Saturday Afternoon Drawing

A bit over a week ago a friend passed on to me a DVD she received free with some Faber Castell pencils.  She had purchased several packs of pencils, all came with DVD's and she had several copies of the same one.  Her children had enjoyed it and she thought mine would too.

After lunch today whilst Possum napped we watched the first segment on drawing a cartoon style koala.  It's the first chance we've had to look at it.  It's not a teaching DVD per say , the artist just talks you through what he is doing step by step.  We got all our supplies ready and just paused the DVD after he completed each step so that we could work along with him.

Having children with some perfectionist qualities we had discussed before hand that every artist produces different work even when drawing the same thing.  They should be proud of their efforts because if we wanted an exact copy we would just photocopy the drawing and not bother with the hassle of drawing it ourselves.  In the spirit of artistic license the children chose to omit features the artist had included and add in some of their own.  For the most part however they stuck to what they were shows.

Here are their final products.

Flossy

Bugsy

Chicky

I will be keeping an eye out on my future Faber Castell purchases to check for free DVD's, certainly worthwhile.

Amber xx

Olympic Lapbooks

We've just completed our Olympic Lapbooks, they were so much fun!  I pulled various pages from the resources I listed here and we also read the books listed too.  The children were all so engaged in this format of school.  They were eager to get to this part of their day and create something they could treasure.

The lapbooks are a concertina fold so the cover page saying 'My Olympic Lapbook' ends up being the front :-)  I removed their names from the bottom of the cover for the photo's.

Here are their final creations.

Flossy

Bugsy

Chicky

I did almost all of the writing for Chicky, but I did write what she told me too.  Bugsy did about half of his writing and Flossy did all of hers complete with her own research.

It was unanimous that their favourite athlete is Lauren Mitchell.  During our discussions it was revealed that anyone can bike, run or swim but not everyone can do all those cool tricks!

Favourite sports were split Flossy chose diving, Bugsy fencing (although he is most disappointed not to have seen any) and Chicky chose gymnastics.

We still have a few things to fill in this week including the medal tally and the weather in London but everything is stuck in its place and just needs a quick note each day until the Olympics are over.

We've had such a fun time doing 'Olympic School'.  Have you done something special for the Olympics in your homeschool?  We would love to take a look.

Amber xx

Possum Update

Big drum roll for Possum.....

at 1 year and 10 months...

Possum now weighs...

10kg!!!

What a long time coming that has been!  We had a review with the paediatrician this past week and he was satisfied that Possum is finally putting on some weight even though it's very slow.  We now have a green light to start some dairy and gluten food trials again.

We also had a review with our feeding team which consists of a speech therapist, occupational therapist, dietician and physiotherapist.  They were all VERY impressed with his progress.  He is biting and chewing his foods better.  He is not as scared of foods as he was.  He is more willing to try things even if he spits them out.  They were satisfied to the point of saying they now feel his food preferences reflect a more normal fussy toddler than a child with feeding issues and they don't see a need to see us again.  He's also drinking plenty of water both from a straw and a sippy cup, this was another of his issues.

All the hard work is paying off!

He's such a happy boy.  I had to share these photo's taken today :)

Amber xx

Girls Keeping Busy

Flossy and Chicky have been busy the last few days.

Flossy entered a short story competition and i would love to share her story with you but it is a condition of entry that we keep it a secret until we know if she has made the short list, so you will have to wait.  She also wrote a poem this morning which i can share :)

Flowers
For koalas flowers are teacups as they sip gum nut tea and in the underwater flower of the anemone clownfish smile and jellyfish float free, and for the lucky lady red gum honey bee the flowers help make sweet and yummy delicious red gum honey.  Sometimes flowers grow on a tree and yet sometimes they're in front of me.

Chicky has completed the first box of Bob Books.  Woohoo!  Another up and coming reader in the family.

Amber xx