The Week I Became A Parent Of A Teenager!

This week began with an extra fun afternoon and something the kids and I look forward to each and every time it comes around. Our Roald Dahl Book Club! One of the young ladies in our small co-op has envisioned her book club for some time; between her, her mother, who tirelessly organises and preps all the behind the scenes stuff and myself we made it happen.

We meet every six weeks at their home, on a weekend. During that time everyone reads and/or listens to the audio version of the book. We've done, Witches, The Twits and this time around it was George's Marvellous Medicine.

The meeting begins with an always lively discussion about the book, the characters, the juicy bits, the funny bits and the really gross bits. Cause let's face it, there are generally at least some gross bits in each Roald Dahl book.

This time around the group got themselves into pairs and created their very own 'marvelous medicine' which they then presented to the group. So many laughs! I love that we tick so many boxes within this couple of hours but that it doesn't feel like we are learning at all. Isn't that the way it should be? We are simply a group of buddies having a great time together chatting and laughing about our current book.

We always wrap book club up with a yummy afternoon tea (everyone brings a plate) and some play time. Now that the weather is warming up nicely that play time is spent mostly in the pool!

It was our first co-op day for the term during this week also. These days are so important to both myself and the kids. We all love them and all get so much out of participating in the small group learning environment.

We have begun a unit on Biomes and will work through a large number of the Terrestrial Biomes over the coming weeks. During last term we all worked together on an Ecology unit, so a Biomes study for this term, ties in perfectly. This week we looked at the Tundra, chatted about it, viewed a slide show and completed a very cool flip flap booklet.

After a little break for snacks and a bit of an energy release we gathered to work on our Tundra collages.  Each week we will complete a different Biome collage on the faces of a box.

We also took a closer look at Edmund Hillary, Mt Everest and glaciers. Did you know that Mt Everest is actually growing every single year? Pretty impressive stuff!

The day rounded out with the introduction of our Simple Machines Unit. We discussed the terms Power, Force and; Work and put them into action with a couple of simple lifting experiments. I introduced the topic with a couple of very short clips found on you tube. From there we looked at Friction and completed a simple experiment on the amount of force required to move an object dependent on the level of friction that was in place.

Midweek saw us bouncing and chatting our little hearts out! The kids simply love these giant indoor trampolining centres and with the weather warming up quite quickly we wanted to get in a visit before the heat inside this place becomes unbearable. It was a lovely opportunity for the mums to connect with friends both old and new. These little homeschool outings truly are just as important for the mums (parents) as they are for the kids.

However the highlight of the week was most definitely our first born, turning 13. Did you see that? 13, I said, yes 13. I am now the parent of a teenager. Everyone tells you but you don't really get it until you experience it for yourself. Those years of little sticky fingers and muddy feet and tiny kisses and cuddles truly do fly by.

One minute you are up to your armpits in nappies and running around after toddlers, the next you are off buying your child their first mobile phone in peparation for the inevitable times ahead that they are off doing their own thing.

B13 chose to head to one of our newest attractions with just a few close friends, they climbed the walls, raced around the go cart track and tagged each other in laser force. All in all a fun couple of hours.

Later that afternoon all of our friends and family gathered to celebrate with him. The kids all got into games of backyard laser tag, smashing the pinata, enjoying birthday cake, dipping strawberries in the chocolate fountain and just plain old having fun! He went to bed one very happy teenager.

I took a look back at one of the first posts I ever wrote on the blog with an image of B in it. He's 7 in the photo on the right and working on one of his first pottery pieces. This was taken back in 2009. The photo on the left is one from his 13th Birthday party with his beautiful Great Grandmother, that turns 90 in just a few short weeks.

 My heart swells with love when I look back over the photo's on the blog, which truly is the number one reason I keep this little space going. A spot to reflect, to document and to count my blessings, which I do, every single time I sit down and look at it, because my life is full to the brim of blessings.

This post is linked at Collage Friday  and Weird Unsocialised Homeschoolers