Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Week 8 & part of 9

Maths: Subtraction stories, adding & subtracting vertically, chain adding, doubling, measurement with variable units, fractions, symmetry, time, date.
English: Read Wet Paper series to Samina & Lisa. He is now able to read the Footrot Flats and Garfield comics out loud with expression - exclamation marks are his favourite - and he only mucks up the occasional word. Continued with handwriting text and wrote a letter to grandparents & addressed the envelopes (yet to be posted). I re-introduced the Oxford Spelling book now he is capable of doing it and he made a tongue twister with the spelling words;  Six skinny slugs skip and spin on the spot until they slip and snap. This is also to help his pronunciation of /s/ which is still very poor.
Science: Tadpole observations - they are now starting to sprout legs, and now the weather is cooler we have been walking a lot and the kids pay very careful attention to the insects and fungi we find
HPE: I spoke with the swimming teachers & they think he could join the swim club next season. He is caring for new kittens consistently. Soccer training proper has started on Thursdays. On Monday I took Kirk by himself to Bundy for the day so he received a very direct lesson in public conduct. I let him select where to go for lunch and he immediately said, "SUSHI!" ...awwww...he knows all the right things to say. Last Friday he also started Kids Club at the Community Church now that Friday soccer has finished and that gives him a greater variety of kids to play with.
Arts: We started making some dragonflies - the frames are done but we are yet to decorate them.Started on a pinata for his birthday buuuut I doubt it will dry in time.

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Week 7

Maths: adding, shapes, introduced km & short date formats. English: Drafted a letter to grandparents about the cats focussing on phonic spellings. Continued with handwriting & reading. LOTE: Continued to practice German vocabulary with the Samina & Lisa. Art: Pencil sketch of a hibiscus, beading, collage fish, arranged art wall.

Similar model phone
This week I took the kids on my business meetings in the South Burnett. My first meeting was with Glenda at the Murgon Dairy & Heritage Museum where Kirk was able to play with the old telephone exchanges and almost a complete series of telephones. He saw the whole process of a dairy and how butter & cheese was made at different times in history. We visited a variety of buildings - the original Murgon Bank of Qld, a beautiful church, an original slab house which was very likely to have been occupied by bushrangers (as evidenced by the gun ports in the walls), a reconstructed slab kitchen-bathroom, a 1940s dairy. There was also a variety of machinery and he tried out the corn sheller which was impressively effective. I reckon we will visit every time we pass through Murgon from now on because they are always developing their display.

While in Murgon we checked out the cattle sale yards because it was FULL of cattle. It was wet weather so the pens were more like sties and the poor animals were covered in shite from the road train (obviously they were the ones on the bottom!). They were a very rough mob - a big mixture of breeds and horns all over the place - and very unhappy with their circumstances. Oh well, they're resilient so a wash and a feed should make them feel better...but somehow I suspect that lot were off to the works.

Similar model phone exchang
Following this we visited the South Burnett Western Performance Club in Nanango for their monthly meeting. Unfortunately no thrills there except the endless stream of trucks diverted from the flooded Bruce Hwy. Then we camped at the BIEDO office in Goomeri and kids drove our office staff around the bend. The SES leader from Murgon then visited us and we had our meeting in the park where the Fire Dept was rolling up their hoses after a morning call out (double car collision caught on fire) so Grant gave the kids a personal tour of the truck. Ooo! Didn't they feel special!  Finally we called in at Biggenden to sort out another client and bolted home. Ahhh... the sweet serenity of barking dogs and hungry cats!

BUT that was not the end of the week. Today was Hippy Di's festival so Kirk  listened to the bands and played drums with Sean and Isaac and generally hung out with lots of people.

Thursday, March 08, 2012

Theatre of the Mind

On the long drive out to the South Burnett I looked in the rear vision mirror and noticed Kirk doing odd things, so I asked him what he was doing. He replied, "I'm growing my brain. I'm making up movies and Goon shows in my head."  WOW! Did THAT get him some praise!  Mind you, torturing his sister is his next favourite activity while travelling in the car.

Sunday, March 04, 2012

Week 6

This week we took our couch surfers to Bargara swimming, snorkelling & climbing around the rocks. That evening we had dinner with friends and a jam session.

Maths: Continued with adding practice, counting by various units, basic fractions (with Aunty ‘chelle)
English: As usual he is reading a wide variety of books, magazines and comics - anything he can find - and I am STILL reading a story from Kath Walker's book to him. Handwriting: Regular page a day – definitely improving with guided practice Spelling: Able to spell out words he encounters & asks assistance to decode them.
LOTE:  Learning some German from our couch surfers – greetings & numbers. I think it is time to start a note book so he can remember for when we have more from the same country.
Science: Electronic circuits:  Kirk & Justin built steadiness testers.
Misc: explored beach, visited a bat colony, snorkelling, collected shells, watched nature documentary
HPE: beach walk, swimming, soccer.
Arts: Music: learned about layering & played the drums. Arts:Applied the watercolour technique learned last week.