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.

Lovely birthday

Timo and Caoimhe made a treasure hunt for me. It started here...


Then went here:


And this way

And that way

And over here

And that way
And over there
This way!


And down, down...


Ahaaa!


Thank you Timo and Caoimhe.

Electronics

Timo's plan of propeller invention and hypothesising how high the propeller will fly with different electrical voltages and set ups.
In Timo's words, "I am learning about electronics and engineering" and so much more. Many strands from this to branch off, next thing is to make a hovercraft.



Searching for parts with Caoimhe's help


Discovering surprises

All very happy


Hours of fun, he was at it again first thing this morning and made me a cooling fan for my birthday.

Happy to have him home

Looks like they're watching something but they are actually listening to Badjelly the Witch by Spike Milligan

while Timo was away:

Caoimhe's story draft, "once upon a time there was a princess..."


Making blueberry muffins


Good friends

Dress ups

Risotto with prawns, monk fish and violet cauliflower.

Fun with Sarah the Scientist

Alack and alas as I have no pictures to tell any of the story, but we had a really fun workshop with Dr Sarah the Scientist this morning, which Timo would have loved. She's going to be a great resource, especially as we can keep in touch and ask her anything and she's going to give some good book recommendations as she teaches young ones and runs a science club. Caoimhe enjoyed it and said "it was really exciting", I thought it could be all a bit heavy for a 4 year old, but the hands on style of the workshop was suitable for our group that ranged in age from 21 months (Lennox) to 18, all home educators. The first experiment was chromatography and the process of felt pen colour separation and movement with the absorpbtion of water on blotting paper; the next was playing with polymers and tiny beads expanding into much bigger squishy ones that are transparent in water (Caoimhe's favourite and we got to take some home to play with), the next was floating a Japanese yen coin that we also got to take home and talking about water molecules and surface tension etc and metals etc, the next was playing with a pipette and hypothesising how many drops it would take to xyz... A few other things but generally a lot of fun and this lady was so inspiring! Another passionate person about what she does. We'll have her back next year too for another go, maybe she'll come to our house.
The rest of the day was spent planting out seeds, seedlings and Caoimhe made 2 pairs of binoculars as gifts for friends.