Making it Work for Us

There are some days that I get out of bed and almost before my feet touch the floor the little blondie, who refuses to stay in his own bed at night, has already whispered to me, a list of what he'd like read to him or of things that he would like to do. I feel so bad for him. The reality is that we may accomplish one or maybe two of the things he names together and the rest of the time my little Kangaroo does his own thing. I'm pleased though. Today he brought me something extremely easy to accomplish. Can I please listen to this cd Mum, he says. Wow! Too easy :D! Kangaroo wanted to listen to the story of Australian Settlement and Convicts, 'A Dramatized Australia History Study'. I then played it through our laptop and because the cd is without images I set the laptop to play through a screensaver of Monets paintings, this terms Artist study. I'm bucking the AO system and going our own way this year. The AO pictures are all too dark and dreary for small children so I'm going with something lighter and more child orientated, Impressionism, and we'll immerse in the style for the entire year. Monet, Cassatt, Renoir, Van Gogh are our major artists and for Australian 'Impressionism' we''ll be experiencing the sublime works of Tom Roberts and Frederick McCubbin.

Extremely too easy wasn't it. Australian history and artist study in one shot. Thanks Kangaroo!

You know it's a Living Book when they start dressing up and want to be a convict and lump around something on their leg as a make shift ball and chain.

And wanting maps drawn on their hands.

And playing at escaping. My reluctant Kookaburra joins in beautifully with where Kangaroo leads in their history play. Our children balance each other fittingly. One is very technical and logical and the other is more language arts, creative and together they compliment and draw each other out (and challenge each other!). And so we have a cheeky escaped convict peering back through the bars. Catch me Mum!

Kangaroo drew his own compass rose, Arthur Phillips ship and lo... Oz! complete with our little mate, Tasmania :).

Between this play and chores our Sunday morning disappeared into an afternoon of what I'm going to class as 'musical studies'. The word musical is doing double duty here :P.

We won't be studying a composer this term but I will continue to play classical music as we please and read whatever falls into our lap regarding composers because Kookaburra and I have been extremely fortunate to have fallen in with our little towns' Musical production of The Music Man. So our concentrated musical energies will be going towards rehearsing for the show in April. The soundtrack is on permanent repeat in our house and while Kookaburra doesn't seem to mind , I think the other men of the house would like to be done with Mr Matthew Broderick singing 'Trouble'. Personally, I adore the library scene and the Wells Fargo Wagon scene. *Sigh* I'm really loving musicals and am so glad to be able to validly add that to our list of learning.

Sometimes life just leans towards the learning curve a little more easily than other days . I think I'm finally accepting that a learning environment will differ from family to family and that ours, which has progressed and grown with us over the years, right now, at this moment, looks super.

The Composer is DEAD!!!!!

Morbid book title hey?!

Actually, it's correct title is

Lemony Snicket The Composer is Dead.

Normally I would be The Last Person *said with loads of emphasis* to bring this material to my boys based on the title alone. But on this occasion I have relented because of a great experience we had in relation to this very cool book.

We first encountered The Composer is Dead as a performance when we attended The Out Of The Box Festival about midway through this year. Out of the Box is an amazingly, awesome, fun, biannual festival for children eight years and younger, produced by the Queensland Performing Arts Centre in Brisbane. When I was completing my booking form I was under strict instructions by the Fantastic Mr E, for two performances and two workshops ONLY! Wonderful, but the Pressure! The title threw me but after reading numerous reviews and pondering the value of the performance as opposed to others, I decided to chance it. I figured we could always walk out if it wasn't for our little family - no worries, we have done it before ;) Well , as the show began the word MURDER rang out so heavily and often that I wasn't sure if the journey was going to be worth it, (our boys didn't know what that word meant but in due course they figured it out from the context) but fortunately for all of us, Mr E stayed my hand and we remained for the entire excellent, entertaining and educational performance. We learned all about the orchestra in a style which portrayed the instruments as having distinct personalities as a detective investigated each instrumental group for its possible involvement in the Composers Death. We loved the show. We gained so much from the performance and realized that the educational intent used its slightly morbid vehicle to really entertain and enrich us, it's absolutely captivated audience.

Now to the book. Last week we made it to the library and there before us is this book by the same title as the performance we had viewed earlier this year. Duh! I hadn't realized that the performance was straight from a book of the same title. I grabbed it and yabbered excitedly to my boys about it, who then in turn yabbered and nagged me piteously all the way home and then continued mercilessly until the book was read. It (thankfully :D) comes with a CD with music and the narrative too.

In order to maximize the opportunity of having this book with us, I did a little Googling and found a lesson plan and video's to compliment it and have turned The Composer is Dead, into a study for this week. Not too intense, just a gentle extension on what my little men are already enjoying. The video's are below and are great to enjoy if you can't access the book, but if like me, the grim vehicle for story telling makes you balk, preview and weigh up the benefits and negatives. Hopefully someone out there likes Lemony Snicket The Composer is Dead (or possibly loves it!) almost as much as we do.

Still not sure if it's for your family and would like to read some other reviews? Visit The Children's Book Review to help you in your decision :).

Psst.... if you do watch the video, just hang on long enough to get past the little intro for the story to begin :D