The Brick House

* went with Nannie to pick Pa up at the airport
* went with E to comic shop, OA computing (to pick up his hard drive), Belconnen Mall (to buy some bread and muffins from Muffin Break), and the RSPCA to pick up the bunnies
* picked up our mealworm pupae from RSPCA. One beetle had already emerged by the afternoon, but we fed it to the (very hungry) spider. We got to see the spider catch and begin to eat the beetle. When they emerge, we will leave the rest of the beetles alone so they can breed, but hopefully eventually we can feed a few more surplus beetles to the spider.
* played in the sandpit/mudpit again
* watched flying ant swarms on the front step and one of the back flowerbeds
* looked at some of the SMH “World in Pictures” photogallery with me
* we made our first Flat Traveller and sent an introduction to the list, requesting a trade in Washington DC to start with
* in order to make the Flat, Beth did a number of Google image searches and refined her knowledge of how to navigate the Google top frame (ie. use “see full-size image” link to quickly locate the image on the page). She is now confident with navigating around the results of a search. She is confident in using right click to copy image, and the menu to paste into a Word document. She can resize the image to fit the page boundaries, and change the default printer if she wants to print a colour image. I also showed her how to change page layout from portrait to landscape in both Firefox and Word, but she didn’t have a chance to do it herself.

* helped get the bunnies and us out the door in time to get to the RSPCA for their speying operations
* talked to Marg Peachey of RSPCA Wildlife about breeding mealworms for the wild birds; she took us through their life cycle, feeding, harvesting etc. We could also breed cockroaches but somehow I don’t think E would be impressed at this suggestion 😉
* went to bank, post office and supermarket in Jamison; looked at progress of renovations; got picnic food for HENCAST meeting
* helped me pack a picnic for the HENCAST meeting
* HENCAST meeting – 11:00-2:30. Beth played hide-and-seek and pootled around the garden with the other kids, then walked down to see the horses with the older girls of the family. Katy snuggled in the sling for a while (we had to wake her up from a nap when we arrived), then played outside. She eventually discovered the enormous stash of Duplo and dolls’ house toys in a corner and was engrossed for most of the rest of our stay 🙂
* came home and relaxed (eg. fell in a heap) until it was time to drop Katy off at Grandmoogi’s so Beth and I could go to the National Capital Exhibition for the Griffin Legacy Q&A session. As I discovered later, the only thing that was different about the evening showings this week was that there were NCPA planners there to be whinged at. We didn’t take advantage of their presence as there were people in suits there whinging already, and they looked busy. Plus we probably looked too scruffy to merit attention. But it was interesting to see the direction in which the NCPA thinks Canberra will move in the next 20-50 years. It appears to involve a whole bunch more buildings…

*found a gym ball in a Kmart sales catalogue that she wanted; negotiated with Paul to get an advance on her allowance
* handwriting workbook
* digraphs workbook
* watched Count Us In – Time and Maths 4 Real – Area (ABC)
* repeated reading (fluency): How To Talk Dog
* wire craft using a jig
* swimming with Nannie
* keyboard practice
* talked about what makes a good slogan for a store, eg. “Kmart – cutting the cost of living”, which she has permanently stuck in her head!
* went into Belconnen to buy the gym ball but they were sold out. I bought her a book on how to draw dragons and other mythological creatures, which I have been eyeing for a while, but had wanted to check with her before I bought. We also posted the latest batch of cards, and bought a few more
* dictated an email to Lily
* visited Grandmoogi and Granda with Paul
* looked at a list of upcoming events with me and picked the ones she was interested in so I could put them on the calendar

Katy:
* played with a tub of warm soapy water and her bathtoys while I was in the shower
* watched Playschool and some ABC schools TV programs
* played with her toys while B and I worked
* reading books
* pootling on her ride-on and bouncing on the trampoline
* trying to play Beth’s keyboard by stretching over the fence (or climbing it, or pushing past it… scrublet!)

* keyboard practice
* experimented with her gear building set
* I looked up Canberra Nara Candle Festival information and Floriade schedule
* 2 pages of her handwriting book
* reading: Dr Seuss’s ABC
* watched BTN: famous Australians overseas, eg. Steve Irwin, Crocodile Dundee, Dame Edna Everage; Colin Thiele; 9/11 attacks and aftermath
* watched Our History – Colonists Arrive: Resistance
* watched Extra! French
* postcard filing: Ohio and Pennsylvania
* watched DNA: This Mortal Coil (put it on to record in the middle of it and went out to play in the garden)
* used Yellow Pages to look up numbers; rang petshops about tanks and bettas
* typed most of an email to Lily (I finished it off); I showed her how to use a dictionary to look up spellings
* fractions worksheet; explained about writing eg. 4/6 as 2/3
* swimming with Nannie
* I read Lily’s reply to Beth, she dictated a reply to Lily
* circus 4-6

Katy:
* did some drawing
* beads
* watched most of Playschool
* reading aloud
* played briefly with the matching animals game but lost interest very quickly – she knows how to do it, it just doesn’t challenge her at all
* puzzle
* pointed out to me virtually every animal in her Look and Learn Animals Book (like she did with Paul last night)
* played in the garden
* sleep

* addition practice; looked at addition with regrouping again (interactive mini-lesson and practice with Base-10 blocks)
* shared reading: Shrek 2 story book
* phonics game
* playdate at Taylor’s
* keyboard practice
* independent reading: Dr Seuss’ ABC
* Paul introduced her to rebuses
* helped make dinner

* played Sasha with a litter of puppies; talked about how the alpha bitch in a wolf pack is the only one who has puppies and that the rest of the pack helps care for them, and how access to the most comfortable places to sleep is a marker of status
* Margaret babysat both girls while I did supermarket shopping
* cooked own lunch
* played chess on the computer; worked in Paint
* looked at syllabication rules together and practiced examples; did 1/2 syllabication worksheet before taking a concentration break
* read Mice by Rose Fyleman (practicing syllabication rules); worked on wordsearch of words from poem
* we talked about Hazel’s cancer (secondary breast cancer) and Beth asked “How does cancer kill you?” I googled and found this page. We read some additional details specific to secondary bone cancer. We talked about HPV and my history of abnormal pap smears, then about genetic predisposition to breast cancer and how breastfeeding has a preventive effect. Also discussed checking breasts every month for lumps.
* did some push ups and sit ups
* discussed whether to keep doing circus or switch to gym and/or yoga, etc. I googled for yoga classes and we found one which we could do together on Wednesday mornings (if Grandmoogi can babysit K). Will discuss whether we can afford it ($300 for both of us) with E tonight.
* exploring plant respiration: a plastic jug in the sun over a clump of grass produces enough moisture to drink!
* Scouts 7:00-8:30
* went out to the farm with Nannie for the weekend

B has been complaining of a tummy ache all day so we haven’t done any formal academics.

* helped us clean out the bunny cage and isolate the bunnies in the bathroom when they started eating the newspaper (when we still thought they were going in to the RSPCA to be spayed this morning)
* watched ABC schools TV
* cooked herself lunch (defrosted single serve of spaghetti sauce and cooked pasta)
* went to National Museum – explored First Australians gallery and Garden of Australian Dreams; we would have gone to more but Katy became terribly upset (completely unexpectedly – we thought she’d enjoy the show) when we took her into Circa, and we had to leave because the whole museum experience was just too much for her after that
* talked about cheetahs and the evolutionary risks of low genetic diversity for populations experiencing pressure
* watched a recording of last night’s The New Inventors
* gave the dog some much needed attention
* I read aloud a New Scientist news story on a plan to grow shark embryos in test-tubes.
* did some tumbling practice
* drawing
* read The Biggest Bed in the World to herself
* watched Catalyst

I observed several instances where she was using new coping strategies to deal with Katy being annoying, rather than just yelling. Every time I heard the two of them beginning to engage in conflict if I was in another room, I would zoom in and distribute cuddles all round, and they would both calm down and resolve the sticking point.

Katy pootled about, played with Duplo, listened to stories, played with Rose, bounced on the trampoline, played in a tub of water while I did the washing up, had fun tumbling with Beth on the mattress she brought into the dining room, etc. She was a bit grizzly in the afternoon – I suspect teething so gave her some paracetamol which seemed to do the trick. She has started trying to put nappies on the dolls and teddy bears, and carry them about, rocking and singing to them.

* made breakfast independently.
* entertained the baby while I had a shower. K pulled B’s hair during a disagreement and B and I discussed developmental reasons for why she might have taken out her frustrations that way.
* rearranged the dog’s kennel so she has more insulation
* repeated reading (for fluency): How To Talk Dog. B has moved on to reading phrases – I had to correct her for missing the full stop and reading a phrase from the second sentence with the first. On the pages she has read before, she is only stumbling over one or two words per page, and beginning to read with expression. She read two new pages and she has clearly increased her sight vocabulary (eg. ears, eyes, tail, paws etc). She was clearly sounding out silently for at least one word she didn’t know. She stumbled over sounding out “directly” but I reminded her how to divide into syllables and she moved through her anxiety and sounded out the word. She is noticing when she makes mistakes in a phrase and self-correcting.
* copied part of her passage from yesterday for handwriting practice.
* watched Count Us In: Data (ABC).
* finished rewriting her copywork after she missed out a sentence the first time.
* maths: used the Cuisenaire blocks and a table of place value to illustrate how to do addition to two places. I started with a sheet of addition with just one place to give her practice in written addition, then we moved to carrying the one, but she had a bit of difficulty with that concept. I whipped up a new worksheet of straightforward two-column addition so she could get the hang of adding down the columns, and she used the Cuisenaire rods to reinforce the ideas. When she felt she had the ideas down pat she stopped using the Cuisenaire rods and just added up down the columns (about half the sheet). We will go back to practice regrouping tomorrow.
* drew with her new set of Montmartre sketching pencils while I read out loud: Arthur and the Dragon and The Snow Queen.
* went op shopping; bought lots of new books and found an awesome divided tank for bettas! Went to post office and posted newest batch of cards.
* made her own dinner: defrosted single portions of ravioli and spaghetti sauce, cooked the ravioli and heated through the sauce. I just helped by draining the pasta and suggesting cooking times
* reading aloud: from An Imaginary Menagerie, poems by Roger McGough, and Hot Air, poems by John Mole; I also read the story of Androcles and the Lion (referenced in a McGough poem)
* watched The New Inventors (ABC)

* made breakfast and a pot of tea for herself (independently)
* discussed how to finish off the facing on her doll’s T-tunic; she decided not to turn over and tack the hem on the facing since you can’t see it
* I transcribed a paragraph about Zebedee:
⁃ Maths: worked out how old Zebedee is in dog years (4.5 x 7)
⁃ English: she read it back to me, with expression, and generally while following the words instead of just remembering
⁃ Health: she got stuck on having to decode “incredibly” so we talked about how she was feeling and what kinds of guided relaxation/visualisation techniques we could use to help her move through them; we also talked about how important it was that she acknowledge and move through her feelings not just ignore them all the time
* googled the Chinese days of the week
* watched BTN: discussed HPV vaccine and obesity stories; asked about the Great Depression (mentioned in passing in the Don Chipp story)
* watched Our History: Colonists Arrive – Tensions
* I read 26 pages from her library book, Pharaohs, while she first entertained Katy by playing with her beads, then drew a picture of a horse and helped Katy out when she clicked on the wrong button and crashed her computer game (again and again *g*)
* made herself lunch and watched Tutenstein while waiting for Nannie to arrive to take her swimming
* looking at/reading her book on human evolution
* swimming with Nannie 12:30-2:30
* painting (poster paints on canvas)
* circus 4-6
* decided she didn’t like what was on offer for dinner, and cooked herself a meal: pasta with carbonara sauce, bacon, steamed broccoli and corn. I cooked the bacon along with the bacon for our meal, and helped with the idea for the sauce and draining the pasta, but Beth did everything else
* I finished reading Pharaohs before bed; we looked at the map in some detail and discussed the key; she decoded “Crete”

• tidied up in her room; culled her clothes in order to make it (hopefully) less chaotic
• decided not to go to HENCAST craft day because she has a bad earache
• watched TV
• sewed up the top of the head of a cloth doll I made a while back (turning it into teddy bear ears) and embroidered a face; gave the completed teddy to Katy
• watched Dr Who on her computer while playing with Paint
• ate lunch together and talked about nutrition
• read the Oxfam stores catalogue and talked about the various development projects listed
• piano practice

possible activities: write thank you letter to MG; go to Markets; go to post office and send off postcards

Arranged with Margaret that she could stay over there (in the warm!) while Katy and I went to the Markets; now that Katy has gone to sleep unexpectedly early, we can do some stuff together beforehand.