Week 5 Home Learning - Well Being Week

This week the school labelled it as Well Being Week - the idea being that the kids have worked really hard so far this term so they were being rewarded with a week of lighter work, choose your own adventure grids. I had planned for Alexander to do a week about dinosaurs, but when I saw the grids I realised that it wouldn't work having him do his week of themes and the other 2 working from the grid so I decided that Alexander could do a week as a school kid. He was pretty excited to be able to do some school work. It helped that Eliza's grids were made for Kindy to Year 2 so he isn't far off being able to do it anyway. 

Each morning started with Crazy reading - a task that Daniel was set but I decided would be good for everyone to do. Basically the kids had to read a book for 30mins in a crazy place. Monday morning Daniel was very excited that he could read it while in the tree. Eliza, Alexander and I sat on the couch (I know not very crazy) and read some books together. 

We then did our fine motor activities and handwriting before starting with our literacy grid choices. Eliza's grid had 5 different books that she could choose to listen to. She was keen to just listen to the book but I then had her do some writing too. 

After we had read I Absolutely Will Not Never Ever Eat A Tomato, I had her then cut out different food from the catalogue and come up with some new names for them like they did in the book. She didn't fully grasp the concept but she gave it a good go which I'm proud of her for. Daniel did some more awesome writing responding to a What if? topic. He wrote about What if Bikes could ride themselves? It was a a pretty well written piece. 

Alexander impressed me by choosing Rhyming words. He has been reading some rhyming books on preschool zoom so it is something he has been thinking about. He struggled a little bit with the concept that words that end with the same sound rhyme but he was working really hard and got there with identifying some rhyming words. He also did some great writing of the rhyming words.

For maths Daniel timed how long it took him to shoot the basketball into the hoop 20 times and Eliza played some maths games online and so did Alexander. We then headed outside after recess and Eliza decided to lay out the logs from the tree that we trimmed on the weekend. She put them all into a circle and then counted how many sticks there were - 98! Impressive. 

Then in the afternoon Eliza chose to cook - making an apple, carrot and coconut cake which tasted quite nice. 

Alexander and Daniel both played a game of Dog Man. When they decided to play a game I pulled Daniel aside to remind him that it is playing for fun, not playing to win. He said 'I know Mum'. Then they both got very excited that they could play Dog Man because they had to work together so they both won or they both lost. 

After school while Eliza did dance, Daniel and Alexander and I walked up to the postbox to send Ranger Dan's letter to him. We then updated the Art Gallery signs at the end of the street and also fixed a couple of the exercise loop signs (after a post had been made in a local Facebook page about how fun it was doing the loop).

The next day Daniel started his day with band zoom. It was bring your pet to zoom so for about 5 seconds Daniel had Chilli with him. It was cool that Andrew knew Chilli's name. 

The kids then started their school time with reading for 30mins. Daniel was on the couch, Eliza and Alexander were reading in Alexander's bed. Cute! 

We then had Mainly Music where I got to lead it with all 3 kids. They were so into it, jumping, playing instruments, dancing, singing. It was great to have them join in. It was our first week trying to do a craft during the session too, and it was exciting that the craft worked out! The kids made paper plate fish which were really cute. My heart was filled when I saw the kids dancing but it was filled even more when I saw the mum's with their kids decorating their fish and being so very engaged. It was just so cool. So now craft is going to be something that we do on zoom each week.

Then it was time for school work. The kids did their OT exercises and then launched into their literacy activities. 

Daniel decided to write a letter to Mary across the road. He was telling her about his nature artwork of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House from the previous week and she said that she would love to see it. We printed off a couple of photos and then Daniel wrote a letter to her telling her about it. I loved how neat his writing was!!

Eliza made a card for Alexander which was very cute. 

Alexander decided to do an Alphabet Hunt and did from A to J. I am so proud of him and his writing. He wanted to write each of the things that he found. He then took a photo of his work on the iPad (just like the big kids).

For Maths Daniel made a symmetry picture. 

Alexander chose to make a cake as his wellbeing task. He said 'It isn't a birthday cake because it isn't anyone's birthday. Actually it can be for Aunty Jen's birthday because she just had one.' Then we realised that it was Elyse's birthday so we had some for dessert and sent her a message of us eating her cake on her behalf. It was a marble cake because Alexander saw it in the book. Next time we need to do more mixing of the colours so that it can be more marbled. But it was still very yummy.

While the cake cooked Eliza, Alexander and I went out for a walk around the block to look at, count and add numbers on the letterboxes. It was a nice walk and fun working with numbers in this way. Eliza did well with counting and Alexander did well with reading the numbers. 

When I got back, Daniel and I then hopped into the car and headed to OT. He is doing so well. His OT said that after a few more weeks, he will be reassessed to see the progress that he has made which is great! When we got back it was then puzzle time for Eliza and Daniel as their wellbeing activity. Eliza did a lot of it by herself which I was really proud of her for. I helped each of the kids for 10mins. 

We also went for a small bushwalk with Daddy along zigzag creek where James told us some historical information about the zigzag railway. Pretty fun to listen to and we found a possible part of the railway track (but don't know if it is really an original one or if it has been planted there.

Wednesday morning started with crazy reading - Daniel under the piano and Eliza and Alexander reading under the dining room table. 

We then did Daniel's new OT tasks - colouring in snakes on the wall and then cutting them out and ripping along the line. Alexander did the racing track on the whiteboard around magnets. 

Then we started school work. Alexander finished off his alphabet hunt, Eliza wrote down 3 things she is grateful for and Daniel recorded himself giving a review for one of his books.

After recess the kids did some Smartie Maths. Daniel had this as a maths option but I couldn't just have him do it. I printed off a couple of sheets to help Eliza and Alexander with their graphing. Daniel needed to do his own column graph on grid paper. The kids had a blast because they loved eating the smarties. 

Eliza then built a tower as tall as her. She tried building it with lego but realised after 3 attempts and getting a bit frustrated that Mummy might have had a good idea to build it out of megabucks instead because it would be a bit stronger. Alexander kinda lost interest in most of the activities around lunchtime. It just wasn't engaging enough for him. And he kept asking 'do I have to do it?' which I responded with no, you don't. So he often came in and out of activities. 

At lunchtime Daniel helped Daddy prepare dinner which was slow cooker peanut butter chicken (or satay chicken). It was his first time touching raw chicken (which I was nervous about but it is good for him to do it). He did really well with cutting, mixing, reading the recipe and getting it all organised. Dinner was very yummy.

Thursday morning we planned to have the day as a family day, even before it was announced as wellbeing week. Eliza had a class zoom meeting at 10:30 so the kids did some school work until then. Daniel made a double batch of Donna Hay's apple crumble cookies for maths. He had to work out the doubled ingredients and then test out the recipe. They were enjoyed for afternoon tea. Also, each of the kids are amazing at cracking eggs now!

After Eliza's zoom we hopped into the car and headed to the start of the Blue Gum trail loop at Hornsby. It was a beautiful day for a bushwalk! The kids did a great job walking without too much complaining. James printed off the maps for the kids so they could have a go at working out where we were walking and stopping at different times. He also would tell us information about what to look out for in the area, like the Blackbutt trees and what to find at the Fishponds. We stopped for lunch up on the rock where we stopped last time we did part of this walk and Alexander dropped his container down to the water. Today that fortunately didn't happen, but also if it dropped there was a lot more water flowing so I wouldn't have stood a chance at getting it back. We really enjoyed walking in God's amazing creation, spotting different plants and flowers just starting to flower - Spring is on the way. It was really cool near the end of the bush walk when Alexander and I could hear a sound of birds croaking. It sounded like cockatoos so we were looking into the trees to try and spot them. We found 5 black cockatoos having a chat in the trees. As the others came up they all flew away but so cool to see them all together. I don't know that I have seen a black cockatoo in the wild before. It reminded me of the black cockatoo that Eliza and Daniel absolutely loved chatting with in Tasmania. Their giggles were so special. Daniel then spotted a rosella through the trees too - it was great spotting by him. Took the rest of us a while to see it too. I'm really glad that we were able to go for a nice bushwalking today as a family.

Balancing but not keen to walk further on his own.

Eliza started well but then wanted Daddy to help

Love stepping stones!

Guessing what animal might live in this burrow

We came home and enjoyed Daniel's apple crumble biscuits (they were massive!!) and Eliza and I hung out upstairs finishing off a puzzle together.

Friday morning Daniel started with his mindfulness task - listening to music and drawing what he felt and the sounds he heard. He loves listening to his punk rock mix so there were many jagged lines. He then moved onto doing his OT work - ripping a snake that he had coloured in on the window (like the minties wrapper game).

Alexander chose to make a card for Emma (for his English task) and Eliza did the Alphabet hunt around the house. Daniel then wrote a letter to Lachie and did a graph of a challenge for his maths task and also did his crazy reading sitting on Eliza's bike. 

Eliza and Alexander enjoyed listening to music on Alexander's new (Auntie Jenny's old) CD player and they drew the music they heard - feelings, emotions, sounds. 

The kids were well and truely finished at lunchtime so after lunch we hopped on the bikes and rode up to Emma's house to deliver her letter and then rode back to Lachie, Emily and Flynnie's place to drop off their letters and say a quick hello (Eliza made a card for Emily and I used one of Alexander's people chains to give to Flynnie). It was nice to have a chat over the fence with Anne and the kids to debrief the week.

We celebrated the end of this week with smartie cookies for my bunch of smarties who I am so proud of with the effort they are putting in, the progress they are making, the memories they are making. We also had a movie night, where we watched Cool Runnings for the first time (the kids loved it) - We were feeling very Olympic today. We also enjoyed a family sleepover in the lounge room. 

If I'm honest, this week was a difficult one. Routine went out the window, the kids found it hard to choose a task to do (when there were so many options), Eliza wasn't keen on writing so wanted to just listen to books being read to her (not so helpful when it is important to do writing and reflecting too). Alexander doing the school work was a strategy because I didn't want him to be doing work while the other 2 were able to play - they had lots of spare time up their sleeves. The kids were bored at times, saying 'I don't know what to do. There's nothing to do'.

It was nice to go for the bush walk (but we were going to do that anyway even if it was a normal week), it was nice to sit and do puzzles with the kids (something we haven't really done lately) and it was nice to write some letters for friends but it also was hard to keep the kids motivated, stay on task and also to push themselves in their options. We were getting into a good routine over the first half of the term, it was hard to have that routine go out the window. Feedback also wasn't being given as much so the point of doing the work wasn't so much there.

Anyway, it was a good idea, it was good to try, and it might be good to do as a Friday task so kids can finish off work that they didn't get to during the week, just not a whole week thing. But we did it, we made it through and are now ready for routine to return.

The weekend saw a lot of work in the garden. James got me a new toy (a hedger that Dennis recommended) so I spent the time hedging each of the bushes we have.

James also bought himself a fire pit so he had fun setting up a fire for us at night. We enjoyed a sausage sandwich dinner and then toasting marshmallows as well as just watching the fire.