Day 71

22nd February 2022

Rainy Tuesday

Well, it happened.

The rain came as predicted. (Clever weather people).

Liam didn’t have to leave for work until after 9 so we made banana pancakes and ate breakfast all together. (Which is rare for a weekday).

Linc sat on the back step adding more plaster to his Captain Rex helmet & Mila was just eating her second pancake, as Dad kissed us all goodbye and left for the day.

The comforting calm of the rain had come. I was still in my pyjamas with no plans to change when we started our day.

The Nile

First, up was history.

We dragged our duvets out to the lounge room and got super comfy on the sofa.

We heard the school buses go past & that made us feel even more cosy!

Today’s chapter was about the river Nile. How it’s the longest river in the world and how its annual flooding was very important to the people of Egypt & inspired lots of creativity from the people, who built tools and canals to divert the water.

Watch Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEK6PT7K8OM

After reading, we turned to YouTube for further learning.

We learnt about Upper & Lower Egypt and the two kings at war for territory. One wore a red crown, and one wore a white crown.

When Egypt was united, King Narmer wore a double crown representing all of Egypt.

We thought we’d draw our own double crown!

On the left is the crown described in the book & on the right is her own crown. Not sure what’s happening with that nose & mouth?!

Lincolns had lots of representation. He walked me through it.

English & Snacks

After history we cruised straight into English.

We use tangible books from The Good & The Beautiful (http://thehomeschoolyear.com/Good%20&%20Beautiful).

The picture above is their Language, Arts & Literature book and it covers English, art, history & geography, all in one.

It’s beautifully infused with art (which was a big win for us) and although the kids didn’t want to know about it when we first started home schooling, they’re enjoying it now.

If you haven’t decided on a curriculum, this one book covers lots of subjects, and all the lessons are planned out so there’s zero prep work. It’s very thorough.

Today, Linc had to draw the countries of South America on a map, complete some comprehension work, and while looking at beautiful scenic photo, write his thoughts.

He wrote:

“I see the warm sun glimmer across the cold water. I feel the spring warmth. I hear the rising of the sleepy villagers across the small country town.”

Hot chocolate and Vegemite toast, helped with this lesson.

Meanwhile..

Mila played a maths game on the laptop while I was doing English with Linc.

Then we swapped.

Library

After this we broke up the day and went to the library.

A friend was telling me about the home school section in the library. I can’t believe I didn’t know it was there, after all this time!

If you’re not sure what curriculum to buy, or maybe you wanna wing it and put together your own, then the library’s got you covered.

The picture below shows lessons, broken down by year and subject with a reader and worksheet attached.

It’s very ‘schoolie’ but it’s still an excellent (free) resource.

This is just a small section. It goes all the way up to HSC course books.

Mila was excited to get Wolf Girl 4, (another $2 earnt!) and we got books on bush rangers, 100 tricks to teach your dog (sorry Pepe!), the human body, religions of the world, a book on personal safety, the ‘no cook’ cookbook, Coco Chanel & Maya Angelou.

So, a mixed bag really!

When we got home, they ate lunch (yes, today that included maple crunch granola bites) & they read aloud from the book on personal safety, while I made a pot of soup. (With this weather, I couldn’t resist!).

After this, we were done for the day.

I said they could watch movies for the rest of the afternoon.

Mila ended up drawing and later watched Enchanto for the 100th time.

Lincoln began working on a helmet for me and kept coming over to measure my head and fit me with cardboard, (still warm from the hot glue gun), while I did a bit of work on the laptop.

Linc busy making my helmet. Yes, that is the exact shape of my head.

Yep, that’s my delicious pot of soup on the stove. Pumpkin, carrot & potato. YUM!!

Today was so nice.

Of course, if you’re thinking of starting home schooling the answer to your question is no, you don’t get a lot of time to yourself.

But there are so many beautiful days.

Even when there’s a big slice of attitude and the odd storm out, it’s over pretty quickly and as you move further and further away from school and the stress all of that brings, everyone chills out more and more.

I much prefer home school to institutional schooling.

Ocean school is cancelled tomorrow due to bad weather and while that’s sad, it means another lazy morning!

Yeh!!!