The Dig

I haven't posted for a while. The short of the long story is that over the Christmas holiday period we relocated our family from Auckland, New Zealand, to Sydney, Australia. As you can imagine, this has been a busy and exciting time for us. Also a bit sad, as we have had to say goodbye to Grandma and Grandad and many other dear friends. For this reason I am creating a new tab to this blog so that we can keep our family up to date with what we have been learning in our homeschool - which let's face it, involves so many aspects of our day to day lives that it is almost impossible to separate or categorise. In this way, it is a small way to try and share our lives with our loved ones (we miss you Grandma and Grandad!) and who knows, maybe encourage other parents or homeschoolers.

So, by way of a long winded introduction, here is (a small part!) or what we got up to this week!

We are studying history,  using the Story of the World, Volume One. We asked the question, 'How can we know history?' We talked about written and oral histories, and also what can be discovered by (and what is) archaeology. One of the cool things about being homeschoolers, is that we can take our time and explore things that interest us in fun and meaningful, relevant ways. And Pinterest is AWESOME for ideas!

So, while the kids were sleeping one night, I prepared our 'field trip'.

I raided toy boxes and found dinosaurs, and miniature objects such as pots and baskets (thank you Sylvanian Families!), and added broken 'pottery' and jars with seeds and writings to decode - yes, I used cuneiform!

I layered them in a box with potting mix (we rent, no garden to raid for dirt! Best I could manage!)

 I added the lego to show that civilisations, though ancient, were not necessarily lacking in technological knowledge.

I love the look on the faces as we bought it out - I told the kids a story....

... that we had stumbled upon some lego 'ruins' and we decided to excavate the area.

We set up our grid and got our shovels (ok, teaspoons) and brushes ready....

... and started to dig! There was much excitement and taking of turns had to be reinforced quite a bit!

We would carefully sift through the dirt to see if we had missed anything...

... and after a while Mum decided we could remove the grid and just have a bit of fun!

We found quite a haul. We wrote down carefully what we had found in each grid so that we can recreate the site on paper next lesson, and we made deductions about what we could conclude about the people who had lived there. They did really well with their guesses!

Then we decoded the 'ancient texts' we had uncovered.....

We found it to be a very fun exercise. The kids got to see what 'real' archaeologists would do, got messy, and had a treasure hunt.They have asked if we can do it again, but we have a lot of paper-mache coming up, so Mummy wasn't quite as keen... :)

Positively Me

November ATC Topic: Positively Me

Not my favourite subject matter, but lets face it, it is just one step further towards the natural subjectiveness we bring to all our art, isn't it? Essentially the idea was that every now and then we need to evaluate ourselves, and be proud of who we are and what we have come through, and even become (also a good place to identify where we may need changes or improvements.... hmmm!). We were talking about how we always take pictures of other people, and usually scrapbook them, or at least look at them/show them off - you get the picture. But how often are we happy with a picture of ourselves? I am sure many of us can relate to this picture:

So we were told that we MUST have 18 different words to describe ourselves, and if possible, include a photo of ourselves..... I had to take a photo; there aren't many. And I am bravely about to share with you! But then, I had to alter myself a little. Are you surprised?

In fact, I Warholed myself. Click here if you'd like to do yourself! One of his paintings just sold for $21 Million, so these are worth at least five bucks. Each!! ;)

Some of the words are similies - 18 was a lot, especially if you're not your favourite subject matter..... and some may seem negative, but I don't consider them to be. They are frank, and true, for good or bad! It doesn't mean I am proud of all of them, but I know who I am, and I'm cool with that. Which is a good way to be, really! And yes, I am being a ham - my face does not usually hold this pose!

As you can see, the camera and the printer didn't show the vibrancy of the originals very well, so I have added them here. It was a bit of fun!

My Baby Girl: recently turned 8, Mademoiselle chose all the elements for her own cards.

I interviewed her about why she chose each each one. Here are her delightful answers!

'I called my cards 'Amazing Me!', because I am amazing and my Mummy loves me and she thinks I am amazing.' (Mummy starts to cry about here!!)

'I chose this picture of myself, because I like myself, and I thought it would be nice, and it's me!'

'I put a photo of my eye  on because I like my eyes; they change colour from blue to green and from green to blue, just like Daddy's, and they are pretty.'

'I put a flower with my fingerprint in the middle because my fingerprint is unique to me, and  I like pretty flowers.'

'I lost one 'eye', so I had to draw it on one card...'

The words Zoe chose are: Excited, Giggly, Fun, Fast, Flexible, Scary, Friendly, Pretty, Jumpy, Crazy, Impatient, Lovely, Surprising, Energetic, Cautious, Curious and Creative.

I am SOOOOOO proud of her! I would never have been able to do something so AMAZING about myself at her age - I struggle a bit now! Long may this positive self image last!