Poster design

So when you have an operation you can’t eat. One time I accidentally had a nibble of cucumber and it was correctly surmised by the surgeon and anesthetist that I’d nibbled while filling my kids lunch box. This time I nearly tried one of Helena’s new rice bubbles fortunately she reminded me in time then…. There…

$2.99 beads

Children have creativity in spades. When I was pestered to purchase a tower of plastic containers with beads all I saw were a few necklaces. On the way home Helena talked about necklaces while making music with them. So far the beads have had to have buddies, are babies, have a slide, a stage and…

teachers strike

Just this teachers strike… It turns out breaking one’s wrist is not just inconvenient, it’s not overly painful, but sleep is hard and I now have to have an operation. I hate anaesthetic- well my guts do and it takes them months to get over themselves. So I’m on strike, well I’m not doing my…

Providing learning experiences..

Today I excelled…. Monday we went to a talk about this couch.Made by a group of community volunteers to commemorate the reopening of the Days Bay track that was wiped out by a big slip, it even took out the phone lines while my father was on the phone. It took years and a lot…

Dirty hands

Five agar plates. One she didn’t touch, one she touched, then she went out and played in the dirt and touched one, the next she washed her hands then touched, the last she scrubbed her hands then touched. (The agar was made with cabbage water – I wanted to see if the growth would change…

Planting trees… and ideas

We went planting trees with some other homeschoolers and some students who were on a course learning how to be rangers. I called the students “teenagers” but I suspect they were older. Helena worked with a lovely young woman called Claire. I heard Helena talking, talking, talking. Helena said Claire thought she was a plant…

This weeks little bits of random…

Why does she have to do this at night… (well apart from her mother and grandmothers being night owls) “I  JUST want to see if different countries have different weights of coins”. Or this one… Possibly she’s just delaying bed time by wanting to learn to tell the time- worried I’m sending her to bed…

The princess problem…

So I read something online called How Disney Pincesses influence girls around the world. So I thought I’d check out Helena’s ideas. For some context, the only Disney Princess she knows, has seen on TV,  is Pocahontas (but according to Helena she isn’t a princess due to her Dad not being called a king). I…

Home baking

Or is it kitchen chemistry? I did baking at school as a teacher – it’s a common learning tool, process cooking is the lingo at playcentre. All that measuring, lots of language, kids like it, and that following of the instructions thing, with all those steps and the essential instructional language. Well Helena can follow…