Rainforest Adventure
Alex was excited about visiting the rainforest – he said it was his dream come true! The ranger talked about the dinosaurs and megafauna that lined there millions of years ago. We went on a walk, identifying trees like the mountain ask (second tallest tree in the world!), the two different types of tree ferns (soft and rough), how ferns reproduce, eucalyptus trees shed their bark to keep cool, leap shapes depend on their position in the rainforest (canopy or undergrowth), and more. We saw a few animals – most noteworthy was the displaced moth. It was huge! 
Mostly we saw evidence of animals, such as yabby holes, echidna scratchings, tree hollows.
Afterwards we fed the cockatoos. It was a great experience! The birds landed on our arms and left scratches. At first Alex was a little concerned but he relaxed. It was beautiful to see them so closely and fascinating to watch them feed themselves! We walked over to a spot where there were crimson rosellas and watched them for a while. We found a few feathers, and the kids got a little mad at a little boy that tried chasing them off.
Home
We’ve played football in the garden, and bowling. Alex was adding up the scores and we wrote them on the chalkboard – Alex too, and I didn’t ask him to! Then I made the mistake of writing some words. He recognised zoo, but couldn’t work out ‘boo’ even though he knew ‘b’. He’s not ready and this is not the way for him.
Daniel has been loving the magnetic tiles still. He’s been helping out in the kitchen lots and loves cracking eggs – he’s gotten quite good at it unaided and rarely drops shell into the mix. I read The Gruffalo and Gruffalo’s Child to him and he loved them. So later in the week we read Stick man too.
Alex has been looking up green lamborghini aventadors! He’s also been watching this youtube magician. Well he does a lot of special effects stuff. They are actually evry impressive. He asked me on the drive to somewhere about car wiring, and how come nothing bad happens when it gets wet. So we got into a little discussion about coverings on wires and insulators, conductors and voltage. I was careful not to lecture and just answered his questions. We’ve also built lots of ninjago lego – Alex had not built all the bad guys but decided to this week with some help. I’ve played a little minecraft with Alex too. Daniel wanted to join and we let him, but he became very frustrated! Alex has moved on to watching videos about GTA5. I was worried about this when he told me as the content is quite mature, but he’s actively sought a gamer that does not swear (he says ‘fudge’) and only races. He wanted to get the game. I looked for a PC version but it’s only available on Xbox and PS4.
We started an experiment with clean and dirty hands and bread. The kids had to wipe their dirty hands on a piece of bread, go wash hands and then wipe them on another piece. We labelled them dirty and clean and then left them to grow mould.
Bubbles
We went to a holiday program run by the ‘Scientwists’. It was about bubbles. Daniel got to join in and the kids loved it! They made bubble patterns, bubbles in bubbles, big bubbles and got to make a contraption called the bubble-ator. The people running the session didn’t force and teachery things onto the kids, except that bubbles are always spheres no matter what shape the blower. All the kids knew they’d be ’round’ or ‘circles’ though.
Snorkelling
The snorkelling activity was rearranged, but this time we had to go to Ricketts Point. We were given a safety briefing and the kids buddied up and entered the water. This time I was prepared and Alex had his own snorkel! Alex surprised me at how confidently he took the challenge on. He barely came out of the water in the whole half hour session. He didn’t get scared at all! He stayed close to the instructor though, but I think mostly to find more things, He said they saw loads of fish. He said it was his dream come true, and the instructors thought his enthusiasm and passion was hilarious!
On the way home we stopped near St Kilda pier and scooted along Beach Road, and bought ice cream.
Socialising
I don’t usually think much of socialising, but I’m including it knowing that next year I could be reviewed by the VRQA. So this blog might get a little more aligned with what they’d expect to see. More education-ese perhaps.
So we had a play at the park before bubbles workshop. The kids played eagle eye and hide and seek.
We’ve had the neighbours over. They often play football in the garden, or basketball in the driveway. Or wrestle on the trampoline. they are at our house mostly and occasionally allow Alex into their home where they play tennis or Xbox. They came over one day and played the minecraft card game. Alex got quite mad at them for not following the rules. The elder of the brothers stormed off as he had been trying to cheat. This is a way too common occurrence – he storms out multiple times each time they’re over and it ends up with Alex chasing him down and begging him to stay and often allowing the cheating to go ahead unchecked. After this instance I talked about it with Alex. He’s worried they won’t be his friends, but tells me how unfair it is that he behaves that way. Since this particular day Alex has said to the boy ‘if you leave, you can’t come back!’.
We caught up with the kids’ cousins after they’d gotten back from holidays. Alex and Emily bicker,a nd he found other people to play with at the park But he’s developed this peculiar notion about boys vs girls?! Daniel and Jacob played really well.
We visited with old playgroup friends for a ‘camping’ them play date.
Organised (‘EC’) Activity
Alex has had athletics training. He loves it when they play lots of games. We also had athletics events day. Alex got a PB in discus and has his sights set on a silver PB medal.
There’s been some complications around football and Vio is unable to coach Alex, so he attended a trial session at Essendon United. I didn’t tell him it was trials of course, just that he would play for 3 weeks with a different coach. Alex did really well – he said he loved it.I’m really proud of him for talking on this challenge.
Alex’s birthday party
I made Alex a ninjago green ninja cake. We had friends come play at a favourite park. it was a good day, It actually cooled down. the kids played on scooters, or had a football game. Alex was spoilt with wonderful gifts too. Downside was Alex’s grandparents car broke down that day so they didn’t make it!But we went and visited with them later. Alex chose a pizza dinner. It was a long, long day! And we were all keen to get to bed!
The following day Alex was keen to build some of his lego – one technics thing in particular. We had to get instructions on his ipad. Daniel was feeling a little left out so we walked to the shops and got him a little lego and a paw patrol puzzle, which he did all by himself at home! Alex bought a lego jet fighter.
The days that followed saw Alex thinking about what to buy with his money. He was calculating change from potential spends.
Other
We’ve been to the pool since and Alex took his snorkelling gear and a water skipper toy he got for his birthday. We played with it lots – Alex was fascinated by how it works and we tried to get it to bounce as many times as possible. Daniel had a noodle boat and was racing Alex.
We went for bike ride to the park too.