Tuataras Daily Log

Tuatara by Simon Willison, on Flickr

Well we tried to start our day at a decent time. But going by Tuatara's mood, I figured pretty early that our day's expectations were going to change.

We started with the 4 times table work sheet. She tried to do it quickly to move on to the next thing. When I checked it I noticed she had got a few wrong. So I made up a card game to try and help her practice her 4 times tables.

Then she did 2 pages of her grammar and punctuation workbook on using 'a' and 'an' before words and nouns.

Then Tuatara did 4 pages of her maths workbook. She got so frustrated with herself and upset over doing graphs. All had to do was label the graph and look at what information it was trying to measure. Any way after all the tears and a walk down the road didn't change the mood. I changed everything all together.

So we cuddled up in bed and watched the movie Titanic. Had to stop it every couple of minutes to answer questions, which made a long movie even longer. But it was all good questions about which parts of the movie was real and which weren't. Why some people were treated different to others and many more.

Then to lighten the mood we watched High School Musical the first one.

So over all a really interesting day.

Tuataras Daily Log

Tuatara by Simon Willison, on Flickr

Well we are a roll it seems, all set work done by lunch time. Just the way I always wanted it as I would rather she came up with her own ideas and interests. But by getting the basics done first she is free to let her imagination run wild

1st She finished painting the labelled bones on her skeleton. It looks great completed

2nd Tuatara did 4 pages out of a maths workbook. This is huge as usually she resists workbooks. So the fact she did it with no complaining and by herself, nearly made me want to dance with glee

3rd Mum bought a 'hatch and grow your own penguin' from the variety/ $2 shop down the road. You have to put it in a glass of water for 12-24 hrs. So Tuatara started this off this morning. We have been taking photos every now and again to record it hatching.

4th Spelling City, Tuatara did crossword, word search and missing letter and decided she was ready to sit the test. After 3 days practice she got 12/15 correct. Awesome job Tuatara!
Last of all set activities, She chose another Halloween poem to copy/ write out.

Then she eagerly ate her lunch while devouring with her eyes a comic book/ activity book of Scooby Doo. This was a reward for getting all her work done this week.

Tuatara loves watching mine craft tutorials on YouTube and then sometimes she will try and create some of the things she has observed. Well today she was giggling with glee as she made fireworks on mine craft that shot up into the sky and burst just like real fireworks. She had a smile from ear to ear and was so pleased with herself

The day will finish later tonight with another episode of The Amazing Race and dad reading books with her in bed at bedtime.

What an awesome day

Tuataras Daily Log

Tuatara by Simon Willison, on Flickr

Well Tuatara has been doing a lot of sleeping in at the moment. Which means a later start to our day and it takes a little longer to get the motivation to get started.

1st Tuatara found the latest destination of the 'pit stop' off The Amazing Race.

2nd Tuatara then read and followed the instructions on how to make invisible ink out of her science book. She wrote a message with it, and after it dried tried to read it under the light of the torch. She got all disappointed because it didn't work. So I suggested that maybe the ink had too much water in it. So she plans on having another go at it.

3rd English workbook- adjectives - synonym & antonym. She found this a little tricky to find the opposites of some of the words like scorching and hazy. So I had to figure out a way to explain what the word meant first.

4th she checked her egg experiment and got all excited to discover her egg is starting to go soft.

5th got side tracked by BrainPop website. It has whole range on animations and some were on the systems of the human body and some were on the 5 senses. Which was perfect given what we have been doing lately

6th Spelling City, crossword, alphabetize, hang mouse.

7th Maths workbook. Division with money, time, time problems, multiplying by 3's, counting in 4's. Tuatara has been making a huge effort to attempt to tell the time off the wall clock instead of running to the bedroom to see the digital clock. Also I noticed when doing her workbook that she needs some more practice with her 4 times tables.

8th Handwriting practice - copied a poem about veins.

Then off she went to watch mine craft tutorials on you tube.  Yesterday she made a pirate ship on her mine craft.

Tuataras Daily Log

Tuatara by Simon Willison, on Flickr

Well mummy woke with grumpy pants on, so after we had breakfast and done all our morning jobs, we went to a walk to post some letters and buy some more bananas.

Tuatara was eager to see what had happened to the water beads overnight. We observed that some colours didn't seem to absorb the water as well as others.

Tuatara wanted to know where the water went and if you squashed one would the water come back out. So she squashed one and it was just gel type stuff inside. I said it looked a bit like the gel stuff inside a disposable nappy after it has absorbed the urine.

Tuatara then figured out which descriptions matched which system of the human body and glued it to our diagram. I'm hoping to extend on this a little further by talking about the five sense and which system of the body they are connected to and how. Maybe do some experiments to do with the five senses too.

Tuatara did her first day of not seeing her spelling list while doing the spelling city activities to practice her words.

Then she started her egg experiment. Making a bouncy egg after the egg shell has dissolved in vinegar. Tuatara took a couple of photos. Now we have to wait 7 days.

Tuatara also practiced her handwriting with writing out a poem to do with the human body. She chose one to do with the heart.

Maths work book she did 4 pages on subtraction using a timeline, estimation and division as in sharing.
She also did 2 pages in her English book on nouns and pronouns.

I have noticed her handwriting is getting better and Tuatara is taking the time to choose how big or small she needs to write to fit the information into a given space.

So proud of our little girl.

Oh people in the area keep asking Tuatara what school she goes too. I can't help but wonder, given all the different nationalities, whether that is why they struggle with the concept of home schooling. Some shop keepers have seen us a couple of times and keep asking the same question.

Tuataras Daily Log

Tuatara by Simon Willison, on Flickr

 Today was a slow start.
After waking up when daddy got up for work, she jumped into bed with me and went back to sleep and didn't wake up till about 9:20am.

So after the usual morning jobs were done and having breakfast were done. Tuatara slowly eased into some set work.

I came up with the idea of planning and preparing for a pretend party, which Tuatara quiet liked the idea. So we will pick off a couple of activities off this list over the next few days.
Tuatara started off with choosing a theme, which since it is coming up soon, she chose Christmas.
She designed a small version of the big banner she will paint and decorate on another day.
Then she drew a design of a cake in her theme and drew a picture.

Then Tuatara wanted to experiment with some face painting/ crayons she bought the other day. She used the iPad to get some ideas, tried to imitate one, then changed her mind, cleaned her face and then made her own design of a tiara.

She then did Spelling City with a new word list based on words associated with the human body. First day today, so she got to observe the list while doing the practice activities of crossword, word search, alphabetize.

Then she did 4 pages out of her maths work book. It was on subtraction but in the form of what change would you give if you bought this item with this amount. The fake money we bought in the variety store the other day came in handy for figuring out the answers.

Then Tuatara cut out pictures/diagrams of the different systems of the body and matched them with the right label and gluing it to our giant diagram of the human body.

Last set activity was finding the destination of the pit stop on the last episode of The Amazing Race.

At the variety store we also bought some water beads for $1 a packet. They take 8-10hrs to absorb the water. So it will be interesting to watch theses change. Apparently once the water evaporates out of them, you just add more water.

Tuatara's penguin egg has also hatched and grown too. Tuatara was a little disappointed it didn't come out looking like she had imagined.

Now she is happily engrossed in her mine craft and YouTube.

Tuataras Daily Log

Tuatara by Simon Willison, on Flickr

Well today went well and having a time schedule and mine craft as a reward is still working.

Started off with the painting of the labelled bones on her skeleton puzzle from yesterday. She did half before she started losing interest. She is not a big colouring type person, so what she did was great.

Then it was getting close to lunch time and Tuatara wanted to make some banana pikelets. So she got out all the ingredients and followed the instructions. Measuring as she went and mixing as she needed to. Brought up some great discussions on fractions e.g I have a 1/2 cup measuring cup, but the recipe asks for 1 1/2cups. So how many of the 1/2 cups do I need to make 1 1/2 cups.

I have been wanting to get Tuatara past this hate of writing. So today I said she would do some writing. She could either write a story or I could find her something to copy (to practice writing nicely). She asked to copy something. So I found a page on the Internet with Halloween poems for kids. She could chose which one she wanted to copy. Then she edited it before she showed me. Awesome effort, no tantrum or tears.

Next she did her spelling list on Spelling City online. She chose the crossword, word search and sentence scramble. When we start a new list, I let her see the list of words for the first 2 days. Then after that she does it without the list.

Then next she did maths on Study Ladder. I have noticed her resistance to want to try to tell the time off a wall clock. So it was good timing that study ladder maths was about telling the time. She did reading a calendar, a time worksheet and telling the time in quarter to and quarter past. We will practice this more in the future.

Last of all for planned activities is 2 pages out of her English Workbook. I am not a fan of English and grammar, so I like using a work book for this. She practiced using apostrophes.

She is now enjoying her reward of mine craft for an hour, YouTube after, probably an episode of 'The Amazing Race' tonight and dad and her reading books together in bed.

Tuataras Daily Log

Tuatara by Simon Willison, on Flickr

Well today was a much more productive day than usual.

I am not sure if knowing she had to get everything completed in a time schedule worked or not but it is what we went with and for today it was a successful day

1st we did a timeline of events that have happened in her life, out of her Unit Study 'All About Me'. She had to write down the dates that certain things have happened in her life and then put them in the right order on a time line. Things like what day was she born, what date was her sister born, what date was her brother born, when did she ride a bike for the first time, when did she read a book for the first time, that kind of thing. She was very good at finding the information as she used her photo album that I have with written captions underneath most pictures with dates.

2nd thing we did was draw an outline of her body on some brown paper you use to wrap up boxes or parcels when posting them. Then we used life sized images of some of the organs of the body, to glue on to the body outline in the right places.  Once these were glued on, Tuatara needed to summarise the information given and write a short explanation of the function of that organ. After Tuatara had completed this, she decided to add some personal touches of painted nails, boots and some jewellery to her out line of her.

3rd We watch 'The Amazing Race' online as a family and it brings up lots of interesting things to discuss, like the country, any interesting landmarks that they visit and any history around that, and also the relationships of the people and how they treat each other under stress. What's a nice way to talk to people and what is not. We decided to also find these countries or 'pit stops' on a map of the world and draw a line from one to the other, to keep track of every country they go to in each season. We hope to, as long as the interest is still there to watch each season and plot in a different colour for each season, where they go and then make observations of which country is visited the most.

4th We watched 'Stanley the skeleton' on YouTube and then put together a life size print out/ puzzle of a human skeleton. Then Tuatara glued labels of the names of some of the bones on to it. Tomorrow I am going to get her to colour in each bone in crayon or paint to highlight that bone.

5th Tuatara went on Spelling City online and played games that help her to practice her new list of spelling words for the week. She got the reward of painting her finger nails in nail polish and an hour on mine craft and free time on YouTube till dinner time, for her awesome effort today. Fingers crossed for another productive day tomorrow

Tuataras Daily Log

Tuatara by Simon Willison, on Flickr

Well yesterday we had a shocker of a day. Tears and tantrums again. But I think it did us good to clear the air and talk about how we feel in regards to a few things home education wise. In the end we gave up and Tuatara wanted to make play dough.

Tuataras Daily Log

Tuatara by Simon Willison, on Flickr

Well today we changed things again, as I think Tuatara likes change, but then don't we all.

I wrote a list of things I would like us to do today and Tuatara got to choose which ones she wanted to do first. I have also started to write next to each activity Tuatara completes in a day, what topics she is covering, to remind myself that she actually covers a lot in her day.
1st - Multiplication Sheet (Maths). A circle worksheet where she needed to fill in the blanks for her 3 times tables.

2nd - Do an activity out of the Human Body Unit Study (science, reading, spelling & handwriting) Reading about the different bones in the skull. The worksheet was a bit advanced and didn't really give enough information to help label the diagram of the skull given. So mum helped by finding a labelled diagram of a skull on the iPad.

3rd - Spelling City online (spelling, technology & reading). Tuatara chose a couple of activities to help practice her spelling words before she did the test. She did a crossword, word search and hang mouse and got all her words correct in her spelling test, which she was super happy about.

4th - Bake Pikelets for lunch (reading, maths & technology). Tuatara read and followed the instructions on the pikelet bottle mix and flipped them over carefully in the fry pan. Then the best part, got to eat them

5th - Monopoly (reading, maths) Tuatara has moved on from wanting to be a player and just hand out properties to wanting to be the banker. She kept telling me off if I gave her the answer when it came to giving out change  Monopoly is such a great game for practicing addition, subtraction, multiplication and its a lot of fun too

6th - Mine craft Arts & Crafts (cutting, gluing, reading and following instructions). Tuatara needed to read instructions, then cut out, glue to card, cut out again, then fold and put together an 'enderman', 'Steve', 'dungeon base, ender world base and mine craft base', 'creeper'. Tuatara lost interest after cutting and gluing one of them, so we will return to this activity at another.

7th - Mine craft for 60min. Tuatara created a treasure hunt, where she put clues on signs. As she was showing me it, she realised she had forgotten a couple of things, so needs to go back and fix some.

Finished off the day watching some more The Magic School Bus on YouTube.

We also have a family thing where we climb into bed and watch The Amazing Race on the laptop. We are going to extend on this for the next season and place on a map of the world map pins, then tie a string to each pin to show all the places they go on each challenge.

Tuataras Daily Log

Tuatara by Simon Willison, on Flickr

Well we are not planning or structuring anything at the moment as it is school holidays and we have Tuatara's sister coming for a week, YAY!

Even so, today Tuatara showed me her little re enactment of the farrier putting new shoes on her modelling clay horse. She keeps re doing it and adding more detail.

She also use her Mister Maker book from the library to do a couple of art activities.

Watched some minecraft tutorials on you tube.

Then we went for an adventure walk to discover the local park, which is about 12min away from us. Tuatara sparked up some conversations with the local kids and their parents.

On our way home we stopped and got a ice block.

Then she decided to put together her experiment of putting white flowers in water with food colouring, to watch the flower drink up the coloured water and change colour.

Now she is writing out the supermarket list into 2 lists, one for her and one for mum, as she likes to go find her own things on her list by herself. Mum has also decided it isn't worth the fight of putting things on the conveyer belt so they get stacked properly and have decided to let Tuatara do it all. Once she realises its not that exciting, I might get the job back  But then again I should enjoy it and just stand back and let her go

Tuatara's Daily Log

This is a picture that Tara drew using the paint app on mum's laptop. It is of dad's work

Well today Tuatara would view herself as not doing any learning today. But little does she know she did a lot of 'life as it happens' learning 

Today Tuatara and mum went to work with dad and his new shop.

Tuatara learnt how to use the work computer to find codes and prices for stock and then transfer that information to the price gun and price the goods that needed price tags. Considering she is only 8yrs old, I think she did a great job  But then again I'm her mum so I guess I am bias 

Tuatara is also learning about shop etiquette. How it is not like home and that it is not ok to yell at mum or dad from the other side of the shop when she needs us 
She is doing great with this one, it is just curbing the 'interruption' bug. Especially when dad is talking to a customer and Tuatara is needing to urgently (well urgently to her) talk to dad. Practice makes perfect though when learning this one, so it will get better over time.
She always greets every customer with a big smile and a 'Good Morning' or 'Good Afternoon', which is very cute and brings a smile to every customer face.

When Tuatara felt she had done her part as being a shop helper, she went and watched 'Ergon' DVD and later did some of her Minecraft.

Oh and I (mum) is trying to organise a tour of the local Tip Top factory to extend on Tara's interest in ice cream from her 'Land of Ice Cream' story.
We are still in organisation mode for this, as we are trying to get some other home schooling families to come too. Which will be great for us being new to Auckland, to meet some other home schooling families from around here.