Term three in pictures

Lego + cards = good times

Luna and Blake don’t learn by the term timetable, but it is a marker for us with our regular term based activities. When we pop by our regular haunts during the school holidays, I get a reminder how lucky we are to be able to visit libraries, museums, parks and zoos off-peak, on weekdays. Less traffic and parking hassles, librarians and helpful staff usually are not as pressed by numbers of visitors and have time to chat.

Monopoly card game

We have had a month or more of card games, every day, off and on all day. Including last card, poker, blackjack, speed, fish and most recently the Monopoly card game. Luna has been really enjoying Chinese checkers, staying up late and practicing moves in bed, over and over. It has paid off, she’s hard to beat!

Luna’s working for counting in 5s

All the fun of cards, counting, learning the sequences, symbols and various objectives and strategies has moved into multiplication and counting in bases. Really easily Luna has especially been motivated to get her head around the patterns and commit them to memory. Fun!

I have also observed how much Luna and Blake have leaped forward with their understanding of counting in bases, addition and subtraction when it comes to keeping track of their pocket money and reaching savings goals. At first it was great that they had a few coins they could spend at op shops, and they were a lot like pirates with their loot. They enjoyed counting, stacking and playing with the coins, they have lost money, had stashes that were forgotten (oh the tears), and found (wohooo! Treasure). I still give the same amount, $2 each week, (sometimes I forget to organise the coins, and the following week they get $5 for the two weeks) with occasional bonus funds contributed by grand parents, or found on the street (real treasure), Luna and Blake really love their Lego, and have rather impressive goals for saving for the Really Big Sets. They do buy a bag of lollies to divvy up and share (fight over) from time to time, or pick up presents at op shops, sometimes they cave and consider buying a smaller Lego box….often I remind them of their goals, and they get back on track. It’s interesting to see how things change as their understanding grows.

At the cinema

We spent on of the first days of ‘term’ at the cinema, we packed our own ice creams, were one party of film goers among maybe, half a dozen other people. How extravagant! We never go to the movies, opting for dvds on the big screen at home, as it tends to use our whole ‘fun times’ budget in one hit…So this was exciting. Blake declared he would bring ‘boxes of ice creams for all the kids’ next time. Sweetness.

Reading, reading, reading. Still on Tintin.

Can we oil your sewing machine?

I have been working on a couple of major deadlines, sometimes with kids along for the fun, sometimes when they are happily absorbed in their own activities. Blake is quite into oiling my sewing machine, most days, he’s checking on it, he especially enjoys watching it in action with the light cover open.