Finger Painting Fun

Following on from our colour experimentation I decided to take advantage of the last of our sunny weather and create some finger paint and see what the kids would do with it outside. This is the recipe we used:

2 c cold water
1/2 c plain flour
2 tbs corn flour
4 tbs cold water

Place water and flour in a saucepan. Bring to boil stirring constantly. Blend together corn flour and second amount of water. Stir into flour mixture and cook till it begins to thicken. Remove from heat and cool then colour with food colouring. Can be covered and stored in the fridge up to three weeks.

Princess Day

Katie recently enjoyed "Princess Day" with some of her friends. I couldn't resist a princess and queen mum shot before we left. They got to decorate their own biscuits, and apparently were rather tasty!

Plenty of games, singing, dancing and more yummy food.

Art activities followed by some milo tea. One lumps or two?

They made treasure boxes and listened to a story. 'Twas a lovely day.

Painting

We have been exploring colour recently and how mixing the primary colours make other colours. We learned about tints and shades, and the colours of the rainbow. We quickly moved on to the practical part of the lesson!

APPS!

Last year I acquired an iPod touch, which is basically an iPhone but without the phone. I loved the idea of being able to access the Internet without constantly being in front of my computer screen upstairs away from my family. It's a fantastic device and hopefully this year will upgrade to an actual iPhone and possibly iPad!

Being primarily an iPod you can have your own music on there as well as subscribe to podcasts and download audiobooks. I have a docking station which allows me to recharge as well as play audio. I originally planned on using it for the kids at bedtime but so far it's been all mine!

What I didn't count on was the sheer amount of fantastic apps there are (so behind the times). I thought perhaps there might be a few little games the kids could play with but I have downloaded a fair few which I have been impressed with. Most of these are universal (iphone/itouch/ipad) and were originally free but may have since changed. Check the Appstore.

Magic Coloring - I decided to try this after reading a review on appsforhomeschooling.com. There are four modes to colour in various line drawings - by freehand, by colour legend, number legend, and simple mental calculation. Loved by all my kids!

I Learn with Poko:Additions – Teaches simple adding.

Little Ears: Quizzes children the sounds of actions and objects. Sam particularly enjoys this and nice to hear an Australian accent!

ABC Pocketphonics – Teaches letter sounds and handwriting. Brilliant.

Monkey Preschool Lunchbox – Very popular app. Includes multiple games which teach kids about colour, letters, counting, shapes, sizes, matching and differences. All my kids love it.

Doodle Buddy – Finger paint with different colours and use playful stamps. Lots of creative fun.

Matching Zoo - Cool matching game with special effects and catchy music.

Shape Builder – Includes 146 puzzles with easy to move shapes that snap into place. Encourages cognitive thinking and fine motor skills. My 3 year old's current fave.

Trace – Draw platforms and navigate past obstacles to reach the goal at the end of each level. Katie can get quite engrossed with this one at times. Probably more suited for older children and adults. Clever and addictive game.

25 in 1 Free Educational Games – Speaks for itself! I have downloaded the full versions of a few of the games that Katie enjoyed. Excellent value.

Some of my own personal most-used apps include various photo editing apps like Camera+ and Instagram, apps for Twitter, blog reading, lists, menu planning, Facebook, eBay etc. By far though my most addictive favourites are Words with Friends and Hanging with Friends – biggest time wasters!!!

Reflections

So we've come to the end of 2011 with a new baby and not much in the way of formal homeschooling. Despite my initial disdain at the idea of "unschooling" or "natural learning" (I'm very routine oriented) it's what we ended up doing for most of the year. I'm taken aback at how much Katie has picked up and learned without my prompting. She has been doing a lot of written copywork, I can see more maturity in her art and craft and she is constantly asking questions about everything.

I've been tossing up what to do about Christmas since we now have four children. It's not something they can really avoid. Should we celebrate a festival pagan in roots and dressed up as “Christian”? Having children makes me ponder this a little deeper than I used to! I might experiment with having a Jesse tree next year and reading from Jotham's Journey for Advent. Katie and Sam might be old enough to appreciate the meanings in a year's time.

We had a go at making salt dough decorations this week and I even tried making a wreath from our lush Happy Wanderer (Hardenbergia violacea). Merry Christmas!

Ruby

Our Ruby was born three weeks ago, our smallest and possibly our strongest. Another of God's gifts to us!

Thankfully this was another quick birth. I had Braxton Hicks contractions for weeks leading up to the birth and hardly knew I was in labour till they were minutes apart at 1 am.

I hadn't needed to go to the hospital at all in my pregnancy because I was seeing my caseload midwife locally so once we arrived we couldn't find the entrance. There was obviously works going on and we were wandering around with me in established labour. With every contraction I had to get on all fours – I almost believed I was going to give birth in the carpark! Fortunately a car pulled up that was headed to Emergency and took us to the right place.

What I can remember from the birth is: VEINS, RUPTURE, HAEMORRHAGE, THEATRE. A good thing I was in hospital this time.

Oh, and also: I FINALLY HAVE MY BABY.

She is beautiful and has put on a ton of weight. I'm almost fully recovered.

It was recommended I have a caesarean next time. If there is a next time. I think our family might just be complete.

The Bread Machine

Recently we decided to buy a bread machine. It happened to be advertised on Deals Direct and was half-price available for only a day or so online. My husband and I discussed whether it was something we could do with and we went for it seeing it had great reviews. I have blogged about my previous breadmaking attempt which was great but there is something about dumping a whole lot of ingredients into a machine and letting it do all the hard work for you!

Despite its bulk it has been a great addition to our kitchen - we have since found a spot for it to live out of sight and I use it on average twice a week but will probably use it a lot more. It came with a bunch of recipes which I've noticed use millilitres and grams for weights. This allows for more accurate measurements resulting in perfect bread (I did try out an attractive online recipe which just used cups and it was a disaster). I was so impressed with the traditional white bread and have since tried out sweet bread and cinnamon raisin nut bread.

One thing I would like to experiment with is gluten-free bread recipes. There is no such mode on our model but I think I'll hunt some recipes down and see how I go. Served warm/toasted with jam and butter they're a real treat - no more $1 supermarket bread in this house!