Snowflake #1 has been interested in drums ever since he saw and heard the taiko drummers in concert some time ago, so he was excited to have the opportunity to attend a taiko drumming workshop recently with Daddy Snow and #2. The teachers ran two separate workshops, so that the littler children could practice playing their drums in unison, while the older group got to have a go with a backing beat and a couple of rhythms over the top. They have also had quite a musical few weeks with lots of singing, dancing and piano playing (I think our piano teacher was slightly shocked at how much they had practiced). We re-read
The Orchard Book of Stories from the Ballet, which naturally required listening to the relevant music and watching snippets of ballet dancing.
The boys went to a Robotics Tasmania evening to see and learn about 'Cyclops' and 'Echidna' the bomb disposal robots. This sparked a lot of discussion around larger topics such as when it is appropriate to replace people with technology, and why anybody would plant a bomb. #1 has been doing quite a lot of design and technology type learning. For example, he looked at how airbags in cars work, and made a model of one. He worked with Daddy Snow on their electronics projects for several hours. He and #2 had a few goes at designing various sorts of kites and testing how well they would fly (garbage bag material braced with bamboo cooking skewers worked the best).
A few art and craft activities were also on the agenda. #2 did some drawing, she and #1 both made bead bracelets, and they loved weaving 'goddess eyes' to decorate the Seasonal Table for Mabon. That night after our feast, they stayed up late and we were lucky to get a good look at the 'super moon'. We discovered that with the moon being 40% brighter than usual, the moonlight was bright enough to read a book by. Speaking of reading books, we've been managing to get through a fair bit of reading lately. For our reading aloud, we are still doing one or two
Famous Five books per week, but we've been looking at Celtic myths and a few other things as well. It's taking a bit of juggling at the moment because #3 can't quite understand the books I read to the elder two, and so tends to interrupt with questions every second sentence or so, hence it goes more smoothly if we read her a handful of books first and then encourage her to get busy with some other activity while we read. As well as listening to read alouds, all the snowflakes are back onto their respective structured reading programs and making some progress. We're continuing to work on writing (well, #1 and #2 work on writing, while #3 practices pre-writing skills such as drawing a line but proudly calls it 'my writing'). #2 was very excited to begin her Language Skills workbook and complains vociferously when she doesn't think I have given her enough schoolwork.
Snowflake #2 has grown a lot of late, both physically and mentally. She is finally moving past the stage of wanting to be the same as her brother and do everything he does, and has really started to blossom as an independent person with her own interests. It's getting more and more interesting to watch how the ways that she learns differ from how snowflake #1 learns. She especially looks forward to attending her Girl Guides group each week, where she can learn and play with her peers away from her parents and siblings. She even looks more mature - OK, mature for a 5yo - with her new, shorter haircut. (Actually, what with chopping off most of her hair and most of #1's, I have probably reduced our total family hair length by about half. We should have turned it into some kind of fund raiser!)
Snowflake #1 has been interested in drums ever since he saw and heard the taiko drummers in concert some time ago, so he was excited to have the opportunity to attend a taiko drumming workshop recently with Daddy Snow and #2. The teachers ran two separate workshops, so that the littler children could practice playing their drums in unison, while the older group got to have a go with a backing beat and a couple of rhythms over the top. They have also had quite a musical few weeks with lots of singing, dancing and piano playing (I think our piano teacher was slightly shocked at how much they had practiced). We re-read The Orchard Book of Stories from the Ballet, which naturally required listening to the relevant music and watching snippets of ballet dancing. 
The boys went to a Robotics Tasmania evening to see and learn about 'Cyclops' and 'Echidna' the bomb disposal robots. This sparked a lot of discussion around larger topics such as when it is appropriate to replace people with technology, and why anybody would plant a bomb. #1 has been doing quite a lot of design and technology type learning. For example, he looked at how airbags in cars work, and made a model of one. He worked with Daddy Snow on their electronics projects for several hours. He and #2 had a few goes at designing various sorts of kites and testing how well they would fly (garbage bag material braced with bamboo cooking skewers worked the best).
A few art and craft activities were also on the agenda. #2 did some drawing, she and #1 both made bead bracelets, and they loved weaving 'goddess eyes' to decorate the Seasonal Table for Mabon. That night after our feast, they stayed up late and we were lucky to get a good look at the 'super moon'. We discovered that with the moon being 40% brighter than usual, the moonlight was bright enough to read a book by. Speaking of reading books, we've been managing to get through a fair bit of reading lately. For our reading aloud, we are still doing one or two Famous Five books per week, but we've been looking at Celtic myths and a few other things as well. It's taking a bit of juggling at the moment because #3 can't quite understand the books I read to the elder two, and so tends to interrupt with questions every second sentence or so, hence it goes more smoothly if we read her a handful of books first and then encourage her to get busy with some other activity while we read. As well as listening to read alouds, all the snowflakes are back onto their respective structured reading programs and making some progress. We're continuing to work on writing (well, #1 and #2 work on writing, while #3 practices pre-writing skills such as drawing a line but proudly calls it 'my writing'). #2 was very excited to begin her Language Skills workbook and complains vociferously when she doesn't think I have given her enough schoolwork.
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