Wow!  – - – - – - – > How Time Flies!

It has been quite some weeks – or should I say months – since I last posted. Life has been extremely busy, hence the lack of time to post any of our news.

In March we had Nanny Irena and Poppy Tadeusz come and stay with us for a few days. They arrived on Tuesday the 20th of March and left on Saturday the 24th of March. It was great to see them and for us  to be able to celebrate Poppy’s 70th Birthday made it even more special. While they were with us visiting we took them up Mt Wellington as Poppy had never been up the mountain even though he had been to Tasmania a few times before. It was nice and clear so we got some great views even if the wind seemed to be ice cold and able to cut through us like a knife. After only a short while looking at the views we decided to return to the car. Just as we did it started snowing. The girls were very excited and we stood out in it for a short while and watched it. Before we ventured down the hill again in our car. By the time we got to the bottom of the mountain and turned around to have a look back at it the top of it was covered in white snow to around 700 metres, so the snow must of been thick and fast once it started….

The children enjoyed being able to cook with Nanny while she was here, they love learning the Polish recipes and ways to cook.

Unfortunately just before Nan and Poppy arrived to visit us we lost one of our Chickens. We ventured out to see the chickens in the day and then a few hours later at which stage Sarah was dead on the floor of the chicken run. There was no obvious signs of why she passed away, but we were all sad and upset.

We also lost Debbie a few weeks earlier. The other chickens were picking on her and we were unable to stop it – even after a lot of time and effort was put into it. So we gave Debbie back to the gentleman who originally gave the chickens to us so she could rest easy and not be picked on.

We were lucky enough to gain Winnie and her six chicks into our life around two weeks after Sarah’s passing. Winnie is gorgeous and very protective of her young, who are growing immensely every day – eating us out of house and home as they go! They are a delight to have in our family and a lot of fun to play with and cuddle.

Other things that have been going on around here over the last few months include winter weather starting to settle in over the last few weeks. We have had to put the wood heater on some nights. however the house heats up incredibly fast and we have then had to open up the doors and windows to cool it down again!

The children have been doing great with their learning. Phinee has been working on a holiday Budget planner. Phinee has been given a certain number of dollars to spend on taking her family away for 5 to 7 days. She has been working hard on it and researched all the places she would like to go and how much they would cost. Transport costs, food expenses and attraction costs. Accommodation is still yet to be worked on.

Nik has revived our enthusiasm for the Wii. She has devised a playing plan for us all to utilise the Wii Fit in order for us to get healthy. She wrote up a contract and had us all sign our names to it, so that we would be bound to workout on the Wii fit when she deemed it was necessary – which looks like it is once a day at this stage. It is bringing a lot of fun and laughter to the house and helping us get healthier while having fun.

So life rolls on at an incredibly fast pace – often to fast to document, but believe me the learning and fun continues….

Today we picked our first Zucchini, there are others almost ready, but this one was the best…

Today we picked our first Corn, a little smaller than we would have liked, but still quite good…. But the best part of all is that Today we received our first Egg!!!!! Our Chicken Alice decided that it was time to give us our first surprise! We hope there are many more to come!

Well today is officially February 29th. It only comes around every four years, so I though we would celebrate it.

Happy Leap Day everyone!

Highlights from my life this week…

I finally got my car back from being repaired. It was a whole month waiting for it to go in for repairs and a week without my wheels, but she looks good as new now….

Highlights from our homeschooling this week…

We learnt about Van Gogh. The children are enjoying our art lessons. Especially when they get to learn about the greatest artists. They enjoy comparing art work from the different periods and artists themselves. Van Gogh is definitely a favourite….

Our favorite thing this week was…

Nik enjoyed her dancing lesson. Phinee the ability to go no where ( as we had no wheels) and me the time spent with Family.

Things I’m working on…

STILL- The next edition of Glimpse – a FREE Online homeschooling newsletter – which is due out in February. – A little late I know but it is still coming ….. I wish I could find someone able to help me out with this venture …..

I’m reading…

Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-deficit Disorder by Richard Louv.

This is an amazing book and a real eye opener. It talks about what Richard calls ‘Nature Deficit Disorder’ – which he explains that our children are experiencing – it’s a term, not an illness – I had to buy this book to read and also to keep on  my bookshelf – Well worth a read!

Favourite Photo(s) this week … 

Fresh Vegetables from our Garden

A great website worth mentioning is…

Cloud in a Bottle

While traveling around the net looking for resources on the Greatest Artists I came across a wonderful Unit study from Erica over at Confessions of a Homeschooler.

I am yet to actually use this but it looks very interesting and quite promising, which is great. This unit study uses many of the books I have at home in our collection as it’s basis, which is even better for us. But don’t fear if you like what you see in Erica’s Unit study of the World’s Greatest Artists, but don’t have the books, you can buy them for around $5 – $6 each from either book depository ( for Free world wide shipping) or Fishpond (for free shipping within Australia).

Please don’t forget to check out the FREE downloadable Greatest Artists Unit Study from Erica at Confessions of a homeschooler, I know we are going to enjoy using it and hope that if you check it out -  that you will also.

This year we are studying the Worlds Greatest Artists.

So this week we have spent time looking at Van Gogh. The children are already familiar with some of his work, thanks to a Doctor Who episode called “Vincent and the Doctor”.

Anyway we started out reading a book called Van Gogh by Author / Illustrator Mike Venezia ( we actually have quite a few of his Greatest Artist books in our own collection)

The children loved this and enjoyed reading about Van Gogh. This book is easy to use, entertaining and informative. If you have never checked out of of Mike Venezia’s books, I would highly recommend that you do.

After reading the book and discussing the art work presented we then watched a few YouTube Videos about Van Gogh. Even though these were only 5 or so minutes long, the children enjoyed the different styles of delivery presenting the life of Van Gogh.

We then re watched the episode of Doctor Who – “Vincent and the Doctor” to see how many real facts they recreated in this story that were true to Vincents life. The children enjoyed pointing out the facts and inconsistencies, such as Vincent would not have met monsters back when he was alive.

Other things we enjoyed included viewing Vincent Van Goghs Works here – Van Gogh Museum

Reading some of the letters written by Vincent Van Gogh to his brother Theo and his friends, Gauguin, Bernard and others.

Learning more about Vincent here – at  Van Gogh Museum Amsterdam and by reading about him at the Vincent Van Gogh Gallery

The children are looking forward to our next art lesson when we further study Vincent and this paintings.

Earlier this week we had our monitoring visit. This is where the Monitoring Officer is sent out to our home to ensure that the program we wrote about in our family report is actually happening in our home.

The children love the opportunity to share their work with the Monitoring Officer (MO) and spent much of the morning collecting and displaying many aspects of their work ready for when the MO arrived. They love this experience and the feedback they receive. We have always found our Monitoring Visits to be a friendly experience, which is great.

This year (for us personally) the emphasis at our Monitoring Visit was different to other years as this year we had two children registered, so the MO had to deal with both my children and what they wanted to share.

The children and I were quite excited about the whole experience and a great afternoon was had by all.

Aussie Not back to School Blog Hop – Our Plans for the Year.

We set out the year agreeing that 2012 is to be a year were we place a huge emphasis on the earth, its creatures, people (past and present), culture and connections and we have and will be continuing to make this our focus. We have devised five main steps that we are incorporating this into our daily lives and homeschooling that we feel these will help us achieve this goal.

Each of us has created our own set of goals for the year, past experience shows us that these work well in helping us achieve our own goals for the year and make us more accountable. I thought long and hard about the goals I would set for myself this year, and tried to focus some of them around our theme of connections, the earth and people.

This year has also seen us introduce a new way of setting out our learning year. The planning phase of our learning is always a tricky one for me, as I not only home educate the children, but also work part time. So for me planning out our new year early in 2012 was crucial. But very rewarding.

Through multiple planning phases and keeping on target through family meetings we have set the following as our loose plan for our learning in 2012.

• Grow our own vegetables
• Having No Electricity Days
• Enjoy a lot more Nature Walks
• Caring for Animals and dealing with issues that may arise
• Historical play – Already we have enjoyed The Shingle Strike
• Hands on Archeology 
• Researching Family History
• Making Home Made gifts
• Letter writing / penpalling
• Focus on reading as it is the National Year of Reading in 2012

For anyone who is interested in our curriculum which is a forever ongoing and changing  activity in our house, we currently have the following curriculum organised and being used in 2012.

Thanks to Kylie of Our Worldwide Classroom for organising this Blog hop!