Walk for Prems

Life's Little Treasures Foundation held the Walk for Prems for the first time in Perth last weekend and we were happy participants. It had threatened rain but it managed to hold off. The kids and I walked the 5km walk, and some, because we parked miles away. I estimate we actually walked close to 11km on the day! Afterwards we have a lovely picnic lunch and the kids enjoyed having their faces painted. It was a great day out and we are already looking forward to next years walk which we are hoping will be bigger and better!

Possum Update

Yes, that's right folks, Possum is crawling! He is now 13 1/2m old or 10m corrected. He weighs 8.6kg which still puts him way at the bottom of the charts but he is happy :)

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

Possum is almost 1!

Can't believe how the last year has gone! To celebrate our little man turning 1 we are raising funds for Women's & Infant Research Foundation 'Angel Breaths' campaign. They intend to purchase a new ventilator with the funds. If you'd like to support us and help us meet our target, please follow the link to make a safe & secure donation which will go directly to WIRF.

http://www.mycause.com.au/mycause/raise_money/fundraise.php?id=32051

Quick Possum update

He is now 6 months corrected. He just had a weigh in at 7.37kg which places him on the 25% for weight for his corrected age. He was also on the 25% for length for his corrected age. That has seen a massive improvement from the 3% line he was following before starting nocturnal oxygen therapy. He has also started rolling tummy to back.

Mid Year Review

So it's July and it's time to have a mid year review just to check how things are going and see if we are on track.

Flossy -
She has completed Math Mammoth Addition & Subtraction 2B and has really cemented those concepts. She is about half way through Miquon Blue. I had planned on her being further along in Miquon but we needed to pit stop so the delay is to be expected. In saying that she has a solid understanding of multiplication covered in Miquon and is probably working on a late 2nd early 3rd grade level. We have shelved Kumon word Problems for a little while as it was presenting some concepts that we had not yet covered. We will be getting back into it in the second half of the year.

She has been motoring along in AAS3 and is almost done. She very rarely makes a mistake and really enjoys it. I'm hopeful that we will finished AAS4 and be part way through AAS5 before the end of the year. That would see only AAS6 & AAS7 for next year.

WWE2 has been going well. She narrates well and rarely makes a mistake with the copy work. I am starting to have her write the first sentence of her narrations. I'm thinking of changing things up a bit with writing and might take a look at Galore Parks Junior English books. I've also got a book about writing poetry on the shelf and we might have a go at that. We won't drop WWE2 just mix things up a bit. It's good keep it fresh.

REAL Life Science is proving a hit. We are right on track with that. I honestly feel that this is below her level. She isn't learning too much new material, but it is getting done and it is fun.

With SOTW2 we are a little behind. I'd like to see us do a few more projects in the second half of the year and be a little more consistent with narrations. I'm thinking of posting them here so she can see them published, she'd think that would be neat. She has been reading plenty of the go along books and enjoying them. She is also loving our literature selections.

We have not been consistent with MCT or GSWL. We need to change that moving forward. With MCT I'm going to have to think about how to be more proactive with it. It is enjoyable but I'm not sure if it's sinking in properly. I'm sure consistency will help. With GSWL we need to make a vocab chart so that we can remember all the nouns we are learning.

She has been swimming well and passed level 3.

Bugsy -
He is flying through ETC, he completed book 1 and is now half way through book 2. That's ahead of where I had planned him to be.

He is right on track with Horizon K math book 1. At this point I think we will switch back to Miquon at the end of this book and see how he handles it. If we need another pit stop book 2 is on the shelf.

Reading wise I had hoped we would have finally completed 100EZ but we still have a few lessons outstanding. He has been reading plenty though and that is coming along well. He seems to struggle with silent e words.

We have not been putting much time into AAS1 but will focus more on it in the second half of the year. I would like to see him complete level 1 by the end of the year.

He has been swimming well and making great progress with his kicking.

Differences between The Voyage of the Dawn Trade book and movie by Flossy

The only thing that was different was that they didn't get captured as slaves the same way they did in the book. They didn't follow the blue star in the book. Eustace didn't sit on the mast in the book because he was a dragon and he didn't write 'I am Eustace' in lava letters. In the book they asked him was he Eustace and he nodded his head. He still could understand them even though he was a dragon. Aslan didn't change him back the same way he did in the book. In the book he took Eustace down to a well and then he told Eustace to take off his clothes, which means his skin. So he scratched his skin off and then he found some more skin, the same kind so Aslan made a deep scratch into all of Eustace's dragon skin and then he was a boy again.