rainy day pursuits with timo looking decidedly grumpy, he's actually just concentrating.

weaving a new chicken dome:

Sunday morning hoedown with teddies

In preparation for the Beyondsemble concert this afternoon.

foraging for flowers to press

I wasn't sure what they were up to, it was private research apparently that I was not allowed to know about.

They brought their surprise findings to the table.


And turned them into a flower press.

compassion for the clucky chicken

Caoimhe: "I spoke to the chickens and they spoke back to me! I said, 'sorry Aracana for taking your eggs away but we need them to eat. Maybe you can grow some babies next time we feed you' and she spoke back to me and said brrrrrrck"

Fun with bubbles

Fun with big bubble wands. Thank you Aunty JB! It's great to get fun surprises in the mail that positively add to our day.

Their Capacity for Innovation...

...and creating their own fun. Timo made an indoor basketball hoop out of a broken net. The net was broken where it joins the pole, he cut the net and found the perfect spot to suspend it.

Growing Frogs Diary Part 1

A book we often read is 'Growing Frogs' by Vivian French and we discovered we have some friends who have a nearby pond with frogspawn ~ joy ~ so we gathered some today:



Ever so carefully transferring the frogspawn into our bucket to take home:




Creating their new home that we will eagerly watch to see the changes each day:


We managed to find some baby tadpoles, a frogspawn sack with one day old eggs, and another sack with little 'commas' (babies that look like commas), so different stages to watch.

Pepepe

Making pepepe (butterflies)


Singing our song we made up during the time:


G E E G E E D E F G E
"Pepepe Pepepe, flying up so high;
G E E G E E D E F D C
Pepepe Pepepe, flying in the sky"

You can see how our song sounds here where we wrote the music and found a very handy online piano to help compose: (Saving for a real piano)

Timo works for about 2 hours on his Soyuz spacecraft.




Blast off!

Lennox does the dishes while Timo and Caoimhe work at the table.
Lennox naturally likes to do everything he sees us do, this is his play. Yesterday after breakfast without anyone saying a word he took his plate with uneaten crusts and quietly emptied them into the chicken bin then placed his plate on the bench to be washed. Good skills Lennox.

Preparing for his hunting and trapping mission in the bush.




Off he goes

Prolific Painting:

Caoimhe:



Timo:

Caoimhe:

Caoimhe:

Timo:

Caoimhe:

Taking turns at exercises and checking each other's answers.

pollination not happening

Sadly, we have no bees around to pollinate our flowers. After talking to the local major beekeeper, varroa has wiped out most hives. We have to find out how to do our own pollinating.
After checking the plants, Caoimhe said, "do you think in another world we could talk to some bees that talk and they have a phone so they could pollinate our flowers to turn into broadbeans?".
Love the idea.

Trying new resources

I have had one child say to me very clearly "I want to be forced to sit down and do school work, just like in a classroom", and the other who says to her "school is horrible, they force you to do things you don't want to do like maths, and tell you to hurry up and finish if you haven't and that you are too slow at doing things if you haven't finished". The former hasn't had any experience of school so doesn't actually know what this is like, the latter has and unfortunately this was part of his experience that affected him and created a negative outlook on things such as maths in particular, even though it's a year later! However, chalk and cheese! Easy to cater for both even so. We have been using worksheets and the computer a lot but am now wanting to move away from technology and have now purchased some work books starting with 'Targeting Handwriting 1" and the Primer series of Math u See (thanks Sue for that link). I at least like the look of math u see, we'll see how the others go, just looking at it, they know some of it already, but it has the addition of applying their knowledge too at the time. Will see how they like it.
Generally though, we find Family Math and learning in life in general works as it's naturally fun, they learn inadvertently, it's meaningful as it's embedded in the context of the here and now of their family life all the time, and there is no idea for the child who does not like being forced to do anything that it is 'maths' or a categorical subject (nb, this certainly does not mean that Timo is never forced to do anything! but we wouldn't force him to do something he found exceedingly boring ~ unless it's necessary chores or duties ~ or force him to learn or work at something he simply had no interest for, I think John Taylor Gatto talks about this in the book Dumbing us Down). The funny thing is that since trying the 'sit down school style' Timo is keen to do it too, and Caoimhe learns from what Timo does and his participation also, so the one resource works for both. The little guy naturally is interested in what they do whatever it is...

This morning has involved pitching a tent and a camping expedition, Timo reading out Fox in Sox to Caoimhe at breakfast, and playing and laughing with Mixed-up Animals. Timo is now making decorations for hos bedroom and a planet mobile in order from the sun to hang in his room. caoimhe is making huts with Lennox.

broad bean flowers

broad bean flowers, a photo by catching life on Flickr.

catching life's photostream

catching life's photostream on Flickr.