Showing posts with label Merenia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Merenia. Show all posts

Saturday, 6 February 2010

Why we love Homeschool Reason #1

On Wednesday we went to buy a Ukulele as Merenia will be starting lessons soon.

We went at 9am.

Which we so wouldn't have been able to do if she was at school.

We came home and she jumped on the net and started surfing ukulele websites and looking for instructions, chord charts and sheet music.

Which we so wouldn't have been able to do if she was at school.

She spent the whole day practicing and teaching herself. (and much of Thursday and Friday as well.)

Which we so wouldn't have been able to do if she was at school.

Sunday, 22 November 2009

5 days at timatanga

The last 5 days of school I've been away at a school called Timatanga visit in the 5 days were Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

On Thursday I played littlest pet shops (lps) with the girls. My friend Amanda is very nice I am also friends with the rest of them but I play with Amanda the most. Will has come with me and met a girl (Wills girlfriend) called Jorja, he keeps on saying "Jorja" on the way home. Anyway on Thursday we played and then we went into the library and played the Ukelele. After the Ukelele we went out and did some dancing. For the dancing we did some stretches and some balancing the last thing we did was the sugar plum dance i was a toy horse (that won't surprise you) then i was a sugar plum. that day was fun.

On Friday we did the same things except from the dancing instead when we were playing lps people got called down to do their art while we were playing lps. I took a break to play ball tiggy then went back to play. Every day after tidy up we got read a story first i listened to Charlotte's web then i listened to the witches then went to pick up Kieran and Elliot then we went home.

On Monday i did the usual but i went down to an orchad and wrote poems I wrote a haiku
and a cinquain here is my haiku poem it is about horses and it goes like this

horses can run fast
foals are sometimes born in spring
hoses are very nice

and here is my cinquain poem it goes like this

horses
fast colorful fall
walk trot limp eat
galloping really fast in Fields
horses


and i also wrote a normal one this is how it goes

horses can run very fast or can eat
horses like eating grass hay carrots and apples
horses can be fun to ride
but mind they don't buck or rear so you don't get hurt
always wear a helmet
horses can be fun to have as a pet horses should not be killed

I WANT A HORSE pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease

and that day was fun.



on Tuesday we did the same but we were meant to do cooking but there teacher was away so we did the same thing and play all day and did work in the morning that day i did paper mache with Chontell that day and that was Tuesday it was fun

On Wednesday we did the work and play reading we played lps and me Taylor jorja Anahera played a princess game then we listened to a story called fantastic Mr fox and that is the end of my post see you next time.

Merenia

Thursday, 19 November 2009

A Interesting Week

Merenia, Will and I have spent the last 5 school days at Timatanga having school visits (Les also did a day of parent help). I'm not going to spoil Merenia's thunder as I know she is part way through a post about it.

From a more personal perspective while I believe it is a great little school it has left me with more questions than answers and made the decisions we have to make a lot harder for a number of reasons.

The one thing that was demonstrated quite clearly is that it is possible for a state integrated school to operate in a manner that much better suits the students (and I'd suggest the teachers also) within the State prescribed restrictions. I hope that will continue to be so with the new National Standards currently being introduced by the National Government.

I'll let Merenia tell the rest of the story (hopefully sometime soon) and fill in the gaps once she is done.

Friday, 30 October 2009

Progress Report

Just up the road from the kids school is a little school with 20 odd pupils. From what we have learned so far the follow a very child lead/centred Summerhill/Sudbury valley style of education.

Mira's and I went and had a look at the school from the road during the holidays and along with Les we've had a few conversations about the school and homeschool and looked at the pro's and con's of both. Merenia's first choice at this stage is to go to the little school.

We have made a request to their BOT to consider Merenia as a possible student for the school next year. This week we found out that the Board is interested in speaking to us and next week I'm going to go and meet with the principal and will get to check out the school in liviong colour.

One of the challenges of taking this option will be helping Merenia adjust to self-directed learning. Although we'll have the same challenge with home school- the duifference is that she'll be in an environment with a bunch of other kids and could potentially be a bit disruptive. The suggestion is that it takes a month for every year of formal schooling for students to settle into homeschool- so four months around about for Mira's if we homeschool and maybe a little less if she goes to the little school as she will have the example of her peers around her.

At the moment I think she can see herself gardening at the little school and heading down the road from the school to sketch the horses in the paddocks nearby and hoping for some like minded girls and boys to act in the plays she has been writing recently.
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Saturday, 26 September 2009

Merenia's List

I asked Merenia to make a list of the things she wants to learn about in Homeschool;

  • Netball
  • Horses
  • Cats
  • Birds
  • Pets
  • Animals
  • TV
  • Computer
  • Scrapbooking
  • Blogs
  • Computer Scrapbooking
  • Use phones (she does know how to use a phone)
  • Weaving
  • Space
  • Geography
  • Picture Taking
  • Sports
  • Sew
  • Knit
  • Make Films
  • Planes
  • Fly Gliders
  • Helicopters
  • Cooking
  • and Trips.
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