Saturday, November 8, 2014

Fire works with the grandparents

A very packed day with school in the morning. Then off to computer club...then getting back in time to pick up DD's best mate from school...(Go Mummy! for retraining and sitting exams!! xx )
So here was Granny's idea of a cake...I'm not sure how the kids all felt about this.
 DD takes reassurance from Grandpa

 DS shows his styles of sparker fighting.
 Then we got down to rose bonfires....and holes in the lawn...lol


 Slowly winding up the night...as its a school day the next day and we did have to get everyone home.

Monday, November 3, 2014

Bike trail leads to rock collecting


Labour weekend leaves me and the kids alone and wondering what to do....
Bike trail my girlfriend says.
Phew...super tired start to term 4 but gulp lets do it.
Amazing day!!
I've not done biking for over 8 years...so unfit.
We've just gone though the old train tunnel.
Stopping for a big rest
Ds's bike is a bit too big for him but as long as he doesn't stop he's great
Dd did well for the first 7 or so km
Ds picked up so many rocks in his trail his pockets couldn't hold any more.
He started collecting more and more...and before we knew it...out came the OM jewellers loup and wow rocks.  

Farm visit

We might live surrounded by farms but we don't often go and visit.
My girlfriend has an organic farm which is just nessled in a beautiful rural valley.
Ds was a bit shy this day and spent most of his time talking to the pet ducks and chickens.
We rounded up some cows
Explorered the gardens and contemplated plant swapping and recipe swapping....humm my brain is thinking of another get together.

Halloween

I'm not keen in the whole begging thing but the idea of giving a special baked treate was much better. 
We visited our neighbours with chocolate brownie....
Our lovely village atmosphere and all the kids gather to play in the park...a lot of black here.
Mums had some great games...little ds kept well out of it...he doesn't like crowds   Even though he knows every kid here...oh well we're all different with different needs.

Spring Beach day

Once again OM and I seem to anticipate each other as I had suggested a beach day for the group...and also this week we are studying saltwater biomes
DS with his little friend working out how to sink his truck.
Dd and her mate create a rock pool to hold their animals.
Ds questions getting wet.
Ds decided to explore.

Saturday, November 1, 2014

Trip to the dentist...and some tunnels

Both our two needed to visit the dentist...in Auckland...goodness! 2 hours there and 2 hours back but had to do it.
With my new phone I've been using google maps and the connection with my car stereo and then we have "Jazz" help us get there ... the kids have been loving watching the little blue arrow going down the road and then "Jazz" telling us to turn in so many meters. 
So what we did was go to the dentist...using google...then we went to North Head to explore. We really needed a lot more time but it was right at the end of the day and we were all worried about getting stuck in traffic like we did on the way down.

DS has to discover something to climb.

 What was it Mum? Was one of the main questions asked. Just as well I downloaded and printed out the pamphlet that went with this walk.

 We spent a while outside exploring. Looking at all the gun emplacements


 Seeing how heaving things are
 Seeing if they could fit into small places.
 Then we went down the tunnels. Poor DD was NOT keen at all and she's normally the brave one...this day it swapped over. DS found a small passage way and wanted to explore while DD freaked out. We had torches and did look a little way but I didn't push too much.

 They loved the views and the gun...amazingly hot!!!

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Reading....

DD has started the Boxcar Children and is finding it quite easy.
I'm finding it really hard to get the right level of reading for her...its GREAT being able to put things on the Kindle so we can make the size of the writing bigger.
DD loves the Famous Five Secret Seven and Pirates.
Anything with adventures in it

Hummm maybe I'll look for DS too...at the moment I'm using Jolly Phonics books for him but he's getting very confused with the amount of words and the picture all in one.
Maybe I'll make some of my own.
For DS's read aloud at night he's listening to Redwall...lovely story about mice in an abby...and of course there is a sword and fighting.

Both kids are enjoying The Hobbit...this is the second time I started it and they really didn't get it. We brought the large artist books from the movie. WOW they spend ages pawing through these as I read the book.
Loving it.


Right off to do that i talked about now.

Monday, October 13, 2014

Hobbit house

Dd has been dreaming of her own house since...well...for ever.
We measured up the area beside her garden and this is what we've come up with.
Will we be able to do it? It's made of earth filled bags and plastered with mud??? Hummm

Reading eggs and Khan

My girlfriend sent me a link to reading eggs...ds is now addicted. Not sure how it's working yet but we've got a year. I did change the voice to English as they didn't hear a lot of the Australian accent.

Khan has not been such a great success but we're only on day 1

Change to curriculum

Dd has asked that things be in the subject she likes and understands...
Maths is easy as gardening is a lot of maths...science too.
Social studies history of gardening, impacts of humans, laws etc
Language write and read about.
So we'll see how we go
We're also looking at making own blog too.

Change to curriculum

Dd has asked that things be in the subject she likes and understands...
Maths is easy as gardening is a lot of maths...science too.
Social studies history of gardening, impacts of humans, laws etc
Language write and read about.
So we'll see how we go
We're also looking at making own blog too.

Soccer and teddy bears picnic

Both my two are loving soccer which they played with the homeschool group. We've just measured up our only flat bit of lawn and it's perfect. 100yards is 10 metres 60yards is 6 metres lol. 
Very hot sun and neither are used to it yet. 
Dd loves setting up hide the teddys

Sunday, October 12, 2014

A very full spring and some catching up

 
Walking up to our local water fall. Really got the kids back into the idea of being outside after winter. DS has been really getting into minecraft and often wants to be home in time for his 'time' after lunch on the computer. BUT lol...this day was the first of many which he was begging to stay here and throw just one more stone...or look at just one more tree. We came home with pockets full of rocks and sticks...wonderful. 


As I have often raved about our lovely little town a few of the local Mum's band together to create a camp. One Mum is just SOOOOOO full of love and excitement and she just has so many wonderful ideas and energy.
Sadly DS caught tummy bug and has been out for the whole camp and a week afterwards...and Dave and I have managed to get it too...yuck!
But he still had an amazing time.
My two here with some of DS's friends waiting for their go.

 DS has been watching some of the fathers go down (who are much larger than DS) so he's been copying them...very cute
 Some of the children have pet animals which needed to be feed so they had to come to camp too. DS just loves Snowy the lamb...Tintin and Snowy are some of DS's fav books.
 DD and a few of her friends spent ages on this slide. Fathers helping the kids down "FASTER!"


 The kids had

Both kids LOVE circus school. Their teacher is amazing and so unschooling in his ideas (though he doesn't know it). There is lots of movement and trust in these exercises. The last term they worked with fire which was amazing to see a 5 year old do. They worked on some yoga/trapeze work DD loved this as we got to be with the collage kids.
This last term they have been working on a show to fund raise for a wonderful woman of our community who has had a stroke. The kids were clowns and after reading they decided to be Thing 1 and Thing 2.



The H/S group went to the native bird recovery. DD was totally taken with the idea of having all these amazing cages with the sick birds and nursing them back to health. She asked Dave if she could do this....
 DD was unwell on this day but she really wanted to pat the Kiwi

Making a hot air ballon....DD googled it and asked others lots of questions. She tried very hard but no lift...she's back to the drawing board.

H/S art day at our place. Ara's little mate and her had a lovely time with out their little brothers.




Winter holiday away to Taupo. We popped in to see the bees...both kids love the bee places we visit and often ask if we can have bees...its on the list of to dos but as I'm allergic I need a bit more thought.

The falls with Granddad





 Taupo hot pools were AMAZING...whangarei you've got some learning from these guys. The pools here were so lovely and clean and the kids could go down the slide as many times as they like without adults and DS could go too at 5.

We did the first part of the Tongarero Crossing to the first hut. SNOW!!! 40mins walk carrying their lunch and change of clothes.

We had to make a snowman on the front deck. Was a team effort and we even had a carrot (purple one from the markets) as a nose.

As DD had been studying foot prints with Oak Meadow this year she was keen to look for any animals...and starting making her own tracks. We didn't see many animals/birds
 This trip really completed the loop for DD's learning about Biome, animals and plants of different climate zones. She pointed out this many times in the car. We looked at many different types of plants while down in the snow seeing the leaf colour size and shape very different from home.

Hot pools again.

Both our kids love chess and took over the Taupo chess board which everyone watched.

DS loves working in the rice with his letters and numbers. This term I've noticed a large change in his motor skills since playing minecraft. He can really hold his pencil well and form good letters. He's gone from putting a lot of his letters backwards to round the right way.

The cousins visited again from London. This was an unexpected surprise and really great!!! They love minecraft too. We had a lovely catch up with them.

In Oak Meadow the kids choose a tree each and follow it.
This is DD's tree which is her birth tree
 This is DS's birth tree too.

DS got into sewing

H/S group here for the day. Lots of sliding. Lego. Soccor. Food. Reading about minecraft....oh Lol i can't get away from it. We've got 4 books on minecraft and we had about 2-3 kids per book just quietly studying them together.

DS with our cat...Griffin has to be into everything we do.

DS working on his Jolly Phonics...this curriculum has really helped our kids get a good start to reading.

 In the process of building a frontier house/pa house...this didn't get very far. It was very cold and wet outside and they really didn't want to get any more

DS with his mate at gym


Garden walks in the morning...you have to have a cartwheel

Prickel discovery

Playing in the mud

Swinging in the trees down the back of our property

They just had to climb the tree that the cat climbed...DD got right to the top.

DD is so proud! Finally babies. Here she is with her Silkie Rooster Ron (Harry Potter's best mate).


Morning Dance...gym...crazy stuff. I'm having to pull them back a little as they are close to hurting themselves and as I don't know much about gym...bit scary. They love their gym class down the road but really want a more tailored class to just floor tumbling.


Back to our waterfall again...they really wanted to know how to skip stones...we tried a lot DD got one skip...DS was just learning how to get it in the water without hitting anyone else.


The kids hanging out with their HS buddies at the pool...they talked minecraft for about 2 hours...snore 

 Back on camp again...DS still not feeling great and a bit miffed that he got put in the "Babies group" where all the other kids his age were...once we got to the morning tea spot he asked for Dave who was with the bigger kids...then he just took off looking for him. We had a great time running through the bush. Both my kids found it very hard to be a part of a large slow moving group with lots of rules.
 DS reconnected with a little mate from Playcentre. They played with trains just about all day. An amazing time.
 There were times when the whole group of kids came together to do activities. One evening they had to make teams and build a mural out of natural things. DD's group was the Super Secret Survivors...humm...you can guess who was the ring leader there DD's fav books Enid Bylton and Bear Grills.
Also on camp a birthday. So the idea was to build huts in the bush have party games and eat cake in your huts...I think the cake was left for the birds and the children had so much fun just building.

Camp skit night. Very unstructured. LOL


Back to Thing 1 and Thing 2 my crazy monkeys. They loved this dressing up and colour in their hair.
 We even had to do the rest of the school day with the dress ups on.

DD first up close with her new baby

Taupo McD's...my kids don't like McD's but their Nanma had to take them to the plane for the experience.