Unschooled children moving with the times?

Its all through the news at the moment. Playcentre and other early childhood education centers will have their funding cut but 63% - 70%. The world as we know it is changing so fast and in many cases we are not changing fast enough to keep up with it.

Every day I thank that I've begun homeschooling our children. I want to change I want to keep up. We need to think outside the square and even further beyond that square. We need to think of other peoples lives who are yet to come.

Yes it would be lovely to keep that funding going. But funding is getting cut every were. We need to think about our children and their future.

How can we keep what Playcentre was giving us?

Do we take it to our homes?

Do we pay a little more?

Do we say "No more boxes to tick"...(an example would be - we need one white plastic doll, one brown plastic doll, one male, one female.) Why have all these boxes to tick? Why spend the money on things just because someone said it would be a good idea...to make sure that our children have a well rounded education.

SHould we not look at what is in our community that we can use. What skills we have to share....oh goodness there is lots to say.

School holiday....what school holiday

I am amazed at how much happens when your not trying to make it happen. We still read every morning but I've backed down on the writing in the Jolly Phonics books for a while...and there is so much writing happening.

My daughter was copying my "to do list" on my white board. Writing notes to let people know which is her glass. She organised 'music time'...something I've been trying to bring in for a few weeks now..and it just happened all like that.

On our car ride yesterday and today I HAD to play Jolly Phonics songs so that they could read along in the back and sing.

"Oh oh I want to play that game"...I was very puzzled till I worked out it was the read along book I downloaded...."Can I have two books?"

I also downloaded the Phonics thingy for iPods too...not such a great hit but maybe in a few days?

There has also been a lot pulled out of news papers...photos of tigers, bears and tigers, nice lawns (I don't get that one...guy mowing a lawn and she says it looked so beautiful) also a really lovely photo of a painting which she wanted to look at a long time.

A few magazines have been pulled apart too..."Oh look at this lovely soup....what's in it?... Potatoes and mushroom Yummy"...she she's started her own recipe file as well.

So much and I've not even talked about the intense talk we had on the way home from my parents place about "How did the first tree grow?" "Why is the moon that shape now?" "How did they make electricity?....how did they make the first electricity plant with out electricity?" Just as well it was a long ride home.

Bee drawing

We have been watching and talking about bees. The Bee movie. Flower documentary on TED. So I drew a bee thinking my daughter might like to colour it or collage it...but no she drew her own. We've had lots of talks about honey and watched the Magic School Bus on honey.

Reading

We've been using Jolly Phonics. Our daughter does not like to let a day go past with out reading something and at the moment its all about learning letters and their sounds.

She is not so keen on learning the shapes but I suppose that will all come.

I've been writing on the black board a few words we use every so often. There is not much interest but some times she will point out something or stand there and say all the sounds.

Happy as.

Titanic re-visited

We read the story of the Titanic on the day in history which it sank. My daughter was not really all that keen on listening (I was going through my...you need to listen phase...and came up against counter will).

I helped my daughter find some books in the library on the Titanic and there were lots of WOW's....then we got out the DVD.

Lots of questions!

She had to watch the beginning of the movie about 5 times because there was so much information she seemed to be thinking about.

A few weeks have gone by. Our daughter looked over the books again. She asked to watch the movie again.

"What size was the ice burg?" "In the book its different from in the movie"..."There seems to be a lot more ice in the water than out of the water"..."Could the people of got off the boat onto the ice burg".

Now that was an interesting thought.

Dave talked about the possibility of steep sides of the ice burg...that it was small...that the boat shot right past it.

But hey good idea.

So the movie had to get watched again...and I'm that the books will be re-visited again too.

As a side we started talking about Titanosaurus how interesting that the two interests have a very large Titan in it ..."How long was the Titanic? 268m"..."How long was that Dinosaur?"...30m "How big is that?"...much bigger than our house.

Our solar system

This interest is small and will probably come back many times. We were watching "Walking with Dinosaurs" and got to the last episode with the meteor hitting the planet...."What is a meteor?".

I think that this subject is a little too big at the moment but we had fun in painting the poster.

We'll be able to work on understanding sizes in a few years I'm sure.

Using my house and changing my view point

Dave and I were talking the other day. (I don't know what I was expecting when I was 'growing older' and thinking of children.) But I never imagined my house being used the way it is today.

We have a Daycare in our town. We have a Playcentre on our street. We have a school on our street too.

But we have all this here.

10 children on my kitchen bench...doing art, eating together.

A swing in my lounge which is a play room not a lounge....which has a climbing frame and slide as well.

Paintings hung up all over the place.

Books every where.

A courtyard full of outdoor toys...race ways and stop go signs.

A huge black board (thrown away from the school)

We dreamed of maps on our walls...but now have them for reasons other that to plot the next tramping (hiking) trip.

A dog proof front yard (to keep our children safe)

We don't believe in heaps of toys. We've a lot that are secondhand a lot that are hand made and or wooden and of course a lot that are 'educational'.

My custom made (thanks Dad) coffee table fits 4 cube boxes which hold lego/douplo, muisc, blocks and trains.

I had a vision of how my future was going to be. It was not this...but man this is way better.

Life is ever changing.

Get out there and ask

We were walking along from the shops when an old car went past.

Me being me "WOW how cool is that" I tired to get my daughter to come with me to look at the old car. She was not really all that keen.

The owner was very amused and a bit taken-a-back at the interest in his old car.

I asked how old it was "1924" then he could not work out how old it was...got a little bashful and wanted to move on and talk to the garage owner.

We got the horn tooted at us.

He asked if she wanted to hope up in it but my daughter found this a bit too much.

Math web sites to view more later

http://nz.ixl.com/

Work sheets http://www.tlsbooks.com/preschoolworksheets.htm lots to print out

Oh goodness so much to do June 2011

"What are you doing?" my son asks....no it was more along the line of "let me have a go". This activity was 'Balloon Faces'...fill up a balloon with flour and a little water. They loved this.
My daughter has loves chess. Will often play in the evenings while Dave cleans up the kitchen. Here she is playing with her 'dog' Rusty.
Blow paint.
Erosion experiment.
First real drawing with a house, lawn, garden and swings - the swings have sky hooks ;-) also got the sky and the sun.
Playing with the blocks and figured out how to make a line like you would domino its just the distance thing she needs to work out.
Ballet exams...well as much of an exam as you can have for a 5 year old.
Working hard at Playcentre. I found her cutting circles all on her own so make ... something? we never really sorted out what it was going to be as the class ended and it all got swept aside.
"Quick quick Mum I want to make a special gift for my friends" two little friends were coming for dinner with their parents and my daughter a half hour before they were to arrive wanted to make these really cool little dolls and wrap them as well. She did really well.
Our CSW came to play and Playcentre. A mix of Lux soap flakes whisked with warm water and spread with lots of fun all over the place. My daughter was the first and the last at this table. My son did not want to get his hands dirty, in fact he even burst into tears when his mate ruffed him up a little with soapy hands.