As of Friday we have finished our third week of school and just checking my diary there is six weeks only till the end of term one! Ahhhh ~ I will have to start collating and getting work ready to send in. It has been a learning curve managing school work with Lola & Molly. Molly is no effort at the moment, where as Lola is busy, busy, busy... I am continually adjusting our work schedule, but that is the beauty of home schooling, the joy of being able to be flexible.
We had a power cut last night, not so great in summer as it is so hot, an adventure though! The children grabbed their pillows and came and lay down in the lounge room while I read our read–a-loud, The year of Miss Agnes by candlelight. Sometimes its great not having any technology available to distract you, also I got to go to bed early! This was good practise for when we do our Amish study - big grin.
This is our second week of starting ACE with Maths, English and Word building. The kids like it so far but I do have to check the spelling in the books as it is an American curriculum. We are studying Ancient Rome for social studies and the kids will be completing a lap book. At the moment they are watching some great documentaries I have on Rome and we are just reading aloud from the various and many books I have on history about Rome. We are so going to dress up in toga’s soon – lol!
Pernella had a visit to the specialist today to see about her asthma/food intolerances/allegies as they seem to be getting worse. She had a bad episode yesterday where as she ate some tomato sauce on her hashbrown and it brought on an instant asthma attack, loss of breath, which was quite scary and had both of us freaking out. After a full check-up she is extremely healthy and we have a new plan of attack for her asthma. We will be changing our families’ diet. No preservatives, junk food, or food high in salicylates. Even though Pernella is the one it affects Hubby and I agree that we should all eat the same in the house and not just have Pernella on a special diet. It’s a bit more work in the kitchen and a bit more expensive with the groceries but our girls’ health is so much more important. We changed our eating habits when she was very young as she had a huge problem with eczema and changing her diet managed it to the point where she no longer has a problem with eczema. We slowly introduced foods back into her diet over the last few years but it seems now that we have to eliminate everything again. Pernella is ok with this as long as she can still have hash browns - big grin. Later on in the year we will have to fly to the gold coast to see another doctor to determine her allergies and intolerances to better manage them.
Charlie had an exciting day on Wednesday as he received a package in the mail from his new American penpal, Vinnie who is also 8. Pernella & Charlie both have two penpals each – such a fun way to learn about another culture and also to get them writing.
We have tadpoles being lovely cared for on the front verandah by Pernella.
Charlie & Pernella have been discussing about building an animal/reptile house in our back yard when they get older! They warned me they would be having snakes in it.
I have been enjoying finding some other Australian home school mum’s blogs to glean off. I have also been looking for some creative ways of storing books, displaying work ect, ect... for when we build our new school room, hopefully sometime this year. I’ve been writing lots of ideas down in my diary for things we would like to get done and there is also a long list of books written down that I also would like to get.
Things I’ve learnt this week –
If I want to have a great day homeschooling, then I need to get a good night’s sleep. School work gets done better if you send them outside for a break to run around in the garden or jump on the trampoline after you have done a couple of subjects. (Gets rid of that excess energy and they sit quieter for the next half of the lessons.) I packed away the PS2 and the DS and made them off limits during the school week. When there are no computer games available I suddenly see them painting, playing with Lego or hunting insects in the garden. Their imagination takes over. I’ve started taking the phone off the hook again during the day. I find sometimes you get inundated with phone calls and it just disrupts the day.
