Lightening Online

Since our parent-teacher interviews the other day, I have been spending a bit of time planning some of our educational experiences for our children while we’re away.  It’s bringing out the “wannabee” teacher in me. 

Some of you may remember that earlier in the year, I went in search of something appropriate for our children to record their journal of the trip in.  This is what I ended up getting:

They’re a bit bulky than what I was first looking for but they are completely self contained, including spaces to store pencils and textas:

As you can see, I had fun purchasing packs of new textas along with these great pencil/eraser/sharpener sets (which incidentally I picked up from a clearance rack for 50c per pack - BARGAIN!).

I also purchased a pack of 100 plastic sleeves, some lined paper (without holes so it can slip inside the plastic sleeve neatly once written on and a ream of plain paper.  Each folder has it’s own well-stocked supplies of the essentials:

Hopefully this will mean less fighting (one can only live in hope) and less items being lost (again, one can only live in hope LOL).

Being the stationery junkie that I am, I am having SO much fun putting these together and I hope that when we return they’ll become a well-loved memoire of our trip away.

My mind is going overboard with ideas for “educating the kids”  while we’re away.  Yesterday I even started to make up my own maths worksheets (told you I was a ” wannabee” teacher )

Here are a few of the ideas I have so far:

LITERACY

* Journals recording the trip

* Blogging

* Magic 100 Words (Trailer Boy)

* Literacy work from school (spelling etc) - I doubt we’ll do a lot though given Lleyton and Princess Singstar are already spelling way above their age and Trailer Boy isn’t likely to be up to spelling words yet.

NUMERACY (MATHS)

* Money and Budgetting - They’re all getting a weekly amount for treats, ice creams, souvenirs etc which they’ll have to make last the week, or do without.  This should help Trailer Boy with learning the values of different notes/coins and the other 2 how much things cost.  I’m also planning on using a weekly cash budget myself for food, treats, washing, spending money and take away so they’ll hopefully learn about making choices with where the money goes.

* Mathletics - where we can get internet access (may visit some libraries)

* Counting Cars - I’m in the process of setting up a series of worksheets for Trailer Boy which cover colour and counting as well as looking at concepts like less and more.  Hopefully they’ll keep him occupied some of the time that we’re driving too.

* Fuel Consumption Project - I’m working on a project for Lleyton which records all our fuel information so he can look at average price paid for fuel, where highest and lowest prices were, what our fuel consumption is, how much it is costing us per km (on average) and so on.  It should be quite interesting to look at those figures and have that record and anything to do with statistics and finance is right up his alley.

* Maths worksheets as provided by their teachers.

COMPUTING AND TECHNOLOGY

* Digital Photography - learning how to fully make use of their digital cameras as well as uploading images to the computer, resizing and uploading to the blog, possibly some editing as well.

* Blogging - writing posts, publishing, approving comments, responding to comments etc.  Considering whether I’ll put together a basic HTML course for Lleyton as well.

PE

* Tennis - to help with Lleyton’s tennis progress, we’re planning on as much tennis as we can while we’re away.  Many caravan parks have tennis courts which helps.

* Swimming - taking advantage of the warmer weather in Northern Queensland and the fact that most caravan parks have swimming pools.

* Bushwalking/Hiking

SCIENCE/SOSE

* Various zoos

* Great Barrier Reef (and considering taking them to Reef Teach before we see the Great Barrier Reef to enhance the learning experience)

* Seeing various farms and different farming techniques (including a visit to the Australian Cotton Centre and a Sugar Mill)

* Daintree Rainforest

* Astronomy

* Pretty much everything we do will probably come under SOSE in some form or another.

OTHER

* Cooking and general life skills

* Family bonding

* Making friendships with children they meet as we travel

* Setting up and packing up skills, team work

* I have a new game for Trailer Boys Leapster which is Batman maths.  I’m planning to purchase a Brain Training game for the others for their DS’s so they’ll all have an educational game to play in the car.

There are so many learning opportunities in a trip like this but it’s fun to actually start writing them down and seeing how they relate to various subject areas.

Image via Wikipedia

Last night we had our parent-teacher interviews with our children’s teachers. Our school is very accommodating in attempting to line up all interviews on the same night. As it turned out, that was going to be no mean feat given the various nights our children’s teachers were and weren’t available and with us shearing this week. Of the 2 weeks of interviews, last night was the only night we were ALL available. Anyway, they managed to fit us all in last night which was great.

I often wonder what goes through a teacher’s mind in the lead up to parent-teacher interviews. Do they get nervous? How do they view parents? What will their opinion be of me? A couple of times I’ve noticed a rather alarmed expression come across different teachers faces at comments I’ve made. I have a rather dry sense of humour and can tend to look serious when I’m actually joking. I didn’t even realise this until Farmboy and I started dating and he NEVER laughed at my jokes. Turns out he was too scared to laugh because he couldn’t tell if I was serious or not. I thought perhaps I wasn’t as funny as I thought. He laughs a LOT now that he knows my sense of humour a little better.

So, I have to be a little bit careful.

Anyway, back to last night.

We began with Trailer Boys teachers. He has 2. One of them has taught all of my children so it was a lot of fun talking about how VERY different our 3 children are. We click really well and have similar ideas when it comes to learning so I’m very pleased Trailer Boy has her (even if it’s only 2 days a week). I love it when you really click with a teacher - it makes the whole parent-school relationship SO much easier.

They were surprised to hear that we have tears most mornings from Trailer Boy because he doesn’t want to go to school. It’s funny really because I think he enjoys it when he gets there and he comes home happy.

His progress seems so SLOW compared to our older 2 children and while this is something I expected based on his personality and learning style, there’s always the fear there of “is he going alright?” Apparently he’s going fine.

Singstar Princesses teacher seems really lovely. She’s in her first year out of uni which is always a challenging year. She’s having some issues in the class but getting some good support from the school. We actually had trouble filling in the whole interview time which is a first for me (usually I talk too much and go over time). The thing is, she’s our “easy” child. She fits really well into the school system. She’s bright enough to learn quickly regardless of what teacher she has but not so bright that she gets bored. She’s social and enjoys school.

What did actually surprise me was the testing results her teacher shared with us. This is the first time we’ve been given a decent indication of where she is up to in comparison to her age. Apparently she’s almost 2 years ahead in spelling and well over a year ahead in reading. That’s the problem when you come after a gifted brother I guess - good achievements can seem weak in comparison.

I did take pity on Lleyton’s teacher. She’s also a “first year out” teacher and is very lovely. When she told me he was achieving 6 months ahead of his level in maths I was tempted to let my jaw drop in horror at where the other 4 years went. Technically, based on a standardised test the Deputy Principal gave him at the beginning of year 3, he was able to pass year 7 levels quite comfortably.

On talking a little with his teacher, she is going to extend him a little.

I have to admit that to an extent, I’m weary of fighting for him to be extended. In the early years I tried because I was concerned that he wasn’t learning the important life skill of “learning” and persevering. Eventually, we realised the school system just couldn’t seem to cope with this and we worked on it outside of school. We haven’t given up on HIM. Just on the system. He goes to school and as long as he’s reasonably happy, socially adaptable and not getting into too much trouble (he’s just starting to unfortunately), we’ve let things be.

Does that make me a bad parent? I’m not sure.

The thing that has really kept me going in the last year or so is this trip on the horizon. Knowing that we have a whole term in which we can extend him and that most of that extension will be horizontal (broadening his range of experience) rather than vertical (simply getting further and further ahead in the subjects he’s good in) has been what’s keeping me going.

Our biggest agenda with all of our kids teachers was to make sure they were aware of our plans to take Term 3 off for travelling. Last week I put in the paperwork to the school principal to apply for an exemption. That has to go to the Department for approval so I guess we’ll hear back next term some time. At this stage, we have the full support of the Principal and Deputy Principal and they seem to think exemption will be granted.

Interestingly, one of the common responses from the teachers was the appreciation for the heads up this early. Apparently some parents give them like a week’s notice. I don’t really understand this as it’s not every day you plan to take your children out of school for an extended period of time and surely the parents knew further in advance that that.

Anyway, this trip is bringing out the “wannabe” teacher in me so I’m having lots of fun with the planning stages. We have asked if each teacher will provide us with some basic literacy and numeracy work which will help our children cover the same basics while we are away as their classmates are learning in class. Everything else will be covered by the journal writing, photography and blogging as well as the many learning opportunities they’ll gain as we travel around.

All of the teachers seems supportive of the trip and happy to accommodate us in this way which is another box ticked in the planning and preparation for our trip.

It’s always a relief to get to the end of parent-teacher interviews with an overall sense that your children are thriving well in the school environment. Not that we don’t have issues as parents to deal with but for the most part, the news was all good.

Image via Wikipedia

Take a bunch of fat cantankerous sheep and ask your wife to help you draft them.

Make sure your wife is overtired and brewing a cold so that she bursts into tears instantaneously without really being able to explain why.

Then call out instructions to her from where you’re standing, causing the sheep to run away from you just when she finally has them running the right way. Therefore, making her job harder and making her feel even more stupid than before.

When she bursts into tears, tell her she’s doing a good job so that she feels even worse about bursting into tears and then tell her not to worry about drafting the sheep because you have no idea that not completing the job is going to completely decimate what little self esteem she does have.

Add into the mix an overfed, cantankerous dog. Then part way through, blame the kids for the dog not working because you insist they feed the dog but complain they don’t do it “right”. Attacking her children is going to make her feel so much better about he whole situation - NOT!!!!

When said sheep are finally drafted, drop the bombshell that 2/3’s of them need to be re-drafted to make a 3rd group. Tell her that it doesn’t really matter if she doesn’t want to do them. Of course, now she’ll be leaving feeling like the job isn’t “finished” and we all know how women LOVE to leave a job unfinished.

When the job is finally over, tell her that she was much more patient than you would have been which probably made the job easier in the long run. She might even *just* believe you and it might save your marriage.

If you can come up with a cup of tea and some chocolate - she might even consider helping you out again. One day…

P.S.  For those of you who are concerned, Farmboy and I are fine.  While this is an account of what happened, it is meant to be funny - you’re allowed to laugh. 

I have to admit that over the past few months, our spending has been a little out of control. Some of this is due to unforeseen medical circumstances but a lot of it is due to a lack of discipline when it comes to shopping.

I mean, let’s face it, shopping can be LOTS of fun. It’s even more fun when you’re not working to any sort of budget or tracking where the money is going.

Until the credit card bill comes.

The good news is that I’ve been aware that our income cannot sustain my level of spending in recent times.

The bad news is that I still had to find a way to undo the damage already done.

The good news is, we have money in savings.

The bad news is that money is supposed to be earmarked for the big trip.

(did you ever have to write one of those stories in Primary School “What good luck…, what bad luck…?”)

The good news is I’m managing to scrape enough money together so far that I haven’t had to dip into savings.

The bad news is, I’m still paying for spending in late January and throughout February (so essentially, we’re behind because I technically don’t have the funds to cover what I’ve spent on the credit cards since then).

The good news is, I should have the money to pay for those bills by the time the next credit card bill is due (another month’s time).

And so on it goes.

In an ideal world I probably should do away with using the credit card altogether. But it’s just SO convenient.

To change the subject a little:

It’s been over a month since I’ve updated my BHAG. So far, I haven’t had to delve into this money to cover my spending faux pars so we’ll continue on our merry little way and hope that I can sort out this over-spending while keeping my little “nest egg” intact.

Last Update Total (2/2/09) $2834.31

Amounts to be added:

Interest: $163.41

Simple Savings Affiliate payment: $11.00

Clean out of old handbag (cash from last year’s budget): $101.70

New Total: $3110.42

With 15 weeks to go (oh my!), I need to find around $125 a week on average to reach my goal.

I was pondering on my jog last night the fact that 1 minute when walking seems to go so much faster than a minute while jogging….. interesting.

Well folks, it’s Smiley Saturday time again and what better topic for a Smiley Saturday post than a blog party???

I’m a party girl at heart. I guess that’s why I enjoy throwing my kids party’s. When I was a teenager in Girls Brigade, I even chose to do a unit called “Party Planners” which was all about
learning to throw a good party. I had a lot of fun and an excuse to throw a party (practical experience of course) as well.

There is something about a party that gives us all a reason to smile. A celebration. Good food and friends. Perhaps a chance to network, make new friends or deepen current friendships. A temporary escape from any current struggles we might be facing.

The Ultimate Blog Party, hosted by 5 minutes for mom is a celebration of blogging. A chance to meet new bloggers and blogs. To mingle, network and form relationships. At least that’s my take on it.

To make the party even more attractive, there are PRIZES on offer for participants. It’s going to be lots of fun and I’m planning to try and visit as many participants as I can throughout the week.

If you’d like to join in, there’s still plenty of time.  The official party starts on the 20th and runs for an entire week.

Welcome to Blog Party Visitors

If you’ve come here via the Ultimate Blog Party link, welcome to my site. I’m a SAHM to 3 school aged children. My husband is a farmer and we live in rural Australia (on a farm - naturally). This blog is an eclectic mixture of posts that make up my thoughts and experiences as I tour through life.

Smiley Saturday is hosted here each Saturday and started from my desire to make people smile. There aren’t too many hard and fast rules when it comes to what to post in your Smiley Saturday post. It could be a reflection on your smiley moments for the week or it could be a video clip, joke, funny photo or anything that might make your blog readers smile. Usual “meme/linky rules” apply. Link back here in your post and include a link to your Smiley Saturday post in the Mr Linky box provided.

If you’ve come to visit as part of the Ultimate Blog Party, please take the time to leave a comment as I would love to return your visit (and feel free to leave a link in your comment direct to your party post).

For My Regular Readers

Are you a party fan? Do you like throwing parties or are you more of an “attendee” type of party gal/guy? What’s your favourite kind of party? Do you have a favourite party tip to share? I might even write a post for next week on my own favourite party tips.

Happy Smiley Saturday everyone!!! Let’s all “party on dude!”

PRIZES

To make the party even more fun - there are some AWESOME prizes on offer for participants. Who doesn’t love a giveaway? Lucky for me, there is a category for International Prizes (it’s refreshing to see that those of outside of the US haven’t been forgotten. :)).

So, my pick of the prizes are:

INTL 23 – Blog Makeover BLOGGER platform only
Provided by: Busy Mama Blog Design
Prize details: I will provide a complete blog makeover – header, backgrounds, and signature line included. Also includes up to a $6.00 kit of your choice to use in building your blog. ($55.00 value)

INTL 19 — $130 Sponsor spot on Tip Junkie
Provided by: Tip Junkie
Prize details: Promote your blog, company, and/or products! Tip Junkie would like to donate a $130 Sponsor ad button which is equivalent to 2 months free advertising.

INTL 61 — $30 Gift Credit to Amazon.com
Provided by: Robynn’s Ravings
Prize Details: Happy shopping at Amazon.com!

INTL 57 — Six months of sidebar ads for MomAudience - a brand new marketplace for moms launching April 1 ($125 value)
Provided by: Beverly Coggins of 1-2-3…Get Organized
Prize details: MomAudience brings together moms, mompreneurs, and mom-appealing businesses through weekly emails showcasing new blogs, new products, new social networks, etc. Listings are free. Your sidebar ads will appear on each email for six months and will be archived on the Mom Audience blog. Don’t miss out - more info click here.

There are so many to choose from - I’m glad I’m not responsible for divying them all out at the end of this party!!!! :)  Really, I’d be happy to win ANYTHING - particularly any of the blog makeover or blog advertising offers.

It has been lego city around here for the past few weeks. The kids were sent a Lego City Crane from Lego’s City Construction Range to try out and it has stimulated their imaginative play no end.

It’s amazing how one new piece of lego can bring the rest of the Lego isn’t it. All of a sudden it all comes out and is like new again!

Princess Singstar and Trailer Boy are my big lego fanatics so they enjoyed unpacking and creating this crane.

One thing that really impressed me as we unpacked the box was the way things were packaged up in numbered packets. This enabled the kids to follow the instructions step by step without getting frustrated trying to find the right pieces from a large mass of pieces.

It was a good exercise in breaking a large project down into manageable sized pieces.

What really interested me was that the project took a couple of hours to build and yet managed to hold the attention of both Princess Singstar (who is AND Trailer Boy (who is 5). Princess Singstar managed most of the building process while Trailer Boy did need a bit more help (as you would expect).

Lego has obviously evolved quite substantially since I was a child. I couldn’t believe these tracks that were a part of the kit:

They make the crane fully movable and operational:

I’m a bit bummed at the moment because I took a video of Trailer Boy demonstrating the crane to show you and I’m having trouble uploading to my computer. It was rather cute and he was demonstrating how it goes forward, turns around and lifts objects.

Once completed, he began the project of building a whole house, piece by piece, using the crane to lift each one into place. It was rather adorable and interesting to watch.

I asked him what he’d like to see come out in a Lego kit and he wants a caravan!!! Surprise! Surprise! Kids love whatever is familiar. He’d also like a truck that can carry the house he’s building (our own home came on the back of a truck).

Princess Singstar has been quite a large fan of Lego for some years now. I do find it a little disappointing and frustrating that the beautiful “girly” Lego is not very easy to come by. She has a few bits and pieces. Mind you, it’s probably as much my own bias that I want that kind of Lego for her as she was eying off the farming and gardening pictures in the Lego book. I’ve only seen the farming stuff in the Duplo (which we have quite a lot of), not the Lego.

I thought that would interest Trailer Boy as well but he was more attracted by the City Construction range with it’s trucks and cranes and buildings. Oh, and people with little hand-held radio’s (CB/UHF? Not sure what they use on building sites).

In the past, I’ve always been a fan of more generic lego sets that allow kids imaginations to expand and create. I can see the benefit in these types of more structured kits though. They’re great for teaching them to follow instructions (mostly via picture so reading not required) and allow a LOT of creative play surrounding the item they’ve constructed.

I can see that this is going to be a well loved toy for a long time to come (in fact, my poor lounge room has been taken over by Lego for the past few weeks ).

Lego is certainly one of those toys that has passed the test of time isn’t it?

What are your thoughts on Lego?

Do you have a preference for the kits or for general sets of pieces? Do your kids have a particular favourite? I’d love to hear what has worked and not worked with Lego for other families. Our collection is still reasonably small and I’d like to add to it over the next few years so hearing about the great stuff you’ve found would be a great help.

How about storage? I’d love to hear any tips on the best way to store Lego.

I have started tracking my daily spending using the Simple Savings Diary. It’s a feature of the site offered to paid members that I only discovered recently.

While it doesn’t offer me quite as much detail as my old tracking system did, I’m finding it a simple way of keeping some kind of record. I get sent an email reminder each day as well which helps prompt me to keep it up to date. It’s so much simpler to enter figures if you’re doing it on a daily basis rather than allowing them to accumulate.

The other thing I like about it is that it has a section where you can make some reflections on the days spending and consider what the next day will bring. This is something that I’ve never really done in the past. I’ve budgetted and tracked but not necessarily reflected a lot on my spending habits.

It’ll be interesting to see if this has an impact after a while (and whether or not I stick with this system). It’s working well for me at the moment though.

Grocery Budget Update

As a follow up from my recent musings regarding our grocery budget, I have made a decision on what I’m going to do. I was thinking weekly, but something Kate said in her comment reminded me that I’ve always based my figures on monthly in the past.

So I’ve decided to budget $600 per month which is around $138 per week (so pretty much a middle ground between $130 and $150) . I’m using cash as a way of tracking it so it’ll be interesting to see what we actually spend after a few months of not tracking at all.

If I feel up to it, I’ll start working on bringing it down from there but for now I’m trying to accept the fact that I haven’t got the energy to focus too heavily on minimising the grocery spending.

Yesterday I made my debut as a Ball Girl, picking up tennis balls at Lleyton’s first private tennis coaching lesson.

We’ve been struggling with what to do about Lleyton’s interest and ability in tennis. One of the disadvantages of living in a rural location is that lack of access to things like regular tennis coaching or clinics. So when we came across this coach who lives in a town less than 200km away, we decided to give him a go.

The lesson went very well. This guy is very passionate about tennis and seems to really know his stuff. Apparently Lleyton picked up on the new techniques quite quickly and the guy said he got further in the one lesson than he had expected to.

So the plan at this stage is to proceed with more private lessons as we (and the coach) can fit them in (he being so far away makes it a little more complicated). Then next tennis season we’ll enter him in a couple of tournaments and see how he fares against other “tennis fanatics”. At this stage, he’s only played locally.

Cost will be the next hurdle. Yes, he has some talent and is very passionate about his tennis. But how far do you go as a parent in helping a child realise their dreams? It’s important that we balance the needs and desires of all 3 children, plus our own of course.

It’s not just the cost of lessons either, it’s travel and equipment. One of the first things the coach mentioned was that he’ll need a new tennis racquet. The one we have was bought at a proper tennis store a few years back but as he grows, we knew we’d need to upgrade. If we want to get serious about his opportunities with tennis then we need to look at the more expensive end of the market when it comes to racquets.

The good thing about all this is that at this stage, we’re talking a new racquet and a few lessons and to see where that takes us. In the meantime, he’s having fun and it will be a good skill for him to learn. He’s amazing when it comes to teaching others so I can see him having a future in tennis coaching himself at some point in time.

I’m not sure where this journey is going to lead us, or how far along the track we’ll manage to travel.  It does feel good to at least have gotten this far (in finding a coach for him).  At least we can start to get a better idea of what his potential is and hopefully open a few doors for him.

One thing I do know.  I can see a lot of ball “picking up” in my “not to distant” future!

It feels a little strange to be composing a Smiley Saturday post when today is Poppa’s funeral. Still, funerals are more than tears and sadness and saying goodbye. They are a celebration of a persons life. Since my post about Poppa’s death, I have found out that he had 32 great grandchildren so I wasn’t far off with my 30+ guestimate. Quite a legacy isn’t it? And there are more on the way and likely to be more in the future. I guess that’s to be expected when you have 17 grandchildren.

I was asked about showing the photograph I mentioned of the 4 generations. I don’t have the one of when Lleyton was a baby on the computer (we didn’t have a digital camera back then) but I did happen to notice this one that has the 4 generations in it also and was taken about 12 months ago:

The kids are looking forward to catching up with cousins and second and third cousins as well. And they’ve been asked to sing “Jesus Loves Me” at the Thanksgiving Service as well (with the other great grand-children). I’m sure it will be a very special time.

If you’d like to join us for Smiley Saturday this week, simply write and publish your post with a link back here then add a link to your post in the Mr Linky below.