Yesterday we did NO bookwork. Shock Horror . I know that never happens at your home . But temptation and a weak will said, "I declare it a Mental Health Day". I considered finding a relief teacher to replace myself while I was on strike. But good teachers are so hard to find nowdays and the monetary compensation...well...we won't go there will we.
I blame it all on our swimming lesson. We moved our swimming lesson forward as our teacher had a free spot and it probably meant she got a longer lunch hour. Me? As a result I got no school work done before our lesson and then didn't feel like doing any when we got home, as we only had a short time between then and heading out for a planned playdate at the river.
Interesting enough...before long small boys were bringing me books they wanted me to read them. With four different requests I decided I might as well move my unmotivated self to the couch and read to my boys. Just as easy to be lazy on the couch as anywhere else. So we did open some books. We just didn't pick up any pencils. "Aaahhhh"...A Mental Health Day is almost as good as a holiday.
In the afternoon we met with friends for some heavy duty bike/scooter riding and then a swim in the river. The boys LOVED this. They love the sand and water. They played Lifeguards with their friend each taking turns to need rescuing. It was a lovely afternoon.
So both end of our day were spent in the water - the morning in the pool and the afternoon in the river, and the middle was spent in the pages of a book. For a non-school day I think we experienced some of the best that the world of learning has to offer.
* We read four chapters in our current children's bible as we couldn't leave the story part way through.
* We read two devotional stories
* We read another chapter from our children's proverb book.
* We practised skip counting.
* We practised reading
Ethan's reader for today.
* We completed another double page spread in our Daily (number fact and algorithm) books.
Ethan working on addition with regrouping. He can do these easily but daily practise is good for him.
* We practised our 8 plus addition facts with our "Math It" game.
A friend showed this book to me and I'm currently waiting for my copy to arrive. While we wait I created my own version to practise with. It's working very well and each boy can do these facts in around 10 seconds flat.
* Ethan reviewed alphabetical order.
Word cards like these make alphabetic order so much easier.
* The boys played at Mathletics for about 30 minutes. Brayden has completed the whole Kindergarten level in a little over a week. Hmmm...am I missing something? I moved him up to the Grade One level and he's ploughing through that now.
Here's Ethan working on Flips, Slides and Turns.
* We completed another double page spread in "Using Math: Be a Zookeeper" (current version at Amazon). We got this from the library and Ethan loves it. This book prompts him to use Math well beyond my expectations but since he's so motivated he's happy to sit and learn how to do it.
Today we were using a data table, multiplying and converting milligrams to grams and kilograms.
* Ethan used sentences from his science book to select three keywords from each. He then rewrites (with me acting as the messy scribe) the sentence from the keywords. I cover the original sentence of course. (This is IEW inspired.)
Tomorrow Ethan will use one of these sentence as his handwriting practice. This writing will later be used in a lapbook about space.
* Ethan wrote a love note to his Daddy
This note is hidden inside the book hubby reads at night. He hasn't found it yet. I'm aiming for this to be a meaningful writing activity that will continue back and forth over several days.
* As per Brayden's request we read "The Little House" by Virginia Lee Burton. We also read several other titles through the day. I can be anywhere, doing anything (yes read "anything") and the boys expect me to read to them. Mostly I comply.
There are some great discussion that can be had with this book. We discussed change, "progress" and the incredibly fast pace of some people's lives.
* We read the remaining three chapters of "Who Was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?" This series is brilliant. We'll definitely be buying more of these!
This is the best children's biography series I have seen.
* We also read a chapter of "Future Knight" and a chapter of "Vikings Got Lost".
* We did a quick science activity to see why the sky looks blue. You add a drop of milk to a glass of water and shine a torch through the glass. The milk particles in the water (just like different particles in our atmosphere) make the light separate and the blue light bounces back to your eyes, hence the blue appearance.
* While we had the room darkened and a torch out we did an activity that shows how shadows lengthen and shorten as the sun moves across the sky.
* This led to other shadow activities. We marked the length of our house's shadow in the afternoon to show how the shadow lengthens.
Brayden was responsible for this ongoing activity. He loves being the head man every so often.
* We measured the growing length of our own shadows with chalk on the pavement.
It was a little bit too young for either of my boys but they still enjoyed it.
* We also made a clock compass. You stick a pin into a clock face template and make the shadow fall on the current time. Halfway between the twelve TO WHERE the time shadow falls is north. (Make sure you half the distance the minute hand would have travelled from the twelve to the current time and NOT the distance from the current time TO twelve...if that makes sense).
Our north was about halfway between the 4 and 5.
* We went for a bush walk behind our house to set our stick insect free.
Spot the stick insect
* While we were out walking we collected some leaves for our solar prints.
* We prepared a nature solar print and a stencil solar print.
Notice how the sun affects the paper
Our stencil picture worked out much more nicely. We didn't have any exciting leaves or plants near our house.
You have to wash the paper and leave it to dry. When we came back to the paper the colours had swapped. What was at first white turned blue and vice-versa...Interesting.
* Ethan made a narration about shadows
* We read "My Shadow" by Robert Louis Stevenson and made a copy to put in our science notebook.
At this point Liam arrived home and we realised just how long we had been working AND that I needed to get the sheets off the line.
Tomorrow is a Work Day, our swimming lesson and a park play with friends afternoon. Plenty to keep us busy.
I had hoped to show you a "good" work day but that didn't exactly eventuate. So I was torn between waiting for a better example or showing you what real life dishes up. I've gone with real life. There are just some days when life infringes on your allocated school time. That's life for you. Mind you it was nothing too stressful but an inconvenience that we don't usually have to contend with. School had to be finished an hour earlier than normal in order to have enough time to do an errand (the one we skipped yesterday...regretting that now) before heading off on our regular playdate in the afternoon.
Whenever I put the stress on our day of getting somewhere at a certain time I can just feel the pressure rising. An urgency of getting things done and a lack of tolerance for things that wouldn't normally faze me. It makes it seem like the boys are going slower than normal on purpose. And why do they choose these days to want to do extra work?? It's like little nudges from God to remind me of the importance of staying home. Who else could get a small boy (my small boy) to desire to do the whole chapter of Math in one sitting? And to then want to find a chapter of money problems to do as well. What a lesson in patience and chilling out for me!
Anyway, I'll present the day how it happened. It's pretty much how it would have been except that I would have obliged the extra Math work and not hustled everyone so much. Even with all this hustling we were late and we didn't get to do everything that needed to be done. But the most urgent has been done and the rest can just wait.
As always our day started with Bible and Devotions at the breakfast table. The boys decided that they wanted to do some bible crafts while they sat and listened. We used to do this a lot. Of course I didn't really need an extra thing added to our day but we went and printed out a few appropriate crafts anyway. We even printed a few for our playdate friend.
Back at the table the boys coloured and created while I read the two final chapters in our children's bible. I LOVE the Egermeiers Bible Storybook(This link takes you to the latest edition). One of the best for detail that I have read with the boys. We didn't realise we were so close to the end. In the back of the book we found pages of information and pictures about bible times PLUS comprehension questions for every chapter in the book!! And I found them only NOW!! Oh well. I plan to reread this version again soon. We've read through about 6 or 7 children's bibles now and I plan to continue doing this over and over again with increasingly more difficult versions until we are at the real thing. What better Bible curriculum than the real thing I say.
We also read two more devotional stories from "Little Visits With God". And then two exercise sections in Rod and Staff "Proper Manners and Health Habits". Today we read about the dangers of running indoors and caution with medicines. We only have a few more pages in this book too. Next week I'll be looking for another book to fill this gap. I have a lovely new children's book about Proverbs in mind. I've been itching to start it with the boys.
At this point I sent Ethan into the study to use the computer while I worked with Brayden. There was of course discussions about who went first last time and that it would be totally inhumane, of course, to make them go first again . While I worked with Brayden, Ethan "played" on Singapore Math's Rainbow Rock cd rom. He really enjoyed this and kept calling me to see the exciting stuff (like when the game did this nifty regrouping animation...this added more time pressure to my escalating levels but I smiled sweetly under gritted teeth and tried to show excitement after three or four visits .)
During Brayden's work time he completed his Dailies book. Work days mean a subtraction algorithm...their least favourite thing to do.
(Note that Brayden's still switching his numbers back to front. I don't fret too much over it. Some days I make him change it and others I don't. It'll come with age.)
While we were in Math mode he completed a double page spread in his Excel Mental Math Strategy workbook. If something is in his grasp I will introduce it even if it's not in the current plan but one section on these pages was well beyond Brayden's level of comprehension so we left it out for now. I'm not one to be a slave to what is written in a textbook. It has to work for us or get skipped over. No guilty feelings at all . With Brayden I find this happens a fair bit. His Math is fairly advanced for his age so we often find things that would be acceptable for a 7 or 8 year old but Brayden has just turned 6. There's plenty of time to fill in the gaps though.
Next we worked in a little Time and Money workbook that I picked up at the supermarket. Brayden's just being introduced to calculating money so he completed 4 pages in this workbook. Really simple stuff for him but I make a point of not pushing him too much for too long even though I know I could advance him much further forward. I remind myself often that he's only in Prep (I think that's the American equivalent of Kindergarten). My approach is usually to push them ahead for a while and then relax a bit to let them soak it in, then push ahead again. This approach worked well for Ethan and actually developed from his natural pattern.
Next Brayden wrote two more letters in his handwriting book. "Y" and "Z" were the letters for today.
We then did two pages of Primary Phonics. We would normally have done twice this amount but I just sensed that Brayden's frame of mind wasn't the best for working today. He was making lots of silly errors, flopping all about the place and insisting that I tell him things he already knew. Sometimes it's best to just admit defeat and try again another day. So we pushed on.
Next up was skip counting practise which Brayden does independently and then we ran through our 9 plus addition facts in a race against the clock situation. He mastered them in 11 seconds. That's his record for the moment.
After reading to me from another reader, "Sam the Ant", it was then Brayden's turn to play on "Rainbow Rock" and Ethan's turn to work with me.
Ethan started with his Time and Money workbook (he's using level 2 while Brayden is on level 1). He's reviewing time at the moment before he embarks on more difficult times. He completed four pages but it was a breeze for him. It was only o'clocks and half pasts. He also flipped ahead in the workbook and completed two money pages. He LOVES any Math to do with money.
Next up he sat with me and we ploughed through 4 pages of Explode the Code. He was on a real roll and asked to complete the chapter (piling on some more stress to my levels). But after 4 pages he changed his mind...phew!
(Yes I acknowledge that this writing is messy and I'm sure it'd win awards for messiness. Ethan reckons that only important writing should need to be neat. This writing only needs to be legible. Hmmm...a battle for another day or perhaps I'm training up a future doctor.)
Singapore's Challenging Math Problems was next with a chapter of division problems. This was pretty easy too as it's only foundational concepts but it was about ten pages worth of problems. Possibly up to 20 problems or so. He's loving this book so much more now that we sit and discuss the problems together. I think Problem Solving is the key skill in Mathematics so there's a huge focus on it in our work.
(Just a sample of the work he did. I won't bore you with the whole chapter.)
Ethan then completed three pages of length exercises in Singapore Intensive Practise Workbook. The first page was a length problem solving activity which Ethan loved. It had a chart and Ethan is a whizz with charts, data and graphs. He doesn't care what the content is if it includes a table or graph. The next two pages required measuring with a rule. He flew through this task measuring shapes and paths in both centimetres and inches.
At this point I was throwing together some sandwiches (yes more vegemite ...lunch around here is exciting stuff).
Skip counting, racing the clock with his 9 plus addition facts came next and happened quickly and easily before he moved onto his next IEW keyword narrated sentence. (Basically it's just a sentence he has narrated to me from keywords from a model sentence).
After a super quick lunch we were in the car and heading out. But bookwork wasn't finished for Ethan (he dragged his feet during sentence writing) so he had to bring his last two tasks with him - his Dailies and Primary Phonics workbook (3 pages). Finally we were complete...except for his reader which will have to be read to Daddy at bedtime now. Oh well. We almost finished everything before we left. Not too bad of an effort considering this all happened in two and a bit hours.
(Yes this super simple page was in the middle of Ethan's long vowel workbook. Go figure! Ethan reckons it was his lucky break and it would be unthinkable to skip such a treat. Hmmm...perhaps he'll be a lawyer.)
So this was our work day. Rushed and a little frantic. I prefer to spread out our Math and Language work so each boy has two divided sessions with me rather than one big session. But sometimes, for time's sake, it doesn't work best this way.
I've scheduled our work days on days when we have play dates in the afternoon (only two days a week). This way we can easily finish our school work in the mornings before we head out to play with friends. So there's always an element of pressure to finish but not as much as today. I think a time limit on bookwork can be a good thing otherwise it gives the boys too many opportunities to dawdle and be off task which is a poor work habit to allow to continue. But usually I like a little less time pressure than today. But we survived to school again another day.
That's the great thing about school and life in general really. Tomorrow is a fresh day, a clean slate so to speak. Just waiting to see what mark you'll put on it. If today is rotten, it doesn't have to roll over into tomorrow if your attitude is adjusted with the new day. I like to remember this on difficult days (although today wasn't difficult just rushed), if I can just make it to bedtime with God's strength, then it's all okay. Tomorrow's worries are not for today. Today has enough things to keep you busy. Just a few more hours until bedtime. We're on the homeward stretch and cruising...the boys are playing and hubby is cooking tea. Whoohoo!!!!!!!!
PS. Yes my boys did still have their PJs on in these pictures. That's just how real I kept it.
Remember when I explained about our "work" and "fun" days (as the boys have affectionately termed them)...well I thought I'd give you a pictorial tour of each of these.
Today was our "Fun" day and it's actually a lot more work than their "work" day but hey, if they think it's fun than "goodo" I say. It makes life so much easier when they enjoy their work and call it "Fun".
We start every day with Bible and devotions. The day goes all wrong without the Word. As my boys tell me if I dare to consider skipping our Bible reading to dash out and hang the washing or something..."God first Mummy". From the mouth of babes.
Today we read the final chapters before Paul's death at the hand of Emperor Nero. We actually read more than we had intended to but who could leave the story just before the end. And as we had no bookwork holding us to a schedule we continued on to finish the story of Paul's life.
We then read two devotional stories from Little Visits With God(The link takes you to what I think is their latest, possibly modernised edition. This older edition is becoming harder to find. My copy was from a Lifeline Booksale. What a treasure I found that day!) This book is great for starting discussions and we often memorise the verse to go with the story.
We then read and discussed another exercise from Rod and Staff's "Proper Manners and Health Habits" book. It's a lovely little book. There's not a lot of reading and it's designed for the child to write the answers to the exercises in the booklet but we prefer to discuss them together. Often the topics lead us to another book we have on the shelf and more often than that the book leads us straight back to the Bible to see what God has to say on the matter. At present we're covering the safety section of the book. Today we read about how to carry sharp objects.
All of this reading happened over breakfast. We do this everyday regardless of whether it is a "Fun" day or "Work" day.
At this point my washing was ready to hang out so I set the boys up with their minimal bookwork requirements for the day. There are some things that I just don't like to leave for an every second day routine, like number facts, skip counting, writing and reading.
Each boy had to complete two algorithms (addition with regrouping for Ethan and no regrouping for Brayden) and their ten number facts:
(Ethan's Dailies book)
(Brayden's Dailies book)
Review their skip counting patterns:
Ethan is reviewing his twos and working on his threes.
Brayden is just about ready to move on from twos and fives.
Ethan had to write his sentence. We are working towards using the IEW's key word method of writing. So this is the final product of a process that involved identifying key words from a sentence, rewriting (narrating to me) the sentence using the key words as guides and then finally copying the sentence into his exercise book.
Brayden's written task was to review the formation of two more letters. We do two letters a day, over and over again until they become a habit. He only has to do one or two copies if they are good copies. Unfortunately "w" was a real challenge today and for the first time he had to do a whole row and he still wasn't happy but I figure there's plenty of time to master "w" in life. "X" however was a sinch. (Oh and don't look to closely to those stamp dates or you'll know that we, okay I, get slack some days with this ).
By this point I had returned from the blistering sun outside (what a scorcher!!) and we were ready to snuggle down on our red couch and read aloud. We were excited to be starting a stack of new novels today but first we had to finish off one from last week, "The Diary of a Medieval Squire". This was a nice simple read and fits perfectly with our current Medieval Studies.
At the end of this story Ethan went to the computer room with me and narrated his book summary while I typed it up to add to our collection. Was he pleased to do this? Nope. It takes a little nudging to get him narrating but he always takes off once I get him started. I offer questions and sometimes sentence openers to help. We've fallen out of our narration habits and this reluctance is the result. Once it becomes a daily habit again things will improve.
Next we paused from our reading to catch the boys while they were still fresh and relatively content. I wanted to introduce problem solving from this real life math book. It intrigued the boys and once we started Ethan wanted to do the whole book. We stopped after two pages though. Brayden climbed back up on the couch to join us for this book.
Our first task was to work out which of the crate designs were most appropriate for the giraffe's needs according to the given specifications. The boys very quickly narrowed it down to the only option. There was also a little exercise reviewing shape names and number of surfaces and vertices. Both boys could easily do both of these and the first page was a total success. I had actually hoped to record our interactions with a video camera so we could use this kind of work for our HEU work samples. They want Math samples that aren't worksheets and something like these problems would be great but it's just so hard to record this sort of interaction and the ladies haven't had a lot of success with media when I've included it with my work samples. The presence of a video camera is also very intrusive and the boys never perform well in front of one. *Sigh*
The second problem was a bit more challenging. It presented a review of decimals and fractions. Woah. Too over our heads at this point. But when I thought about it it wasn't too far out of Ethan's reach with a bit of scaffolding and support. Brayden ran to get the quarter fraction circles and we worked with these to visually understand what the question was asking. It wasn't long until we came up with an answer together.
Since Brayden had moved off and I'd worn out Ethan's Mathematical brain with our last problem we set the book aside to move back to our reading. Ethan wasn't keen on setting the book aside but I think it's better sometimes to stop when the excitement is high than to use up the thrill of a book in one sitting, especially a more challenging book like this.
So back to our reading. We started three new novels today, "Future Knight", "It's True: The Vikings Got Lost" and "Splot the Viking".
We read two chapters of this book as chapter one left us desperate to know more.
We read one chapter of this book and I was very impressed with the book. I have several on my shelves but something about them just hasn't appealed to me but so far this one has been a great read.
This isn't what I'd call a living book. It's a bit of candy you might say. A silly piece but it does draw on real Viking facts. With all this reading a little bit of fluff is nice and relaxing sometimes. We just finished a quite difficult novel for the boys' ages (Beorn the Proud) so we were looking for a few lighter titles on similar topics.
The boys didn't sit by my side the whole time I was reading. They are allowed to play quietly on the mat at my feet provided they can answer questions I throw their way to check if they are listening and comprehending. Today they chose to sit and draw together.
This is Ethan's picture of a rocket taking off and heading for the moon. That small dot at the top of the rocket is the moon...of course .
By now we were starving and ready for a break. Vegemite sandwiches were on the menu and there were no complaints. Over lunch the boys were given the freedom to play a little. They put their sandwiches on the floor near them and happily played while I escaped to the computer for a break. Now that I've eliminated tv from our weekdays I don't get time to check my emails before school and while some people need their caffeine fix to function properly, I need a little email time. Surely it's a healthier bad habit .
Half and hour later we were back to work with more reading of course. We'd be eagerly awaiting a time when we could sit down and read through our new Mozart books. After listening to one of the Classical Kids audios we were full of questions about Mozart. Even hubby. Yes he often listens to our school stuff. As a school teacher he doesn't get to learn a lot interesting stuff with his kids .
This title is a fiction book but it was charming all the same. Not full of facts but it certainly had enough character to draw both of my boys from their play on the floor to sit beside me on the couch.
Finally there was another narration to torture...sorry record what Ethan had learned about Mozart. With all the complaints he had about this you'd have thought I WAS torturing him. But I'm sure I was feeling more tortured than him. This second narration was a challenge and there was some bribery involved. I had planned to head down to the shops on an errand after school and the boys (and I) weren't keen so I promised if he got the narration finished without too many complaints we'd leave the errand for tomorrow. Now don't tell me there aren't days when you too have to make little bribes and promises to get your students to do something what you want .
At this point I was thinking that we were finished for the day. But then I checked my journal and nope, I had forgotten reading and I wanted to video the boys reading aloud to keep as a sample. Believe it or not, there were no complaints at all about this. I had revved myself up ready for a battle but then the army didn't show up, but these sweet compliant boys. Astounding but a relief.
The books I chose for the boys were ones that they could easily read independently. At the end of the year I'll take another video to show their progress from this point.
The book that Ethan is reading is from the Jelly and Bean series. My boys love these books.
After school the boys spent their time orienterring around the backyard (more simply, locating different directions with a compass) and taking toy bears on journeys. This also entailed checking out a youtube video of how to use a compass before they embarked on their journey.
Later the boys came and asked me for wood and a shovel. What??? They wanted to did an underground house that would have several rooms...of course. Why should I need to ask? Since we have no wood and live in the middle of surburia with a fully lawned yard I had to reject their adventurous plans. After a little disappointed tampie stampies (as I call their melt downs and tantrums) they resigned themselves to creating a house with rooms from my zig zag opening books. They cornered off areas that were bedrooms where they placed their pillows and blankets and then went hunting around the house locating items they needed to stock the rest of their house with. They requested things such as bandaides, food, drinks, and clothes. And this is the result:
Or for another shocking view:
(As I write this blog post I'm in negotiations over who, how and when this mess will be picked up. It's nearing shower time and bedtime and may involve a show down. That could be ugly so I won't post a picture .)
So now you can now see what a "Fun" day at our house involves. On other Fun Days we do a lot more art, projects and experimenting. Today was more of a reading day. But I think you get the general idea.
Sorry I've been slack with my updating. Things just get busy and full in the real world and that leaves no time for blog world.
In the essence of time here is a rundown of the highlights of our week:
The boys built a castle ... okay it was a Playmobile Castle ...and okay I did most of the building ...but there was a castle built during the week and it has been much loved since then.
We found another thermometer experiment to do. We're obsessed with our thermometers (since it took us so long to find just what we wanted) and they have been well used since we got them. This experiment investigated the temperature differences between direct sunlight and indirect sunlight.
The boys used fabric paint to decorate both sides of their new canvas library bags. They're going to be very stylishly accessorised when they go to the library next.
This sight hurt my eyeballs so I resolved to do something about it. This cupboard is full of my homemade resources and miscellaneous school stuff that doesn't come in a box. I prefer when things come in a box .
After an afternoon of work it looked like this. Yes, you'd be right if you recall seeing these boxes here. Workboxes didn't work for us. Too time consuming and too much busywork. So I recycled our boxes and found them a better use.
We read a book about googols (a one with a hundred zeros after it) and the boys have been obsessed by googols ever since. In the picture you can see the boys working together to write a googol.
We found our own meteors (pebbles, rocks and golf balls) and plummeted them onto the floury surface of the moon.
I'm glad we decided to do this outside. I didn't expect the crater ejecta to go so far.
The boys made paper castles and decorated them.
Ethan pulled out his "Battery Science" book and made an intruder alarm that we set up on the door so that Daddy would set off the intruder alarm.
My sister gave the boys a Magic Coral Garden and we finally got around to setting it up. We were a little put off by all the caution warnings. But it wasn't as bad as we'd allowed ourselves to imagine.
Here's it is half way grown. I've got to complete the second part this weekend. Always plenty to attend to around here...like refreshing our coral garden .
The boys did another experiment from their chemistry kit. We're still working with acids and bases. It's a lot more fun than the chemistry lessons I had to endure at school.
So that has been our week. Now I'm going to have to dash as we're off to see some fireworks.
I am a homeschooling mother of two boys, aged 8 and 6 years. We live in Australia and have never sent our children to school...except to visit with their Daddy, my Dh. He is a school teacher (as I was too, a long time ago).
. I know that never happens at your home 
. But temptation and a weak will said, "I declare it a Mental Health Day". I considered finding a relief teacher to replace myself while I was on strike. But good teachers are so hard to find nowdays and the monetary compensation...well...we won't go there will we. 
Ethan's reader for today. 
Ethan working on addition with regrouping. He can do these easily but daily practise is good for him.
Word cards like these make alphabetic order so much easier. 
Here's Ethan working on Flips, Slides and Turns. 
Today we were using a data table, multiplying and converting milligrams to grams and kilograms.
Tomorrow Ethan will use one of these sentence as his handwriting practice. This writing will later be used in a lapbook about space. 
This note is hidden inside the book hubby reads at night. He hasn't found it yet. I'm aiming for this to be a meaningful writing activity that will continue back and forth over several days. 
There are some great discussion that can be had with this book. We discussed change, "progress" and the incredibly fast pace of some people's lives.
This is the best children's biography series I have seen.
Brayden was responsible for this ongoing activity. He loves being the head man every so often. 
(It was sheet washing day as you can see).
It was a little bit too young for either of my boys but they still enjoyed it.
Our north was about halfway between the 4 and 5. 
Spot the stick insect
Notice how the sun affects the paper
Our stencil picture worked out much more nicely. We didn't have any exciting leaves or plants near our house.
You have to wash the paper and leave it to dry. When we came back to the paper the colours had swapped. What was at first white turned blue and vice-versa...Interesting.
. While I worked with Brayden, Ethan "played" on Singapore Math's 
. With Brayden I find this happens a fair bit. His Math is fairly advanced for his age so we often find things that would be acceptable for a 7 or 8 year old but Brayden has just turned 6. There's plenty of time to fill in the gaps though.
(Ethan's Dailies book)
(Brayden's Dailies book)
Ethan is reviewing his twos and working on his threes.
Brayden is just about ready to move on from twos and fives.
This isn't what I'd call a living book. It's a bit of candy you might say. A silly piece but it does draw on real Viking facts. With all this reading a little bit of fluff is nice and relaxing sometimes. We just finished a quite difficult novel for the boys' ages (Beorn the Proud) so we were looking for a few lighter titles on similar topics.
This is Ethan's picture of a rocket taking off and heading for the moon. That small dot at the top of the rocket is the moon...of course 
.
and while some people need their caffeine fix to function properly, I need a little email time. Surely it's a healthier bad habit 
This title is a fiction book but it was charming all the same. Not full of facts but it certainly had enough character to draw both of my boys from their play on the floor to sit beside me on the couch.
.
The boys built a castle ... okay it was a Playmobile Castle ...and okay I did most of the building ...but there was a castle built during the week and it has been much loved since then.
We found another thermometer experiment to do. We're obsessed with our thermometers (since it took us so long to find just what we wanted) and they have been well used since we got them. This experiment investigated the temperature differences between direct sunlight and indirect sunlight. 
The boys used fabric paint to decorate both sides of their new canvas library bags. They're going to be very stylishly accessorised when they go to the library next. 
This sight hurt my eyeballs so I resolved to do something about it. This cupboard is full of my homemade resources and miscellaneous school stuff that doesn't come in a box. I prefer when things come in a box 
After an afternoon of work it looked like this. Yes, you'd be right if you recall seeing these boxes 
We read a book about 
We found our own meteors (pebbles, rocks and golf balls) and plummeted them onto the floury surface of the moon.
I'm glad we decided to do this outside. I didn't expect the crater ejecta to go so far.
The boys made paper castles and decorated them.
Ethan pulled out his 
My sister gave the boys a Magic Coral Garden and we finally got around to setting it up. We were a little put off by all the caution warnings. But it wasn't as bad as we'd allowed ourselves to imagine.
Here's it is half way grown. I've got to complete the second part this weekend. Always plenty to attend to around here...like refreshing our coral garden 
The boys did another experiment from their chemistry kit. We're still working with acids and bases. It's a lot more fun than the chemistry lessons I had to endure at school.
