Monthly Memories February 2012

A Monthly Reflection style post is something that I have been thinking about for awhile now. I did this for a little bit a year or so ago. With 3 kids I think I made it harder than it needs to be.

When I saw Gabby's Looking Back posts I was again inspired. I love how she breaks down her categories, makes thinking about the month past so easy.

However I didn't move on the idea, until I got a little nudge. Whilst the NBTS hop was happening I had a suggestion for a wrap up style post meme. I knew I could never commit to a weekly meme, but monthly, I could try for.

So without further ado here is our first installment of Monthly Memories.

Considering how busy we've been this month I'm pretty happy with the amount of intentional learning that took place. Both kids are motoring through their maths and language arts.

Fairy Princess had fun measuring the house and her little brother with her cat measuring tool.

We've been rowing an Australian book and have spent quite a bit of time learning from that, spelling, vocab, list making, geography and art.

There is always an abundance of play. The nanoblocks were a definite hit this month.

The boys spent a considerable amount of time creating 'Australia Zoos'. Love seeing my big boy and little boy playing together.

This month we began our co-op style classes with our homeschool network. The children are participating in Art classes, Science classes and Little Surfer Dude has begun his first intro into structured activities, with Junior Soccer and a Junior Physi kids program.

We've been enjoying art classes with the same teacher for over two years now, both of the children are gaining so much from these. Fairy Princess has an animal focus this term, cats, owls, giraffe's and mixed up creatures.

Lego Lover's age group is looking at Artist's from around the world, Picasso, Rizzi, Dali.

In science they have been covering topics such as sound, water pressure, friction and completing simple experiments each week.

Little Surfer Dude loves his soccer classes, they are all so cute running around after their balls.

Lego Lover has instigated several learning opportunities for Little Surfer Dude of late. This particular morning they were working in a small counting book.

Yay, I actually have a pile of books to share that Lego Lover has read, in fact I am pretty sure there were more, but these I'm certain of. Gone are the days of worrying about reading!

Fairy Princess is working her way through a stack of early readers also. We have a ways to go, but these monthly posts will be a great opportunity to watch her growth in this area.

Without a doubt this month's greatest achievement has been for Lego Lover. He is writing phobic! This year we have talked a lot about how important it is be able to write and write well.

Earlier this month I suggested he start with a Journal. He has written daily at least 4 times a week every week this month. This simple exercise is helping him in so many ways, he is achieving so much........we are on the writing road!!!!

This month we started back with our Extra Curricular activity days, which are organised by our Distance Ed School. These are a much anticipated part of our week. Little Surfer Dude gets to spend the day playing on the playground with a myriad of other 2,3 & 4 year olds, plus we have a small area of activities set up for them.

The bigger two are off enjoying classes of all sorts, dance, drama, music, ukelele, sports, AUSLAN, science, public speaking, art, technology and we are about to trial in the new Show Choir, just to name a few. 

We are so blessed to have this opportunity. We really have the best of both worlds - school, without school and for our family, it works.

We took a visit to the Art Gallery this month to see the fabulous installation - We Miss You Magic Land. This was an amazing piece of art (several pieces actually) constructed using coloured sugar and other bits and pieces. Very inspiring.

Whilst we've experienced the 'dot room' concept before it is still so much fun. The room started out completely white. The children were given coloured dots to stick anywhere in the room they wanted.

Of course there's no visit to the art gallery without heading over to the museum as well.

Our first excursion with our school this year was to White Water World, loads of water slide fun!!
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I'd like to thank Gabby for the inspiration to break the post into categories. I borrowed a few of hers and also to Ingi for adding in a couple more ideas for category topics and Kendra for the nudge in getting me to move forward on this.

Whilst this meme has been designed for Australian Home School Bloggers it is open to any home schooling family wishing to participate.

Please feel free to use the category headers in your own posts if you wish. (just right click and save as) Have ideas for other categories? Let me know and I can make up some matching images for them.

The aim is that my post will be up on either the last day of the month or very early in the month following, depending on when the month end falls and how organised or disorganised I am.

Please spread the word about this meme, let's encourage as many as possible to start reflecting and recording the memories.

Now it's time for you to add your Monthly Memories post below.