Our Learning Room Space (one of the many!) for 2012

So long time readers of this blog will know that I always do a post (at least once a year!) on our learning space. Learning happens all around our house; at our kitchen bench, on our lounge, outdoors but this is the main room where we store our resources and have a designated table to work on and cabinet in which to store books and finished projects.

You can find other older posts about learning spaces from 2009, 2010 (although I was having a blog break at the beginning of that year for the first day photos) and 2011 by clicking on these links.

Anyway, we 'officially' started back with schooling on the 29th January.

Here's the room set up that morning....

{Our main learning room all set up...of course I'm sure I don't have to tell you that after 3 seconds flat, the kids take to this and LOVE trashing it to pieces making the most out of their space! Please be under no illusion that it stays like this! We aim to get it back to a work-able place at the end of each night ready for the next day but even then it doesn't always happen!}

Tradition: For me growing up, I ALWAYS looked forward to getting new stationery! Crisp sheets of paper, the click of folders, the smell of new rulers, the joy of putting my name into my pencil case! When we switched to homeschooling in 2009, Stassi, who'd been 'at school' for 2 years, asked if she would still be getting new stationery. A girl after her mum's own heart. Now some people would see that as a waste but for us, we saw that as an opportunity to bless the heart of our little girl and help her have some fun and joy in her learning-at-home experience. So now each year, I set up the learning room with brand spankin' new supplies for each child and they get to unwrap them, enjoy them and imagine all the new things they are going to get to draw/write/play/do with their new stuff!

{Ethi's place all set out}

Tradition: I always make a 'happy learning' card for each child to tell them how honoured we are to be able to learn along side them each day and how much we are looking forward to spending another year together...

The LEARNING BASKETS are all ready to go... 

Zippi gets her own place with very similar learning tools! A pencil case, fun calculator to punch numbers into, pencils and crayons and a card of course too!

{Zippi loves being included as a 'big kid' and while she doesn't always sit while they are sitting and learning, she is certainly always learning!}

Just another view of the learning room...

{You can partially see our art wall, photo board of life learning and our pencil 1,2,3 bags}

One of the main differences this year was to simplify the craft supplies. I'd always had the craft supplies down and at an easy-to-access level in the big buffet and hutch. That was fine before Zippi worked out how to get into it all! lol. So now, instead of the night ending in me having to pack up 30 odd jigsaw puzzles and sort 15 craft supply boxes out, I simply put them up high for a season. The kids know they can just ask an adult to help them get down whatever it is they are after and I know that I'm still going to be sane by the end of the night....well we don't exactly 'know' that for sure but we do hope for it ;)

The first day of our schooling year this year was a Sunday. Why? Well, Brett was heading out to the new place to do work on it for a couple of days and I had wanted him to be here to celebrate with us the beginning of the school term so instead of beginning on the Monday, we just started a day earlier! Love that about homeschooling!

He was able to pray with us and dedicate a wonderful year ahead (despite any ups and downs we are bound to face!) to Yah and asked that He would continue to lead us in all His ways.

Brett was also there to see the smiles and excitement on their faces as they explored their new supplies!

Will be back another time to do a 'week of learning' post (hopefully!) but that will have to do for now.

Hope all is well at the start of your years (whether you homeschool or not!)

With love,

Lus x

Around at Our Place...

The kids have all been making an extra effort with helping clean the kitchen each night.



They have what we call regular 'meal chores'. One person sets placemats, one sets cutlery, one gets and fills up everyone's drink bottles. At the end of each meal, they take their plate to the sink, rinse it and stack it in the dishwasher. They are the regular things they do each meal.
But, because I'm so pregnant they have wanted to pitch in and help out with doing the extra things like washing the pots, drying things in the rack, putting food into bowls with cling wrap over them and last night Liji got out the vinegar spary and wiped down the whole bench (which is a big job) - all jobs that I usually do. They made me and Brett wait in the loungeroom with Zippi and called us out to show us the 'surprise' (aka clean kitchen).
These probably seem like small things to other people but to us, this is HUGE!
To us, this is our children saying:
 we love being apart of this family!
we know that you are very pregnant mum and we want to help out!
we want to bless you!
This shows empathy and kindness and compassion on their behalf which is no small feat for a 6,7 and 9 year old really.

Yesterday, our family visited several nurseries.
We bought some squash, some vietnamese mint and some spouts.

You may recall a little while ago I bought AN ALDI YOGHURT MAKER.

Hmmm...let's just say it didn't work.

The glass jars though that came with it are MEGA cool and I'll be using them for some gifts I have planned. And the base and lid? Well we thought they'd be good to grow some sprouts in!

 

Popping some layers of wet paper towel down in the base and then pouring out the sprouts...

 

After that we added some more wet paper towel on top and put the lid on.
Then off to a dark cupboard for a couple of days.
Got to make sure the paper towels stay nice and moist!
We are all keen to see how they grow :)

No photo for this one but yesterday we went out for lunch and enjoyed a lovely family meal together...possibly our last one like that before bubba arrives!

This morning, we had yummy freshly rolled oats for brekky...

Zip loves helping to pour the small bowl of oats into the pot...

And she's learnt two things recently by herself:
1. how to open all the internal doors in our house!
2. how to pour out milk!

Found some pre-cut masks up at KMart yesterday.
The kids begged us to get some since just that morning they'd been trying to design some themselves.
When we got home they got stuck into decorating them...

You probably can't really tell from this pic but the chicken run has been extended which is great.
One of our chookies Magpie has a bad case of lice. This is our first encounter with it.
Brett has dusted them all and has bought a wormwood plant.

Anyone else got any tips on how to get rid of chook lice? Ideas GREATLY appreciated! Thanks :)

Well many blessings to you and yours.

More to come another time.

Love,

The week that was...

After visiting the local Grower's Market last weekend and picking up some herbs, we decided it was time to move the herb garden. We had been reading up more on herbs and how to care for them here where it gets quite cold. The spot we'd been previously using for a number of years gets more shade than sun. I was talking to Brett about setting me up with a potting station and instead he suggested that the table we were going to use for that be used as a herb station! It faces the sun and so we are hoping to have more success with our herbs that we have previously. We also decided to leave them in pots this time. Will let you know how it all goes ;)

It was time to make up some new play dough again as the old batch had gone right off.



I'm still happy with the no-cook recipe we use. Have you got a trusty playdough recipe you like to use? Here's mine...

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 cup salt
1 cup water
1 tablespoon cooking oil
food colouring

Method:
Mix together the flour and salt in a large bowl.
Add water and oil to the mix.
Combine well and knead together.
Break off into large balls.
Pop each ball into a zip lock bag.
Add splashes of food colouring into each bag.
Seal bag (with as much air out of bag first as possible) and get kids to mush around the colour and dough in the bag until well combined.
Add a little extra flour if too sticky.
The colour will blead into the dough the more it is used.

Other happenings from our week...

Loads of reading done (as per usual!)

Stass is reading through the Anne of Green Gables sequel still and began reading Pollyanna too this week. She learnt how to record the books she is reading complete with page number, publisher and publication date this week.

We are still making our way through our new family read aloud, 'Stories for Boys' and the story this week was called 'Speckles'.

Liji read aloud THE USBORNE NEW BABY BOOK all by himself and got almost all the words correct. He's growing more in confidence with his reading which is so lovely to see.

I read aloud the Golden Book Classic 'A visit to the Children's Zoo'...

...which I LOVED to read as a child!

This lead to us looking up old photos of THE CHILDREN'S ZOO IN NYC BACK IN ITS HEY DAY on the internet and reading about how it was transformed in the 1990's. The kids LOVE reading about that kind of thing (probably because I do too!) Ethi asked when we could go visit the zoo. Hmmm...maybe one day!

Ethi and Liji are also continuing to read through their boy-spy series that they are loving.

Speaking of books, I got this cool books about the Human Body for only $5 from our local Angus and Robertson outlet. Very cool illustrations...

Zip got stuck into some water paints this week...

I love that our house often looks like this: paintings drying right next to our clothes lol :)

Tomorrow I'm 39 weeks pregnant!
Woohooooo!

We put together a funky SOLAR SYSTEM FLOOR PUZZLE which I scored this week for $7 and took turns to read aloud facts from it...

The SHEPHERD'S PURSE TINCTURE is ready to go now. It's a much darker colour. We just need to strain it off now.

We've been going without our microwave for a while now for a number of reasons.

Here is the little place where it used to live.

It is an excellent little space for our recipe books and our Family Planner on a plate stand...

We played a really simple game where we scrunched up scrap papers into balls and took turns at throwing them into a cane bowl we have. Stass recorded all the results and we are making a bar graph from the results together...

Doing some maths book work...

I made another pot of fresh veg stock.
What do you put in yours?

Mine today had:
all the leaves and offcuts from the celery
3 carrots
an onion
purple carrot peels
garlic salt
basil
parsley flakes

Oh and here's the purple carrot. We have seedlings to plant of these soon (this one was bought from Coles) after having read about the HEALTH BENEFITS OF EATING PURPLE CARROTS (note: we found many articles and videos about these but this was just one of them).

And Loz...this one is for you; the new look for the loungeroom :)

Had lovely phone catch ups this week with:

Bek, Elissa and my mum and dad :)

Got out to:

 an ABA planning meeting. Was lovely to see all the girls there even though I was feeling a bit out of it (headspace wise!). They are a lovely group and have welcomed me so lovingly.
Was great to catch up there with my Hazel too :)
Also got to chiro twice. My chiro is a l.e.g.e.n.d
I praise Yah for him because I know I wouldn't be walking now if it wasn't for the work he has done. Am so glad that I was lead to him.

And of course, as I mentioned in another post, got to catch up with Lori too this week along with the Vandors and Leonards.

Other learning activities included:

Playing a new reading/spelling game together which we kind of made up using some sight word cards that have different levels of words on them. Kids LOVED this game!

Liji had another dental visit and went with Brett.
We looked at this website this week called MOUTHPOWER.ORG. It was a FABULOUS website! It's set up so that the kids earn teeth with each activity and then can get a little certificate at the end (which my guys thought was awesome!). It touches on so many things from the Food Pyramid, the dangers of smoking to your mouth, to the older v's newer styles of dental tools and what they were/are used for.

I stumbled somehow across THIS SITE during the week which has a whole list of links to cool website games about the human body. We took a tour of the brain and a quiz and learnt about a guy from the 19h century called Phineas Gage who had a massive brain injury in his frontal lobe and survived and the effects that accident had on his personality. The kids were intrigued by this story and asked if we could do more research and find out more about this man. There is a WEBSITE that we found on him and the kiddos were intrigued by the photos and stories there about this man.

The kids got into gardening with Brett, played UNO, 'Sorry' the board game, Zingo and Pilgrim's Progress again this week along with backyard cricket, making heaps of lego creations and using Fiskars stencils which Nanny brought around.

Stass has been offering to help heaps in the kitchen and around the house in general which has been lovely. She showed us this week that she could cover bowls of left over food with cling wrap by herself. She basically cleared the kitchen after dinner a couple of times by herself (aside from doing the boys' regular after-meal chores) which was a real blessing.

We got our journal out again (the one just the two of us girls share) and began writing in it after a good heart-to-heart chat this week. She really needed us to write again and I really needed to listen to her.

Craft-wise, I found a great MCN diaper tute on youtube and will be trying to make that this week (if time permits!)

And I'll finish off with the beautiful Psalm Brett read aloud to the fam last night before bed:

{A psalm of David. When he was in the Desert of Judah}
¹ You, God, are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
I thirst for you,
my whole being longs for you,
in a dry and parched land
where there is no water.
² I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
³ Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
⁴ I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
⁵ I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
⁶ On my bed I remember you;
I think of you through the watches of the night.
⁷ Because you are my help,
I sing in the shadow of your wings.
⁸ I cling to you;
your right hand upholds me.
⁹ Those who want to kill me will be destroyed;
they will go down to the depths of the earth.
¹⁰ They will be given over to the sword
and become food for jackals.
¹¹ But the king will rejoice in God;
all who swear by God will glory in him,
while the mouths of liars will be silenced.


Well I hope you had a lovely week and have a lovely weekend ahead!
Shabbat Shalom for tomorrow!
Much love and more to come soon,

This past week...

 ...Zippi requested this outfit to go play outside in...beanie, gloves, jacket and camera.
She is such a little character!

This week Stass took this lovely shot of me and Brett...

and Brett took this one of me with our four (plus one in the tum!)

I had a great chat with my Natti and made this MCN cover (it's not so bad hey Nat?!?! lol! Thanks for your inspiration mate!)...



This week we had a play at the park...

...and climbed trees. Stass reckons this one is the perfect reading-tree!
She finished reading through Anne of Green Gables this week and is now 15 chapters into the sequel Anne of Avon-Lea. Thanks Bridge for lending her these - she really loves them!
We watched the first movie and I'll try tracking down the sequel to watch too when she's finished reading the book...

This week the boys spotted an activity in a craft book and asked if we could have a turn at it. It involved using straws to see if you could suck a smartie or similar candy to the end of it just using your breath. I was excited that they had READ the instructions about it themselves!
So we bought a packet and counted out how many there were in the box of each colour. These we then graphed. This was the boys' first intro to bar graphs. They got it really quickly.
Then we had a competition to see who could hold their smartie the longest on the end of the straw. These results were graphed on a line graph.
We talked about which force we use to create suction and they all said "PULL!" (we have a song about force being either a push or a pull).
Fun + Maths/Science = everyone happy really :)

We picked the first of the garden-harvest for this winter season....some rainbow spinach which we thanked Yah for and ate with our dinner the other night. Yummo!

This week Liji requested to make this project out of a craft book we have.
He waited until we had the brown paper bags from the shops and then got stuck into it.
He was really pleased with how it turned out and made a little video talking about it.

This week our Caboo arrived!
Thanks again MEREDITH!

Ethi asked if he could make THE EASY CHOC COCONUT CRUNCH RECIPE WHICH I INTRODUCED TO OUR FAMILY THIS YEAR THANKS TO MEL GOODSELL'S FAB RECIPE!This is the very first recipe that Ethan has asked to make from scratch, by himself, following a recipe.
He asked if we could make a video of him talking through all the steps which we did.
And he really enjoyed licking the bowl!




This week Brett finished work on his greenhouse (except for the little door he's adding) but I think it looks so GREAT!

Everyone helped shovel a trailer load of vegie soil into the wheel barrow...

...even Zip...too cute!

And she was rewarded for her hard work with a little wheel barrow ride from daddy...

We went to the Grower's Market and bought a whole heap of vegies and herbs"
common mint
oregano
dill
corriander
and these will go in the herb garden where we already have a huge bay leaf tree, chives, chocolate- mint and curry leaves.

We also got from the Grower's Market some:
zucchini's
tomato plants
and a couple of other things that I've now forgotten! lol

We potted up the herbs...

The boys played footy...

Brett put the billy and some toast on the open fire out the back...

 

and we enjoyed a lovely Sunday afternoon tea out there together...

This week I made Brett's fave coconut cake/muffin recipe...

and Liji picked these lovely flowers for me from the backyard, brought them inside, found a vase, filled it with water and gave them to me as a gift.

So sweet :)

And this week I enjoyed finishing off some changes to the loungeroom...

This week:

* We played Music Notation Bingo

* Listened to Psalm 119

* Played the Board Game 'Pilgrim's Progress'

* Had Hazel visit and listen to my feelings about pregnancy and birth, check on bubs and reassure me that all was well!

* Posted letters together at the Post Office

* I had lovely catch up chats with Nat, my Anth and Lori

* We learnt a bit about Mozart and found Austria on the World Map

* Went grocery shopping (with Brett) while I went to see the chiropractor

* We talked about how close we are to meeting our newest family member

* I read aloud from several different books on the parts that make up a human eye (since Liji had drawn one in detail last weekend). So we had a look at all the different parts of an eye in books and on diagrams and labelled THIS SHEET by using THIS ONE FOR COPYWORK.

* Stass and I worked on two of her find-a-words from her book together

* Zip regressed a little with toilet training but that's ok...she's done so well with it so far.

* I'm now 38 weeks pregnant with Bubba #5.

Well that's about it as a recap from the week that was.

Hope life is lovely your way too!

Much love,