FIVETRIBE

It has been a mixed blessing kind of homeschool day. This morning was rather horrendous as we tackled two  Conquesta papers  (English and Maths). The English was a breeze but while we have tackled multiplication, area and perimeter the Conquesta paper focused on division and fractions. No matter how I tried to explain to Lulu that ultimately we would cover EVERYTHING in maths and that the sequence differs from school/country/curriculum she was just distraught and felt dumb. Anyway, disaster was averted after tea and toast; we persevered and she completed the test to the best of her ability. I glanced at it before handing it in and she did brilliantly - not sure why our kids underestimate themselves? The one thing I am trying desparately to teach her is that getting stuff wrong  DOES NOT  equal failure. She is still so afraid to try answer things unless she is sure it will be the correct answer. School does this; of this I am convinced. Slowly she is beginning...

The last week has been but a blur. Levi had a severe croup attack last week at about 1am on Wednesday morning. He has had croup on a couple of occasions in his 7yrs but this was the worst I have ever seen. We had the emergency services come out and I honestly have never been so afraid in all my 40+ years. Thank God all is well, he bounced back super fast and by morning he was rebuking me for calling the ambulance! Suffice to say we kept him home the rest of the week even though he insisted he was TOTALLY OKAY and he was but that doesnt mean that I have slept much (at all) in the last week. His room is just too cold so he has been bunking with us and as any mother knows you hear every scratchy, raspy and uneven breath. I is very very very tired. He went back to school today but is still nursing a wee cough which will see him avoiding sport for the next few days, much to his horror. He did buy himself some rope this weekend and has been quietly busying himself learning how to tie...

Writing this post a week after the event is not quite the way I had planned - I hate that to some degree I have lost the feel of this special occasion. Faith has been doing tap since 2010 - she is a passionate and gifted little tapper but until this year she did not have the confidence to enter an eisteddford. This year it has been completely different - she was ready - both physically and emotionally. That is not to say the nerves were not full-tilt on this Monday. We did our usual piano and art lesssons but aside from that NO SCHOOL happened. We focused on just chilling and prepping for the big evening ahead. Faith and the other members of the trio did superbly - scoring Honours for their tap rendition to 'I got you under my skin'. There were many hours spent backstage before her performance and the anticipation proved enormous and her teacher is said to have wrapped her in a special 'anti-nerves' blanky! To be perfectly honest my nerves were shot ... but al...

 English is one of my favourite subjects to teach Lulu - there are so many options.  Spending time on grammar, parts of speech and the like is essential but thankfully so many other activities can keep it fresh and current; actually this can be said of all subjects if you take the time to brainstorm new ideas. Some of the things we like to do include: writing blog posts book reviews  word searches writing letters summarising articles of interest  writing stories crossword puzzles reading a variety of books listening to stories or documentaries narration comprehension discussion Comprehension exercise I get such a kick out of some of her writing. This book review made me chuckle - see her response to   "What do you like least about the book?"   (I can see I was rather ambitious giving my poor kid unlined paper to write her answers!) Every day continues to be an adventure - today she only did rote math, piano and art - the res...

I havent run long in some time as some of you know. The whole plantar fascitiis thing kind of messed me up for a few months but it seems to be under control. *she says while rolling her foot over an iced bottle* Seriously though, I have received ' professional' treatment and am happy to say that I had my first long run in some time today. Breaking the 15km barrier for me is mentally crucial as I have a race at the end of the month and prior to today I had not logged more than 10kms on a single run. The race is 16km and it is 'multi-surfaced' in that it is a combination of road/beach/mountain so it is going to be killer. While I am happy to have run long today I am still well aware that my fitness is nowhere near what I would like as those 15k were run ON THE ROAD and as all runners know....that is a doddle compared to trail. Now that Faith is more settled and we have a strong routine in place I am going to take 90mins a week and head into Silvermine to get ...

This weekend saw some heaviness as we said goodbye to Luke. I do not want to talk about it right now - it is a post on it's own. Suffice to say he is living large on a stud farm in Stellenbosch with a young couple who are trail runners and obsessed with my (former) dog. Faith and I were particularly distraught. My first inclination was to try take her mind off it and go do something fun - shopping or running or painting or a nything to ease the pain for her . Common sense took over and I just left her to sob and allowed her to feel the pain. She poured herself into her journal (i had nothing to do with it - instinctively she knew it would help) and appeared at my bedside an hour later saying she was ready to face the world. My girls and I headed to the mall to do some necessary shopping. Faith had to get hair /makeup supplies for her tap eisteddford tomorrow; she and Rachel spent many minutes perusing Ralo and deciding on what would be best. I love watching them hang out and b...

I think you all know that I do love people and going out but sometimes I just hide away. I am one of those people that get really excited planning a night out....then that night arrives and I can barely muster the enthusiasm to take a shower.....I go reluctantly and TA-DA I have the best time. Usually. Amazing women, all of them. My friend was celebrating her birthday at a local pub. Her husband is a muso and had a gig at said pub; it sounded like it was going to be awesome and FOMO* was a definite motivator. Two problems though ...Friday nights find me shatterooned and Russell was away which meant I had to go on my own. An interesting capture but tells a story. Big smiles.  Anyyyyyyway, long story short. Ta-Da! I had the best time. I missed Russell but the other couples graciously included me and I didn't feel like a spare part at all - no dirty dancing or PDA's! ;-) Only one of these guys is a real muso....but the other had fun anyway! Lucky for us we ca...

oi vey. what can i say? I cannot draw. Not the way I would like to draw. Unfortunately most of my family and my closest friends have raw natural ability which leaves me feeling both completely inadequate and awed in equal measures. Two of these friends are now instrumental in helping to prove (to me) that I can actually draw (paint, execute) images that don't make me want to rage and spit. Michelle, she also teaches Faith home ec and is the art teacher at the school, is giving drawing lessons every tuesday morn. As she says it is a 'Learn to See' course and not an actual 'learn to draw' course. There is much talk about left and right brain....needless to say I am extremely LEFT brained but have learnt so much in just 3 lessons. She has given me a 'money-back guarantee' so am guessing she really does have the magic bullet! ;-) This is wrong on so many levels but I still love my little  'Avatar' girl  Flowrs (formerly my trailrunning ...

I have found it a bit of a challenge - this whole Afrikaans thing. In fact I have not addressed it all since Lulu came home 2 months ago. I grew up in a dual-medium home; I went to an Afrikaans primary school for 4 years and I have always just understood the language. I do not speak it very often anymore but am completely competent in the language in terms of teaching it to a primary school level. It is almost laughable to me that I have managed to raise three complete and utter 'rooinekkies' - they are clueless! My Grade 6 (formally educated) child can change a sentence from present tense to future or past tense but cannot tell you what the sentence actually means. Crazy. Anyyyyyway, the point of my little rant is that I am scouring the net for afrikaans television programs from the 70's, 80's and 90's. It is generally well accepted that children learn best by engaging in a language regularly and what better way than to get them hooked on some fun programmi...

Our term is going well but we both miss Anne Frank. ;-) Here is some of the work Lulu did around her life last term. She loved learning about each person in the story Understanding the key players in the story We learnt about mind-maps - love her colourful rendition! This term we have found that bouncing between the life of Mandela and doing Story of the World messed with the flow so we are finishing Book 1 SOTW this term and will do Mandela next term instead. We are cruising through  Math-U-See (MUS) Gamma  and will probably finish up with this by the middle of the fourth term if not earlier. I am not pushing too hard as this curriculum is at Gr 4 level so she is well able to take her time and do plenty of consolidation. We will only begin our Gr 5 curriculum in the new year. Life of Fred  math continues to be our 'fun filler' when the drills of MUS get too much - Fred provides great humour and also shows her (us!) how maths is useful in EVERYDAY li...

I have, over the years, spent time showing my kids the benefits to living an active life and eating in a way that promotes energy and vitality. It has been a soft, slow and gentle process as I do not want to breed Health Nazi's. We all know that I can veg on the couch all day and put away pizza without too much trouble and I like it that way! Lately, however,  I have watched my kids  begin to self-regulate in a way that makes me realise that my labours have not been in vain.  I have been teaching the girls how to cook our mealtime vegetables - we have tried to be creative as veggies can be very boring but have kept it simple. Steamed brocolli tossed lightly in hummus or drizzled with a lemon/balsamic vinaigrette. Cauliflower blended to a rice-like texture and tossed lightly in coconut oil. Raw carrots and peppers dipped in various dips. All these sides are now easily prepared by the girls and are eaten and enjoyed. For dessert (on the rare occasion!) we have fr...

The only way to keep up with my blog (and jog my memory!) is to use photos to tell the stories of the past week or so. This week has seen a spring-teaser hit Cape Town; beautiful balmy days have lulled us into false hopes of a mild August. Sadly I know better. Having lived here for a good 35 years I know too well that August will kick our asses in good time....it was this time last year that our house flooded with a violent storm so you can well imagine my trepidation! Still gives me ants when he does this! Faith has learnt the gentle art of waiting. Being with me 24/7 means she sometimes has to wait (dentist, hair appt, waxes, gym, coffee dates etc) and she does it with poise and grace. I am challenged to begin to take a leaf out of her book - many of you know just how ' gracious' I can be when forced to wait... Fridays are 'fun-days' at my school. We work hard all week but on Fridays we play even harder. Every second week we join with Cape Explo...