bit of this and a lotta that

It's terrible losing my blogger mojo. I have stacks of photos of interesting and fun things that we've been doing and blogging just hasn't made the cut of important things to do. So sad though because I love recording our doings.

So what to share? It's difficult to choose!

We did a great experiment triggered by Backyard Science on ABC schools TV through which we discovered The Science Toymaker online. We'll be chipping away at these 'toys' I think. I have some very excited little boys :D thanks to this find.

The experiment was called a Cartesian Diver and for great video instructions and loads of fantastic info on the science of the toy, just follow the links. My boys spent the whole of Friday arvo playing and experimenting by adding different weights to their divers through the addition or removal of blue tack and paper clips.

Our weekend was the most chilled that we've experienced in a long while. Mr E's Mum and Dad came up from Brisbane to visit and as always when we parted we were left a little sorrowful over the length between visits. We ate, drank, talked, and ate some more. Our boys received belated Christmas presents from their extended family - David Attenborough's Planet Earth, from their super fantastic Aunt, an absolutely awesome present But the other gift... I couldn't believe it when they unwrapped these huge water pistol gun things. Neither could our boys. They were pretty darn ecstatic and by this time I felt it was just too mean to say no. I feel a little like a joy killer sometimes, but water pistols! We have managed to keep them out of our home for nearly ten years so I guess we didn't do so bad. I'm not going to pretend like it wasn't fun though, to see our boys running madly through the rain splashing each other with the super soaker. So I guess it'll be something I'll get over. Just one of the many minor adjustments we make in our parenting as our little men grow, and we're always growing as parents.

Kookaburra pulled me aside before bed and asked my opinion of the water pistols (more like mega guns!). I was pleased with his consideration. He said he knew that this was something that we (well... I) didn't want in our home but after some chatting I reassured him that with a pure intention of fun and a few ground rules ('give each other room fella's!') I can't deny the fact they were having harmless fun with their new toys. It seriously wasn't that long ago when I was hooting and hollering through my own childhood yard, shooting up my baby brothers as a cowgirl and lo and behold, none of us are scarred or malicious from the experience. So the Water guns can stay.

Sunday passed in a lazy haze of endless cups of coffee and a continuous dragging out of games to play. A beautiful way to spend the day. I did more planning and am excited about my purchase from Little Acorn Learning of their March Enrichment Guide. I can't actually say anything about it due to copyright but I'm so pleased to have a laid out way to bring the magic into our home again.

Today we began with some nicely stacked (overwhelming) piles of books on our kitchen table and progressed outside for some yoga and games. Received warmly by Kookaburra but Kangaroo wants me right beside him, being hands on. It's nice to be needed. After this he was off and pleased to give the Yoga a go.

Hmmm.... What else?

Well, we've had cloud watching and painting, hat decorating for the musical and so many other things which is keeping us all pretty busy and happy.

This week we're hoping to get to two free workshops run by Landcare. One on Reptile identification and the other about identifying our foreshore friends - they're not all seagulls they're saying. We can't wait!

I hope I blog more often because this was a mega overload catch up before I zip to quickly put together some tea for my men and head out to musical rehearsal with my Kookaburra.

Life is busy and we're balancing it okay but as always, I need more sleep. Today I've been snippish and snappish with my boys and they really don't deserve my being frustrated with them over such small things (but honestly, boys farting while I'm eating always irritates me :P).

Till next time, I hope life is peaceful and fulfilling for you all.

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Exciting news!

So whilst downloading my photos for tonight's post our big boy, I'm so proud of him, walked in bubbling over with news. He's just returned from his Karate lessons and announced happily:

'I'm going to have my first grading for Karate on Wednesday night. I'm going to be a Yellow belt!'

I Love my boys :) I love being their Mumma. Bad Smells, triumphs and all.

Catch, Spike, Smash!

I love the language of sports. I adore sweaty little heads and glowing cheeks and sore and tired bodies and the satisfied thrill that is part of being an active kid... and adult. I might have slowed down as an adult as my priorities have shifted, but I clearly remember the fun of team sport during my school years and early adulthood. It wasn't fun all the time but not everything is and for me I loved it so much that I fought hard with my parents during my final senior years to have Health & PE as one of my elective subjects. So in the name of a wholesome education I'm working steadily towards including this 'subject' as part of our lifestyle.

Do you remember a post from a few weeks ago where I mentioned we would be using Anne Elliots Homeschool PE program? Well, like all things in our home, it's taken us a little while for it to become a solid part of our routine. We're a long way from having PE regularly but this week I wanted to try and include it at least a few times. I really recommend the program just for the language used when teaching the littles how to stretch and it provides me, aside from the program itself, with an idea of how to structure a Health and Physical Education program in our homeschool. Anne has written the warm ups in a really fun and friendly manner that has my boys laughing as they perform crunches whilst checking their belly buttons for lint and looking to their toes for dirt as the counter exercise, which helps make it a little easier to get my boys on board and ready to play along.

Part of Annes's program is to explore a new sport each week. I don't think we'll jump around that quickly because I think we'll enjoy focusing on the one sport for likely two or more weeks.

This week is Volleyball. Now I did pretty well at sport in my younger years but even so I was a little stuck for the terminology and needed some guidance as to how far to go when coaching my boys in the techniques of the game. So after a little googling I came across this cool video to provide a visual on the sport and see other kiddo's playing it. Inspirational and they could relate to the kids.

DragonflyTV Kids Do Science - Volleyball en Yahoo! Video

I also looked for some links on modified lessons for young children and volleyball in a small setting.

When I'm able to bring Volleyball to our Homeschool Group to play, I'll be using the modified rules of Mini-Volleyball as outlined in Mini-Volleyball from International Federation of Volleyball which have been especially created for our smaller crew.

For my boys we focused on:

Catching

Throwing

and returning

the ball by using only contact with the pads of our fingertips shaped into cups, whilst both of their hands are reaching over their heads when hitting the ball.

Not a lot but enough to introduce the idea of the sport to them and give them something more to play with each other when in the yard with a ball.

I'll need to take them to a park later this week to focus on digging, spiking and serving, 'cause we need a whole lot more room. I really don't fancy rescuing our balls, after enthusiastic digs, from the neighbours dogs :D!

On a very personal note, somehow I've managed to really hurt myself. Completely unrelated to any sporting activities, but I think it was from picking up my big boy last night to comfort him whilst we were at the theater rehearsing for The Music Man. It was a really long night and I was trying to keep things light with him and be jovial but eventually Kookaburra just needed me and comfort. It was half nine and there was no sign of wrapping up for the evening, so I picked my Kookaburra up in a really stupid 'Mummy nursing the Baby fashion'. So, so silly! My big boy is half my weight and I think I may have really hurt myself! I could barely sleep last night from the pain and today I felt like I could barely walk. The pain has been ridiculously immobilizing and I've been taking strong pain medication to cope. Well, I think this may be it. I'm going to have to finally relent and go in for a massage. A massage sounds so divine but the thought of near nakedness in the presence of any one but my husband is horrifying and this very thought has successfully prevented me from having anything more therapeutic then the complimentary head massage from my hair dresser pretty much, ever. But I think I'll be looking into Bowen therapy as I can't cope with this back pain. To add to my wee little troubles, I've also been feeling strangely sad for about two weeks and I can't seem to shake it. It's not my cycle and I'm not pregnant and life's pretty awesome. So all things considered it's a strange feeling to be having. But it's there and it feels like such a weight. A very good friend has recommended kinesiology in the past and I'm seriously considering it. I hate this illogical feeling and I think that kinesiology or perhaps maybe reiki may help provide some healing that I may be unconsciously aware of needing.

I have my fingers crossed pretty tight for both therapy's working a treat but as I can only do one this fortnight, it's definitely going to be Bowen all the way. Hopefully I'll be raving all about it real soon!

Ready, Set, Move!

This morning was my first attempt at creating a 'physical education' morning for our little homeschooler group. After being worried during January about the smallish size of our local group, it appears that over the holidays (whilst I was freaking out) the numbers have in fact swollen by another four families increasing our childrens numbers by, I think, fourteen children! It's so exciting :D! Our group has almost doubled in size and best of all, both my boys are steadily gaining some nice little mates there - both boys and girls of the same or various ages.

Seeing as this was our first organized get together for the year I wanted to create a 'this is awesome fun' attitude in the kids and parents so everyone was keen to keep on coming for subsequent events. You know, I think, just maybe, judging by the numerous boa constrictor hugs I received and profuse I love you's and you're the best Mum in the world claims offered up from my small fry at the mornings conclusion, I think it may have been a hit.

I had some great helper Dad's along too and if I needed to step away for a moment to look after my Kangaroo, they were right there to continue the fun. So, so lucky to have great parents in our group, they just really made the morning easy as.

Physical Education has been a 'subject ' I've wanted to cover for many years but have struggled because of either my terrible organizational skills or that the medium age of our group has been about four. Very little people are pretty content to get together and free play but now we have a wider age group ranging to include a thirteen and fourteen year old, we can start to enjoy some structure. The beautiful thing about today was the way when some kiddo's had had enough they would wander off for a play or a drink or something to eat while the games continued and when or if they were ready the kiddo's would rejoin the group. Pairs of children would wander off and chat and rejoin the games later. I really felt from watching this behaviour that I could see lovely friendships growing so nicely already between the the newer additions and the established kiddo's.

We began with a quick stretching out of the arms in full circles to explore our personal space. We didn't want to accidentally bump into anyone during our fun :D!

After we established our space we played this fantastic game called Pirate Ship (I've included it below) which the kids loved! and it got them ready in a great fun way to follow instructions during the rest of our mornings games.

I felt that from the very beginning we should establish a few quick ground rules to keep play safe and fair. The list might change as I develop the program so what follows is a tentative list to be developed as our sports days grow.

1. Take Care of Our Mates - If someone falls, be there to help them up. If we have an accident be ready to say 'Sorry Mate'! and help dust each other off and keep going.

2. Be a Good Sport - if the other team wins give them a clap and tell them 'Well Done!' and if you're a part of the winning team shake your opponents hand and say thanks for a good game.

3. Play Fair - pretty much means, take turns and be nice. We have a rule in our family which would apply nicely here 'Nice Words, Gentle Hands and Shining Face (Smile Baby!)' which describes our conduct when playing or anytime really.

So I'm making it up as I go along but I want the kids to establish an acceptable way to behave when we get together for sports and games.

Okay so that great game I mentioned earlier was:

Pirate Ship

So easy peasy fun to play. It's as simple as calling to your 'Scurvy Dog Crew' instructions and demonstrating the moves. Try it out soon. A great game for small and large groups.

So here are those instructions - Super fun! :

Man the Lifeboats - find a friend and sit on the ground facing each other holding hands and rock backwards and forwards singing 'row, row, row your boat'

Scrub the Deck - children crouch down and pretend to clean the floor with the hands

Climb the Rigging - children pretend to climb a rope ladder

Crow's Nest - Now that they've climbed the rigging, the children stand on one leg which will become their masts while their other foot rests on their knee to become the crows nest and their torso is the pirate looking out to see, hand above eyes! Peer into the distance and shout 'Land Ahoy!'

Captain's Coming -children salute and shout out 'Aye Aye Captain'

Man Over Board -children jump as if going over the side and then sink down holding their nose with one hand and raising the other hand in the air as if going underwater. Make sure you start swimming guys!

Walk the Plank - children have to walk in a perfectly straight line one foot exactly in front of the other with arms outstretched to the sides

Captain's Wife - Everyone curtsy's

Submarine - everyone lies on the floor with one leg raised in the air like it's a periscope

Fire the Cannons - the children grab a friend and pretend to fire a cannon, shout 'Boom!' and jump into the air

Hit the Deck - well the cannon ball is coming! and the children need to lie down on their stomachs as quickly as possible to avoid it!

Port - run to the left

Starboard - run to the right

Bow - run to the front

Stern - run to the back

Sharks - sit with their knees up off the floor, hugging knees

Compass Point - All the children gather into a big tight bunch

Last One in the Dinner Line - children all line up in a very straight line

Polly the Parrot - flap arms and shout 'Pieces of eight' or 'Polly wants a cracker'

Mutiny - sword fight everyone (gently! with our hands pretending to hold a sword :)

Stormy Weather - Rock from side to side

Peg Leg Jim - the children all walk with one leg straight and the other normally

The Ultimate Homeschool Physical Education Game Book by Guy Bailey is the greatest resource I've purchased of late and was integral for planning out todays fun. But I think all the kiddo's had the best fun playing Pirate Ship and of the days games I felt that this was the definite stand out.

Whether your group is large or just you and your fam, give Pirate Ship a whirl.

Play it! and Soon :D!