Happy 5th Birthday K

Our little K turned 5 today, if you'd like to see what she got up to for her birthday you'll have to jump over to our Family Blog.

End Of Term 2

School's Out!!! Well for 2 weeks anyway. We were so busy this term with activities that our support group didn't even have the time to organise an end of term function and certificate presentation. However one of our verykind mums still took the time to put together some certificates for the kids (thanks Courtney).

Now I've just realised that I have a few lapbooks that I haven't taken any photo's of to show you. I will get that onto that and get the images up as soon as I can.

Dance Wrap Up

Everything is coming to an end, our winter break is only a few days away and today we had our last dance lesson for the term. A picture tells a thousand words, so why not let the video clip do the talking.



It looks at though Miss Sunday wil be coming to take private dance lessons for our kids next term so that's very exciting.

Quick Update

Ok I know I haven't been here much of late, no real excuses, just busy with life. So anyway here are a few pics with just a bit of what we've been up to this past week or so.

We had an absolutley fabulous up close and personal experience with some reptiles. Brian from Crocodiles and Dragons brought his little brood along for us to enjoy.

With only 20 children there everyone got up very close and in most cases they all got to hold the reptiles as well. This was fantastic! One of the best wildlife experiences we've had yet.

This has to be one of the best upsides to homeschooling - small groups mean more hands on and way more fun! No looking from the back over the heads of 40 or so other children here, my kids were right in the middle of it.

With Bearded Dragons

And Shingle Back Lizards

To Blue Tongues (B7 looks really into it here)


But when he actually touches the lizard, he's not so sure.

And a lively Turtle,

To a huge Crocodile. We all knew he had a crocodile in that box but no one ever expected it to be so big. He wasn't overly happy that day so was only out for a short play....I'd say that was probably a good thing hehehe

And then there was this experience. I am still totally blown away that both B7 and K4 were up for this, they did great and both seemed to really enjoy the experience.

Mum on the other hand,

Well, let's just say that isn't quite a smile of joy. CBub, however was really quite intrigued, especially when the snake decided to slither and move right around the back of his neck.

Definitely a fantastic opportunity and one I am sure the kids will remember for a log time to come.

I hadn't planned on doing any extension activities after the presentation, but the kids were eager. So we have been putting together a simple lapbook (since mum had nothing organised) I grabbed everything I needed from Home School Share - thanks guys.


We also had our second Art Gallery Workshop and were lucky enough to have the artist with us again. This time we tried our hand at Paper Cutting Techniques, some of which were quite tricky. Everyone added a piece or two to the huge wall mural the Art Gallery was creating.

The kids also made these nifty little notepad holders at bunnings, they enjoyed that. Sanding, gluing, painting, hammering and this is what we ended up with.

Captain Crabclaw's Crew Lapbook - Part 2

Today we made our own aged treasure maps, firstly by scrunching paper, then coating it with a used teabag, allowing to dry and then finishing off with the map drawing itself. Whilst the maps were drying we looked on the internet at various treasure maps and discussed the symbols used.

We made pencil flags, such a simple little print, colour and stick activity but the kids love their new pirate pencils. We found this activity here. B7 then proceeded to tackle a few mazes, spot the difference, a counting in 5's maze and a joke decoder, which he enjoyed.

B7's finished Treasure Map


K4's finished Treasure Map

We made a start on the Alphabet Treasure Hunt activity that was in the activity booklet the kids received at the book launch. They had to hunt for words/images from the story to go along with each letter of the alphabet. This will no doubt take a couple more read throughs to get it completed. We began with them listening for appropriate beginning sounds and then tried having them say stop whenever they felt like it and telling me the letter sound of what they stopped on. A simple activity for B7 but quite a challenge for K4 so that was somewhere in the middle there.

We also spent some time coming up with their own funny animal crews for their pirate ships. I won't share any more details on that just yet as I plan on building on that activity a little.

Captain Crabclaw's Crew Lapbook - Part 1

Yesterday we had the opportunity to attend a book launch at our library. It was for the new book Captain Crabclaw's Crew, by Frances Watt and David Legge. The authors themselves did a live 'performance' of the story for a very large group of children. The launch was put on in conjunction with The Little Big Book Club.

Sorry for the photo glare, it's nearly dark here. I'll try to remember to take another shot during the day.

The kids received an Activity Book each, put out by The Little Big Book Club. So we decided to make the most of it today and began work on a Captain Crabclaw's Crew Lapbook.

We began by reading the story yet again! Whilst I read B7 and K4 drew images from the story. They then painted with watercolours and this has become the cover page of their lapbooks.

B7 sketching.


B7 painting, his attention to detail is developing nicely.

B7's finished lapbook cover.

K4 sketching whilst I read.

K4 finishing off with some water colour.

Her finished lapbook cover.

We then made pirate hats and patches and played pirates for a while.

B7 made a start on a word search that was included in the activity book.

We brainstormed a list of Pirate Words.

These will be made into a Pirate Word Bank to go into our Writing Center for future use.

After brainstorming our list of words we decided to write a. "If I Was A Pirate" story.

We made glittery pirate hat shape book covers.

And completed the pages of the shape books.

B7's story reads as follows:

If I was a pirate I would sail the seven seas.

If I was a pirate I would drink beer with my crew.

If I was a pirate I would look for treasure on an island.

If I was a pirate I would buy lots of Lego with my treasure.

The End.

K4's Story reads,

If I was a pirate I would wear my eye patch and my pirate hat.

If I was a pirate I would go looking for treasure. I would look down in a hole on the beach.

If I was a pirate I would drink lemonade and eat cucumber and ham sandwiches.

If I was a pirate I would go to bed on my ship to have a sleep.

If I was a pirate I would play with my pirate fairy toys.

The End.

We'll keep going with some pirate related activities next week.

In the meantime, check out these sites for pirate stuff:

First School - Pirates

Scholastic - Pirate Activities

Books, Books, Books

We had a mini bookfest today whilst Cbub napped. He obviously slept for a while as we were quite surprised how much reading we had gotten through. Or should I say how much reading aloud mummy had gotten through!


We hit it off with a retell of Hans Christian Andersen's, The Little Mermaid, followed by a few picture books K4 borrowed from our recent library visit. Some of which were quite good, like The Happy Prince and The Baby Dances and some of which were awful. I'll leave the titles of those out though shall I ;)

Also got in a couple of chapters of Roald Dahl's, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the entire Animal section in The Puffin Book of Fantastic First Poems, some of these are really very funny. Although K4 wasn't impressed by some of the authors messing with traditional nursery rhymes.

K4's Underwater Little Mermaid Drawing, complete with Jellyfish.

B7's Little Mermaid sketch.

Don't you love his little crab!

Playground Fun

We played at the park this afternoon with a nice size group (about 8 families in all). We've been so busy this term with organised activities that we've really missed our park play. The kids climbed, ran races, had bike and scooter races and even organised (or at least tried) their own soccer match.

Happy Mothers Day 09

Gee whizz I really am the luckiest mum in the world.

Aren't they just a gorgeous bunch!

It was lovely day today, beautiful weather, a yummy breakfast with Grandma and the family then we headed off down the coast to Kingscliff to see Nanny for the rest of the day.

The kids made the most of the glorious weather and spent some time on the beach. My guess is that was the last beach trip for the season. However we did little C a play as well, so that was his first real beach experience. The sun was a little glary for him and it doesn't help that he won't leave his hat on, but he really had fun.

Weekly Wrap Up - 9th May 2009

Week 2 of dance lessons saw us with a change of teacher. K4 was ecstatic as now we have a lady, B7 not so, but he still had a blast anyway.

We revisited the rock climbing wall this week, after nearly a year (wow how quickly that has gone). It certainly pays to keep this activity up, both of them had lost some confidence but they did regain it as the afternoon progressed.

Soccer, our regular Saturday morning thing, now that the season is in full swing. Thankfully B7 just loves his soccer games and so far we have been very pleased with the club and the way they handle everything with the children.

Our dear friends have this super cool billy cart (be watching for some videos) and we had a whole bunch of friends here on the weekend, did they have the best time or what on this thing! I think we'll have to put our order in for one of those billy carts *wink wink*

Book Club - Week 1, Term 2

Through LHEN we have organsied a children's book club at Logan Library, we had the first meet up today. It was always going to be a little unknown as to how many would show up and what the age mix would be.

The librarian (Jenny) used today as a 'getting to know you' day. The children were asked to brainstorm lists of books that they enjoyed. They could inlcude, favourite authors, series, themes, anything really that they liked to read about. As you can imagine the list was long, very long!

From that list a theme for the month was chosen - ANIMALS - so B7 and K4 now need to choose a book that relates in some way to animals. We will take the books they have read along with us to the next club meet up in a month's time for discussion and activities revolving around the ANIMAL theme.

From there it was library treasure hunt time. The children were broken into groups and were given a set of clues that had them hunting and meandering through the children's section of the library. This was fun, for both the big kids and the little and it gave all of us an opportunity to really see where everything is in the library.

We are looking forward to future book clubs, wonder what they'll have in store for us next time.