ADVICE FROM THE KIDS

THIS WAS ALWAYS GOING TO BE INTERESTING ......

I decided I would as the kids (yes, ask the kids .. yikes) about the things they really enjoyed in the timetable this term, things they would like to include for the next term, any changes they would like to see, and outsourced things they would like to include for term four.  There are the surprising results!

Things they LIKE

Spelling each morning (I know ... right!)
Handwriting (what!)
Science (saw that coming a mile away)
Visual Sequencing (have loved it right from the beginning)
Baking (who doesn't!)
Famous New Zealanders (social studies topic this term, totally rapt about their enthusiasm for this!)

Things they want to CHANGE

More art (fair enough)
More trips (who doesn't!)
Time for working on their Cub and Kea Badges (very responsible)
More fun things (aye yeah, we all do my lovely)
More science (again could see this coming from a mile away)
Baking every week (again who doesn't)
Athletics hour down at Rautawhiri (this has come as a great surprise)
Computer time for each child (definitely)
A change to the good behaviour crosses, they want computer time at the end of each week instead of the treat at the end of term (impressive, I can definitely go with this)
1 and 1/4 hour for Lunch (... ok .... needs some timetable thought)
Start school earlier (REALLY ... ARE YOU SERIOUS .... this is one item that surprisingly needs some consideration, we start at 9.15 which seems a good time as none of us are really morning people apart from Daddy and he doesn't count for this one and I rely on the time before school starts to do ALL my jobs ... thinking required!)

Things they want to do OUTSIDE HOME ACTIVITIES

POLLYANNA
long jump (really)
Swimming (no surprise here people)
Keas (again no surprise)
Tennis (not sure if this is because Ben brought it up or there is interest here)

BENJAMIN
Tennis (ok)
Swimming (really is anyone surprised)
Cubs (loves it)
Discus (really ... surprising but so was the stipulation that came with it, Mum I want you to teach me because the Athletics Club (our local one) is boring and all you do is wait and then get to throw it once ... now this I can attest to, the local athletics club is a victim of its own success and is now so big, the kids generally just spend most of the evening waiting and little time doing athletics.  This also might be a really good time to get Myra involved as an ex-athlete).

At the end of all this discussion, I suggested to the kids I may not be able to fit all of this excitement into our school day, to which I had a chorus of .... we can make our day a little bit longer mum ..... YOU HAVE GOT TO BE SERIOUS :)  Kids that want to make their school day longer, honestly when do you tell them that too much learning is not a good thing! 

A PILE OF MARKING ... YIKES

I have a pile of english marking to do today, phonics, handwriting, and all the work they did this morning for their english unit work on fairy tales and narrative writing.

They were really on task today because I cracked the whip a bit as we need to finish school slightly early so we can get Pollyanna a new pair of sneakers, which we did successfully, she went from a size 11 to a size 13.  I can't believe how fast she is growing!  It was then off to drama lessons which the kids really enjoyed today, thankfully .... Ben didn't enjoy the last couple of lessons and I was worrying about how he would get through the rest of the term.  This has been a good education in actually finding something that Ben hasn't liked participating in!

LOTS OF WORK

Still working hard are my two little pickaninnies ... I want to make sure that I don't forget for next year to continue the fortnightly outtings and not to stop them during winter as that is the most important time to get out and about especially when the kids are often stuck inside for their morning and lunch breaks due to bad weather.  That is the biggesst mistake I have made since beginning home schooling, stopping the fortnightly outtings for term three, we have all really missed them.  The kids still get out and about with swimming lessons, drama and scouts but we have really missed the hands on learning we get done at all the wonderful museums and galleries Auckland offers. 

Polly continued on with her illustrating of the Three Little Pigs today and Ben and I tackled dialogue and the rules that we usse to ensure that dialogue is well understood by the reader.

Later in the day we spent our science hour learning more about Albert Einstein and his incredibly complicated contributions to Physics (still putting on a brave face with regards to my lack of enthusiasm for this strand of science!). 

MONDAY 30 AUGUST

Bit late with this post as we had a really busy day getting our learning done yesterday.  There was lots of teacher lead learning time and I completely forgot to blog the days events, not even a photo sorry!  We did heaps of work on our fairy tales work with Polly working on her Three Little Pigs book she is illustrating.  Ben worked on characters again today and we talked more about descriptive writing and how to give people good details so they can form a character in their imagination the way you want them to appear.  We also talked about appearance being important in describing a character, but just as important was describing a characters personality and any tidbits of information that should be given to a reader to help them understand why a character might make the decisions he/she does in a narrative.

It was a great days work, especially as we are all still quiet tired from the busy weekend and the winter blues!

VOLUNTEERING FOR DAFFODIL DAY

Ready for a Day of Selling!

The kids and I volunteered for Daffodil Day on Friday and they were fantastic. Ben and Polly definitely make extra money on Daffodil Day, because who wants to say no to a child supporting a worthwhile cause!  The kids sold so much Daff Day merchandise we ran out of most things!  We also made 13 batches of pikelets and sold all but 5 pikelets.  The best part was raising an awesome amount of money for such a worthwhile cause.  It is really important to me to give the kids opportunities to not only participate in the community we live in but also contribute to the community in a positive way .... and that was what today was all about.  Boy they did such an awesome job, and while we were all very tired after our 10 hour day, we all felt a great deal of satisfaction at the end of it.

Thank you Benjamin and Pollyanna for making such a positive contribution to your community :)

HAPPY IN OUR SPACE

We had a bit of organising to do first thing this morning for tomorrows Daffodil Day, where the kids and I will be working on a Pikelet Stall all day outside the National Bank at Huapai :0  We then spent the afternoon working on our new Fairy Tales English theme.  Ben is working on characters and their descriptions, while Pollyanna was working on The Three Little Pigs worksheet (this week her learning is concentrated on this Fairy Tale).  They were so happy to be sitting learning this afternoon, it was almost a shame we had to stop and go to Drama!  I will add a photo of my quiet class tomorrow, instead of uploading it right now, I am just going to sit back and watch my happy students learning!

A FAVOURITE: LEARNING ABOUT FAMOUS NEW ZEALANDERS

In Social Studies for most of this term we have been learning about famous New Zealander's ... not too in depth but just enough so they can appreciate what people have done to contribute to New Zealand history.  So far we have done Edmund Hillary, Kate Sheppard, Jean Batten, Burt Munroe, and today we introduced Sir Apirana Ngata and the amazing work he did for Maori.  We use the same format each session, they sit on the mat and listen to 5-15 minutes of information about the person in question and then they get a sheet of paper with a box for a drawing relating to the person and some lines for writing about them on.  This worksheet is to reinforce the small amount of knowledge they have gained about this person.  Then they are laminated and put up on the wall with the rest of the famous New Zealander's we have studied.  

While this is a superficial type of learning, I hope it is helping them understand all the different ways people can contribute to history.  Incidentally, the New Zealand History website is a wonderful reference for all things history which relate to NZ!