was another one up…
Still clinging to its shell…
By this afternoon there were a few more, unfurling through the dirt. What I thought funny was that they come up, and there’s dirt flung aside, like they punch through the earth, and the earth just has to give way 😀
emerging….
We planted the marigolds at the same time, and they have been springing up in their own time…
on its way….
What else is going on in the garden? Lots of things are growing… Lots of things are flowering and seeding. Summer gives way to autumn, and the landscape changes… Things grow… things die…
tarragon flowers
abundant chillies
I think these are mother-in-law’s tongue… soaking up the sun.
We think this is an avocado tree… it’s been run over (with a mower, as well as by little feet), and we thought it would die… it’s come back, leafy and green, but it’s not growing any higher… we’ll see…
There’s not much of this green lavender left – it looks more like this –
It has its own kind of dignity.
beautiful…
lovely shape, and shadow…
Looking forward to what will grow through the seasons… edible as well as beautiful, healthy for the body and soul…
This morning we helped biggest boy with persuasive writing (one of his English units). He hadn’t quite understood the concept – his previous efforts involved giving the same opinion three different ways, with no attempt at persuasion…..
We talked about looking at both sides of an argument, and thinking fairly and deeply about each person’s opinion, then set him a test problem, and asked him to come up with another of his own…
The first problem – Should we eat roast chicken – seen from our perspective, as well as the chicken’s…. after weighing the pros and cons, he agreed with the chicken… After discussing it with us, so did we 😀
The second problem was one he was really passionate about – He was arguing that he should not have to do any more school work….
He thought hard about it… weighed the pros and cons…. put the argument together…..
… and ended up convincing himself that he needed to continue with school… 😀
It made our day!
Today, I marked biggest boy’s English workbook. One of the units was about collective nouns for animal groups. He got none of them right; I would have got about four…
Some are quite eloquent, some funny… quite a few, I’ve never heard of before!
Here’s a sample –
A mischief of mice.
A shrewdness of apes.
An ostentation of peacocks… or a pulchritude of peacocks. 😀
A congregation of crocodiles.
A troubling of goldfish.
A pandemonium of parrots.
A rhumba of rattlesnakes….. and…
A lamentation of swans…
You learn something new every day! 😉
a bit of creativity, a bit of eco consciousness, a bit of inspiration.... hopefully not a lot of pompousness and blathering :D
i'm not entirely sure what's going on here... let's travel along and see...
1000 Fields of Roses 