And all the homeschooler mummies said, Amen~!

Yes, yes they did!

Marcus Crassus is WAY more cooler and interesting than Theodor Geisel.

Oh the world of difference between public and private education.

The end.

{ Week 7 }

Charlotte { 3 } is starting to take quite a bit more interest in doing school these days, which is great, but yeah, more work for mummy.  Here she is after doing a matching exercise.

In fact, she got carried away with them and did 3 in a row.

{ Maths }

In the maths department Chloe is up to lesson 42, Phebe lesson 31, and Hannah is at lesson 38.

{ Writing with Skill }

Chloe is doing well with our new writing course.  It probably really helped that I had previously used a scholastic book on paragraphs and topic sentences with Chloe already.  So we had a good foundation and know how to find topic sentences.

Anyway, here's todays work:

Yep, too easy.  Next to nothing, but in a lot of ways, good small progress.  I love that there's NO taxing the child, well, at least not yet.  ha ha ha.

We had a couple on the spur of the moment videos.  Here's Hannah doing a super short reading from 'The Great Gatsby'.  Totally random.  Just flicked open a page and picked anywhere and started reading.

Noah continues to grow like a weed.  I can't believe he's 3 months already.

He's already starting to spend some time in the walker.  Padded in with a blanket, but hey.

{ Homeschool Meet Up }

This week everyone went to the pool.  There's actually quite a good sized homeschooling population where we live, so that is nice.

It's got an awesome water play area for children.

And can you believe it?  I actually went for a swim myself~!!  It was made possible by the fact that both Daniel { 19 } and Caleb { 17 } had come with us and was helping me out with the girls and baby.

And just for fun, since I'm using my blog as my homeschool journal:

Today I am linking up with:

I hope you will join us.

Thanks for visiting.

Home Made Ricotta Gnochi

This week I really wanted to start looking at finding a good recipe for sweet and sour sauce since my friend and I are going to be canning up a bunch of jars soon, but I got side tracked.

I got detoured with making my own home made Ricotta Gnochi and let me tell you it was devine.  So soft and yummy.

First I made my own home made ricotta cheese:

I did that while I was boiling up the potatoes actually.

Then after I mashed my potatoes I let them cool a little.  Then I added in the ricotta all crumbled up and a cup of plain flour { sprinkled through as I was going }.

Then I dolloped handfuls onto my board and used a little more flour to help roll them into little logs and cut them up into bite sized portions.

When I had all my little Gnochi's cut and good to go I simply boiled them in water for about 4 - 5 mins until they were all floating nicely at the top.

Then at dinner time I added a sauce and reheated them.

BEST Gnochi I have ever had~!!

Very NOT like the store bought ones.

I also got detoured making Arancini.

Just put your rice in your rice cooker and add a soup mix.  In this case I used a chicken noodle soup mix.

After it's cooked just add a very generous helping of Parmesan cheese and some grated cheese and mix through.  Enough so that it will be quite sticky.  Allow to cool.

When cooled roll into little balls and stuff some more cheese { a little cube } into the middle and coat them in bread crumbs.

Then just give them a little fry in the frying pan in some oil until they go golden brown.

I was super happy with these little detours.

There were a number of eaters in the house who were also happy with them too.

Got to say: Pinterest is where I got these ideas from too.

Today I am linking up with:

I hope you will join us.

Thanks for visiting.

2015 Grade 4/5 Curriculum

Today I thought that I'd join in with the Not Back To School blog hop with our fellow Australians.

This list is what my 9 year old { soon to be 10 } is doing for the 2015 school year.

Here she is marking her Maths for the first time { while I look over her shoulder }.  I'm trying to move them over to a more autonomous { self propelled if you will } type of homeschooling.   We'll one that makes it easier to manage several children.

{ Bible }

We had a bunch of these left over from last year, so I pulled them back out this year to give it another go and so far it's been a great fit.  So we'll just finish up this course and look for something different after that.

{ Reading }

Chloe just devours books so there's no point in showing you what I think she'll read.  I do keep a current list under the 2015 Book List tab up there if you're interested in what she's read already.

{ English }

I really like this curriculum.  It's quick, easy, and with lots of focused practice.

{ Writing }

Recently started.  It is turning out to be a real TREAT to do.  Chloe is really enjoying it.  Which is great and a huge relief.  I love that it is incremental and very gentle in it's progression.

{ Maths }

We started this book late last year.  So this year we're just continuing along until it gets finished.

{ French }

Chloe has a real interest in languages.  She's been picking up bits and pieces all over the place.  Last week I asked her if she'd be interested in this curriculum and I got the quickest "yes" ever.  So I ordered it and now we are waiting for it to arrive.

{ Greek }

Slow and steady wins the race.  There's no rush with this curriculum.  I envision it just dragging on and on for a long while.  Perhaps a couple of years, but we'll see how it goes.

{ History }

Apart from read alouds I've got MOH I on the run with the girls.  They basically read a lesson and then do a short notebook entry on it.

{ Science }

I'm not a big science girl.  I don't think Chloe is either.  So I opted for something easy but manageable:  Rod and Staff Science.

{ Vocabulary }

We aren't doing a particular spelling curriculum at the moment since I'm using the words from this to form our spelling work instead.

{ Character }

We are STILL using this book.  The girls use my worksheets and continue to fill in their little books a little each day each week.  Just click the book to go to the post that has the FREE worksheets.

{ Art }

We'll be free styling most of the year away.  I envision mostly drawing and painting at this point.  Each girl has their own set of paints and can use them freely at leisure.

{ Music }

I have a subscription to 'Children's Music Journey', but we haven't really used it yet this year.  Not sure what to do with that.

{ Daily Activities }

Now, I've also got this little addiction of adding in a worksheet activity each day.  Each day I give them a different quick worksheet to do.  For example:  today's worksheet was a NT Greek flip page that they had to match their vocabulary to the correct meaning. Generally though, it could be something that I've put together, or got from TpT.  

Yeah, so that's the current plan peoples.  It'll be interesting to see what stays and what goes over the course of the year.

I hope you will join us this week.

Thanks for visiting.

New Math Homework Pages

Today I have some more FREE Math Homework pages for Grade 4.

I decided to post them as a pack, as opposed to offering them one at a time.

This pack includes work on:

Perimeter & Area

Mixed Numbers

Perpendicular & Parallel Lines

Elapsed Time

Angles

Writing Digits

More Mixed Numbers

Recognizing Place Value

Comparing Fractions of a Dollar

Just click the picture to download the pack.

Thanks for visiting.

My Monkey Counting

Charlotte my 3 year old monkey is almost ready to start doing some counting, and it is with this in mind that I did this next little pack.  { I've got the same format in my Humpty Dumpty and Polly Put the Kettle On packs } but you know me, always have to have them done in different cutey themes and clipart.  So anyway, what I did is take this portion of the pack and rework it for a Monkey theme.

Numbers 1 - 10.

Tracing and Missing numbers to 20.

Counting cards to 30.

Yeah, so if you're into Monkeys with your monkeys just click any picture to go and pick up the pack for $2.00.

Thanks for visiting.

What Motivates Us?

Food for thought:

Super interesting.

1.  Autonomy

2.  Mastery

3.  Purpose

Now imagine putting that into our homechools.  All we'd have to do after that is sit back and wait for the Einstein moments and capture them on our cameras.

* * * * *

Which reminds me about a book that I purchased last year:

The Self Propelled Advantage

{ Just click the picture to find out more. }



You can check out her blog HERE.  I highly recommend a visit.

Now that I'm thinking about it even more: which I might add, sounds incredibly and very much like, but in a succinct kind of way, the three listed points above.  I highly recommend the book as a pick me up, thought provoking, awesome encouragement for any homeschool.  Additionally, Joanne also talks about the part that character has to play in all of it too.