Milk and food colouring

Dd loves this experiment...but can't keep her hands out of it.

1st march

Lego Lego Lego!
Both children have not really touched this for a month and all of a sudden.
A few hours this morning.
Normally dd likes her story's and music but today right after breakfast it was into building.
We had to have a break for morning tea as dd was really hot and getting really excited... So food did not happen till about 10:45 very late for them.

We've been to visit Poppas grave as it is his birthday today. Dd always wants to visit. She takes flowers from the garden. We picked up nana on the way. Ds is so used to having lunch with Poppa but it was way too windy today.

I have plans for this afternoon not sure if we'll get them done or not
http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/hula-hoop-rug-995304/
Is one craft idea

Making cup cakes

Working on our castle

Working on the sola system model

But we've also go a play date after school...so not sure how it will all plan out.

Spider by 2.5 year old

Ds got right into drawing his own spiders web and spider. We've been interested in insects at lot as of late

To watch later

Check out this video on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aRxHPozgj0&feature=youtube_gdata_player


I've been looking at buying a few DVDs from disney so we'll see what this one is like...any good we'll get our pun cause the kids love to drive their own watching and learning....drives me nuts how often we have to stop to go do something they have just seen.
Oh well must just be the age

New blog to look at

http://www.barefootfive.com/2011/10/play-is-not-a-luxury/ But can't now as its skipping time....and how does a touch work

Smaller boxes

On the weekend dd started on building a little house for Rusty her toy dog.
I've been extending this play building by providing more boxes and sat with her for a while talking about what is needed in a house.
I just listened mostly.
At first dd stacked all the boxes on top of each other naming each room. Then she wondered how would Rusty be able to get up that high... She suggested a ramp... But then pulled the whole lot down and started to arrange the rooms side by side..."no stairs needed...stairs take up a lot of my building materials"

Dd started on her kitchen aka the ginger beer box. She pointed to where she wanted the door and the windows. I pulled our my ruler and she watched me mark them out. I cut them out and left her to it.
She wanted to make an oven and asked for two more windows to be cut out the same size (the left overs were being recycled into the oven).
I tried to explain the idea of a cube...she kept calling it a square. We counted the sides.
"why not just call it a box?" we talked some more about different shaped once they become three d.

What was ds doing during this time? He's back at his watch play. Still connecting different hoses together and has now extended this into filling up different sized containers...pouring out the water then seeing what the next one holds.
He has pretty much played at this all morning.
Dd played for a short time then became uninterested and wanted to make pesto. Dd has had a love for herbs and what can she make out of them... And what they can do to help us to get well. She made a little lot of pesto using her own basil she grew.
She was very disappointed once the leaves were all ground up to see how small they became.
This was then wrapped up and given tot Dave as a gift.

Flower love

Dd loves flowers. Has said she wants to keep a flower shop...with exotic birds.

Sunflower

Dd's flower after the rat.

Sunflower sadness

I was expecting to hear tears at some point over the last few days when dd went out in the garden... Our big daddy chicken was unwell and old. He died last night.
But the other day was an unexpected sadness...and anger!
Rats had got at dd's sunflower and pretty much striped the seeds out of it. She is really upset.

But she has gathered the last remaining seed from the flower and wants to plant more...she has been out there all morning digging the garden over.

Mandala art to do

http://www.art-is-fun.com/how-to-draw-a-mandala.html One of our computer games asks you to make a mandala...dd is a it too small to get the game to do what she wants...so we'll have to give it a go free hand ;-)

Dragonfly

We had a drandonfly Come into the house early this morning. Both kids tried to catch it. We jumped on to you tube and watched a dragonfly 'hatching'. Dd pointing out it had four winds..."how strange! Is that like one of the dinosaurs?" Good point! After the 5min documentary she head about drandonfly laying their eggs in fresh water..."let's go down to the pond" That's about where we got up to as there were no drandonfly to see down the pond and we moved on to road side plants...and having to head off to swimming.

Shopping with mummy

Dd loves "bin in"...loves weighing the food and writing the labels.

Bullying

Does it affect homeschoolers Sigh Well it has here...my dd has little friends in school who are very sad and very scared from being bullied. My dd does not understand what is going on. I've talked to dd's friends parents and they say it's sorted. This has come into our life and it is an experience and I'm glad that I could be there to talk to my children and explain.

A few blogs to look at in time

http://christinapilkington.com/2011/09/03/15-unschooling-interest-led-learning-travelling-families-you-should-get-to-know/

Making snakes

Using the coloured beads to make snakes

Thinking about what our kids need to know

9 things to think about when homeschooling

What have we been doing?

With the new computer system still getting installed I am behind in the blog.

We've been to Auckland to visit my cousin. She's just come home for a few weeks with her Spanish speaking husband... Kids are madly trying to learn how to speak Spanish. Dora the explorer...Carlos said he watched it too.

Swimming with friends before lessons.

Heaps of early readers...dd is semi excited about them.

Picking tomatoes and apples weighing them out and making tomato sauce. Dd loves sieving the pulp.

Been fishing this afternoon with my parents. That's all they talked about all morning till they left. They caught a few sprat. Cats happy.

Started on a solar system mobile. Dd loves Pluto and was very upset after looking through one of her books and not finding it in the line up of planets we then had to watch a documentary on why it was no longer classed as a planet... Hence the mobile because sd said Pluto will be a planet in hers.

Water play

Dave has pulled out the watering system from the top garden...and just left it on the garden path. The kids have found it and have spent nearly a day putting bits back together...running it down hill...running it up hill...putting different connections on it. Turning the tap on. Holding this hole but not that one. The tap is gravity fed so its been very interesting to watch.
Both kids were very excited the future down the hill the taller the sprinkler got. It was very hot that day so they got very wet.

Teething with computer

Dave is currently sorting out a new computer hooking up to a nassbox. Which is all a little confusing for me as all our information keeps moving.
But it's for the best!
I've got a iPad which has become our portable question answerer ;-) last night while reading some library books dd wanted to know what was a marmot so we looked it up right there. This is great!
We are still missing access to music but my old computers got booted up today and we managed to have "dragon tails"...loved the dance. Also letting out a bit of energy means that both kids are more likely listen and participate in a project.

BMX bike track

It just goes to show that you can learn something new about your kids. One of DD's homeschool mates was having a birthday...at the bike track this morning.
Dd has had her bike since christmas and can do a lovely circuit at Nana's on her concrete drive.
I didn't think BMX would be DD's thing.
Wow I'm surprised the amount of times she had crashes I thought she would give up. She was getting holes in her hands.
Not giving up and wanted to do a complete circuit without falling off...we didn't get to that but she is begging to go again on the weekend and she wants to start from the top of the gates.

Line - spider

We've watched the "our children" DVD which one of the projects talked about lines.
They had lots of art projects to do dd hooked onto the spiders web.

We did the paint activity and then dd ran it again at playcentre showing the other children and the mummy's what to do.

I was not really all that keen on the spider web creation suggested as an activity on the DVD but the kids loved it. Talking all the time about what type of spider they were.

The sun

We've had some interest in the sun. What is it made of.
We listened to the Tom Glaser science songs and watch a documentary... Which was a bit over dd head... Left it and looked at a Christmas gift book for her great aunty about the solar system

We worked on the hand sun project and because we've already done some work on the solar system dd started to add other planets.

Today we looked at the book again dd said her favorite planet was Pluto... And it was not in the line up she managed to sound out a few other planets names too.

Web site to look at

http://janwhitenaturalplay.wordpress.com/

Gravity, friction, ball work

We started off watching magic school bus - ball game.
We started the ball dropping idea. Dd loved the idea of dropping and catching... But couldn't do two balls at the same time...so she got off the bench and came down to standing...then kneeling...then one ball...back to standing.

Rolling the ball running after it...then sliding with her sox. Rolling the balls on the carpet then the Lino.

"which one will float?"
Dd filled up the sink and put each ball in to see which would and would not

Now we're on to knitting

Learning board

I've got the book Steady Days... Not sure about it yet...a bit controlling? Maybe I've not read enough yet.
But I do like this idea

We've also been building again. We've started watching wild weather...hurricane. So a lot of houses were destroyed.

Heart mapping activity

We got this off the net.
Dd was right into it before Dave had even left for work.

We're also into mobiles

Banana and apple experiment

Dd listened to nana talk about how her banana ripened very quickly because it was in a bag with an apple.

Dd was puzzled about this comment and when I was ordering our shopping she asked for two green bananas.
Once they arrived she pulled them apart and popped both of them into separate lunch boxes and put an apple in one and an orange in the other.

As parents we are not going interrupt and suggest a control we'll see if dd comes up with that on her own.

So far dd has checked her boxes twice a day just noting any changes....we'll see how we go

Update 13/2/12
Dd was excited..."nana was right" she wanted to eat it. I said what about a few more days

Butter factory

My mum took both kids to look at the new playground. Dd came home buzzing about it.
It is set into the old butter factory. She told me the story of how it was burnt down and never re-built...they saved all the men who worked there...and the butter.

So I took them back today with Nana. I brought a bottle of cream on the way. We quizzed nana who used to live on a dairy farm how long it took for milk and cream to settle out?
How much cream in a bucket of milk?

The kids showed me around the ruin and jumped and counted and wondered.

Then I pulled out the cream and two containers.
They wanted to drink the cream...yuck!
I gave them a container full of cream to shake.
Eh?
They did it for a while then moved off to play. Nana and I took over...till it started to change.
Dd heard the difference and wanted to look...taste.

We made butter!
They ate it with crackers on the old ruins.
Wow cool morning!

Alan watts

every sensible person makes (his or her) living by doing what (they) enjoy doing.
Alan Watts

I wonder how many sensible people are out there?

I've been looking at the certificate of exemption again. Thinking about priorities and where do we get them from. Our need for a big car that fancy house etc.
Ponder

the serious side of play

http://www.waldorftoday.com/2012/01/toddlers-to-tweens-relearning-how-to-play/

just working om the cert. of exemption today and this is where I'm up to so far

Medieval castle

We've just started but there is lots of excitement.
The idea of using a ruler is starting to become understood...in some ways

Berry discovery and pruning

Dd came rushing in with these little berries she'd found.
DS pointed out the size difference and colour difference...youngest green smallest to oldest blue/white biggest.

Dd picked a Hebe and compared the leaves of the two plants together. She asked the name of the ground cover....
Coprosma
But why is it the berries are blue not orange?
She pointed out all the others that had orange berries.
We talked about plant species...and left it there ;-)

Boxes back again

After going to the zoo on Wednesday and having a play date yesterday...I think the kids need more play time and more visits to playgrounds.
So to start the boxes have come back in the house with a whole new dimension...opening them right out.
The 4 kids yesterday and last evening had a wonderful time building and 'living' in their houses...to the point of tears when the other two had to go home and we had to bring every thing inside.
Dd was determined to sleep out last-night but ended up in bed because of the weather and mozzies.

Very tired children today and it's library and swimming today followed by camp visit tomorrow.