DIY

Have you discovered diy.org yet?

I'm a huge fan of this website, it encourages kids to try new things and develop their skills. There is an incredibly wide range of skills available, from Forager, Papercrafter, Writer, Chef, to Minecrafter, Animator, Backend Dev, or Game Designer!

Here are a few of the things we've been up to -

Homemade rocket pictures with pastel & watercolours (from Artventure which we've just signed up for!)

and pastel planet pictures, Earth & Venus respectively - 

both for the Painter skill. 

They harvested some potatoes - 

which qualifies for the Backyard Farmer and Gardener skills.

Lexi made a pizza -

 and a character cake -

for the Baker skill, which earned her the patch for that one! 

She made a bracelet for the Fashion Designer skill -

thus completing another patch

She made a homemade sprinkler from a bottle - 

 for a Summerologist challenge

 and some tiny treasure chests, out of matchsticks, cardboard, and quinoa -

for Toymaker, and the photo of them for a Photographer challenge!

And Eli learnt to use a mitre box for the Woodworker skill -

It's great fun, and very flexible, I just wish there was one for adults!

.............................................Space!

We're pretty big on space in this house. Four of us, quite coincidentally, have astronomically themed names (Nova, Alexis, Maia, and Leo). So as a topic theme, space seemed like a pretty good choice.

For a start, we dragged out our collection of space-related books - 

 (I'm possibly a little optimistic putting Measuring the Universe; The Historic Quest to Quantify Space up there, but you never know)

We made a big brainstorm poster of what we already knew, what we wanted to find out, and how

(gold star if you can spot the error with the "word wall" of planet names..) 

And I got a little carried away printing out resources from Teachers Pay Teachers and Homeschool Share - 

Then we got to work!

We tackle this sort of stuff usually after lunch, and in a gentle, self-initiated way. I scatter resources around the place, make suggestions of things they might like to do, then wait to see what piques their interest.

Eli  decided to draw the major planets, some space tools, and an astronaut. He later added a rocket too.

Lexi has been quite taken with NASA's Eyes on the Solar System simulation, which you can use to explore the solar system, including hunting down various missions like Voyager I & II, and the I.S.S.

Of course there was the ubiquitous polystyrene ball solar system model, most decidedly not to scale -

but we're quite proud of it -

 (I couldn't cope with the fat polystyrene ring that came with the kit, so improvised one from clear plastic & paperclips)

Of course we raided the library - 

 the 13 Planets one is quite good; it includes the most prominent dwarf planets, which is quite rare unfortunately!

And I recently added A Collection of Wonders with Professor Brian Cox * to our DVD stash, so we've started watching Wonders of the Solar System to begin with -

we're doing a little bit more each day, so I'll be back with more links and activities that we've been enjoying!

(* Affiliate link! If you click on that link and then go on to purchase something, we get a small percentage of that sale, which would be really nice!)

August 2013

August was a busy month, with me feeling more organised & capable than I have in a long time. (I find newborns much easier than pregnancy!) The kids have really been getting into the rhythm of regular-ish 'school' days, and are finally beginning to grasp the idea that if they concentrate & co-operate we can get more fun stuff done!

Eli has just started on grade 1 of the Light Blue series of Math Mammoth, and Lexi is whizzing through grade 2 - 

Lexi was reading about how the footprints of dinosaurs & other creatures became like solid rocks as muddy areas dried up, so we recreated it first in playdough -

then in salt dough -

(which after 8 hours in a low-heat oven, and over 2 weeks later is STILL not dry! It's only 5mm thick!)

We've started using some of the Brave Writer materials for our literacy work, here they're illustrating their copywork from 'Hop on Pop' -

Lexi made a playdough ring wraith, complete with black horse, from Lord of the Rings -

Leo's been practising his cuteness and neck control -

Eli had fun doing playdough numbers -

Maia is just sweet -

Lexi is learning to play my 1998 vintage copy of Sim Safari -

(it's actually rather good, apart from not being able to rotate buildings or the map. Fantastic for learning about food webs though!)

And she just received her first four badges from the St John Youth Penguin programme!

Once again courtesy of our friend Mr Spangler, this is what is currently sitting on our kitchen bench....

July 2013

With the new baby a couple of weeks old already, and daddy back at school, July meant us getting back into our activities too!

We cleared all of the weeds out of one of our vegie beds, and planted strawberries instead -

Inspired by Steve Spangler, we had a science day -

(it didn't pop, but it did deflate quite quickly!)

Maia liked the balloon rocket

and the parachutes....

well, I wouldn't want to jump out of a plane with one!

We did the ol' 'trace around yourself' thing -

mostly as a writing exercise, rather than biology...

(apparently Eli has a hcamots)

the ubiquitous maths -

and Maia worked on becoming even more doggedly independent -