Ch ch ch ch changes

I am sitting outside in the relative cool of the evening, playing chicken with the mosquitoes. The sky is hazy with smoke and I cannot see the hills beyond the suburbs like I usually can. I don’t know where the fire is.

It’s nice to take some time to sit alone and think. February is my favourite month and I find myself thinking of February’s past. A lot has happened during the last 12 months. It’s been quite a year.

February 2012 marked the beginning of the pregnancy which gave us Joel. He is three months old now and we are all enjoying him as babies are meant to be enjoyed – that is, he is being thoroughly lavished with attention from us. Lucky boy with lots of siblings to fuss over him.

We celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary last week in what was one of the toughest weeks of our marriage so far I reckon. I suppose it’s because our marriage might now be considered a petulant teen. Or it could just be cracks showing the strain of the extra weight of a new baby, a new country, and some stressful issues all at once.

Moving back to Australia has been a good move for our family and I don’t regret it for a moment, but at the same time I wouldn’t call it easy. Not that others don’t have it harder. But still…I took some strain this year.

Probably the hardest thing has been the kids missing their friends and lacking buddies to play with during the week. Because we home school and they don’t get a ready made bunch of friends at school, making friends is something we have to be proactive about. There are plenty of active home schooling groups here with friendly people and fun, interesting activities, but I just haven’t had the energy to consistently get involved and really get connected. This also means we haven’t had the support that I think is essential to home schooling working, especially with a large family. It does take time. I know this. And we gave it just over 6 months. We still sorely miss our NZ friends.

I kept thinking that soon I will feel better…ever moving the goal posts…”it will be easier when the baby is born”…”it will get better once we’re through the new born stage”….”I just need a good night’s sleep”…”we’re just having a rough week”.

But there were too many rough weeks in a row, and we always said that we would regularly assess what is the best educational choice for the children . I haven’t had the energy to do the home schooling thing well, and that just isn’t fair on the kids. D & I also struggled to find time to be together to talk and were taking strain. I came to the sobering and a little painful conclusion that I am burnt out. Its the kind of tired that takes more than a few good sleeps to fix.

So we decided it would be best for everyone if we enrolled the children in school. The boys started last week and Emma will start next term. I don’t know if it will be permanent. I can’t think too far ahead right now. But so far I can say that it was definitely a good decision. They are settling in really well especially considering this is their first experience of school.

Actually now with just three at home during the day I really don’t know myself.  It’s been great though and when the others come home I am excited to see them which is the kind of Mum I know is inside me but who has been missing in action for a while.

I am consciously taking time to look after myself. I feel like I need to recover and that will take time and kindness. I have started journalling my way through to the other side. I might share some of that with you as I go.

A lesson on belly buttons

 

After dinner conversation some weeks ago lead to a discussion of babies and placentas, and belly buttons. I’ve noticed that children often assume that the food a pregnant mother eats is directly channeled in some way to the baby’s stomach or mouth. So, they seem to think that if I eat a vegemite sandwich, then the baby gets some vegemite sandwich too. In a way it’s true, but if they followed their logic a little further, then the problem of having no onboard baby toilet becomes evident and something they hadn’t thought of.

Anyway, I started to explain what an umbilical cord was, and how it delivered nutrients in the blood right into the baby’s circulation, not to the stomach. It was a little tricky to understand so we drew some pictures to explain it all. This lead to quite an in-depth chat, and some rather funny pictures.

This one to show the children what the baby will look like immediately after birth, showing the cord being clamped and scissors at the ready. Nice little egg-shaped placenta, and you’ll note a very happy, rather broad shouldered baby.

This one showing baby waiting to be born, with the placenta and cord, and a little baby heart and aorta, and a carotid and brain. And a beak.

And finally, this one to show the baby in the context of the big tummy the kids see on the outside. This was originally a reasonably simple line drawing of the outline of a pregnant woman. Certain giggling children embellished some details and added the labels.

 

Kuitpo Forest

Yesterday a group of home schoolers met up at the Chookarloo Campground within Kuitpo forest, which is a plantation forest in the Mt Lofty ranges about a half hour drive from Adelaide.

“Established in 1898, Kuitpo was the first of a number of forest plantations in the Mt Lofty ranges to ensure a sustainable timber resource for South Australia.

Today, Kuitpo covers and area of some 3,600 hectares, of which 60% is softwood plantation.Kuitpo’s plantations yield some 25,000 cubic metres of timber each year, valued in excess of $1.5 million.

Kuitpo is modelled as a community forest, managed for sustainable commercial forestry, while providing for the conservation of native flora and fauna and community use for recreation.” 

~ Forestry SA pamphlet

There are great places to camp, so we hope to head back that way when we’re ready to travel.

We had a campfire and some of the families cooked lunch in the coals. We discovered that throwing dry eucalypts leaves on the fire was quite spectacular which lead to us chatting about  wind, heat, fire safety and bush fires.

Of course we toasted marshmallows, set a few on fire and got pretty smoky and sticky.

Certain children (all four of mine and 2 others) had fun making a mud slide into the little creek. We’d come prepared with a change of clothes, which was a good thing because they were needed. It was lovely to spend some time chatting and playing and we’re gradually making new friends, which is something that isn’t always easy and does take some time.

I always say that the dirtiest child is usually the one who had the most fun. This time the fun factor was rather high. Everyone needed a shower when we got home and we were all nicely tired and ready to sleep at bedtime.

Science Alive

Yesterday we all went off to the Adelaide Showgrounds for Science Alive Show 2012, part of National Science Week. It was our first ever science show and what fun it was. We were there for more than 4 hours and still didn’t really finish exploring everything there was to see.  The range of displays was broad, with plenty of fun for kids and adults alike.

Our kids had their faces painted, then had lots of fun exploring the displays.

We got up and personal with some reptiles.

Here is Ben holding a Black Headed Python found in Northern Australia. Today we did a bit of googling about them and enjoyed this page with photos and video.

Ben and Ryan enjoyed this simple activity. The yellow buckets were spring loaded like a pump and had a hole at the end. The folks from the University of Adelaide filled them with (presumably) dry ice and the kids then got to shoot the gas rings into the air.

There is so much more…Ben explored some astronomy, D had a look at the electric car, and a big as telescope. All the kids watched a chemistry show, and the older kids tried to figure out why it didn’t hurt to sit on a chair seat of nails. Ryan discovered a solar powered toy train, and Emma submitted some invention ideas. All the kids LOVED the tasting kinds of exhibits and they are desperate to try make some Sherbert, which they saw demonstrated.

We went along just for the fun of it, and to expose the kids to some sciencey fun. I really think it’s important to keep the fun in learning. I remember school excursions when I was a child and I’ve seen the same thing recently….kids on a fun outing to the zoo or the museum eager to dash around and discover things, but being tied down to trailing around as a mob with piece of paper in hand to answer required questions. It killed it for me, and I generally found such excursions tiresome and frustrating. We did just dash from one exhibit to another, at one stage we’d completely lost all three of the older ones as they all became so excited to see the things they wanted to see. Apart from the anxiety it caused me to track them down and make sure they were all safe, it really was fun for them to explore at their own pace the very things they were interested in. They didn’t write a single thing down, but everyone learned stuff and discovered a little bit about how cool science really is.

See more of this weeks Unschool Monday posts here.

Volcano conversations and some art

Here are some of the things we’ve been up to today.

I pulled out some watercolours, white and black paper, and coloured chalk and this is what resulted:

Emma made this volcano, and Ben must have thought it was a good idea because it inspired his efforts too. I don’t know if they were thinking about volcanoes because of hearing about Mt Tongariro‘s recent eruption, the first in over 100 years. There are some great images here: Tongariro’s Eruption. We had a chat about volcanoes and their hazards such as lava and ash.

This is Ryan’s picture of lava.

And little Sam had a go as well.

The chalk drawings on black paper was fun too.

Some Recent Things

I bought the kids this world map puzzle, (because Ben asked for one) which includes some of the nations flags.

While they built it, we talked about what a continent is, and identified some of the capital cities for example, Canberra and Wellington being the two most relevant to them. Both Ben and Emma enjoyed spotting South Africa on the map because that’s where Dad comes from. Emma was surprised to discover that Egypt is on the same continent. She also thought the UK would be as big as the USA and was surprised by it’s tiny land mass.

Afterwards we pulled out the World Atlas and spend a few minutes browsing maps and Ben said he liked how you could see on the map where the mountains are. I showed them the Key to symbols on the map so they could start to understand what they were looking at.

And I spotted Emma in Sam’s bed piled up high with spare mattress and blankets with one of her library books from the Horrible Geography series.

(Unschool Monday  is hosted over at Owlet. Pop over to find posts about other unschooly days.)

Living and Learning

A few people have recently asked me whether we have sorted out what we’ll need to do in regards to teaching the children according to the SA Curriculum. The short answer is yes, we know what we need to provide to satisfy the Department of Education.

However, it’s never an easy question to answer, because our approach to learning is so very different to the mainstream idea of school. Our approach to learning has evolved over the years, and sometimes when I try to explain it, I can hear what the other person might be hearing in my words and I know it all sounds a bit nutty. This article, however,  explains the gist of it nicely though, so I thought I’d post it here.

I Live Therefore I Learn

We’re still figuring it out as we go along, balancing the mundane necessities of everyday life, while trying to keep life rich and fresh and interesting. Some days it feels like we’re missing something…not quite hitting the sweet spot of really making the most of the opportunities in each day, but there are more good days than not and over time I feel like we’re definitely hitting it more often.

Origami and Stuff

Some how the days seem pretty busy with just the things it takes to keep family life going… food and clothes and cleaning etc. In a way we’re still finding our feet here with new routines and things like shopping still take me longer than usual as I get used to things. We’re so lucky at the moment that Doug is home with us. This will have to change pretty soon as he’ll need to get a job, but for now it’s lovely having him around.

Here’s just some things we’ve been doing lately. Just living life together and learning together along the way.

Origami:

I borrowed this book from the library the other day on a whim, and we’ve been having fun trying different origami projects. All the kids have enjoyed it, but Ben in particular really got into it and with me helping step by step made the spinning top. Emma has been making a pizza which isn’t finished yet because she’s using blank paper and decorating it herself. Ryan’s favourite was the rocket and the little paper box because he saw in the book that you can put lollies in it.

I found it interesting that Ben with his mathematical mind really enjoyed origami…some of the instructions are rather difficult to follow from a picture, and he figured some of them out for himself, and the more difficult steps we did together with me showing him as I made another project along side him.

Today while I was out with Emma, the boys got stuck into some bike work. They fixed a puncture, put the wheel back on , and they all had a great time figuring out how the gears work.

Tangari Regional Park – Woodcroft South Australia

Today we went on a nature walk with some other home schooling families in the Tangari Regional Park. It is about 60 hectares of native woodland which contains large sections of remnant vegetation and gives a good idea of what the Adelaide plains would have looked like before European settlement in the 1830′s. We had Jason with us from Natural Resources Management who shared his local knowledge with us. It was such a great time and kids and adults alike all learned something.

We learned to identify some native grasses and trees, as well as some weeds. This is a weed:

While this next one is not. The easy way to tell the difference is the shape of the seed heads. This native grass is called Kangaroo Grass (themeda triandra)

Next up is acacia pycnantha, whose common name is Golden Wattle. It’s Australia’s floral emblem. It isn’t in flower at the moment but is known for it’s bright yellow (hay fever inducing) blossoms. We also learned that the Kaurna people (the local indigenous people) called it the ‘shut up’ tree. For children who talked too much, they would use the leaves (I think) to make their mouths go dry so they’d stop talking so much. When the acacia pycnantha is young it’s leaves look like pigs ears.

 

This little easily missed plant is a Sundew (drosera). It’s is carnivorous plant and likes to eat insects. If you look up close you can see little sticky hairs on it’s leaves.

Then we learned about Kangaroo Thorn or acacia paradoxia. The Kaurna people used the thorns from this plant to cure warts, by sticking the spines into the warts. We don’t seem to have a photo of this one.

We learned about the importance of tree hollows for bats and birds, and that there are about 8 species of bats in South Australia. I didn’t know this, and have never seen one here. Tree hollows only form in very old trees, and so many native vertebrate species are now threatened partly because of land clearing.

Someone found this moth casing.

And we saw a big ants nest:

We also compared native and non-native pine. This first picture is non-native, and the second one is a native pine. (I’m not sure but I think it is Callitris columellaris)

We took a close look and compared a couple of gum trees to learn how to identify a Blue Gum. I am now a little muddled about the ones we looked at, but here are  the various nuts:

There was wildlife around too. Along with the common Magpies, we saw Rosellas, Sulphur Crested Cockatoos, a single Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo and while we didn’t see one, there was evidence of echidna diggings.

A few minutes drive down the road (on Tripodi Road, Woodcroft for locals who might want to see it), is this massive Red Gum, estimated to be about 400 years old. It’s right in the middle of suburbia, and crosses the boundary of someone’s house so they have fenced right up to it on either side. There’s a tiny reserve the size of a house block, presumably to protect this grand old tree. It’s nice to know it wasn’t just cut down to make space for one more house in the development.

 

Another Special Tree Planting

 

With our last days in New Zealand approaching, we all wanted to visit the trees we’d planted back in September last year. The children wanted to see if they’d grown big enough to carve their initials in. Of course being very very slow growing trees, none of them had gained more than a few milimetres at a guess. Nevertheless, they are still there and doing well.

We had another reason to visit though, that is we are expecting our 5th child and it didn’t seem right that he/she would be the only one without a special New Zealand tree to honour their roots. Being conceived in NZ (but will be born in Australia) this little one needed a tree too. Tom and Mahrukh were very kind to arrange a visit just for us and at late notice. Here are a few pics from the day. These were taken by Mahrukh…we have some too which I might post at a later date.

In the back of Tom’s truck for a short ride up the track.

Tom and Doug digging the hole.

We chose a Miro this time.

A little Miro tree for Baby Johnson

When Emma’s Puriri tree is about 150 years old it will look a bit like this one.

Many thanks to Tom & Mahrukh from Cue Haven. They have such an inspirational vision to restore a 59 acre farm back to native forest. I think I’ve caught a tree planting bug. I definitely want to do this again.