Simplifying

While working on our Miquon labsheets ... ... ...

Me: Er... three-sixth? Can that be simplified?
B: Hmm... oh yes! One tooth!
Me: Ha?
B: I mean half.

Rock Climbing

Two Fridays ago, D and B had a 4 hour session of rock climbing at Safra, Toa Payoh with their homeschool friends. I initially thought they wouldn't be able to last for more that 2 hours. They proved me wrong! The children were all still wanting to scale the walls even after the safety ropes were removed at the end of the session! Needless to say, they enjoyed themselves thoroughly! (Thanks J for organizing!)

Here are their triumphant moments...


After a few days , D very excitedly told me that he knew how it must have felt for Dudwin, a character in a book he was reading called Little Giant - Big Trouble by Kate McMullan (Dragon Slayers' Academy). According to D, Dudwin likes to climb things and pick up stones wherever he goes. Once, he had to climb a giant stair that was made of small rocks packed together. He had to find holes to put his feet in and pull himself up. That was exactly like what they had to do when they rock climbed!

Wednesdays in March

March has turned out to be an activity-packed month. So much so I am finding myself not being able to keep up with updating my blog!

We don't normally head out on Wednesdays but in the month of March, we have been out consistently every Wednesday.

First Wed

An NTU lunch time concert gave the boys the opportunity to listen to an ancient instrument, the lute. This instrument is quite frequently used in the medieval period. Now, it is more often associated with middle eastern music.


Second Wed

We were at the Singapore Science Centre more often than usual this pass month to maximize on our membership which was soon expiring. (We did that for our Zoo membership too... in Feb.) Here is a picture of my boys attempting for the nth time to beat the record for the longest distance flown by a paper airplane. Their maximum distance was about 12 m.



Third Wed

Our homeschool group organized a trip to the Road Safety Park. It was more a fun time for the children to ride on the go-karts rather than learning traffic regulations. :-b


After that was playtime at East Coast beach; beach soccer, water polo, shell-picking... for the boys. I enjoyed the glaring sun and warm sea breeze...


Forth Wed

The last Wednesday in March, we participated in the Homeschool Curriculum Fair. This is an annual event where homschool mothers set up tables to share their resources and expertise with other homeschoolers. I benefited from the talks and sharing of the other homeschooling mothers in the fairs that I have attended in previous years. I am glad to be able to "give back" to the homeschool community this year. I set a table to "show-and-tell" what I do for our homeschool for Mathematics, History, Science and Art.

Despite being busy with my sharing, I caught glimpses of what my other friends were doing. I wished I had more time to look around. I am now inspired to try my hands on some bookbinding and making. (Thanks Y! for your detailed explanation!) Y's children authored their very own books and these were "professionally" bound up (they sewed the pages up themselves) to look like a regular hardcover book. (I should have taken a picture of her books!) I am sure my boys will be thrilled to make one because they have always asked me how they can make a "real" book that others can read from... Hmmm... time to think of what to put in the book. Haha...

Horse Riding Lessons - Our First!!!

Our kind friends invited us to join them in their day trip to Kulai Riders Lodge for some horse riding. It was a timely trip as we are currently in the medieval mood and horse riding is certainly an activity popular during that period. What's more?! That day happened to be my boys' birthday! I decided the horse riding lessons will be my birthday present to them.

We each took up horse riding lessons! Yes, I joined in the fun too. Horse riding has been one of those things on my "To-do" list so I wouldn't want to miss this opportunity.

We tried to read up as much as we could about horses and horse riding in general. We were thankful for the chapter on ungulates in our Apologia Zoology 3 book. We especially appreciated the section on the different gaits of the horses. In fact, we have gathered quite a lot of information thus far and might just make a lapbook on horses later, just for fun.

In the horse riding lessons, we learned to get the horse to walk, turn and stop. We were also taught the sit/stand position that is required during a trot. Trotting is challenging. Initially, I could not feel the rhythm of the horse's trot and just got bumped up and down. Ouch!!! I did get a better feel for it nearing the end of the exercise.

My boys loved the whole experience so much they immediately asked if they could have more lessons. Ops! Did I just asked for trouble?! :-b These lessons were expensive and is certainly not something we could do on a regular basis. I told them to pray about it and we will see if God opens up any doors...

Medieval Birthday Celebration

Preparation for the Medieval Party started about two weeks before the event. Invitation cards were sent out and details were planned. Actual gathering of material and making of things took place a week before. It was a nice departure from our usual school routine. This happened to coincide with the one week school holidays so we had "lighter" school days then.


Costume

We wanted a costume party but did not expect our guests to come with the appropriate costumes. In any case, we don't have costumes either. We figured we could make very simple ones. This is what I did. I used gray coloured cotton fabric, cut them into rectangular sheets and use a safety pin to pin the back and front flaps at the shoulders. I had initially wanted to sew / hem these but time did not permit that. I was glad the fabric we chose lasted one wear with rather minimal fraying.

D and B designed their own coat of arms. We read the book Coat of Arms by Catherine Daly-Weir. This book comes with templates so that made it easier. The symbols and animal designs were drawn or traced onto coloured papers and then cut out. These cut-outs were then glued with white glue on a shield shaped flannel. The completed crest was in turned glued onto the gray armour. (I am beginning to discover how useful white glue is!) This method required no sewing at all!!! What a time saver?!

Coat of Arms gives detailed explanation on the significance of the colours and symbols that are often used. These are my boys' final products. They each made crests for all the members in their group for the Dragon Hunt.



Welcome Table / Decoration

I found idea of giving fictitious names to our little guests from this site. We came out with ridiculous sounding names that are food related (Straw of Berry, Gin of Ger, Guard of Lick, Man of Gostin etc...) These names were written on ice-cream sticks that were decorated to look like mini swords. The idea was to let our guest draw a "sword" out from the "rock" like King Aurthur style. The illuminated letters we made were put to good use in a little poem I composed to explain what to do.





Music

What is a party without music?! I hunted long for these and asked at forums to finally find a site that allows for download of MP3s! Gregorian Chants and other such church music (which are what most people know of music of that period) were much to solemn so I chose Medieval Dances instead. Here is a site of Medieval Dances. I selected the album from Anstrorran Dance Symposium for our "banquet".


Craft 1 - Glorious Goblets

I wanted to occupy the children while they waited for the food to be ready. I got the idea of decorating plastic wine goblets with sequins from this site. These are some that were decorated by the children.


These goblets were then used during the party for drinks. No problem with mixed-up cups ;-)


Archery

We have two wooden bows we bought long ago at Daiso. D and B love to play with these; shooting chopsticks along our corridor. We experimented and found that these bows could actually be used to shoot chopsticks into cardboard boxes!


D and B were excited to let their friends try their hands on some archery too. However, we were worried the bows might give way if they were pulled too hard so we decided to add a toilet roll core on our target board as the bull's eye instead. Accurate shots, regardless of the power of the shot, would lodge the arrow into the tube; the arrow should sit comfortably in the tube even if it doesn't pierce the cardboard. This set up worked pretty well :-) I think the children enjoyed this quite a bit.



Craft 2 - Medieval Arrows

Chopsticks as arrows don't look very pretty. We decided to dress our arrows up! I found how to make a medieval arrow from this video clip. I simplify the steps a little and tried to teach this to the kids. This craft required some fine motor skills so mothers were roped in to help. This project didn't turn out too well but I hope some interest was generated :-b

Dragon Hunt


I sent the children on a wild-goose-chase kind of Dragon Hunt. Each clue was written in a poem that played around with words. I composed these poems one day while my boys stayed over at their grandparent's place. I enjoyed myself thoroughly and in the process renewed my interest in poetry! The children had to decipher the clues. There was just a lot of scrambling around from place to place - all around my estate. :-D

I originally intended them to find the dragon and throw tennis balls into the eye of the dragon. But because we were running late, the final Dragon thrashing was skipped. :-(



Food

We had medieval potash with bread. Traditionally, potash was marshy soup with potatoes, beans and various spices. I concocted one without the more unfamiliar stuff. I decided to have pizza as a supplement just in case people are not used to medieval food.

It has become a "tradition" for me to bake apple pies instead of birthday cakes for my boys. (They are two of those weird kids who dislike cakes.) So I did bake two apple pies. Unfortunately, I didn't time myself properly so the baking time extended into the time for preparation of the other party food. As a result, my poor guests had to wait patiently for their lunch.

My dear husband was such a great help in the kitchen that day with assembling the pizzas while I got the children organized and prepared the other stuff. In our original plan, he was supposed to be the jester - juggling and entertaining... haha. Well, thankfully we don't have grumpy guests to cheer up and the children were left to entertain themselves most of the time.


All in all...

We all had fun!! Fun during the preparation as well as during the party itself. I am just super exhausted after that! I truly think it was well worth it though.

I kind of like this sort of themed party. May consider doing a Greek /Roman themed party next time... but without the food. Haha... Cooking is really not my forte :-)

Getting into the Medieval Mood

This pass week was a mad week for us. We were in the thick of preparing for my boys' 8th birthday celebration.

Knights and castles. Swords and armour. Bows and arrows. Horses and dragons. My boys just LOVE everything about the middle ages.

So when I agreed to have their first ever birthday party, I decided we'll have a medieval themed one. (I have always heard about or read about people having themed parties but have never had or attended one! And they sounded so fun. I just have to try one!). I was at first a bit hung up about not timing it with our History studies. Should I do it next year instead? That's the perfectionist in me speaking. But I decided to be spontaneous about it. I just want to let my boys have fun!!!

We have shied away from having any parties previously because I wasn't sure I could handle the logistics of one. How to feed so many people? What to do with the children? Oh no! Have to plan games? How to entertain everybody?! ... So much work!!!

Then recently, I read about the wonderful birthday party a good friend of mine planned for her son. I was amazed at her dedication and creativity! I was really put to shame. Haha... in a good sense because I was all inspired after that. She spoke about making memories for her children and that set me thinking... It is just this few years really, may be between the ages of 6 to 12. I don't think a teenager would fancy one at all. It would be too "childish" for them then.

So here I am, going to give it a try ... starting really small with inviting only 3 families. Just don't think I could cope with more... :-b (Have already exceeded the rule of "number of friends to invite equals age of child" rule.)

I hope to do a crash course on History in the Middle Ages (just for this two weeks) ... just a bit of this and that. This would serve as an introduction for later studies. I just couldn't resist it. :-b

In order to get the boys into the mood (Like they needed help!?), I chose a book that is set in the middle ages for our read aloud. It is King of Ireland's Son by Padraic Colum. Reviews of the book revealed that some clever story-telling is exhibited in the weaving of stories within a story. I have been saving this book for when we are "there" for History, but have decided now is good enough! This book has been a page-turner so far. More a fun and fantasy type book rather than one that gives detailed introduction to that period in history. Nevertheless an enjoyable read.

These were the books I assigned for independent reading this week:
Saint George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges
The Kitchen Knight by Margaret Hodges
A Medieval Feast by Aliki
If You Live in the Days of the Knights by Ann McGoverit

There are many more of such books. I just chose those I could get my hands on.

Chinese Lanterns

Chinese New Year is approaching. We had our share of some festive fun this Friday with a lantern-making session at Jurong Lake Park. Look how focused the children were ...





And what happy faces after all that hard work!


Ops... not all here. Some still at it...

The Mystery of Genes

My twins look like a carbon copy of their Daddy...

D: Do I have more of Daddy than you?
Me: No, you have the same number of genes from Daddy as from me?
D: But I look more like Daddy...
Me: That's because Daddy's genes are stronger.
D: How do you make your genes stronger?
B: Do you exercise more?
Me: LOL ... No...
D: Do you put on jeans more often?
Me: LOL (in knots!)

Ops... I really haven't gone much into THIS part of Science yet...