I'm Dreaming of a White March....

Here's how to have a White Christmas when:



a. it is March and

b. you live in the sub-tropics



1. Load dishes into the dishwasher and start it.

2. Start hand washing the baking dishes.

3. Hear awful noise from dishwasher then hear worse noise.

4. Press the power off button.

5. Make sure you stand back while there is an enormous explosion, followed by flames exiting the front handle of the dishwasher.

6. Yell, "Fire, Fire!!"

7. Help Hubby locate fire extinguisher.

8. Watch as fire extinguisher puts out fire but then flames re-emerge.

9. Grab mobile phone, oldest son home sick from Brigade and budgie and exit house.

10. Call fire brigade whilst Hubby continues the battle.

11. Allow fire brigade to enter house and disconnect dishwasher from electricity and water after ensuring Hubby had put the fire out.

12. Watch from the front patio as the fire fans blow all of the smoke out of the window.


13. Return to kitchen that is covered in white fire extinguisher powder.


14. Decide that a White Christmas is not all it's cracked up to be and start cleaning kitchen benches, stove, floor, baking trays, entire contents of dishwasher and white firemen's footprints.

15. 3 hours later look wistfully at the book that was intended for a quiet Friday night.

16. The next day start looking for a new dishwasher. Criteria Number One: Must not explode into flames frightening the life out of the owner.
.

Snippets

I can't believe how busy I've been in our first term of school (for us Southern Hemisphere dwellers). I think of things to blog about then don't have time and forget them. Before I forget here's one amusement we had recently:

Anika babysat for friends of ours and after the younger ones were organised for bed she sat reading "The Penguin History of Europe". Mr Ten-Years-Old was reading also then looked up at what Anika was reading and commented, "I didn't think there were any penguins in Europe." I have never thought about a title that way.

Then one day we came across an outline of what Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are expected of students in Queensland's schools. Anika found this: By the end of year 9 the student, "Considers and applies ICT to enhance interpersonal relationships in order to develop social and cultural understandings." If that just sounded like teacher gobbledygook to you then we're on the same page. Not to worry though. The example given said it all: for example, "uses 'emoticons' to enhance a message by indicating emotion'"

Honestly!! :D :) :D ;)

Red Letter Days

Some days with home education nothing seems to go right so when those red letter days arrive it's so nice. We had several red letter days this week.

On Thursday I finally figured a way of explaining to Matt about a problem he was having with multiplying decimal fractions. Matt is good at maths but he's like me. He has to understand it thoroughly not do it mechanically. It was music to my ears to hear such words as, "Oh I get it now. Ah, I really understand it now. That makes sense."

On Tuesday Anika had her first day at uni. Off she went full of excitement and came home saying how much she enjoyed it. Then Friday we celebrated her 18th birthday.

Also on Tuesday I made a discovery. Last year I had started to write a science outline that I could use with Mike (age 6) this year. I figured with my training I ought to be able to do a good job. The training wasn't the problem. Problem number one was lack of time. I started the year using a book but it really wasn't working out for us. Some of what I could find on the internet looked great for older children (9 and up) but there wasn't anything for younger children. So I decided to go and have a look at some homeschool forums and found this classic science curriculum designed for home school families. Not only does it have material suitable for Mike's age but it also has everything there set out on a day by day basis, covers all the great basic stuff and explains all those first principles of testing etc in a parent guide. A bonus is that the first year is a free download. I downloaded the first unit and started straightaway. Mike thinks the cartoons are hilarious. We'll be back next year to buy the second level. Meanwhile I donated to the cup of coffee account of the creator.

Something told me before I looked too far that it had to be good. The author goes by the name of Mr Q (no relation). How's that for a co-incidence?