Cyclone on its way

We ended today at a Families in Parks sausage sizzle at school, with play equipment out for everyone to enjoy. Charizard, Jigglepuff, Pikachu and X all played and ran around happily with the other kids. So some great social time for everyone. Before that, we were at a swimming lesson where Charizard and Pikachu played on the trampoline and climbing frame outside. Jigglepuff loves watching them have fun in the fresh air.

But that was AFTER homeschool time, what did we do? Well, today was an adventurous day, we spent a lot of time outdoors. First Charizard and Jigglepuff paid a visit to the Chelsea Sugar Factory. We picked up some recipes which we want to try, and we also looked at a very striking piece of art based on Kiwi life, old and new: which had been inspired by Chelsea Sugar and which the company are using as decoration for their packaging this year. Charizard pointed out how it was exactly the kind of art he liked - he wanted the word again, which was abstract. We talked about how Andy Warhol's art - which we looked at last year - used advertising and packaging, and how this was doing it the other way around. Jigglepuff was really impressed by Charizard's memory for art from a year ago.

After that Charizard took some photographs which we might work on for the homeschool art fair. We drove home and had morning break, then Jigglepuff noticed Charizard had started listening to The Midnight Folk of his own accord, so she changed the structure of the day to accommodate his interests. Jigglepuff looked online for a poem by John Masefield to show Charizard - Sea Fever - but Charizard didn't like that poem AT ALL! She'll have to try harder to find one that he does like. Then we watched 'The Happy Scientist,' and enjoyed the lesson about crystals and refracting light. Charizard found the kaleidoscope afterwards and showed Jigglepuff how it refracted light through the plastic crystals. What great realworld learning, Charizard! Then it was time to go out for Charizard's homeschool drama lesson. After that, his teacher commented how well he'd listened and taken part, even with a broken toe. Well done Charizard for showing fortitude. He didn't like the part he was given though because he wanted to be someone nice.

Carschooling: in the morning we talked about puppets, remembering the puppet show that we had been to earlier in the week. Jigglepuff told the story of the Japanese puppet theatre developing, and how the legend tells us that it was as a result of a playwright getting angry at actors not liking their parts! and that puppets would do as they were told. In the afternoon we listened to Groovy Greeks (Horrible Histories) which made Charizard laugh an awful lot. I'm not sure what the Burger King attendant thought when he told her all about it, though...

Jigglepuff's favourite bit of the day was seeing the beautiful crystals and learning about how sunglasses are made.
Charizard's favourite bit of the day was taking photos and the sausage sizzle.

Happy Day (Charizard's title)

Today it was just the two of us at home. Charizard chose to follow all the activities on the whiteboard sequentially. We said a quick prayer together, and then started with Fractions, on Time4Learning, and looked together at how to multiply fractions. That meant we had to learn what an improper fraction was! Which was lucky, because then when we played Ko's Journey there were a lot of fractions that needed to be added together (and some of them we had to do several times before Jigglepuff could remember how to do it, it is a long time since she was at school!)
We ended up playing that game for ages, nearly 1 1/2 hours on maths today. After a break, in which Charizard read Asterix and ate burger rings whilst lying on the floor of the kitchen, and then a second break where he started Inotia 3 on his tablet (fascinating game, he's been telling Jigglepuff little bits about it all day) we went onto to read about the Fertile Crescent and how nomads became the first farmers. We remembered how Ko from Ko's Journey was a nomad. Then we read about the beginning of the Ancient Sumerian/Akkadian empire together. Somehow that meant we also ended up talking about military spies and being a double agent. Charizard also noticed how similar the story of Sargon is to the story of Moses, since both were put in baskets and floated down the river, then picked up by a servant and raised in a royal palace. Fantastic cross-cultural references, Charizard! Jigglepuff noticed something quite exciting about Charizard's ability to use language beautifully: she was writing down that Sargon had founded an empire and Charizard pointed out that "created an empire" sounded better. What interesting materials we are going to produce together, with Charizard helping Jigglepuff to think of exactly the right word.
After lunch Jigglepuff asked Charizard to check out a maths website, with two different ways to do long division. She was surprised that Charizard understood the second way immediately, although we've not covered that yet. Then we both read The Midnight Folk - Jigglepuff read it on paper, and Charizard listened to it on his CD player. Jigglepuff noticed how Kay, the boy in the centre of the story, is homeschooled, but by a rather nasty governess. She hopes that is not how Charizard feels about her teaching! Finally we came together to look at and join an online community called DIY.org, where children from all over the world get together online to learn about projects and earn badges. Charizard would like to do the "Orthinologist" badge. Tomorrow we'll choose which project we will start with.
But there was also a surprise experiment today. After lunch Jigglepuff showed Charizard a saucepan filled with flour, with cocoa-powder layered on top. We threw rocks into it, and made the most amazing crater-shapes...just like the craters that asteroids made, landing on the Moon.

Our moon dust

Jigglepuff's favourite part of the day was finding out about the Orthinologist badge, and working out what skills we would need t earn it.
Charizard's favourite part of the day was everything.

Teddy-Bear's Picnic

Charizard, Pikachu and Jigglepuff were all at home together today. We started with Fun with Fractions, on Time4Learning. Charizard worked calmly and with discipline, it was a real pleasure teaching him Maths today. When Pikachu got upset, we watched our first two videos on The Happy Scientist (Charizard has been complaining that he didn't get taught enough science at school). I don't think anyone could hear much of the first one because Pikachu was laughing too much! but the second one was about invisible forces of nature and how you can move a piece of paper inside a jar, like magic! Then we dressed up our teddybears and headed out to the Teddy Bear's Picnic at the Wilson Home. It was wonderful to see the two boys running around having fun, and there was a puppet show where they got to try moving puppets around and making them dance. Charizard's puppet seemed to want to jump more than remain on the ground...Then we came home and whilst Jigglepuff and Pikachu had wa moenga, Charizard listened to an audiotape of The Midnight Folk. He is recounting the story very well.

At bedtime Charizard showed Jigglepuff a mixture of two shampoos he had made, we talked about how they were like viscous liquids (like the molten rocks flowing under the earth) and he asked if we could do some home experiments like that. Then we listened to "Rivers of Babylon" on YouTube and discussed how Charizard thinks God might have allowed the Jews to go into exile in Babylon so that they could learn to pray in a different way, without the Temple sacrifices. This is a very interesting point of view and many Christian scholars have thought this over the years, what a great student of the Bible Charizard is!

Jigglepuff's favourite bit of the day was....watching Charizard and Pikachu playing with puppets (and seeing Pikachu laugh at the naughty puppets)
Charizard's favourite bit of the day was...eating pizza and listening to The Midnight Folk.

Refracting Light

Today Charizard found starting work a little stressful but settled down nicely into his Time4Learning lesson. He did multiplication factors and in order to do that learnt about long multiplication. Jigglepuff found some of the questions difficult too! After he had finished that lesson we had a look together at some of the science topic about Space and the Universe, where we learnt about different galaxy shapes (and now we know that the Milky Way is a spiral, they played a trick on us by showing us a photo that looked as though it was irregular though!) Charizard played Ko's Journey, where he did the refracting light crystal puzzles with very little help (like learning to use a simple protractor, and learning about angles). We needed to learn how to add different fractions in order to work out the weight we were carrying, which was quite tough. But we managed it, and then after lunch we read the second section of The Children of Greene Knowe. We discussed the simile where the bird is like an arrow and agreed that it was a good simile because it reminded us of the speed of a peregrine falcon, the fastest land animal. What good general knowledge Charizard has!

Jigglepuff's favourite bit of the day was reading aloud.
Charizard's favourite bit was doing Ko's Journey with Jigglepuff.
Pikachu's favourite bit of the day was Wa Moenga.

Broken Claw/Toe

Charizard broke his toe yesterday, and was in a lot of pain this morning. So we have taken a gentle approach

1) Read aloud the first section of The Children of Greene Knowe, discussed how many children's books start with a train journey, and commented on the atmosphere of the beginning.
2) Listened to the audiotape of the very beginning of John Masefield's The Midnight Folk. Didn't get very far with that, so the plan is to do a little more tonight. It's OK, there's no rush.
3) Charizard didn't want to do his times tables today so we'll schedule that for tomorrow
4) Watched a super National Geographic documentary on the early writing of the Hebrew Testament. We looked up in the Bible to find the first five books that make up the Pentateuch and compared the name with that of Pentagon. Jigglepuff was particularly excited to hear about the discoveries that some Israelites may have worshipped a goddess who was YHWH's wife, as she had never heard that before. Charizard wondered if Jesus minded us thinking about whether the Bible really happened.
5) Jigglepuff is also relieved that she has cleaned out the cupboard she meant to get done today.

The best thing about today for Jigglepuff was...when Charizard asked if she loved homeschooling, and said that he wanted homeschool to go on forever.
The best thing about today for Charizard was...the reading out loud.