At home
Daniel and I have been reading library books before bed. Enormouse was a favourite (that wasn’t Maisy or Peppa pig!) He’s also started going to bed without milk! He’s been making shadows in the dim light on his bedroom wall. He’s also been doing lots of puzzles and playing with magnetic tiles. I’ve noticed how intuitive it is for kids to see that when they build a wall it won’t stand without a perpendicular support – they don’t need to know about stiffness and cross sections and structural stability. they just do it! It makes me realise that I have jumped in with too much in the past instead of watching, waiting and listening. My own agenda (I teach, they learn) has been obvious to them, especially Alex!
We’ve been playing Avengers match and snap lots. Alex and Vio watched karate kid 3. Alex loved it. He showed real empathy for the kid moving away and being in a new place and being bullied – we had a very cool conversation about what was happening in the movie. I was especially impressed with his view on when the boy was seriously injured but he had to go out and compete to prove to himself he was brave. The kids have been to the skate park with Vio. They love it there! We’ve also watched more new movies – Finding Dory. Alex and I had a good talk about it too.
I recently got Terraria for Alex on his iPad. He was interested but he couldn’t work it out, so I spent a bit of time helping. I also got Daniel the real youtube app (he previously had kids) and saved him some cooking videos. In minecraft Alex has been building a huge house – it’s very tall! He’s also been playing school of dragons.
We’ve had butterflies hatch at home. We missed them coming out of the chrysalis – it happened so quickly! But we enjoyed releasing them and watching as they enjoyed our garden. Alex remembered how to tell if they were male or female. Unfortunately we got 2 males again! The second butterfly was not a monarch, but a lesser wanderer. It was smaller and quite beautiful. I didn’t get a picture of it though.
The kids made themselves a little cubby – they suspended a blanket using tape from the shelf above! I was quite impressed with their engineering efforts!
Outings
A trip to Werribee zoo and our focus was getting to the serval presentation as it’s one of the few things we’d not done at the zoo. We managed to get to it! At the entrance was the most beautiful smooth looking tree! Alex befriended a little boy just before we entered. he was very kind to him. We also bumped into some other homeschoolers. Alex asked if servals and cheetahs were related (they’re not). It was short, we saw the serval jumping, pouncing – it was very agile and quiet. We were given some facts about them too. We walked around the zoo, played in ranger kids, and went on the bus. Daniel really wanted to see the giraffes and we got to see them really up close. Plus lots of baby animals – Alex loves them! Alex bought himself a cheetah in the gift shop as we left – expanding his family! He also bought Daniel a giraffe which was very sweet of him. We spent some time thinking up names but nothing stuck. They’ve been getting lots of baths though!
Socialising
Neighbours have been over. I was a little disappointed at hearing them playing roblox and using the messenger function. I had asked them not to do that. They’ve been wrestling a fair bit oo. they use the trampoline as a ring – despite advice from all adults not to!
We visited friends where the kids played all day. Some minecraft, with new stuffed toys. they even bathed them again!
We had a west group meet, but at an alternative location. It was hot and to be honest not a great day! Alex repeated what some of the other boys were saying about being a girl so she couldn’t play.i stepped in – he knew it was not okay. There were a few instances at the park that day where Alex found himself in trouble. And it was generally because he was responding to a threat of some kind. But no one else sees that part, frustrating for me but especially for Alex as he’s being blamed unfairly for things. The kids settled a bit more and played frisbee – Alex leading the way with rules! I found a nest that had fallen out of the tree. It was empty. Alex noticed there was wire amongst the nest. Alex decided to wear his watch, he got it for his 5th birthday. He could tell time! At 12:45 he said it was 3/4 past 12. I told him we say ‘quarter to 1′. I mentioned we needed to leave the park at 3. When he saw his watch that it was past 3 he was happy and obligingly left.
The kids’ cousins have been over for a BBQ too. They came after the neighbours had spent the whole Saturday here and the house was a shambles! I insisted they help clean up. They did – but I’ve never felt the need to do that before.
We went to the You yangs with Vio’s team and club. We walked to the summit, it was hard as one of us had Daniel on their backs. plus I’m seriously unfit. but we all made it! It was a cold day and Daniel seemed unwell. it didn’t help that i was unprepared for rain!
Activities
Athletics training- Alex ran over part way through to collect Daniel to join in the games. He also ran a lap at the end of training in preparation for 400m races in the future.
Alex had football trials at Avondale with Vio. he loved it and can’t wait to be a part of a team.
We had Currawong Kids, and Alex was being very playful with a little boy – very kind and inclusive. He decided to give him his iron man car. Afterwards he told me how good it felt inside to do it. We played eagle eye, climbed the cliff, crossed the creek, climbed the ‘mountain’, did sit spots, nature journal and games. Alex found tadpoles at his sit spot. Daniel and I saw a caterpillar, dragonfly, spider, butterflies, ibis, and a cormorant being harassed by noisy mynas. Alex drew a spider and honey brown beetle – we’ve been seeing lots of them.
I took the kids to a kindermusik class. It was for families of kids 0-7, I wanted to look into it for Daniel – he was very excited about it. But both of the boys ran around a lot, it wasn’t great unfortunately. Alex said it was boring, Daniel wasn’t keen on participating as the teacher would have liked. He hasn’t mentioned it since. Alex says he wants to play violin – I talked about how he could do that – using youtube, taking lessons, just playing around himself. I’ll see how it plays out but I don’t want to jump on it too eagerly.
Alex attended a Melbourne City FC workshop nearby – they let Daniel join in too! He was very happy, and I was very relieved. The kids really enjoyed it, and Alex got a free City membership out of it too.