Start of Advent

  

Since we will be away next week we have started Nativity building early. Normally we would start the 1st December. Our Nativity replaced our Christmas tree last year which we gave away to another family.

We start with little and build the Nativity over the month of December, adding something new each day. This year we will start with Joseph and slowly add other people and animals as we move closer to Christmas. Jesus does not appear in the manger until Christmas morning.

A new addition this year is our advent spiral. Our angel will move forward one spot each day leaving behind a trail of candles. I think it is going to be magical if I can convince the kids to leave the candles alone. I love our new table we will use this year too. The book trays underneath are a perfect place to keep our growing collection of Christmas books (of which none are about the jolly red Santa Clause flying in sleighs).

This year we have built our stable from cardboard following these instructions here it was actually rather easy and I think it turned out well. This is so not a craft for 6, 4 and 2 year olds though. My tip is build ahead without them, then let them paint and decorate.

Police station visit

Last week we were super lucky and got to visit the local police station with our homeschool group. It was so much fun. I expected our visit to last about 10 minutes. But Grant was lovely and spent a whole hour showing the kids around the station and explaining everything to them. He was so patient answering all of their questions as complex or silly as they were.


What did Mr I learn:

1. That you cannot drink while you are driving (yes he told me off for drinking water on the way home LOL).
2. That you cannot chitter chatter on your phone when you are driving.
3. That goal cells are really loud.
4. That the police cars have a screen to tell you messages.
5. That policemen are really nice.

What did I learn:

1. I learnt there are no longer bars on their cells but perspex. The geniuses who designed the cells though added no sound proofing. The poor police officers, it is seriously LOUD when the perspex is kicked.
2. I learnt that there are no guns taken into the processing/charging area
3. I learnt that there is a whole box of keys under the counter in the station, seriously people if you lose your keys it is worth checking the local station.
4. That I now have a mini police officer in my car.

I want to move to Victoria

I have had an epiphany I want to move to Victoria. Trying to fit in the silly rules of the NSW BOS is just abhorent to me. I cannot take it anymore. I have found my feet I know what I want to teach and how I want to teach it. Will he know what all the other year 1 kids know by the end of year 1 well probably not, but he will know different things, and probably more. But the exact topics that are suppose to be taught in year 1 no. Will he know them by the end of primary school most definitely yes. I want to teach in the order that works for us. That is interesting and workable for my family. I started homeschooling so that my children do not have to fit in ridiculously rigid boxes. But I find myself constantly trying to do it. Whether it be in preparation or retrospectively trying to tick off and date the silly boxes. I HATE it I want it to end, it takes all the joy out of schooling. It takes all the learning out of schooling. He doesn't want to do it their way and so he doesn't learn, he completes but he does not learn.

I want to live in our bubble, our beautifully flexible bubble. I want to teach history chronologically. I want to imerse into specific areas of science and study and learn them with true knowledge and understanding and not skim over a million little topics.

My Children will learn, they will learn so so much if the BOS would just let me teach them. And teach them in the ways my children need.

 Today my new textbooks turned up. I had a buy all the books episode a few weeks ago. I was so excited with the new resources I had found I couldn't decide which would be best to use. So I bought them all to read through properly. I found the ones I want to use. But trying to make them fit with the NSW syllabus is making my brain hurt and my heart ache. It should not be this hard. These programs are great.

The only way I can see that works is to double our lessons. Cover the BOS requirements as dirty and as fast as we can. Then sit and enjoy the lessons and things we want to learn. The trouble is this creates so much work for the kids, and so much attitude from having to do the boring things just so I can tick off the boxes. It is not fair.

If you want to see part of my book haul (some are still on the way) read on...

Science

Purposeful design Science.

This book looks like a great holistic approach to science. It looks detailed and interesting. I think we will use this book alongside answers in Genesis next year. There are 83 lessons in the Level 1 book.

Australian Curriculum Science

This is a great box ticker book, it links to the national curriculum BUT not the NSW one which is coded differently and worded so every slightly differently. Do I use this book as well so I can tick the boring boxes. Some of the content looks good. It is not a bad book, I would happily use it but I prefer the other books. This book is offered from Foundation/Kindy through to year 6. There are 40 lessons in the Year 1 book.

Answers in Gensis

This is the first of the 12 books in the Series. It is beautifully presented and I love the immersion style of the book. Focussing on one topic at a time. There are 34 Lessons in this first book.

History

The Story of the World.

Looks well aimed at any primary level, Read to them early on and they can read for themselves later. I am not sure about the activity book that you can buy to go along with it. I am thinking of just reading and discussing them them. Who wants to do a worksheet for everything really. There are 4 volumes and the first has 42 chapters.

The Mystery of History

Wow this book is a big book. Was a little overwhelming at first. There seems to be so much info. I am not sure on this book at the moment. I think it could be used with younger kids but it moves a little slower than SOTW that I think it might be better with older kids. There are 3 volumes and the first volume has 108 lessons.

and this is what all this does to me

We have a new computer and a new baby

The blog became neglected as my computer slowly died. Then as my pregnancy progressed I became incredibly tired and utterly useless after she was born.

We decided on extended school holidays. At 39 weeks pregnant formal schooling got packed away as my friend moved in for 2 weeks. She was hoping to be here for the birth as my support. She arrived when I was 39+6 weeks pregnant and had to leave when I was 42 weeks. Cheeky little miss stayed put till 42+2. It was a lovely birth, but would have been much more special with my friend here.

Little miss was born the last week of NSW term 3 and so our holiday extended another 2 weeks, We started diving back into work when she was 3 weeks old. I won't lie it has been pure utter chaos in our house.  Mud Daddy took over the learning room to sleep in. He was just not functioning at work  with so little sleep. He had a classroom of kids needing him to be working at his best. The department seriously needs to reconsider only offering 1 week of paternity leave. Sending tired daddy's back to work and be responsible for the learning of an entire class on 2 hours sleep is not in the best interests of the students. But we have made compromises for the better of his class. Miss is 7 weeks old and Mud daddy is still sleeping in the learning room on a mattress on the floor.

We are now I would say just this week starting to get back into the swing of life. Starting to feel like I am on top of things. Starting to get just that tiny bit more sleep at night so my life doesn't feel like utter chaos.

We have a new computer, it is so much fun being able to upload and manage photos easily again. Inspires me to restart the blog. Who wants to read a boring blog without pretty pictures to look at. New computers are so much fun. I am determined to keep this one clean and tidy. New filing system, and I will delete emails as I receive them and not wait till there are thousands that need clearing.

And so today we are having a good day as everything settles. We started with Art on the trampoline, ie pavement chalk and they jump and draw.

Then we moved onto maths, reading. Our spelling lesson turned into a maths lesson.

When we were out the other day Mr I found an acronym when were out the other day and wanted to know what the word was. So today we learnt about how to make acronyms. But then as we were using scrabble tiles to do it, things led into a lesson on addition. I expected the lesson to end with making up silly ones and Mr I needing to listen to the beginning sounds.

Then we moved onto some craft making I think stars from the latest CSIRO magazine.

Our day will end with swimming lessons.









And yes Mud Dad who helped create the sheet is a little bit silly

How Mr N our preschooler joined in on the lesson