B is for butterfly

Starting little ds off on Oak Meadow for me has been a bit of a stress...he's not all that keen as dd has done it all before him.

But I'm just doing little bits and so far so good.

Last week was A.

This week B

I've discovered he can do about 2 days of 'school' then needs a break...that's ok.

The added bonus is that dd does a bit more Art and free form creativity which is really good.

Jolly Phonics Links

I have been using Jolly Phonics for DD.
http://jollylearning.co.uk

She loves it and it works so well
DS has a bit of an anti thing about learning at the moment but loves the flash cards and knows all the sounds and actions...so maybe he'll join with his sister ?

http://www.primarilylearning.ca/jollyphonics_teacherresources.htm
I have used this link for dictation. DD really enjoys it as a little light challenge


http://www.tippec.ie/wp-content/uploads/Dictation-sentences.pdf

Starting the year off well

We are so lucky to live in such a wonderful town with such wonderful supportive people. When dd was about 2 we joined playcentre and even though we don't often go anymore the friends we made there still catch up.

I have lots of wonderful photos of our children playing with their little mates but I will not put them up here without their permission.

Once a year the playcentre from dd's years catch up at Waipu Caves. We camp out and enjoy each others company. Most of the parents were very out doors adventure types BC (before children), myself and Dave love the caves and have spent many years going through them.

Some wonderful friends have an adventure company with all the gears...so caving with the kids became a possibility. Little DS even came on his first adventure with his little mates.

He was very excited and when the boat ride out of the cave was on the menu his little eyes just about popped.  He was so excited about putting on the life jacket he could hardly do up the zip.

DD had an experience you don't really want to happen to your kids but does...getting hurt. She fell about 2m off a bridge down into a dried up stream. Luckily help was on hand quickly to gab ice and we had a nurse available too. Dd's arm seemed to get the biggest bang. Dd did not want to leave camp and as no bruising came up we decided to just watch her. 

Dd went on to experience a much bigger longer cave (which was my first cave experience as a teen working with civil defence). She did really well for the first half hour then started to get cold...we moved fast together and came to the part where we had to swim out...she no fear about that. We were working with a team of 15... Big group! Dd's close friends also came.

Then Dd moved onto rock climbing. She loved that.

The camp moves to the water hole for a cool down clean up every day. In our climb down to the water Dd hurt her arm again but still she wanted to try the rope swing and swim.

Ds had a lovely time with his best buddy. Even though they are only 4 they played for hours in the bush beside our camp. Watching frogs and playing house...never really thought of boys playing house but they did and loved 'their' cave.

We had treasure hunts, marshmallows over camp fires, bubbles, frisbee (which wow ds has his own style that works really well), walks and even a movie lol.

But in the end we had to leave...and I took dd to white cross for a check up and X-ray...we have to go for another one in a few days. So living with a sock bandage.

Kids had a whale of a time...over tired and camp food...all good

End of year and clean up

http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/evolution.html

I have been known to move things round. 

Change

It's hard in our play room as we have some big items aka climbing frame and some unmoveable 

parts aka large windows.

But I try once every 6 months to move it all about.

And after reading this article now I can see why

looking for frogs

We had a big frog theme today. Been to the pond to look for Frogs...sung about metamorphosis...watched Kermit the frog sing about growing up as a frog...coloured some pictures of frog life cycles...and finished the day up with the movie about the Frog Princess....(Which they really didn't want to watch and ended up playing with puzzles instead...too much frog?)

chicken love

Whats in a leader...a 4 year old and 7 year old perspective

Learning story

Topic: Leadership  -  Government

Aim:  To introduce the idea of leadership

Resources:

Oak Meadow's Story about the Frogs ask for a King

Talking together

Method:

I read the story about the Frogs ask for a King. Both children have little understanding about Kings and Queens and really only understand them from Stories and from when Prince George was born.

We talked about leaders and how the government works very lightly. I drew diagrams 

I then asked them what they would want from a leader.

DS started talking about when he was making a toasted sandwich he would like some help...we talked about parents and that is their job. I think they feel that leaders a like parents....just bigger

Both decided that the leaders should help people and listen to people and their needs

Then DS said that if a bird was hurt that someone should help it and care for it. Both children started to talk quite animatedly about this as we had just been to the zoo. The talked about all animals needing help and protection from harm. (Both children as of yet do not understand hunting other than the need for food.)

They talked about trees, rivers and the sea and saving them so they could explore them.

We talked about DOC and what they do.

Both agreed that it was one of the most important things that our leaders could do.

We talked about people taking fish to eat...DD felt that this was ok if we had some to give. We talked about how much was acceptable and fishing trawlers and this brought in some doubts to DD's mind about peoples morals.....

DD brought up very quickly after our talk on animals that there should be a rule of NO FIGHTING!

She has heard of how parents and other people gets sent away to fight in wars.

This lead to children without parents. DS was very concerned that some children have no Mummy or Daddy. He remembered "Annie" the movie and felt that the government should have NICE orphanages and be quick to find a new family for children to live in or at least have a nice place to live.

We then talked about Doctors as DS has just had his hernia operation and Nana is in hospital.  The both felt that these people are very important.

This lead to T our local fire chef and that it was important too. They haven't seen him as putting out house fires, but they have seen him put out a scrub fire, but they have seen fire rescue working with car crashes.

Which lead to their little friends E and T's father who is a police officer. They are not sure really what a police officer does other than keep the roads safe.

I asked what about a leader for education. DD was confused and explained that she thought that...yes there could be schools but only if you wanted to go to them. It would be up to the Mummy and Daddy to find the type of school they liked. But really it's up to the family to decided how to educate the children.

We talked about people who didn't have any money...should we help them...she said that they should get a job.

We talked about people who were older who might not have enough education to get a job...she said then we need to send them to University so they can then get a job.

Comments and Follow up: 

We need to visit the police and fire department...visit DOC

Look into government working a little more

Look at ways to help people more and understand why