Happy Birthday Daddy!!!!

Well we are doing school but not quite writing about it! But today is Special Birthday Business. Daddy and his sister share their birthday 3 years apart, but here's the little collage of our beautifuls (and a couple of us!) that I have made especially for our family card to be given to Daddy tonight!

In sickness and in homeschool...

The wheel really came off this week when I was ill! I lost my voice on the weekend and so have been practising 'parenting without voice' (God has a sense of humour) and schooling without teacher!! Ha ha. Actually Matthew has been around (he had to stay at home for his own health at the beginning of the week, and then I have been incredibly ill for 2 days with mastitis so he had to stay at home as much of yesterday as possible, and then all of today). Of course Matthew is the teacher too (the Biblical homeschoolers say he is Principal of our Homeschool - I do agree with that but I don't think we are as Biblical as them in other ways). Seeing as this blog is fairly new (although not widely read!) I will stay away from *Biblical* controversy for now. :)

So school has been a very natural thing recently! They made a volcano village, it finally erupted on Tuesday (separate post to come about that) and have done various other things.

Good opportunity arose yesterday when Grandma visited and had her magic reading tests in her bag. I don't really care too much for diagnostic-thingys but I can say that because so far whenever we've done one it has been really encouraging. I will say here what the results are (and what they were last August).

Little H#1 is 7 years 5mths old. Waddington Reading Comprehension Test 2: 10 yrs 6 mths, Burt Word recognition reading test: 10 years 11 months, Spelling age 10.2. (August he was Reading Comprehension: 9 yrs 7mths, Word recogntion 9yrs 11mths, Spelling age 9yrs).

Little H#2 is 5 years 2mths old. Waddington Reading Comprehension Test 2: 8yrs 4 mths, Word recognition reading test: 8 yrs 1mth. I spared him the ordeal of a spelling test because we are still beginning writing and he is keen but I don't want to push it. He enjoyed the reading tests though. (Last August his Waddington Reading Comprehension Test 1 was 6yrs 1 mth (at the age of 4 yrs 5 mths).

Very encouraging and a fine day's work for them when I was able to do absolutely nothing myself and was glad of the extra pair of hands for a few hours.

I have to say though, that being so ill (though it rarely happens) seems worse when we are homeschooling. In reality though I have more helpers at home, we don't have a school run and They. Can. Still. Learn.

I forgot to mention that yesterday morning Little H#1 had a craft project in mind (he thinks a lot and reads in his room before we know he is awake a lot of the time) and he drew a jungle picture and tore up bits of different coloured paper to make a kind of mosaic collage. It was a family affair and his brother did it too. They just did it together with a little Daddy help in the drawing stages. This morning before I had braved even calling it morning he came into our room fully dressed and announced he had finished his maths in the playroom. They have a table in there we tend to work together on now, and I haven't cleared it in a few days and put the schoolwork back on the shelf. That was a definite high to start the day.

They ended the day with a Daddy and boys' adventure out to Waterfall Gully after Little H#2's and 3's sleep, and #1's 'reading in cubby' time. I was finally able to stand and cooked the tea and just enjoyed the baby for a bit.

That's how sickness and homeschool have looked in our house recently. Writing it down is good, it helps me to see the light that what we are doing is ok, and works even when it isn't Working.

The Volcano is still growing.

The project continues.

We got some volcano books from the library last week, one turned out to be not suitable for the boys although educating for me.

We haven't done any more written work but today while I went with Little Miss to the dr, Matthew and the boys made a model village in which to place the volcano (he'd been threatening to do this craft with them before but I just wanted to erupt the volcano and be done with it). They all worked really nicely on it together, including cutting, drawing, paddlepop sticks (gradually I begin to use Australianisms), matchsticks, glue gun and food processor packaging. They are really pleased with their result. Rightly so I think.

They decided that their model was of an Icelandic village. We asked them how they thought we might show it was in Iceland. Little H's 1&2 thought we should have a flag on the model. We have a world map with all of the flags of the world around the edge in the Playroom, so they ran in there and came back describing the flag. They set to making a flag each, and Little H#1's went on the bridge. We have had a number of uses for that map and it is at child height. They freely go and study it, and talk about it with each other. Oh I love homeschooling when I hear those comversations! Already they have a better understanding and knowledge of the world map than I do. Somehow I managed to get an A at A Level Geography without having ever needed to know much about the globe. I suppose its all about syllabus but we can't get away with that sort of ignorance, it'll give learning at home a bad name. I am getting better now we are all learning together.

Here are the pictures:

Little H's 1 & 2 have been predicting where the lava will flow, which houses and buildings will be reached first. We all discussed why people live near volcanoes. I also explained to them what makes a natural phenomenon a natural 'disaster'. We will investigate settlements near volcanoes next, I think.

I'm getting the hang of putting in the pictures. Never know, if I can get it right (and of course if it works!) we may even be able to upload the film of the eruption. There's no day and time. It'll be a surprise.