Domino Maths

Doing child lead learning sometimes leads to lots of fun! 

Mini Miss was very keen to play with the dominoes last week. I was busy trying to clean up, so I tipped them out in an out of the way place. I told her that we would build the dominoes up to knock them down, once she sorted them into colours.

Mini Miss was very excited by this, and set about sorting the colours. As I worked, we talked about the colours. She then counted the number of each colour.

Our Search for the Tardis!

As you may already know, I am a geek. Our family are geeks. 

And we all love Doctor Who.

So when I recently heard about a Tardis being discovered on a property only hours away, I knew immediately that I would have to try and find this Tardis.

So a couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure (read minor torture!) of driving Miss Teen and her friend to see One Direction in concert. This was to be their first concert without adult supervision, so I brought Mr Moo along for the ride too. 

After a couple of days in Brisbane, exploring the city, we headed home. This Tardis was said to be on a property north west of Ballina, about 1/2 way between Brisbane and home. So we explored.

So off we went, down winding roads, in the middle of nowhere. Possibly getting lost, but all too excited to care. 

After driving for about an hour. We stopped in this little town. The people in the pub stared that "you aren't from around here" stare, as we stretched our legs. 

Then I couldn't get my keys out of the ignition. Then my car wouldn't start! Thankfully, the local mechanic was a lot more friendly and patient, as the reason they keys wouldn't come out and it wouldn't start was so silly, I should have known. My car needs to be in park in order for the keys to come out, and it needs to be running to put it into park, and it needs to be in park to start! 

My car was in Drive still.

Anyway, while I was making a fool of myself, Miss Teen and friend asked around in the 2 or 3 little shops in this incredibly small main street about the Tardis. Eventually, the take away shop owner said "oh yeah, that Doctor who thing!" and had very good directions! 

More driving down roads I probably shouldn't have been driving in my little sedan (definitely 4WD country this was!), but we made it! Guarded by a Dalek, was a life size, beautiful Tardis, in all its blue glory!!

What followed was a lot of silliness as we all posed with our new discovered Tardis, and dreamed of it being REAL!!

I remember once, not so long ago, that I would have never done this sort of impromptu exploring. I was always so rushed, in a hurry to get home, do chores, get to work, get home.....go go go.....

Slowly I am learning. Kids are only kids for a little while. All too soon they are grown up and ready to leave home. Sometimes its ok to stop the rushing, and just have fun. Be a bit silly. Explore. 

Without breaking down. Or getting lost. 

This was just lots of fun! 

The Solar System

If you follow my FACEBOOK page, then you would know that recently I have become very interested in homeschooling my muddled kids!

Miss Teen is already set up with Distance Education and is doing much better with her work in 2 weeks than she did all last year at school!

Mini Miss, watching Miss Teen do her work, wanted her own "school work", so I have reintroduced Activity Monday into our everyday lives. I am actively schooling her through craft, play, science experiments, tv shows, ipad apps and even YouTube videos. We also do worksheets when she insists on being just like her big sister! 

I am letting her lead the way to a degree, so when she started to show a big interest in the Solar System, I thought we should explore that interest further.

First we did some craft.

We made a name rocket, using THIS original idea. This was great building the rocket, spelling out her name, gluing (one of her favourite things to do) and decorating it.

Then we moved onto the Solar System. We watched some You Tube videos using these links from Natural born homeschoolers. 

Then we built our own solar system. We talked about all the planets, their position in the solar system. We talked about the sun and how its a ball of gas and super hot. Mini Miss was just soaking it all up and asking lots of questions.

Then finally we finished off with some free craft time using printables from Picklebums. As Mini Miss pasted her cut outs, she told a little story to me about the astronaut taking the aliens space ship and how they worked out how to share. Very cute!

So our first experience with focusing on homeschooling = success. 

Do you home school? 

Do you have solar system activities or videos that your kids love?

Feel free to share below!!