We were crossing over that bridge to go check out a tree the boys helped plant 5 years ago, when we spotted some things down in the water that caused us to back track & go check them out.

 

Remember Morgan's lovely tea cup invitations  That was for his lovely British Tea to wrap up his time in the British Isles. It's one of his favourite things about school this year, the end of week activities he prepares for us. He wasn't too sure about making tarts, I think the name scared him off, so I suggested mini chocolate pies. So we did! The topping is not cream, no milk here, it's meringue that we dusted with a bit of cocoa powder.

The invites told us to meet in the school room at 4pm. Only, we had a small delay. We decided for our weekend hike to go to our local Arboretium as it'd been a while since our last visit. While there we ran into a lovely fellow who lives a few houses down from us & we ended up having a lovely long chat, followed by a view of the many carved cups before we even got to our tradition of finding the platypus that lives in the pond. Because we were out at 4pm I suggested we meet at 445 instead. Not that it really mattered, but Morgan was a bit worried about our delay in getting home, this appeased him. Thankfully we'd made the treats before heading out for the day.


He decorated the room while the rest of us trooped off to get dressed up. He found the party plates & placemates, as well as some funky patterned corell we picked up for $1 years ago when we first moved to Tassie. The bottle on the left is a milk jug {plastic} that came from a set we picked up for $2 a while back for just such events. Unfortunately Mr S didn't think about how they were cheap & plastic & melted four of them in the dishwasher. We had a grand laugh about it afterwards.


On our way to the door we ran into Duke Sebastian who was quite keen to get in for the treats. He was also hoping our host wouldn't notice that he was wearing a fancy jacket & hat with a pair of "comfy" pants. He managed to shoot up enough that he was too tall for his dress pants. Seriously, this kid outgrew all his winter jumpers this month too, I had to get him 3 sizes bigger!! I'm not convinced that will leave him with much growing room either. At least when he's done he can pass them down to his older brother.


Our host was busy trying to control his wild dog, which turned out to be an importaed Tasmanian Tiger, so we guests decided to be silly with the camera. Sir Albert got a little carried away with that moustache, & I had to explain my sleeveless dress with "the wind was so blustery it blew my sleeves away, I do believe I may have to fire my seamstress when I get back home. Don't let me forget that will you Albert?"


Sir Albert agahast that Duke Sebastian didn't believe half his old war stories. I think the whole "orange juice in the trenches" was what did it. Apparently Duke Sebastian has read much on life in the trenches & no-man's land & never once heard of a single soldier boasting of the glories of mango orange juice infused with plenty of pulp to keep you going all day.


Once the host got over the horror of my missing sleeves poured us all some lovely tea & told us the horrors of once seeing the Queen swimming in her bathers which were less then modest apparently. Thankfully it was a fleeting glimpse & we were able to climb aboard an awaiting Double Decker bus for a quick tour of London via YouTube. All though we were nearly chucked out of West Minister Abby for the obsessive giggling when Albert kept poking all of us & nodding knowingly as if everything we saw had to do with his orange juice & war stories. I, of course, bawled for them over the marriage of Will & Kate, Albert did too until his moustache fell off. Dear me, what an adventure! A lovely way to spend an afternoon!

During our annual summer trip down to a local state park we didn't get to do our annual hike. We intended to go back & camp again & do the hike while we were camping, but things don't always go according to plan. Instead of the beautiful weekend we'd envisioned we had warnings coming in that people needed to batten the hatches & get everything undercover due to high winds & an excess of rain. We're adventurous, but not quite that adventurous.

Despite the disappointment on having to cancel this trip for the third weekend in a row Mr S woke us up on Saturday & said, "Wanna hike?" Of course we did! There was a mad scramble for proper shoes & our nifty light weight hiking drink bottles & a stop off for some snacks. It's about a 45-60 minute hike up & then about the same coming down.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day for our adventure too, & while I have no picture to prove it the wombats were out at the park when we arrived. They still refuse to answer to the name of Barry, perhaps they know we're on to them? They do seem to give pause when we ask how the flying & emu riding is going though. The kids got their quick speel about what to do if we spot a snake, the signs for snake activity are still up at the park, & off we went.

Lovely hike up & being a bit older there were no complaints fromt he youngest in our company. Then again the lack of jack jumpers & bull ants probably had a bit to do with that. I can attest to the agony of walking at the end of a line when those little critters are out & about!

We had our snack at the top, cracked jokes, checked the time, & then, just before heading off discussed what appeared to be an older path heading down the knob in a more direct fashion. The current path circles & winds it's way back & forth over the knob making your accent much more gentle until you're nearly at the top, but it does add to the time in which it takes one to hike it.

Mr S & I were discussing weither it was a wombat trail or an old human trail. We decided it was probably a bit of both & settled in to hear a few more, all be it extremely corny, jokes from the boys. Then Mr S asked what I thought of trying the old trail. I was game if the path was reasonably clear, with snake warnings out we didn't want anyone accidentally stepping on one. The agreement we made with everyone was that we'd start down the other path & if it became rough or unsafe at any point we'd have to hike up. The kids didn't seem to mind & off we went.

It started out so-so, but within a short time it felt like we were slipping & sliding down the front of this crazy thing. When we stopped long enough to catch our breath we could no longer see the top & couldn't quite figure out how we'd get off. We tried going forward a bit more, but the farther we went the rougher things got, all though eventually the Ranger cabin came into view. By that point there was a lot more slipping then actual climbing & we decided it was too unsafe to continue forward. The kids were not pleased, but obliged us in climbing back up.

By the time we got to the top for the second time we rushed the kids through another snack, thankfully the bag of fruit was big, & hurried them down the normal path. I was worried the littlest feet amongst us might not be able to handle another hour climb downward, not to mention the sun was setting & we had some wooded area to climb through still. The boys were completely worn out by the halfway mark so the suggestion arose to make some marching songs. All I can say is I'm really glad we were alone on that trail, aside from the occasional wallby that bounded across our path, stopped long enough to gawk at the singers, & then carried on a tad faster then they'd come.

Our lovely 2 hour afternoon hike became a nifty 4 hour hike. I figured after that much hiking the kids deserved to pick out a bar of chocolate each & go crash in front of the footy game. They were glad I saw things there way!


The view at the top was worth it though, don't you think? We did! We even debated climbing down that way & walking back up the beach. The boys were opposed to that way because the beach is a good distance from the main entrance where our car was parked. Funny thing is, had we gone that way we'd have probably saved a good hour & a half. Yeah, I laughed for a while over that one too!

Check out this amazing timeline! I'm still piecing the kids Australian History together bit by bit as we travel through the varying time periods & stopping as we hit major events to read a bit more about them. Our progress isn't very fast, in fact we're still on the tail-end of the plans I shared towards the end of Term 1, but we're enjoying ourselves as we move through time.

While double checking dates a few weeks ago I stumbled upon this lovely timeline by Faber Castell. It's absolutely amazing! The picture above only shows one-third of the whole timeline. Turns out Faber Castell is giving this 3-page poster timeline away free to schools, all you have to do is write & request it.  Which is exactly what I did!

Not only were they keen to send me one, but they asked how many I needed. I requested 2, one for our school & one for a friends. There was paperwork enclosed with it that stated you could also purchase the 3 poster set for $10 if you're not a school.

The boys were delighted to unroll these posters & check out the various things we'd all ready covered. All though we had a huge laugh when Jayden spotted the plate left by Dirk Hartog. "What? This is what the left behind? No wonder they took it away. It's tiny enough to be a button!" Oh my goodness, we laughed for ages about that one.

I will say that the posters are thin & had I thought about it I might have taken them down to the office shop & had them laminated "just in case". However, they are very lovely & I love seeing them hanging on our school room wall. The kids enjoy stopping by it & spotting where things are falling in place & looking forward to what they'll be learning about.

Morgan spotted Freeman celebrating at the Sydney Olympics & said, "Mom?! The Olympics were in Sydney! Why on earth didn't we go? Did we go? I don't remember going!" "Sorry, no. We weren't in Australia at the time, but we certainly did enjoy dreaming of being there!"

Interestingly enough the poster set is pretty identical to the book we purchased recently entitled Australian Story An Illustrated Timeline. Our book shop ordered it for us & it cost $20.  There are lots more pictures in the lovely book then there are on the timeline & a few extra quips written around those photos too, but other then that the information is pretty much the same. I think they do a lovely job of complimenting each other!

You can check out the book via the State Library system if you're interested! I don't know that the local book shop has any copies on the shelf, I simply asked them about the book & they looked it up & told me how much it would cost before they ordered it for me. Easy Peasy!


It's not the greatest photo, all though you should be able to click on it for a better view, but there's the 3 poster timeline all hooked together & hanging on a wall in our learning space.

Jayden's core this year is Winter Promise Animal Worlds. It's a fun core that indulges him in lots & lots of zoology fun. The only complaints he's had about it, thus far, are when things get crazy & we end up skipping a day. It really annoys him & we had a few of those in Term 1.

Last year with our Sonlight Core we read from a poetry book each day. I won't say all the poems were delightful or huge hits with the kids, but they did enjoy the routine of hearing some poetry each day. Or was that me? Either way, I knew Morgan would be using a poetry book this year again & I thought it would be fun to get Jayden his own too.

I did a quick search for an animal poetry book & was quickly smitten with The Beauty Of The Beast. The poetry inside is all about animals & the art work is beautiful. Unfortunately the book appears to be out of print, but we were able to pick up a second hand copy fairly inexpensively. So far it's been a big hit with him & he's even been game enough to try reading a few this year.

The other book we decided to add into this core was The Big Book Of Animal Devotions. If you're familiar with the Winter Promise cores you'll know they generally have Bible all ready scheduled in them in the form of a devotional or something they've written themselves. My only reason for picking up this devotional as well is that I'd all ready planned to purchase this one as Jayden's devotional for the New Year. I knew the way it was most likely to be used was to schedule it into his core. It has hundreds of devotionals in it all based on different animals so it's been fun to read a devotional based upon the animal he reads about each day too.

Such fun books to go along with a really fun core!

And, just like that we're back to school around here. It's been a crazy busy long week! So much so that on Wednesday I thought it was Monday again & had a small panic about all the things I hadn't accomplished last week. I was in a rush to do a few things early one morning when I remembered the chapter in Proverbs I read which reminded me it was only Wednesday. Sad, but true. I'd say it was just me, but Mr S kept stating how it felt like such a long week!

That's not to say we had a bad week, for our first week back it was full, but good. The boys accomplished heaps of work, & we attempted to test our new schedule for term 2. Attempted, because we rarely stuck to it, but that's okay.

We also tried out some new curriculum which my boys weren't thrilled I'd purchased. True story that.Upon opening the parcel Morgan said, "Mom! Why would you buy me a handwriting book!" Ahh, I tried really hard not to remind him of his eye appointment, but I failed. He really does have beautiful handwriting, but when questioned as to why he writes upper & lower case letters in a sentence he told me it was because he doesn't feel all his lowercase letters are as nice as some of his uppercase letters. Thus my purchase for him. I figured Jayden could use some review too & upon spotting his own book he uttered the words, "Nothing you say or punishment you give me will ever make me use that book!" Such strong words, but the sincerity in what he said made me burst out laughing on the spot. He was heavily insulted.

I learned to speak secret code during math time with Jayden this week. If he says, "I'm tired." he really means, "I don't get this & I wish I didn't have to do it." He actually did really well, as long as I didn't try to help him. I find that keeping myself busy so I don't help too much with all the kids work can be hard for me, mostly because when I get involved in something that's when they most need me!


Monday we watched a video about StoneHenge that was absolutely fascinating, to go along with our Children Around The World core. Despite being broken into 4 parts {an hour total running time} the kids were just fascinated by it the whole time. Afterwards they ran off & came back a bit later with a lovely lego model of Stonehenge!

Morgan tried out his new handwriting paper during his writing lesson. We're still using Writing With Skill & enjoying it thus far. He has a big paper to write next week so it'll be interesting to see how that works out. Having said that, I especially loved his handwriting with his work this week, the new paper was a huge help with that.


Our giant map of Europe received some lovely decorations for England. Really loving having this hanging up & how often he's able to refer to it for smaller things. He did a lot of his map work this week sitting in front of this map!


We finished Aboard Endeavour this week. The book is well written with a nice glossary in the back should you need help figuring out some of the sailing terms or boat parts. There's also a nice drawing of the Endeavour on the inside front & back flaps of this book. The book was also loaded with a lot of interesting information in regards to the journey from England to Tahiti & on to Australia. I think it was a tad rosy though, especially in regards to Isaac Smith's position on the boat. For instance, that's him on the lefthand side wearing a rather fancy set of clothes which is amusing considering he wasn't an officer or a gentleman. It's nice to read it alongside our other book: The Goat Who Sailed The World to give another view of how life on the Endeavour might have been like. We did, however, enjoy the first book, & are equally enjoying the second one. There is a slightly immature moment regarding naked women in chapter 14 {or 15}, where Isaac's friend on the boat points at one of the naked women. Isaac doesn't pay attention to it as he finds it embarrassing & the scene is quickly over.  Both books lend themselves to many mapping activities if one is interested, in fact The Goat Who Sailed The World has maps of the voyages of Cook within the book! {State library has both of these.}
Morgan was working on his World Traveler's Diary {WTD}, which he loves, & needed to find a bit of information out about Charles Dickens. I'd found this fun website earlier & brought it up for him & he had fun working his way through the stuff on Charles Dickens. We were really disappointed that we couldn't get the videos on that site to work, so I did a quick search & found this one which the boys absolutely loved. After reading & watching the information he played the game show & won the certificate, we decided to print it out & put it in his WTD.


Jayden was delighted to add bees to his height chart because they were on the 1-inch line. He also studied beavers, squirrels, & rabbits. He really loves Animal Worlds & can't wait to get to whales. He's thinking, again, it might be fun to work at an animal reserve or a zoo perhaps. We had a craft that we didn't get to this week, perhaps next week..


Morgan worked a bit on Passport to UK from Unit Studies.com. It covers a vast amount of information, but I pulled it out so that he could check out the videos of landmarks around the British Isles this week. We'll be using a variety of the Passport To.. titles over the course of the year.


We had swim three times this week, much to Jayden's delight. He really worked hard last term to move from the bottom of the class towards the top, & it all paid off for him. They only have lessons once a week, but we've been blessed with another pool closer to home that we can practice in a couple of times a week. You'll have to excuse the weird photo, it's hard to get a shot of the lesson pool with only my kids in the photo!
Morgan made these adorable invitations & taped them to our bedroom doors! The idea is that each week we are able we'll have a Cultural Celebration of the country we've visited for the week. He's really excited about this part & has been working on fancy name tags, & secretive plans for the past couple of days. We're hoping to save one of the little invites to tuck into his WTD!

The boys also finished listening to The Hobbit & were quite delighted with it. They are debating getting the BBC Radio production version of it or moving on to Lord Of The Rings. Morgan's pretty keen to read the book himself, but he's nervous considering it's length. Needless to say there's been a whole lot of Hobbit talk around here & they are both highly annoyed the film has such a high rating on it here in Australia.

Saturdays tend to be lazy around here. They are for sleeping in & taking your time to get moving, which is a nice luxury after the business of the rest of our week. It's not abnormal for the boys to bring toys into our room & play until I complain that someone has taken all of my share of the quilt & that I'm freezing. Or someone else complains they are extremely hungry & on the verge of dying from starvation. Last weekend there was some kind of major pillow & puffle war. You know what a puffle is right?

A few Saturdays back I was the one who complained that not only did everyone take my share of the quilt, but I was also starving & thus I stated I was getting up. It is not insane to state you are getting up when it means climbing over three other bodies, an unknown amount of toys, & generally a dog as well if not a guinea pig at times. I stepped into our closet long enough to grab a wonderfully thick, & yes okay purple, robe that, yes you've caught me, is adorned with snowmen. When I came out the room was empty. I'm telling you my closet is not that big.

When I left the bedroom I found the boys whispering together & holding the last of the bananas. I declared it completely unfair that they had the last of the bananas because I hadn't even gotten one yet. Bananas have risen in price here again & I just refuse to pay $4 per kilo for them at times, you know until someone laments, generally Mr S, that it's been ages since I've purchased even one single banana & would it be possible to nip out & pick some up today without being too much of a bother from our schedule? Which is exactly why we had bananas in the house! I'd purchased enough for each of us to have 2, but there were suddenly only three left & I'd had none.

I told them I was going to get something to go with my banana & when I came back I expected to be let in on my fair share of bananas. Only, when I returned I found, hanging from the birthday banner, a sign  which read: "Mom Cecher 3000". Which means: "Mom Catcher 3000". Dangling below the sign attached to string were the last 3 bananas! Now, you might think I was desperate enough to have snatched them, hidden them in the depths of my bathrobe & run for the hills, but I have something on my side. My brother.

I don't think one grows up with a brother & doesn't learn a few things. Like, for instance, his sudden silence after much noise means that he's most likely set up some form of a trap hoping, beyond hope, to catch you in it. If string is dangling from a sign, or a doorway as our mother can attest, it's another sure sign that things aren't quite right.

Not to mention the fact that my boys have begged to hear the story, countless times of their uncle setting up a trap so that when Gram walked into his bedroom to check the progress of room cleaning a rolled up blanket fell upon her head. The only thing funnier to them was that it happened twice.. to both grandmothers.

There was no way I was touching those bananas. Mr S, on the other hand, walked out read the sign & said, "Oh good I'm in the clear then!" & proceeded to take the bananas & walk off with them. How does this happen?! I'm still not quite sure because I'm too busy lamenting the fact that my brother led me astray & my children ganged up with my husband & I didn't get my fair share of bananas.