Christmas Craft

Wow, we have had a mad but lovely last week in our house. 
We have decided to incorporate our love of the big red guy to our homeschool this past week and have had a ton of fun doing christmas crafts.

Last week we devoted our school time to Gingerbread :)  After we got our maths lesson out of the way of course ;)

We read the book ' The gingerbread man'  (Reading).  Then we sorted out pictures from the story into the order we read them in the book.

We drew pictures of our family as Gingerbread people... (Art )

And to finish off, we talked about how gingerbread was made, concluding in the building of our new traditon.  The Roycroft gingerbread house! (Maths, science & physics!)  Samantha had a great time helping to measure out the ingredients and make the dough...

Both kids loved the decorating - even if more sweets went in mouths than on the house!

Now I bet you are starting to see why I have been too busy to post much!

We have also completed a nativity - after reading the story of the nativity and watching a great cartoon movie of it online...

And don't forget the new batch of very christmasy peppermint playdough we now have in our house - kids chose colours...(this smells divine!!!)

We took the time to make a family advent calendar.  It is so lovely and it has family activities to do together everyday.   Usually simple, like doing a craft (shock horror) or watching a christmas movie together. Nice because it takes some of the focus off the chocolate and toys the kids get in their own everyday.  Funny that the kids are often more excited about this one!

Tonight is to have a family game night - so i see an epic battle of snap and build a beetle in my future :)

We have also been hard at work studying bubbleology....

and found the time to make some Christmas ornaments... this post makes me look like I am far more organised and motivated than I actually am!!!!


Baking the salt dough we made in the oven....

 Finished products.....

Oh and in there somewhere my daughter decided to become a mechanic apparently!  It was hilarious to hear the conversation that was going as I grabbed the camera.  Samantha was asking Anthony to pass her the wrench and the hammer because his steering was loose!

Along with all this crafty excitement, my daughter has officially graduated from Kindy 'sob, sob'.  It was such a tough day (harder than I thought it would be) and I couldn't stop myself from getting emotional while they were going through her profile book in front of the class at mat time.  She is sad as well, although she does understand that it is time for her to stop going as all her friends are going off to school next year.  So a big thank you to the Whangaparaoa Baptist Kindergarten for taking such good care of her in the past 2 and half years and making her experience so lovely :)

So we are officially on holiday for now (apart from reading), so keep watching out for our adventures over the coming summer, as school never really stops in our house :)

Sterryn

Monsters are real....

I am still trying to get my head around the events at Sandy Hook Elementary school in the U.S on Friday morning.
With each photo they release of the victims my heart breaks a little more.  For the families, the town and the world we now live in.   For the realisation that in the world my children will grow up in, this is common place.
I don't know what caused that young man to enter an elementary school and murder in cold blood 6 adults and 20 children, but back in my day this man would have been called a Monster.
I am only thankful that my children are too young to understand what happened in that school on Friday.  That they don't yet have to know that the world they are growing up in has monsters in it, and not the kind that live under your bed!

My prayers go to the families of these victims.  That at a time when these children should have been full of the excitement of Christmas, they faced something no one should ever have to face, and now their families are having to bury them.
So I will now go and hug my children a little tighter and kiss their little heads while they are sleeping.
I am so thankful that my children are being raised in a country where this is less likely to be commonplace - a country that doesn't yet feel the need to have a gun in every home.  A country where my children might stand a chance to remain innocent just that little bit longer.....
 
"If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together...
there is something you must always remember:
you are braver than you believe,
stronger than you seem,
and smarter than you think.
But the most important thing is,
even if we're apart...
I'll always be with you."
-Winnie the Pooh

Sterryn

Monkeying around...

We have had a busy week here in our little household.....and to be honest I don't see things slowing down now before Christmas.
The whole family has been really having fun getting into the crafty side of Christmas (there is a whole post coming soon with details) including myself.  I decided that I would really like to give my children at least one present this year that was made by me.  Something especially for them. 
That is why I decided to teach myself to make this out of a new sock.....

 Meet Edmond.  He is slightly shy and very reserved, but a real gentleman and a pleasure to have in our home.  

I found him this morning here.....

I think he is trying to get in on the action of Christmas.   What he probably doesn't realise is that he will be a main part of Christmas.  Wrapped with care and placed under the tree to be opened by one of our nephews on Christmas day. 



1 down.........4 more to go!

Sterryn

CHRISTMAS is coming...

 I LOVE Christmas! 

Apart from the significance of this time of year for me being a Christian, I also love the presents, the food and the terrible carol music played in every mall and department store!
I love that most people develop a sense of caring for others  (except when it comes to car parks!!!).  I love seeing and hearing about the donations of food and presents for those that are struggling at this time of year.

We are trying to instill in our children that gift of giving.  It is getting slightly easier as they get older.  A few weeks back we went through the piles of toys that my children own and culled out those that they are too old for or don't get played with, and donated them to our local Salvation Army.  In the coming weeks we will be taking them to donate some food to the local church food bank and we always bake christmas cookies of some type and give them to our friends and neighbours.  The aim this year to bake and decorate a Gingerbread house. I actually can't wait - its something I have always wanted to do, but always gets put in the too hard basket.  This year I thought it would be a great and fun homeschool lesson. I would say that covers science, maths, chemistry and Art ;)

Because I love christmas so much, we put up our decorations on the 1st December.  Partly so we get a whole month of Christmas, and partly because the kids start their advent calendars on the 1st and I have a bad habit of packing them in the very bottom of the decorations box!
Samantha has had her beautiful wooden house advent for a couple of years now.  Santa's Elves come each night (if she has been a good girl) and puts a little something in the next days door.  (This theory gives me a whole month of leverage for good behaviour).  This is Anthony's first year with an advent calendar (which I whipped up on the 29th November) and he has a extra special Mummy made one ;)

Samantha's Calendar..

Anthony's Calendar underneath the window and the Christmas tree.

Close up of Anthony's.  This was so fun to make :)

Today, for the first time, we took our children shopping  - for each other.  We gave them both a limit of $10 and let them choose something special to give the other for Christmas.  I know that Samantha tried very hard to sell Daddy on the idea that Anthony really 'wants' a fairy pet shop animal "yeah right!", but ended up choosing him a lovely gift that was both appropriate to his age and his passion of the Toy Story movies.  Anthony came with me and visited Samantha's favourite store 'Smiggle'.  That child has a serious addiction to stationary!  He chose her a set of scented pens and Mummy managed to find some cute Christmas erasers as well.  The price tag made me gasp slightly, but it was definitely worth it!
I am very pleased to now be able to say that I don't have a need to enter another shopping mall before Christmas.  It was madness already and we are still a few weeks out from the big day.

Yesterday the kids and I shoved ourselves full to the brim with Christmas spirit!  We  had our annual trip to Smith and Caughey's Department store in Auckland City to see the 'real' Santa and and walk through the Enchanted forest.    It was lovely as it is every year.  (Last year we went too late in the season and the wait to see Santa was 3+ Hours!!  Needless to say we didn't attempt the wait and had a picnic at the museum instead!)
I love that it has become one of our family traditions to do this (apart from last year of course).  It is so special and such a thrill for both children.  Anthony was especially excited as he was too little to remember the last time we did it.

This is the walk through the Enchanted forest on the way to Santa's house.  All the displays are actually moving puppets.

Here is our Santa photo.  Excuse the quality as I have photographed the photo.   An extra $8 to send the photo to me by email seemed a little steep!  Anthony is sitting on the front of Santa's foot stool.  It was the closest he would get apart from a Santa high five when we arrived and to accept the gift he was given before we left!
The photo doesn't do it justice as Santa is in his 'house' which is beautifully decorated including a roaring fire and pictures of Mrs Claus and reindeer on the walls.   Santa really took the time to talk to both children and it was a very personal and happy experience for both of them :)  Thanks Smith and Caughey, we will be back again next year.  Oh, and it was very sneaky of you to have the photo pick up smack bang in the centre of the toy department on the second floor!  Thanks for that!

On the way out we checked out the Christmas Windows.  This year based on the story of 'Russell's magical Christmas'.  The kids loved watching the moving displays as we read the story underneath.

We actually went straight from seeing Santa to Christmas Wonderland which was a gorgeous display of decorated christmas trees in Birkenhead.  We had won a family pass to go on Facebook so couldn't pass that up!
It was spectacular!!!  It would have been nice to browse each tree properly instead of being dragged from the Mickey Mouse tree to the Sesame Street tree.    Samantha had to be forcebly removed from the Littlest Pet Shop Fairy tree (you can imagine!). 

It was truly a magical day for all of us, and I loved being able to share that with both children.  They were as ever, beautifully behaved (even with all the waiting) and I was so proud of them both after what was a very long day!

That's all for now, but watch out for more as we still have the Christmas Eve Carol singing at Church, which Sam is taking part in this year, and we have promised the kids a walk up Franklin Road to see the Christmas lights closer to Christmas.  Oh and our foray into Gingerbread house building of course ;)

Sterryn

80/20

Is it just mine or are all siblings nicer to each other when they don't think a parent is watching?

It was all quiet in our school room late this morning.  I knew that Samantha had finished her 'official' work for the day so assumed she was in there drawing as usual.  I wander on in and was so shocked I then had to stealthily sneak back out and grab my camera.
Apparently my little guy had managed to cajole his big sister into getting down the beetle game he had been wanting to play with ALL morning and also managed to get her to help him build them.  

It is times like this when I realise how lucky I am to have two such lovely kids.  Of course they have their moments, but we have around a 80/20 balance of them being nice vs being horrible to each other (depending on the day of course).  At 5 and 3 years old I don't think I can really ask much more than that :)

Our school day - 
I would like to now introduce our friends H & I, and welcome them on to our Coconut tree.  We have been doing this a while, but for reference to this new blog this is based on the book 'Chicka Chicka, Boom Boom' by Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault.  If you have a preschooler and don't have this book, then get it!  My children love it.  It is based on the idea of the alphabet all climbing up a coconut tree and is such a lovely way to learn the letters of the alphabet.  Here are my monkeys adding their letters to our tree (they get to do this once we have learned to write, read and sound out each letter).  This is now done more for Anthony's benefit, but I try and do a letter a week with them both.

Samantha has now completed Lesson 5 in our reading book (after we had to start over due to the glandular fever and taking a break), and was then able to do a whole lesson from reading eggs with very little instruction from me.  It is great to see the progress she is making.  It gives me confidence in the choices we have made for her.  


And now for the really important stuff!  Christmas has come to our house  - I LOVE CHRISTMAS! I love it so much that I will post about it.....a little later.

We are now off to 'socialise' and have an adventure at the Library :)
 
Sterryn

Pyjama school!

Some days my kids just don't want to get out of their PJ's, and some days 'yawn' they are so keen to get on with their school work that we are in there at 6.30am!

Yesterday (Monday) we knew there was a busy day ahead - we were going to look after a good friends children so school time ended up being a date with the play dough while listening to the Cinnamon Bear story online.    The thing I love most about Home schooling is the freedom we have to do this...and the fact that both of my monkeys think that playdough is fun - when in fact they are learning amazing things from maths to science, as well as developing lovely dexterity in their fingers/hands :)
Our playdough is so well used now that all the colors resemble a murky brown.  Do you think the kids even care?   Of course not!

This morning, it was pyjama school again.  Both were so keen 'again...yawn', that at 7am we were sitting at the school table getting ready to do some serious learning.

This is Samantha when I told her we were learning 3 new words today....  I love my goofy girl :)

Both kids worked really well today.  Samantha did a lesson from our reading book 'Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons'.  We seriously love this book!  Admittedly we haven't been as dedicated in the past few weeks to following it with Samantha being sick, but we are back in to it now.   One of the things I love most about it is that she is learning to write the sounds at the same time she is learning to read them!  Its amazing how well it works for her.    (Anthony was practising his writing - which is code for scribbling - but amazingly he holds a pen perfectly!).

 School work as been completed in record time this morning as we have been invited to have a playdate with Samantha's bestie.  She is beyond excited as usual to go and play with Miss C and introduce her new Lalaloopsy doll 'Harmony' to Miss C's brood!
I love that we get this time to play.  One of the biggest benefits for us with home schooling is the time our children have to develop relationships with other children.    Samantha and Miss C still go to Kindergarten together twice a week.  We are on the countdown to the end of an era now though....Samantha only has 4 more Kindy sessions until the end of the school year and then we are officially graduated.  Miss C will be off to school next year and playdates will be limited to Sunday school and after school.   

On that sad note, we are off to play....

Sterryn

Christmas is coming.....again?

And the award of the 'WORST' blogger ever goes to..............ME!

 Its not really too much of a problem being that the only person reading this blog is...well...me!
 It has been nearly three years since I last wrote in here, and to be absolutely honest I forgot it existed!
After several queries from people about our homeschooling journey - I have decided it is time for a resurrection of this poor old blog.
So along with a new name, there will obviously be new subject matter involved.
Miss Samantha is now 5 years old and we have made the very personal choice to homeschool. This is not a reflection of our local school system (well mostly), but mainly a decision that we as a family have decided is the best one for our children. Because Anthony obviously won't be left out of anything he is included in our school day - albeit at a preschool level.

We have the school room -

Side view -

Other Side -

This was the day we set it up, so it actually looks nothing like this now.  In actual fact if I am honest, nearing the end of our first (partial) year, it looks somewhat like a rubbish dump and is in desperate need of a clear out! 
I try very hard to enforce a no 'play' zone rule for this room, but both kids love being in here.  It is such a bright, sunny and inviting space to draw, read and play that I can't really blame them.

Here is a very grown up Miss Samantha at 5 and 1/2...

And the bossy Anthony at 3...

Its Sunday afternoon here and I have children begging me to feed them...again!  So enough for now, but tomorrow is another school day :)

I hope you enjoy our journey :)

 Sterryn