Frodo loves Minecraft and really enjoys playing in creative mode.  He's got a 'thing' for Sonic the Hedgehog games at the moment,  so he had to find a picture of Sonic, then he split his screen and recreated it in Minecraft.  He did a pretty darn good job of it, if I do say so myself.. and was very pleased with himself.  The kid loves drawing, and loves creating digital 'drawings' as well!


The latter part of this week has been pretty slack... we have had Merry & Sam home since Wednesday with a pretty nasty cough, fever, and just general BLAHness.  Sam has actually been quite the over achiever and developed croup *sigh*  so we've visited the doctor and have had oral steroids prescribed. He's still coughing & chesty, but considering how he was so bad that he coughed himself into an epic nosebleed?  I think he's MUCH better.

There has been a lot of this...

We jumped ahead in History Odyssey so that we could study the Ancient Greeks along with the Olympics (GO Aussies!) We managed to get a few lessons worth of it done this week, along with some extra reading.  He & hubby spent the better part of a morning watching Horrible Histories on dvd... omg there was MUCH laughter!  And I was stoked with how much Frodo remembered from some of the Horrible Histories books he has read.

I also got my reporting packet from the Home Education Unit this week... EEK!!!!  It's not due until November, but still @@.    So, a-sample gathering I will go!

*totally not a typical week for us!

You know,  having these amazing days with all three of my boys home is really making me remember why I love homeschooling.  It will be a little sad to pack Merry & Sam off to school again next week, despite the fact that they both love it.    Some days I wish they didn't love it so much, so we could be having more time like this.  But, I remind myself that it's all about doing what is right for the child in question... and for those two, at least right now... school seems to make them very happy.

We have actually had two weeks of fun... Art gallery visits (see previous post!),  a train trip into the city with Nana to see Ice Age 4 and wander South Bank.

The last week has been a long one.  Both Frodo & Sam had the cough a couple of days... then Merry wasn't so well (poor guy was sick on his birthday, that's just UNfair!) Then it happened, as you know it must when everyone else has had it... mum eventually succumbs.  

Not being one to do things by halves, I came down with a whopper of  a case of the flu.  Fever, chills, aches, sinusy stuff... oh yes, I had 'em all.  I'm FINALLY coming round a bit (although I confess that's due to sucking down cold & flu tablets for the last 24hrs) but it's led to a null & void week here pretty much.

Frodo & Merry were content (ok, thrilled) to get to enjoy a week with predominantly media based learning.  Frodo has gotten into TimezAttack, so he's getting a headstart on multiplication (which we'll start in about a month) and he spent a little time on skwirk and the nasa spaceplace website :)  Sam did a few lessons of Reading Eggs, and tried out his cool new file folder game.  It's matching the upper & lower case alphabet and has the added benefit of having small pictures of items that begin with that letter sound.  He quite enjoyed that one.  

Both boys watched a documentary (via computer, if I didn't mention we have a new superfast net plan with 25G worth of downloads....oh it's sheer bliss!) called Voyage to the Planets.  This was episode 3 I think, and it was Uranus & Neptune.  Something about space and small boys, but they are drawn to it like nothing else!  They both sat here in my chair and oooh'd and ahhhh'd over the amazing pictures and the interesting little tidbits of information.  

We had some particularly windy weather, and the winds obviously went fairly high because we got THIS amazing picture (well, amazing for my crappy little camera anyway lol)

  And we ALSO had a real, honest to goodness, FROST!  It was -1C very near where I live just before daybreak yesterday... BRR!!!!  It still warmed up to about 20c though, which is nice.  I was a tad worried about our little potted veggie farm, but being under cover of the veranda seems to have benefitted them and there was no harm done.  Although with Merry AND Sam trying to water... we may need to switch to growing rice???

We've had a really busy week this week, and here are a few pics of our adventures :)   I'm not going to subject by subject it as detailed this week as.. well.. I was bored by the last one LOL.  

  

Our big focus this week was all things science.  Monday the boys had Professor Jellybean science class #2, where they made freaky goo Octopi/jellyfish/THINGS lol, as well as SNOW!  The real live fake snow type stuff that they use in movies and such.  

As you can see, it was a huge hit throughout the week at home too.  Must hose down the brick wall near the patio table.. it's slathered with glitter goo!

We also did a few experiements from the Real Science Odyssey.. Mapping Uranus & defining planets.  (the mapping was a demo of how scientists know what the surface of distant planets that are covered with thick clouds is like, defining planet was learning about how scientists determined that Pluto didn't REALLY fit into the planet category)  There's also a pic here of the 'Neptune is out of order' experiment.. but my swiss cheese brain cannot remember if that was this week or last lol.  

And no, Merry did not do that graphic... but he insisted on embellishing it throughout the week ;)  We also watched part of a documentary on space, but it was too involved so we're going to iView a better one on the net later :)   

We also spent time pottering in the garden and the boys are stoked with how well things are growing..Sam is biding his time very patiently until he can steal cherry tomatos off the vine LOL. (doesn't that silverbeet look NOM NOMNOM!?!? and spring onions are 1.89 a small bunch here.. so those babies are a goldmine of savings for me!)

 There was a bit of math in there... Sam is doing a fair bit better with his skip counting by 5s.  The secret was getting him hooked in.. all that took was a handful of 5c coins!  (he LOVES coins of any kind)   Frodo was a bit more motivated with it this week.  

Frodo read a chapter or two of his Knights of the Round Table, as well as a space book Sam got with something.  

We have been in the lessons of History Odyssey on Monks in the Christian church, and Islam the last couple of weeks... enthusiasm is low as religion is not my cup of tea.  I DO want my boys to have a basic understanding of other faiths though, so that they can be tolerant and accepting... not hateful & fearful as so many people are today.  So we soldier on.  But there have been a few questions about WHY the Muslims and Christians felt the need to war over simply believing different things.    

Other than that stuff, Frodo wrote another letter to his pen pal in the U.S.  The postal service ATE the last one :(   Sam did a couple of handwriting pages and practiced a bit more on unlined paper.  For some reason he does not like lines.. his letters refuse to have anything to DO with lines actually LOL .. ne'er the two shall meet.  

And back to science hehe.. we finally got around to picking up new binders (read swiss cheese brained mum forgot) and the boys are now decking them out so we can fill them up with this years stuff.  (I say this year because since our registration changed, we are technically starting our home ed year now) 

There was also a LOT of outside time for physical activity, plus gymnastics classes on Monday and swim class on Sunday.  I've been dragging the boys outside after our formal work around 11am, even though they would much rather nag me to play on the wii.  They still manage to have fun ;)  

Art this week was finishing up their castle drawings, and in class they used shapes to draw a birdhouse and then painted it.   Frodo rather enjoyed the castle drawing more than the birdhouse lol.

 And now, Friday!  We had a celebratory 'snacky lunch' (which is rolled ham, cheese wedges, crackers, grape tomatos and cucumber slices with dip and mandarin sections)  and I have been named mum of the year.. or at least day, as I am making their fave friday fried rice and yum cha!  

Another week has flown past!    We started back to our Home Ed networks weekly activities for the term on Monday and it was very obvious how much the boys missed them over the long break! (too many public holidays on monday at the start of the term = short term! :(    Without further adieu... I'll get on with it!

Math:  Frodo worked on his multiple digit subtraction with regrouping this week.  I was a bit draggy about the math this week though, so we will probably work on it a bit more this coming week as well.  Sam is skip counting by 5s and struggling with why on earth you would want to LOL.  Tried sitting us around the table and counting by 5's  using each of our hands for a visual aid, but he still said 11? lol  So I'm going to find the skip counting songs cd and see how he goes with that.

Language arts:  Frodo - Reading comprehension lesson, Grammar Once a Week (revision for the first part of the book).  He also did a solar system grammar 're write' where there was a paragraph with no capitalization or punctuation and he had to write it correctly below it.   He did exceptionally neat work for him!  He also did a couple of pages in his cursive handwriting book.  He read two chapters of his 'Knights of the Round Table' book and the Magic Tree House 'Knights & Castles' study guide.   Sam - did a couple of episodes of Reading Eggs,  worked with his new upper & lower case alphabet matching game (made by moi) a bit, and we worked on starting sounds of words throughout the week at completely random times :)  He also did a couple of pages of his handwriting book and got up to the first section review. 

History: This week we were on Monks & the medieval Christian church.  The boys didn't really 'get' why certain countries rulers thought that everyone had to have the same religion as they did.. and I don't either really.  I simply had to tell them that sometimes things people do in history just don't make sense.  We did our reading in the Usborne encyclopedia, and Frodo read his Knights of the Round Table chapter, and answered a couple of questions about what he read. (his comprehension has come a LONG way this year!)   For our history craft of the week, we made illuminated letters like the medieval monks did in their monasteries, as well as decorated a peice of notepaper with patterned borders.

Science: Busy week science wise around the Hobbit home!   I finally went and purchased the Earth & Space Real Science Odyssey from Pandiapress.com, to go along with our studies this year.  While I did work out our plan for the year and we'll be sticking to that, I decided I liked some of the activites in their free preview enough that I wanted to add it to our program :)  This week we studied Neptune and how it is SOMETIMES the 8th planet but for 20 out of 248yrs, Pluto skips in line and Neptune becomes the 9th.  We also learned about Pluto and how it USED to be a planet, but was demoted a few years ago and is now a dwarf planet.

The exercises were just great, and the kids enjoyed doing the 'experiments' and filling out their Lab reports!  They've asked if we can do a few of the activities for the planets we have already covered... who am I to say no to kids asking for science?? lol  

They also had their first Professor Jellybean class (see previous post!) and the kids LOVED IT!  And we watched 'Our Earth' on ABC kids, the subject was plate tectonics, continental drift and volcanos.  Frodo was riveted so that was a success.

Lote/Sose:  ABC program on Hindi wedding traditions...very interesting stuff. 

Art:  Class with Miss Liz on Monday was their first drawing class.. the boys had a bit of trouble at first, getting back into the routine.  Frodo left class well before it was over *sigh*, and Sam was a bit confused and ended up with an unrecognizable castle lol.  SO, I chatted with Liz and got the low down on what the goal was and the boys & I sat down Friday and repeated the project.  The idea was to use basic rectangle & squares, putting them together to create a castle.  The boys cut templates then positioned & traced them.  THEN the fun of embellishing by adding knights and scenery and DRAGONS began!

Health & PE:  Gymnastics class for both on Monday, MUCH scooter riding outside.  Merry had HIS very first tots gymnastics class as reported earlier, hoping it goes a little better this week lol. 

Other stuff  :D  We baked our favouite eggy pies this week and Frodo did ALL the grating (except the cheese which is too hard he says.. and I agree lol), we planted the last of our seedlings and the boys have been doing the daily watering and checking for bugs etc..  Merry had playgroup and enjoyed hanging out with the other kids, riding bikes, doing puzzles and playing with lego.  

'Twas a short week here, as Strider had Monday off for a public holiday.  We still managed to pack plenty in to the week though!  

Math:  Frodo worked on 2 digit subraction with regrouping/borrowing, he seemed to catch on pretty well, but needs more practice to reinforce the idea that you MUST write down what you borrowed straight away or you'll forget it ;)  Sam was on skip counting by 10s, oddly enough he did not catch on to this as well as he did the 2's or 5's!  So we'll work on it a bit more this week by playing the skip counting cd  and finding things that come in 10's to count.

Language arts:  Frodo did a Reading Comp exercise on summarizing, learned the i_e spelling words (which he's really way ahead of, but the book also has him do other activities with those words so he enjoys it), and Grammar once a week pages about Homophones and what a simple sentence must have. 

Both boys did work in their handwriting workbooks, and Sam & I made a game for matching upper & lower case alphabet letters.  

Science:  This week it was Saturn and Uranus, and their respective parts of our lapbook project.  The boys were fascinated to learn that if you found a bathtub or ocean big enough, Saturn would actually FLOAT!  And that if you put Saturn (including it's rings) between the Earth & moon.. it would barely fit!  Frodo did a solar system word search as well.. he loves those things :)

SOSE/History:  Frodo started reading the chapter book "Knights of the Round Table"  and answering comprehension questions after the chapters.  It's not a long book so he should finish it in the coming week.  We read a bit more about Emperor Justinian and his Code of Laws, and Frodo copied one into his history notebook.  We moved on to Charlemagne and HIS laws... which were not quite so equally applied to the poor Romans. (Frodo was very indignant about that!) and Frodo did his map for the lesson.

Arts:  Frodo made his particularly awesome castle, and both boys made Illuminated style letters ala the Middle ages.  Frodo did almost all of his letter, but Sam wanted me to draw the letter form for him and let him do the colouring in and embelleshing.   The boys also made me a stunning mothers' day card while having a sleepover at their Nana's house on Friday night :) She pulled out all the stops and gave them a ton of scrapbooking bits & peices and they had a great time!

Health & Physical Ed:  Swim lessons on Saturday this week, a LOT of time out in the yard as the weather was lovely the latter half of the week, kicking the soccer ball around the park with their Uncle & cousins at the park.

Not sure how that happened?  Doesn't SEEM like a week since I posted, I'm a very naughty blogger I guess ;)  It's been a pretty mellow week here, although a fair bit was accomplished.

Frodo's week 

Maths:  Frodo completed lesson 20 of MUS Beta, multiple digit subtraction (not regrouping yet) as well as how to check his answers for accuracy.  He did 3 lesson pages during the week & a systematic review.. just 'cause he likes those :)  

Language arts:  Grammar once a week - was on how to begin questions (ie, what words usually start a question);  Catching on to Comprehension was on classifying this week and had him classifying pets by various characteristics.  Spelling matters was the beginning of the 'magic e' words (a_e words).  The spelling was a bit easy for him but he got a bit of a challenge out of the extension activities though ;) 

Frodo also wrote a letter to his penpal on the weekend using his flash new dragon stationery and posted it off Monday.  He did a couple of pages of his cursive writing workbook as well.

With our history study for the week he did a couple of word activities, a word unscramble and a castle themed alphabetizing worksheet.  

Sam's week

Maths:  Sam did lesson 20 in his MUS Primer this week, he really could have gone ahead to 21 half way through the week but he enjoyed doing the review pages.  This lesson was on adding hundreds (100+200=) and he blew it out of the water by Wednesday.  Sam has a thing with coins lately, and did a bit of practice adding money as well (a 50c coin plus a 10c coin is 60c)

Language arts:  He did a few lessons of Reading Eggs this week, as well as a starting sounds activity (castle themed to go with history hehe) and got probably half correct.  Not the best, but a good start, so we'll keep working on that.  I printed out a nifty uppercase/lowercase alphabet matching game and I may print out some beginning sounds pictures to put on back of the cards before I laminate them.  (The typical A=apple, etc) 

Sam did a couple of pages of handwriting practice in his workbook and also spent a lot of time writing 'notes' to me (mainly drawing love hearts and writing his name hehehe...but very sweet and any practice is something!)

All Of Us 

History:  We read a chapter of Story of the World about the Glory of Rome, and had a lesson in Roman Numerals.     Our main history reading for the week was   'Adventures in the Middle Ages'  and it was a great book that the kids thoroughly enjoyed.   We also had porridge for breakfast, as that was a pretty typical Medieval times fare for your average villager.  The boys also poured over their new 'See Inside Castles' book about a zillion times.  I tell you, seeing what's under the flap will never bore my boys lol.  

Our craft for the week was getting a start on the boys Medieval style costumes.   The basis of those is going to be dark long pants, dads 'hippie' shirt (loose Indian cotton with toggles) and a belt.   Everything else we will be making with instructions from Days of Knights & Damsels.     This week was our peasants pocket (they didn't have pockets built into clothes, so they wore external pockets on their belt!)

Science:   We read our books on Jupiter this week, and worked on catching up on our lapbook mini books.  We did the Jupiter one, plus a few other ones that we had run out of time for last week.    I found a cool constellation activity, on Draco even (keeping with the history theme lol, even if on accident!), that the boys did and they also spent a fair bit of time on THIS website.  Lots of great educational games, animations and info pages courtesy of Nasa!  

Merry's week

Merry spent as much time outside as he could possibly get this week.   He's a much happier kid when he gets a few hours of outdoor time every day, so this works for me.   He's still loving his dragon games that I made for him and plays them for a while each day.  There was play doh (which took about .13seconds to draw the big brothers from where they were at) that was enjoyed by all.  He did a lot of drawing with colour pencils this week, and coloured in on a planet picture.  He will be a Picasso when he grows up as he has zero regards for 'the lines' and the idea of staying in them (not that I encourage it really ;) and just gleefully fills his paper with colour.   

I tried a nursery rhyme with him (Three Blind Mice) but he immediately started saying don't sing! stop singin!  as he always does LOL.  It doesn't matter what we sing, he does.not.like.IT!  I don't think my voice is THAT bad!

Next week will be a shorty, as Strider has a 3day weekend! (yay for 3 days off.. boo for not getting paid for that day LOL)   We'll have a 4 day wrap, but I'm sure there will be plenty going on in the Hobbit Household to share!

Squeeking in here at the 11th hour on Sunday night to post our weekly wrap up ;)    We had a fairly busy week, no days out this week as our home ed network is still on break between terms, so we got a lot of stuff accomplished.

Math:   Frodo & Sam both did lesson 19 of their MUS (Frodo's was on rounding, estimating and adding up to the 10thousands place with regrouping  ... Sam's was skip counting by 10's which he grasped really well.)

Language Arts:  Frodo learned about synonyms and statements vs questions in Grammar once a week (he already knew the latter but synonyms were new), using context clues to work out what a word or phrase means in Reading comprehension and did a LOT of reading.  He also wrote a fairly long letter (for an 8yr old) to his pen pal in the US.    

Sam did several lessons of  Reading Eggs, but when he got to lesson 10 he didn't pass the 'quiz' to go to the next map so he's doing the first lessons again :)  Which is fine by him, he enjoys them!   I'm going to be printing him out a 'moveable alphabet' so he & I can work together on cvc words and such as well. 

Science:  This week we started a rockin' lap book project to go along with our Solar System study!  I've been a bit lukewarm about lapbooks in the past, but now that the kids are able to do more of the cutting and such, it's MUCH less tedious for me! lol  You can find the 'space explorers' lapbook project FREE here!  I've linked her main lapbook page, because there are several more.  Some of them have more religious content than others (the space one has none) but all in all they are fabulously put together!  And FREE, which we love right? ;)  

 Here's a shot of the lap book thus far.  We've done the 'inner' planets as well as the books on the sun, stars as we've studied them already.. and one on the moon phases that the boys had to do.  Good little luna loving boys that they are ;) 

Sam will tell you that it supplies heat & light, of COURSE MUM. lol  (sun mini book)

 

Sam was very proud of his answer to this last one one... he probably could have written it, but he thought it was MUCH more fun to draw it ;) (the pics show it closed and then with all four 'points' opened)

History/ SOSE:  Our books for Medieval times finally arrived, as I posted earlier in the week (well, still waiting on one straggler!) We got stuck into reading the intro to the Middle ages, about castles & knights and had a brief look at Roman Numerals.  We'll review those here & there as we see them (clocks etc).  We watched a documentary called "Ancient Mysteries: Lost Castles of England"  which was about the Motte & bailey castles of the early 500yrs or so of the middle ages.   The boys were fascinated that there used to be WOODEN castles!  I also printed them out a Motte & bailey castle colouring page to occupy their hands while I read aloud,  that was a big hit.  Sam added knights to the tops of the towers on his castle hehehe.   

Art:  Nothing formal here this week, but there was lots of drawing and such going on as usual :) Sam has worked out how to draw a very nice love heart, and has delivered many to me sealed inside secret messages lol.  

Preschool:   This week Mr. Merry joined in a bit, he had his very own simple castle colouring page which he loved, and he built with the '25s' (what he calls the math u see blocks).  The big love of his life this week, is his new dragon & castle shape matching game, which I posted about yesterday ;)  I'll be adding to that repertoire as I find cool stuff that he'll enjoy!

And that's a wrap!

The last week has been UNbelievably busy in the Hobbit house!  We only had 3 days worth of 'formal' school time this week, as we had the last of our art & gymnastics classes for the term on Monday and then Friday was our ALL day long excursion to Dreamworld & Whitewater World!  We still squeezed a fair bit in there though :)

Math:  We had our M&M math graphing lesson, which was an EPIC hit.    The boys also spent a bit of time on Mathletics & Rainforest maths, and there was plenty of daily 'incidental' practice (especially for Sam)  Frodo wowwed me with his money skills on Mathletics! 

Language Arts:   Sam did a bit of Reading eggs and we practiced the sounds he's covered with flash cards (the cards have a picture on them and he has to say the word, concentrating on the starting sound and match it to the letter that makes the sound).  Frodo had a reading comprehension lesson (fantasy vs. factual writings), as well as worked through Grammar once a weeks' next lesson (which was on making plural by adding s).  Both boys did a bit of handwriting practice also.

SOSE/History:  For history, we covered the last of our lessons in ancient history, which was the Aztec/Inca.  Frodo did his vocabulary definition and map work (his favourite part of the whole thing) After learning that the Ancients in the Americas were a whizz with gold/metalsmithing, the boys created their own  Aztec pendant.  (very simple project involving rolling out a 5mm thick slab of play dough, playing a circle of foil on it and 'embossing' your design in with a pencil just hard enough not to poke thru the foil.  Then wrapping the foil over a circular peice of cardboard.)  They were pretty proud of their projects, but I could not get a pic to save my life.  Reflecty foil and all that :P    We also watched a documentary on Machu Pichu, to wrap up the unit.  

Sose this week was mainly online ;)  Our Skwirk memberships came through so the boys have been after me to get on it a lot.. so I gave them a list of which things to do and turned them loose.  Sam learned about community and family groups and Frodo learned about Australia.  He named all of the states & territories (including the ACT, which I  ALWAYS forget lol) and created his own word search using terms from the reading..

Science:  We finished up the rocky planets this week, with Mars.  Sam has decided Mars is his favourite now.  The boys both made 'books' from enchanted learning.  Frodos was quite a big book and had a couple of quiz questions on bottom of each page,  Sams was a simpler book, with big lines for handwriting practice.  They learned Mars has 2 very small moons, is about half the size of Earth (boy I hope I remembered that right LOL, bad form if I did not!) and is considered the most Earth like planet.  They thought it particularly cool that scientsists think that over time they could actually create an atmosphere and humans could possibly live there! (this would obviously take a VERY long time lol)  We also caught a program on ABC about Stars and Space that was very interesting.

Art:   Monday was our last art class with Miss Liz, until May.  Frodo created a 3d face sculptured plaque, which Liz will fire and have ready for them to paint next term.  Sam made portrait prints using his very cool 3d face 'stamper', which was made last week. I don't have pics of the prints, but I do have a pic of the stamper!  Isn't he CUTE!?  I had to help him with some of the cutting, as parts of it are done with heavy upholstery fabric. But he did all the selecting, placing & gluing of parts.  He even came up with a decent way to make a nose :)    

HPE:   Gymnastics class finished up on Monday for the term as well.   One day this week, the boys built an 'obstacle' course around the backyard using plastic stepping stones and other bits for zigging, zagging and balancing on.  Friday we walked like umptymillion miles.. sorry kilometres.. around Dreamworld!  

Technology:   Both boys spent a bit of time on skwirk, Reading eggs and here.  Lots of great learning activities and games there.  

I suppose I should have put this in science ;), but that felt oddly organized for me, so it is going here!  We had our excursion to Dreamworld/Whitewater World on Friday.  All in all, the day went fairly smoothly... the boys had a safari talk where they got to see a Ringtail possum  and a Children's python.  (scroll down a little bit for that one, interesting that it's name is NOT for the reasons you'd think!)  Mery was stoked as he got to pat Kangaroos and drive an antique car (on a track.. and with help reaching pedals lol)  We also got to see a rather LARGE saltwater crocodile in an enclosure that rather squicked dh out by how CLOSE we were.  Until I reminded him that croc's cannot fly, nor can they climb glass walls ;)

After the educational part of the day was done, we had FUN, and lots of it!  Bumper cars were ridden, as was the Big Red Car in Wiggles World, and remote control crocodiles were cruised around.  The kiddie water slides were a big hit, as was the Nickelodeon water play 'thing'.. I have no idea WHAT to call it... but it was a massive, multi-level waterplayground!  There were water cannons, dumping buckets, sprayers and every so often, a HUGE bucket at the very top would DUMP about 1000litres of water down on everyone below lol.  There were also cool waterslides off each side that the kids loved.

Merry's favourite was Wiggle Bay, which was basically a shallow pool (deepest about .5m) with water sprayers and a few waterslides for the younger set.  Frodo was quite put out when they wouldn't let him slide down because he was too tall!

Of this excellent and adventurous day, I have zero photos!  When we got there, we discovered that the memory card was NOT in the camera.. I'd left it in the sd reader on my computer when I emptied it for the trip!  And I was SO organized otherwise! lol  We did take a few on our mobile phones, but haven't found the cord to upload them yet. 

A great week, but I'm totally looking forward to a bit of a break!  We have a friend up from Sydney at the end of the week so we'll probably have just over a week off.  I'll try to pop by blogs then, and maybe blog hop on Monday, but otherwise it may be quiet here at Hobbit central.

Ok, so I am SERIOUSLY slack about doing my weekly wrap ups on Fridays.. but at least I AM doing them right? lol   And this week it's ONLY Saturday night, not Sunday evening ;)   One of these days, I'll post this on Friday night and the world might just blink out of existence!  We had 1-1.5days off due to food poisoning ripping  through the house, but the rest of the week was pretty productive.

Math:  Both boys did a couple of pages of review on their lesson 18 in MUS.  Frodo is working on column adding up to the 1000's place as well as rounding and estimating.  He's having a bit of trouble with carrying 10's to the next place *immediately* and he forgets to.  So I figured a bit of review was good :)   He also spent a fair bit of time on Mathletics and did really well with it.  Lots of money skills came up through his questions and he did GREAT with them!

Sam is working on adding 10's (as in 10+ 50=60.. with MUS that reads 1T + 5T= 6T or onety + five-ty = sixty) Sam and I also practiced his skip counting by 2's by singing the skip counting song from MUS and by counting coins.  After he counted them, he identified them as well.   

Merry has been watching 'Count Us In', which is an ABC program with muppets all about counting.  He loves it and counts all day long after it's been on lol. 

Language arts:  Frodo did his Catching on to Comprehension all by himself this week, cause & effect was the theme this week.  He also did Grammar Once a Week and Spelling matters as well. He's been doing a fair bit of our reading for history & science as well as reading small amounts of The Belgariad to Sam in the evenings.   He did a couple of his cursive handwriting workbook pages independently as well.  I intended to get around to having him write a new letter to his pen pal, as the last one got coffee spilled on it before it was mailed and DH forgot to inform me that he'd had to throw it out!  (sorry Liz, I didn't know it never went out!)  We'll get on that tomorrow afternoon or Monday after art! 

Sam went through a couple of lessons on Reading Eggs and he and I worked on the letter sounds he's covered so far.  But honestly, he's only half getting it.  I'm thinking he's just not the cerebral type and might be a little later of a reader.  Which is just fine with me because he's pretty on target everywhere else!   He finished a couple of handwriting pages as well, and practiced on his whiteboard.

Science:   This week we read up on Mars, which Sam has decided is his FAVOURITE planet.  I'm quite surprised by that actually, as orange is his favourite colour so I thought the orangy yellow of Venus would win his heart lol.  Frodo is still working on his tab book as well, each page has mini quizzes about the planet in question that he does as we get to it.  Science was light this week as Tuesday is usually a science day and we were dying.

History:  This week it was reading on the Aztecs and Olmecs, the ancient cultures in the Americas (both north & south).  For some reason we did NOT get the map work or vocabulary definition done, so those will roll over to Tuesday or Wednesday coming up.  At the moment we are just wrapping up the Ancients so that in a couple of weeks we can start Medieval history! Now THAT is something I can't wait to get into!   

Art:  The boys both had their art class on Monday and finished up their self portraits!  They are really good, especially as their first art ever actually of a face :)   They were quite proud of them and i think I may find some inexpensive frames and hang them up.  

I'm not sure what the second part of Frodo's class was.. but I know Miss Liz had clay!  So I'm sure they'll get into that this week.  Sam started a printing project.  It's another portrait, this time done in 3d with fabric samples and twine and buttons.. and well, just about anything else bumpy or lumpy!  This week they will roller paint onto it and 'print' it in their art books.  The goal is to do several prints in different colours ala Andy Warhol sorta!  

This is Frodo's self portrait.   With a bit of an abstract background going on there.  He did quite good, his only issue was that his ears appear to be up a TAD high on his head hehehe.  But a VERY good first go at a realistic face!  

Sam's portrait is all dressed up in a police costume and looking awesome.  In the pic up there, he's busy giving himself hair.

Health & PE:   Gymnastics class on Monday.  Both boys went very well in their classes, but you can tell the teacher is not happy to be teaching the classes :(   This monday is the last class for the term, and in May when the kids start up again (long break unfortunately!) they will have a teacher with a lot more experience dealing with kids.  ALso swim class on Sunday morning,  Sam is ALMOST ready to move up to the same class as Frodo yet again!  Frodo moves up and I think it motivates Sam to bust his butt to catch up! lol

Social stuff:   Tons of time on the playground before & after Monday classes with their mates. Trip into the shops to hang out & have a bakery treat and visit the playground there.  The boys also had their cousin over for a small birthday celebration and spent time introducing her to their pet rats hehehe. 

ICT/Technology:  Both boys used their various online membership websites (mathletics, rainforest maths, Reading eggs) They also played a bit of wii as Sam got a very cool new underwater diving game for his birthday.   And a bit of Age of Mythology was played as well hehe.

I know there is more I'd usually write here, but it's been a busy day & my brain is frazzled.  So I got nothin' people.  

***Apologizing in advance for the horrid formatting on this post!  It did not look like this in the post preview so I have no idea what version of computer crack blogger is into tonight.  I also apologize that I am just too darn tired to be bothered trying to fix it :(  And I simply promise to try not to do it again! lol

FINALLY, back to normal!  We've sorta slipped back into our groove this week, after our run of illness.  It's nice to have a little bit of routine back in the house!   

Monday was our weekly day out with our local homeschool group for art & gymnastics (for some reason I have no pics of those this week)  The boys started work on their culminating project of Self Portraits!    They did really well for not being there for 2 weeks of how to do faces.  I can't say that their portraits look much like THEM... but they DO look like people lol.  They are really quite cool.  I'll post pics to share after they complete them.   Gymnastics went well, the instructor has sitting duck syndrome I think, there were... issues... and the classes for our group will be done by a different coach next term.  I think in the end it's an issue of maturity and the ability to work with groups of children.. that's something you either have or you don't.   The boys had a great time hanging out on the playground despite it being a tad dreary! 

We also had a couple of days of NICE weather, so there was a bit of THIS!!!  The boys were stoked to get outside.   That's Merry stomping along side his stepping stones while announcing what colour each one is lol.. and Sam is scoping out the cucumber plant to see if there are any snacks in the making there (not today).   Merry has been getting into doing a few little activities while brothers do school... check out his 'man' that he made with the tap a shape!  he had no help at all and did a pretty decent job of it.  He was none to happy about having a photo taken though lol.

Then we filled in the middle of our week with typical schoolwork..

Frodo's week:  Math U see lesson 18 (estimating & adding into the thousands .. with regrouping), Grammar once a week (commas and to, too, two!) which he zipped through.  In reading comprehension he learned about predicting outcomes and did really well with that lesson.  He really enjoys the book I picked out for that.  He reads exceptionally well, but I think has a bit of an issue with comprehension so we're concentrating on it to help him ENJOY what he reads more!  He did a fun spelling exercise as well, all the words were easy for him but he got a lot out of the enrichment part for sure.  He poked around on Mathletics as well, always a hit. 

Sam's week:  He also did MUS lesson 18 (adding 10's) and some skip counting by 2's practice with the cd of songs :D.  He did a few pages of his handwriting practice book... and his q's were awesome if he did say so himself lol.  Reading eggs was done a few times, and enjoyed.  A bonus is that the lessons dont' SEEM so long (even if they actually are) because they are broken up into different sections.  

Together we read a book about the Earth! for science.. we're heading for Mars next week.  We were supposed to get there today, but with the sickies last week our scheduled got bumped ahead.  This week we had our extra curricular day, so all other Friday activities were skipped!  So we stopped at Earth for now.    In history we did the mapwork for Ancient Africa and started on the Aztecs & ancient America.

Today, Friday, was our fortnightly extra curricular day with our distance ed group.  It was a great day for it, although mother nature kept trying to blow my gardening magazine out of my hand lol.  The kids had a  'Hands on Maths' Workshop in the morning, and OH my what a hit that was!  Sam was VERY upset when their hour was up because he was enjoying the math games so much that he wasnt' ready to be done!   It's been alleged that he tried to slip back in for another go, but he vehemently denied it and got very upset that someone suggested he didn't do what he was supposed to!   Not that we'd have been upset at all... who can get angry at a kid that WANTS to do more math!!!! hehehe  They also had dance & played outdoor group games.  Oh, and snacked... A LOT!  I swear they want to create the impression that I am not feeding them except on those days ;)

In no particular order, here are pics of the boys fave stuff from the maths workshop today!

   

 The big news this week, is that I'm done with kindy.  Merry has attended twice a week for about a year now (although he missed a LOT due to my bad health last year!), mainly to make my life a little easier as the bigger two needed a lot of help 'getting' the group activities thing when we were out.   But it's become very apparent that he's not liking it as much as he was at the start.. he throws almighty fits when dropped off and has now started  not eating much at all when there.  (ALL of this is new stuff, so please don't think I'd have him there for a year that upset!) 

SO starting the first of April, he'll be home pre-schooling hehe.  The group we do our art & gymnastics with is adding activities for the little ones and the distance ed group has a story hour at the library (our days are held at the same park as the library) for the little ones as well!  So hopefully the activities will be enough fun that he'll not feel left out.   I hope he'll be happier to go along (and not throw a tantrum) if he has his own 'school'  So stay tuned for updates on that! 

And with that, this very tired mama is signing off... I hear my pillow calling me.

This will be short & sweet, because due to everyone being sick (and mum utterly sleep deprived) for the entire last week, sweet bugger all got done!    

Math... I think both boys got one page of a Math U see lesson done, and they checked out our new subscription to Mathletics and Rainforest maths .  Frodo is up to estimating and adding in the thousands and Sam just did adding doubles, 4+4, 5+5  =)

Language.. Our subscriptions to Reading Eggs also came through, so the boys both had a go at this. Even though it said they had levels for up to grade 3/4, I'm thinking it's a bit easy for Frodo.  He enjoys the games though ;)  Sam really likes it, I'm thinking he enjoys it more than Headsprout even, so we may let it take over from that.  Frodo did the high temp & headache thing so he wasn't really up for a good deal of reading so we gave it a miss.

Sose.. we watched a documentary dvd called 'The Kimberly:  Land of the Wandjina'  as a family, I think dh & I enjoyed it more than the kids lol, but they stuck it out with us.  

History.. none this week.

Science..  We did read a couple of our solar system books during the week, and the boys are in love with one of the Usborne books (it has lift up flaps, what's not to love?).  They spent a bit of time on the couch flipping through it with  Frodo reading the captions to Sam & Merry.  

ICT.. the boys spent a bit of time on the web, when they were feeling better (thanks to nurofen for sure), navigating web sites, playing games and doing other activities.

There was also a fair bit of lego building, with a lot of intricate designs that were quite impressive.  And mum baked yummy things, but booted the sickies out of the kitchen for health & hygiene reasons!  Maybe next week boys ;)

Everyone SEEMS much much better, although Frodo still had a headache earlier today, he hasn't complained any this evening!  So I have high hopes that we will make it to our Monday art & gymnastics classes tomorrow, which would be nice since we had to miss 2 weeks now.   

This coming week, we'll be back to it.  I'm not going to try to 'catch up'.. we're just going to move last weeks' plan ahead a week and call it good.  I don't think trying to do twice as much in a week will do any of the kids any good, and honestly, being able to take time without pressure when we're sick is a huge bonus of homeschooling!     

I rather like this week of learning thing, because even though I may have posted about something during the week... it's rather nice to see it all lumped together.  It shows how much we REALLY do, even when we don't seem to be doing much at all. 

This has been a slightly wonky week, with Sam having the horrible coughing illness, but we managed to get a bit done.   (more on that cough later) Both boys went through a lesson of their respective levels of Math U See, they both were on lesson 17 this week.  I think Sam & I may work on skip counting by 2's for a little longer though, he still has to work it out each time.   Merry got in on the '25s', as he calls numbers/math, by stamping and stacking MUS blocks :)

Sam did a couple of pages of his handwriting workbook, he rather enjoys it, but his FAVE way to practice is still on his whiteboard.   I figure it saves a few trees as well ;)  He also plowed through a couple of episodes of Headsprout and after his next lesson gets a new book, always exciting!

 He was working on A's and D's this week, and not doing too bad at all... he is pointing out his personal best A there with a big cheeky grin.   That was on Monday...as the week has gone on, he has gotten a bit paler and has bags under his eyes now.  I'm sure I do as well, as when he wakes up panicing because he can't catch a breath from coughing... so do I!  And you can bet it takes a LOT longer for me to relax and go back to sleep than it does him!!

History wise, we read a bit about ancient Africa and checked out the Usborne internet links for those pages of our book.  The boys always like those.  They also played some Age of Mythology .. ok, so they were the Egyptians, close enough ;)  

In science, we've been learning about the solar system.  So far we've learned a bit about the Sun, Mercury & Venus.   The kids are finding it very interesting and have been poring over a couple of the books we got from the library for ages.  Frodo is making a solar system 'tab book' from Enchanted Learning as we go along.   Just today I found a free lapbook for the solar system & space here.   The site itself contains a bit of religious content (just an fyi), but the space lapbook is just awesome.  It does NOT however, come with the answers ;).  However it IS based on the Magic School Bus books, which is what we are using as a jumping point for our science.   So all the answers will be easily found in the books I'd guess.   Now just must get a toner cartridge for this uselessly empty printer of mine!   

Anway, the kids are loving the info on the planets.  And I often catch myself thinking how much it's changed since I was a kid learning about the solar system (we now have 11 planets, counting the dwarf planets!)  There's also a bit of Mythology/ancient religions thrown in there because we are learning about the God/desses that the planets are named for and WHY each planet earned the name it has.  (Venus scored that title because it was, and still is, thought to be the brightest most beautiful object in the heavens.)  

Frodo has gone through another week of language arts using Grammar once a week, Catching on to comprehension and Spelling Matters.  So far it all seems to be review for him though.  And we were pretty darn slack with our First Language Lessons last year even lol.   He has to really work at some parts of the Comprehension, not because he doesn't comprehend what he read... but because when they ask what do YOU think (or something that requires his own, personal answer) he doesn't quite know what to do!  He is getting a bit better though.  

Sam was pretty bummed that he didn't get to go to swimming lessons today, but he's just not well (I've had to break twice during writing this to tend to him while he coughed his poor little guts up)  So we played some games on this site to lessen the blow a bit ;)  Nothing like a bit of coveted computer time without big brother showing you up lol.   There was actually a bit of learning stuck in there, completely by accident, honest.  He stumbled on a game about internet safety and did very well until I came along and messed it up!  

We are lucky enough to have a medical clinic that has after hours coverage, so I called this morning and we had a doctor here by 3pm.  Yep, a doctor came to our house.  On Sunday.  AND apologized for taking so long!  *waits for those who have fainted to right themselves*   She had a good look & listen to Sams' chest, down his throat etc, and deemed that he does NOT have Pertussis (apparently crackles & wheezes in the chest are not typical with that.. and he does have those) but that it's rather just an annoying chest infection.  WOOT, we'll take a chest infection over a major communicable disease anyday thank you!  So, tomorrow morning I have to drag the boys out to take Merry to kindy and then we hit the chemist to pick up drugs. 

These cutie pies miss Sam something shocking.  Rats are very susseptible to respiratory illnesses, so he's had to keep his distance this week!  That's Itty (in profile) and Bitty (facing camera.. and really wondering if it was edible I'm sure).   They pine for him when he walks past the cage, it's really kinda sad!  So the mummy human makes up for it by giving them bits of apple.   They won't like me so much soon, because someone is smelling a bit on the nose, and I see a bath in their immediate future lol.  

And boy was it!   I thought I'd follow suit with a couple of the blogs I like to read regularly, and share what we got up to this week.  We have had a really busy week starting on Monday with our Home ed network art & gymnastics classes and finishing up today with our extra curricular day!

Well, it's not REALLY finishing up today, because tomorrow it's off to Nana's for a birthday/anniversary cake and afternoon tea, followed by a sleepover (I think mum has ALL 5 grandkids for the night, she's either brave or crazy!).  On Sunday we're meeting them at a cousins house where the kids will have a swim and hang out with family before we head home.  So yeah.. no rest for the wicked until after Monday here lol.  

Blogger is being shonky today, and not letting me format my pics well.. so bear with me :)  The distance education 'school' arranged for the RSPCA to be on site for our students with their EMU..which is not, as you would naturally assume, a giant flightless bird... but is their Educational Mobile Unit.  Basically a big trailer that is all fitted out with computers,   and hands on games and materials for learning all about animal welfare and safety.  

  Here's Sam and Frodo being 'vets'  and taking care of the stuffed animals.  Sam is using a handheld scanner to see if this kitty has a microchip, and got very excited when the scanner gave him a response.  This is about the only pic of Frodo today as the rest of the time he was at a computer playing the games and totally zones out lol.  

 This activity was all about native animals and invasive species that are non native to Australia.  There were a selection of plastic animals and four 'habitiats'.  The idea was for the kids to place the animals where you should expect to find them.. and those that don't belong here at all and damage our environment (like the fox & rabbit).  Sam had a good time with this and a couple of other matching activities.

 Here is Sam rescuing the kitten that is stuck in the pipes using a little mirror and peeking in.  He was triumphant when he reached in and pulled out a cute little stuffed grey kitty.  I was shocked that he didn't take advantage of the 'costumes' (work shirts) on the hooks by the pipe lol.

 Due to Monday and Friday being away days, we had just 3 days worth of 'school' time.  We still got a fair bit done.  There was reading comprehension, grammar & spelling for Frodo...as well as Math and handwriting.  And Sam worked on his handwriting and Headsprout phonics :)  As a group, we worked on our Ancient China study.    The boys learned about Chinese numbers and calligraphy, the Great Wall of China, along with things about what the average Chinese persons day would have been like.  In our history pocket the boys made a Chinese lantern chain with the numbers & pronounciations on them.  They're loving 'counting' their way across the shelf in another language.

 And Sam actually did more than just a quick scribble .. he actually stuck with it through all the colouring, cutting, and gluing.  Kudos kiddo!   Here's the finished product of the entire chain.  Yes, someone in this house is a serious Raymond E. Fiest fan, if you look closely lol.  This expedit shelf actually houses most of our school 'books' (there are other materials here and there all over the house.. in the linen cupboard, in the dining room hutch, in the computer room and garage even!) So I thought I'd share a little peek.   There's a little bit of adult stuff there, 1 cube of Fiest and one of Eddings, but otherwise this is all the kids domain.  There are math manipulatives, puzzles, felt boards, crayons, pencils, scissors, glue and such in the baskets.  Up on the top row of cubes is where we keep our library books, so we can always find them.. and so Merry (who hasn't yet learned the idea of gentle with books @@) cannot damage them.   He still gets to read them... just with mum or brothers 'helping'.  He has his own cube with his 'that's not my' books and his own crayons drawing pad.

   On the very top of the unit is my prized collection of handpainted Christmas cottages... personally created by yours truly and a very dear friend of mine over 10yrs ago.  They are super special to me, so they are out year round, but I would like ot find another 'home' for them around here somewhere!  The solar system is due to start sprouting on the top of these shelves any week now, so having the sun parked next to the soda shop might not work out so well! ;)   

Just in front of the shelves is a nice area that I'm hoping the rug  mum bought us for our anniversary fits in th at part of the room so that it can become a nice cosy reading area.  I'd like a couple of big floor pillows for that corner as well.  I'm repurposing a picture frame or two that have been gathering dust in my closet as well.  I plan to put some of the boys masterpeices from art class in them to really cozy up the corner, and make it 'their own.