M.A.S.H.

New Year's Day spent watching fifth season of M.A.S.H. Cricket's New Year gift, followed by Fish's: Stuart Little collection. Cricket commented that one of the scout leaders in Stuart Little 3 hadn't been a very good example of honourable behaviour.

Licola 2006

Darn. Cricket's first game back for 2006 is on 28th January - smack bang in the middle of our annual home educators camp. We'll be sorry to miss it this year, but not sorry enough to do the 5 hour drive for half the camp!

QuadrapopTree: Science Lists and Sites for Teens

Hey boys, the science links offered by Quadrapop could lead to interesting things... like BBC Science & Nature where you can meet the goat bred to spin spider silk.

reading and writing

Today, I built, wrote and read five new words: log, bat, fizz, red, sum. Mum dictated the spelling of a word I chose: NAQUADAH. Naquadah is a rare resource that is on the tv show Star Gate. Now because I have worked so hard I am going to play Cricket's Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic game.

Star Gate - Upgrades

The Tok'ra gave three members of SG-1 arm bands which increased their strength, speed, and reading speed. While SG-1 wore the arm bands they: ate lots of steaks and destroyed a Go'auld battleship before the time limit ended.

Prefixes, Suffixes & Syllables

Grumblingly, for mum's sake, I worked through some workbook pages about prefixes, suffixes and syllables.

I want to have a nap now.

I want to have a nap now. However, mum wants me to type stuff. Today I learned that mum is mean. Fish and I have been playing star wars today. I’m going to learn history of English colonization. I’m going to learn more about WWII.

Eureka

We drove to the Eureka Centre today to reflect on the anniversary of the Eureka Rebellion.

Cricket today

Game Stats: Bowled 7 overs - 2 wickets
Fielding - 1 catch
Batting - no runs :-(

Sky High / Shark Boy & Lava Girl

Last night Cricket & I watched Sky High with Emby while Fish watched the other with Grub & Merry.

They both enjoyed the movie they saw, though neither will take the time to say much about why just yet.

Massive Nature

I wandered into the lounge to reconnect with the boys after reading an email from their father in which he requested instructions as to the boys' "schoolwork" to do during their next visit to him. (Yeah, not one to appreciate gestalt learning)

Cricket and Fish were watching Massive Nature and during a break told me that their father had coerced them into watching an episode during their last visit with him, ie they were not permitted to play a computer game and had to sit and watch, even though that particular episode (on penguin migration) just didn't capture their interest. Weird... no coercion needed here.

Inventors

Fish is fascinated by the concept of invention in recent months. So while I was in the library the other day I collected some books that might interest him - about inventions and inventors. The first he perused was "My book of inventions by Jimmy Neutron" "as told to" Lara Bergen. Then he asked me to read to him "Inventions that have changed the world" by Rod Rees

Ninja: Japanese or Chinese?

That was Fish's recent question while I was driving. Now we guessed Japanese, but were confused because we are aware of many chinese martial arts so we decided to check the internet later. Naturally the microcassette recorder that we bought for just such a purpose was not in the car again, so it is just as well I remembered it later.

Oh - our guess was correct, and the boys were amused by some of the things we found along the way, such as Ninja vs. Killer Tomato

Hands on with Wild Action

Cricket, Fish & I joined Merry, Emby & Grub at at Wild Action show learning about Australian animals. We touched a live baby salt-water crocodile, ring-tailed possum, python snakes, a turtle, green tree frog, skinks, phasmids and a tree goanna.

The entertaining, high-speed delivery introduced us to the different animal body coverings, dietary requirements, habitats/environmental needs, morphology, habits (nocturnal/diurnal, arboreal/terrestrial, camouflage & other defence strategies, reproduction.

Computer Repair 101

We finally went to fix the CD-Rom drive today, bought a replacement to install ourselves. One screw and the cover came off, unplugged the old CD drive and replaced it - straightforward really.

Rise of Nations

Cricket bought himself a copy of Rise of Nations gold today, and both boys are eager to get stuck into playing.

Gestalt learning

Thanks to the contributors at UnschoolingDiscussion, I have some reasonable descriptions of the way Fish & Cricket learn:

"One way you can put this idea across, is to borrow some teacher jargon to stun the next person who tries this {examining & criticising children's knowledge}. Say "My kids are whole-to-part learners, not part-to-whole learners." Or if you want it to be more understandable you could say that they are "holistic" learners. When I want to be LESS understandable, I toss in the world "gestalt", even though I'm not completely clear on the meaning."

{to which another unschooler added:}

From Dictionary.com

Gestalt:

"A physical, biological, psychological, or symbolic configuration or pattern of elements so unified as a whole that its properties cannot be derived from a simple summation of its parts."

Sounds like a perfect way to describe a learner, and also Unschooling.

I have also heard the definition that the "whole is greater than the sum of its parts"

So, Fish and Cricket are pursuing a gestalt education.

Auslan

While house-sitting for my sister (dearest sister please give yourself a screen-name for this blog) and gratefully accepting some online time - we found her link to the Auslan signbank. As we have been wanting to learn this wonderful language I registered at the Auslan website. Fantastic - we found video of the signs we want to make - so much easier than trying to interpret picture and description from a book.

On the way to GUF's we practiced numbers in counting down the number of stations to go. When we got back I just how to find out how I would ask "how many stations to go?" So now I can ask "how many stations?" I'm curious whether and if so what sign might make my question clearer.

Go Dog Go

Unlike Logan at Rainbow Academy I wouldn't say this book is a favourite - however I did pick it up at a garage sale this morning, along with "Dreams" by Ezra Jack Keats, "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" by Judith Viorst, and "Whistle up the Chimney" by Nan Hunt (I love Craig Smith's illustrations). AND we read them tonight.

Zak

Zac arrived, thanks to Dorset at NVC Australia.

Cricket decided to get a start on it at home while Fish, Margie and I went to the Furniture Op-Shop.