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I got Alex the StickMan app (not by Julia Donaldson) – you have to draw your character and go on an adventure. You have to insert names for the people you want to rescue. Alex wrote ‘Clea’ – he could spell it himself. It was a very fun game. He got a bit stuck due to not reading the tips, but once I’d helped him with that he could follow the game better. He also played with a new aeroplane app that was on a library iPad. he managed to land a plane and was very pleased with himself! We’ve still been watching Slugterra and I got him an iPad game too. He asked me about triangles,a nd told me how they were able to make squares – he was aware of the different types, though not by name.
Alex woke up one day wanting to practice magic tricks. He managed to do all 3 that we’d read about the previous day. I reminded him of the part that mentioned practice to perfect your routine, and he wasn’t interested!
The kids built a train station with duplo. As he was doing so, I asked Alex if he thinks like Tim from Boss Baby in that he’s always on an adventure. I doubted that he would as he is not very imaginative in play and has always sought facts, and he replied “No, that’s silly”. I do think Daniel is more imaginative. He talks to himself in the car and his fingers seem to be characters!
We did a science experiment with bicarb and vinegar. The kids added food dye and loved repeating it over and over until the vinegar ran out and making a dirty looking mess! Daniel wants to do it again.
The kids have also been using stencils and crayons and cutting out the creations. We’ve played capture the flag again. Gigi has been over to play with the kids, and I came home to Daniel with a very high fever! So of course the next day we stayed home and didn’t move much from the couch. We watched the lego movie and Minions. Alex sang ‘everything is awesome’ for hours to follow, much to Daniel’s annoyance! We were inspired to fix up some of Alex’s lego sets, ad then we played Trouble! On another occasion the kids built contraptions with recycling boxes. On yet another occasion, Daniel started building a tower out of magnetic tiles and Alex joined in. It became quite a creation, and they used it as a tower bridge to run their lego train though.
The singing at bedtime continues. However one night I was very tired, and so the kids agreed to sing to me!
Out and About
The kids never want to go to the library! But I have to stop occasionally to return books, and once we’re there the kids don’t want to leave and they either ask me to choose books for them or they do so themselves. Alex got excited about a magic book that I found, and a few minecraft books (including a joke book). I read a Peppa Pig book to Daniel, and a picture book on Matisse to Alex. The latter was very boring so we stopped reading it and got onto the magic tricks instead. There were some upset kids (younger and tired) wanting turns so we called it a day and headed home.
We went to Sunbury library with a group of homeschoolers for a librarian led activity. The kids made a paper helicopter, played with Makey Makey pacman, made a lego pyramid and played some minecraft. The library lady was very mean and old fashioned! Clearly in the wrong job! She made Alex cry. We went to Galaxyland park afterwards with the kids’ friends. there was lots ofrunning about and play. One child found a plastic frisbee/boomerang and after some initial arguing, the kids made an agreement to take turns taking home. It got stuck in the tree so we all worked at getting it down – shaking branches, throwing sticks. Eventually I put Alex in the tree to climb it and he managed to reach it.
Alex thinks Nathaniel is not attending Currawong kids because of his dislike of him, but I explained that his family are moving soon so they are probably preoccupied. This week we started the session looking for eucalyptus parts as it was national eucalyptus day (or something similar). We made a beautiful image on the ground and later on looked at a foldout book that showed common types and identifying their parts. The kids played eagle eye, we went over the creek towards the billabong. Alex spotted this grub which was a bit oozy and smelly. It appeared to be some kind of spent cocoon. Alex commented that it looked like a penis! Danie found some friendly millipedes, he really loves them! The kids learnt how to whittle wood, and were very focussed on the task. Alex went off for a sit spot before we headed off.
We went to Emily’s school fair. the weather was terrible! And the rides and food were way too expensive! Alex and vio ended up playing tennis though (for free!)
We attended a kite festival, it was a great day! The kids had an ice cream the moment we arrived (despite the queue), we explored a few stalls then headed to the oval to fly our kite. It wasn’t very windy, so lots of running was required! Alex had great fun, until someone broke his kite string. Daniel found it a bit too hard to get the kite flying so we went off to the kite making stands. The kids made a little kite on a stick and we bumped into lots of homeschoolers. Was nice to see some friendly faces. We found ourselves at the circus tent where Alex excitedly tried it all – the diablo, sticks, unicycle, balance board. Daniel had a go at some things too. We returned to the oval for another kite flying attempt and to meet up with a friend. We stopped off at the bandstand on the way back to the car as Daniel wanted to listen to songs.
Socialising
We visited some friends for the first time, Daniel was not keen to go as he wanted to stay home. But once we were there he had a great time – they both did. The kids played with this lego set mostly – I need to get one! They ended the play with a stint on minecraft. I was really pleased that Alex and friend were getting along.
We went to a new park to meet up with friends. It was very humid and it left us all a bit grumpy and drained. The kids scooted to explore the new playground mostly.
The neighbours have been over and Alex has played basketball and cricket with them out in the court. And football in the garden of course. On the day Daniel was unwell and he was playing quietly in the sand pit, he got hit in the head by a ball. the boys were being quite careless and rough, and Vio ended up sending them home. The following day I saw the eldest one outside and he came and apologised, and then came inside and apologised to Daniel which was very well received by us all. We said he could stay, and so they played for a while.
We had our weekly homeschool park meet up. the kids mostly scooted and played in the trees. Alex and a new friend were playing with the frisbee/boomerang thing we recently found. We found that the spider nest from an earlier week had hatched and that the recent damp weather had kicked off mushroom growth. The kids were scared that they were poisonous, especially this funky looking green one!
Activities
Alex has continued with his ball mastery sessions at home and is getting noticeably better. He is currently focussing on his totals and is pleased to be improving them. He is not that enthusiastic about doing them. Once he gets to them he’s better, but it’s getting him there that’s hard. So we’ve agreed that he only needs to do them on days where he has no other training. Whilst Alex does them, Daniel often plays in the sand pit. On one particular day he found a spider in his bucket – the boys were so scared that it was a redback! But it wasn’t. So we let it go and went back to our thing.
At football training, Daniel and I played in the playground. He likes to instruct me, and play ‘follow the leader’. He played football for a bit with Gigi.
Alex had presentation day at Little Athletics. He got the age group award for ‘specuial achievement’ which turns out that he had the highest attendance rate! One of his friends was very rude about it. he was so proud to bring home his 2 trophies!