ECHO

Last Wednesday we had the pleasure of attending our very first ECHO cushion concert.  It was performed by WASO as part of their Music for Kids program.

From their brochure ~

Toot, whistle, plonk, boom, shake, rattle and roll!  WASO's Education Chamber Orchestra (EChO) is a high-energy 15 piece ensemble, featuring one of each instrument of the orchestra.  We invite all our young friends to join us and have a go on our instruments after the show.  Enjoy 50 minutes of musical celebration as we dance, sing and have lots of fun.
Suitable for 2 to 7 year olds.

We caught the train to the city, then found the right CAT bus to get us close to the Concert Hall.  Then we had to find the entrance to the building, because it isn't in a logical place!  It was a rainy morning, but thankfully we didn't get wet.

The venue was lovely and the carpet very comfortable.  We got a spot right at the front which was excellent as Flossy and Bugsy were chosen as helpers at one time.

The concert itself was just wonderful.  They had a story line which was captivating.  All of the instruments were introduced throughout the story and the children were engaged in clapping, dancing and singing.  On conclusion the musicians allowed the children to try the instruments.

Flossy tried the trumpet and actually managed to make a lovely note.  The musician was quite impressed.  Bugsy tried the french horn.  Chicky tried the violin.

The concerns run again in July and i will be contacting WASO to find out if it will be the same storyline or if they will have a new show as we loved it and the kids are keen to go again.  I've also managed to find two other WASO performances aimed at children aged 6-13 called Play me a Picture and Witches, Wizards and WASO and it is highly likely that we will attend those too.

Flossy and Bugsy are now resolute that they would like to begin music lessons again.  This time Flossy would like to try the trumpet and Bugsy the french horn.  I might have a challenging time finding teachers but it will have to wait until we move back to the city.

*Sorry about the quality of the photo's, there was no flash photography permitted and my little point and shoot struggles in the dim light.

Things have been a little quite around here ...

I can assure you that is because we have been BUSY!  That and my internet connection dies in the evening :(  Thought a change in service provider would solve all my problems, sadly, they have returned! Looks like i will have to change my blogging habits.

So what have we been up to?

I've been busy in the kitchen mostly.  Some of the recipes have made their way onto the blog some more need refining and then i will post them too.  At the moment i am working on chickpea chocolate biscuits, or maybe that should be chocolate chickpea biscuits.  I'm using some 'different' ingredients as I am trying to fill up Possum (he eats like a bird) and also put some weight on him so we are going for high energy foods.  If he had a full tummy he might actually sleep, that would be bliss!

We ended up taking some time off school over Anzac Day and the following week as my niece came to stay then we had a bunch of appointments both in the city and at home.  We are back to regular programming this week although we are heading to the city Wednesday as i am talking the kids to the symphony cushion concert.  Should be loads of fun!

Anzac Day was great.  The kids enjoyed the march followed by wreath laying.  Then everyone went into the town hall for an hour long presentation.  There were various speakers speaking about their experience at war, playing the last post, hymns, prayers, songs, poems etc.  It was a really lovely way to honour those who fought for us and one of the best services i've been to.  Afterwards everyone had a sausage sizzle for breakfast before heading home.

It's never too early to buy books for next year, right?  Here are some new Anzac books that have arrived.  Many thanks to Jeanne @ A Peaceful Day for recommending these new titles.

Flossy has been busy reading.  No surprises there it's her favourite pastime.  She's recently found the author Michael Morpurgo and is really loving his books.

Bugsy has been busy riding his bike!

Chicky has been busy with her reading and maths.  She read her first I See Sam reader this week!  She's been working more in Miquon too.  Mini Math Monday should be back next week if i can tare Chicky away from Miquon long enough to fit in some living maths!

Possum has been playing and trying to take a few more steps.

Rusty has finished up his local work and has now gone to the city.  It will be hard with him working away but we have been there before.  Hopefully this time it won't be for very long.  We have plans afoot for our move back to the city later in the year.

Sadly our much loved Jasper was hit by a car last night.  He is in surgery as i type having his shattered pelvis and fractured hip repaired.  I'm busying myself waiting for the vet surgeon to call and let me know how it went.

Well, back to the books with the kiddies before packing to go to the city for the concert.

Mini Math Monday

Chicky has been busy building steps with the c-rods and the AL abacus for a few weeks now.  This week we used the Duplo to build steps and reinforce 1-1 correspondence.

Chicky is ready to begin the transition into more formal math so we will begin Miquon Orange shortly.

What have you and your 'mini' been up to?

Mini Math Monday

Today Chicky and I used dice to reinforce the relationship between c-rods and numbers.  We rolled 2 dice, found the corresponding rods, added them together then found the c-rod that matched their sum.  We only had one roll which added to over 10.  My aim was to stay within 10 but i'm always happy to walk my kids through concepts a little above their ability.

 Chicky deciding which c-rod she needs.

Chicky joining c-rods.  You can see the completed ones we left on the table.

What have you and your 'mini' been up to?  We would love to try out some of your living math ideas so please share :)

Amber

Mini Math Monday

Chicky has been doing so well over the last few weeks, really getting to know her numbers.  Today i thought we would take it up a notch and see how she went.  We've been using various manipulatives to 'play' with the numbers so today i wanted to look at 1-1 correspondence and see how she was grasping it.

The task was simple.  I'd drawn 10 boxes on a clean sheet of paper and labeled them 1 to 10.  The idea was to use a dot marker to place the right number of dots in the box.  Simple enough but when your only 4 and REALLY like to use the dot markers and have a tendency to get carried away, this was a exercise in self restraint too.

Chicky making dots on her chart.

The completed chart, perfect :)

Chicky showed great restraint, carefully making sure that she only put the right number of dots in the box.  She got them all right, yay!  All our playing is coming together.

What have you and your 'mini' been up to this week.  We'd love to take a look, please share a link in the comments.

Amber

Mini Math Monday

This week Chicky and I cracked out the c-rods.  She built steps using the rods and we talked about their size and gave them numbers.

Chicky completing her steps.

Chicky using Raspberry Tort to climb up and down the steps.

Chicky used Raspberry Tort as a helper because she was just the right size.  She climbed up and down the stairs and we counted the steps as we went.  When counting down from 10 to 1 we pretended Raspberry Tort was about the blast off like a rocket ship :)

What have you and your 'mini' been up to this week?  Don't forget to leave a link in our comments to we can take a peek.

Amber

There's no stopping them!

We seem to be on a roll finishing things at the moment.  The kids have all been working really well, and really hard so far this year.

Bugsy completed All About Spelling Level 1.  This has been hard work for Bugsy and has taken him a very long time to get through.  He is not a natural speller nor is he a natural reader.  It's hard work!  He is getting there.  He has started to realise that different letters or letter combinations can make the same sounds and with spelling you have to decide which to use.  It's kind of like solving a puzzle, there is only one right way (expect for those commonly accepted American words, but we are not going there yet!).

Chicky completed the first Handwriting Without Tears book Get Set for School.  This is a great, gentle introduction to printing.  We have never used this book before but i am really impressed with the foundation it has given Chicky.  She will be moving on to Letters and Numbers for Me on Monday.  She's really looking forward to it.  Below you can see a sample of her work from the final pages of the book.

So as a reward for all their hard work went to ...

and the kids had Squashed Frogs and Fluffy Koalas :D

Chicky is moving along

Not to be outdone by Flossy and Bugsy, Chicky has been working hard too.  Today she completed Get Ready for the Code A.  This is her VERY first completed workbook for homeschooling!  She was VERY excited about it.

Mini Math Monday

Today Chicky and I were looking at odd's and even's.  The task was to put out number cards from 0 to 10 and then put some counting bears under each card.  Everytime there were 2 bears they held hands.  The one left over was the 'odd' one, so that number was odd.  When all the bears had friends to hold hands with it was an 'even' number.

Chicky was not very impressed that i wanted to photograph her work today :(

See how the bears held hands to make a pair.  The pics only show 0-4 but we did work all the way to 10.

What have you and your 'mini' been up to this week?  Please leave a link to your blog in the comments so we can check it out :)
Amber

Mini Math Monday

I'm starting something new!  My challenge is to post something mathy for my 'mini' (that would be Chicky) on Monday's.  It will just be a brief post to let you know something we enjoyed over the week.  I'm hoping a few people might also blog what they are doing with their 'mini' as i love sharing ideas and being inspired by others :)  Please leave a link to your post in the comments section so people can check out your blog too.

Mini Math Monday

First Chicky put all the Rightstart craft stick cards in order.

Then we put our own craft sticks underneath, following the patterns of making gates and fence posts.  We talked about how many fence posts made a gate and how many extra fence posts we had for numbers like 6, 7, 8 & 9.

Chicky completed all her gates and fence posts.  Bugsy (the class clown) was watching on.

For me it's important that my kids have a deeper understanding of what a number actually represents.  I want them to know that 7 is 5 and 2 or 4 and 3 or 6 and 1.  I want them to automatically recognise that.  If they have that deeper level of understanding then when it comes to addition and multiplication it is so much easier to break off a chunk of one number and add it to the next to make a 5 or a 10 which will ultimately assist you since 5 and 10 are much easier units to work with.

Hope you enjoyed our first 'Mini Math Monday'.  We look forward to seeing what you and your 'mini' are up to.

Amber

First Day of Homeschool 2012

Back to school pictures.

Chicky age 4 starts Aussie Kindy.

Bugsy age 6 starts Aussie Year 1.

Flossy age 7 starts Aussie Year 3.

Homeschool Plans for 2012

Flossy Aussie Year 3 -

All About Spelling 5, 6 & 7
First Language Lessons 4
Reading & narrating/notebooking from history & literature selections
Institute for Excellent in Writing Student Writing Intensive A
Unjournaling
Writing With Ease 3
The Poetry Pad
**Writing programs are not used in their entirety. They are used to complement each other and provide diversity.**
New American Cursive
Miquon yellow & purple - will move to Singapore from SGBox once completed
Math Mammoth - used as a supplement to help cement Miquon understanding where needed, topic books only
Kumon Word Problems grade 3 - used a grade below instructional level to ensure thorough understanding of the arithmetic needed so the focus is on decoding the problem
Getting Started with Latin - continue

Bugsy Aussie Year 1 -

All About Spelling 1 & 2
Explode the Code 4, 5, 6 - will use 1/2 books as necessary
I See Sam readers - needs more confidence then moving onto 'real' books
Writing With Ease 1
Handwriting Without Tears Letters and Numbers for Me & My Printing Book - needs more confidence
Miquon red & blue
Kumon Word Problems Grade 1 - again used a grade below instructional level

Chicky Aussie Kindy -

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
Explode the Code Primers
Reading Eggs
Bob Books
Nora Gaydos readers
Handwriting Without Tears Get Set for School & Letters and Numbers for Me
Activities for the AL Abacus unit 1
Miquon Orange

For everyone -

Literature selections -
Adventures of Don Quixote
Great Expectations Stepping Stones
Gulliver's Travels classic starts
Les Miserables stepping stones
Moby Dick Classic starts
Robinson Crusoe classic starts
Three Musketeers stepping stones
The Princess and the Goblin
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
Tom Sawyer
A Pilgrims Progress
Favorite Jane Austen Novels
Perrault's Fairy Tales
Anne of Green Gables
Around the World in Eighty Days
The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin
Children's Stories from Dickens

Story of the World 3 with Activity Guide
Go along books -
American Revolution MTH
Amos Fortune, Free Man
Eyewitness Ancient China
Boston Tea Party
Carry on Mr Bowditch
Eyewitness Castle
Civil War on Sunday MTH
The Door in the Wall
Explorers News
Ginger Pye
Meet a thomas Jefferson
Night of the Ninjas MTH
Eyewitness North American Indian
Peter the Great
Pirated MTH
Pirates Past Noon MTH
Revolutionary War on Wednesday MTH
Sign of the Beaver
Squanto's Journey
Thanksgiving on Thursday MTH
Tigers at Twilight MTH
Who was Ben Franklin?
Witch of Blackbird Pond
You wouldn't want to be Mary, Queen of Scots
You wouldn't want to be Sick in the 16th Century
Norwegian Folk Tales
The Boy Who Held back the Sea
The Village that Vanished
The Cat who went to Heaven
Folk Tales from India
Russian Gypsy Tales
The Best Book of Pirates
The Gold Coin
Famous People of Mexico

Geography - home grown studies
Geography of the World
A Childs Introduction to the World
Around the World in 80 Tales
Material World
Maps & globes
Geography A to Z
Complete Flags of the World
Flags of the World sticker book

Science in a Nutshell kits fleshed out with science encyclopedias to form unit studies
The Kingfisher Science Encyclopedia
The Usborne Internet Linked Science Encyclopedia
The Usborne Illustrated Dictionary of Science
DK Science
Vision & Hearing kit
Body basics kit
Weather wise kit
Destination Moon kit
Energy and Motion kit
Snap circuits

Nature Study
Keeping a Nature Journal
The Nature Connection
Local field guides

Harmony Fine Arts - art appreciation, artist study, art creation, music appreciation, composer study all relating to our history time period

Institute for Excellence in Writing Linguistic Development through Poetry Memorization

Swimming Lessons

Logic games and workbooks

Kindy

Activities and goals for Kindy (4yo) to be addressed in an informal manner -

Books for Mum to read aloud :

• Big Thoughts for Little People
• Peter Pan
• Winnie-The-Pooh
• The Velveteen Rabbit
• Madeline
• Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
• The Clown of God
• Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel
• Make Way for Ducklings
• Brer Rabbit Book
• Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories
• The Complete Adventures of Peter Rabbit
• Shy the Platypus
• Dot and the Kangaroo
• The Magic Faraway Tree
• The Wishing Chair Again

Correct pencil grip

Uppercase letter formation

Lowercase letter formation

Number formation

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

Websters Speller

Nora Gaydos Readers

Nursery Rhymes (The Real Mother Goose)

Counting (1 to 1 correspondence)

Number order

Basic addition

Basic subtraction

Shapes

Colours

Puzzles

Wedgits

Playdough

Painting

Drawing

Singing