A Different Easter 2016

This year Easter was quite different for us as we were missing one of our wee family. It was the first time one of the children has been missing for a celebratory event and was quite odd and certainly a very quiet affair.

The Fashionista went on an Easter Camp with her BFF (and their family who were there as leaders). This camp is HUGE, it's for 13-18 year olds from right up the top of the country down to Gisbourne and had an estimated 5,000 attending! Whilst looking at the photos of the camp online I came across this one of kids coming back from lunch and noticed TF straight away ... can you?


Despite TF being away, we still had our annual easter egg hunt with just Agent Smelly as it didn't seem to be right for her to miss on our annual tradition -- not that she claimed to care. She is a very cruisy child and doesn't seem to like too much of a fuss or fanfare over anything. On the other hand she does have quite a sweet tooth and loves chocolate so it's pretty easy to get her to go on an egg hunt. 

Trying to keep the Fun with One

I have found it is really easy to get stale homeschooling just one child and we don't always have the same fun that we used when there were both girls to do things with. So this month I made a concentrated effort to celebrate a couple of events as I do feel a bit guilty at times that Agent Smelly's days are a bit more curriculum filled.

So on Pi Day 3.14 (14th March) we did a few Pi related activities ... including eating PIE!  

Then for St Patrick's day I made up a couple of wee treat packs (I popped one in The Fashionista's school lunch as a surprise much to her delight) and Agent Smelly was able to eat hers throughout her activities. I purchased the green lollies from a shop in the mall that just sells lollies and chocolates -- the Korean lady working there looking perplexed as she watched me sorting through the different containers so I could grab just the green ones. I did explain they were for St Patrick's day and that brought a big grin to her face. 

I found the 'shamrock nails' in a $2 Shop and threw those in for a bit of fun. 

When I do a 'special unit day', I do not include ANY of regular school work; we make it a day of all new and fun stuff. I feel like it actually revives us.

Similarly to the Pi pack, the booklet had word finds, crosswords, sudoku, word scramble, codeword puzzle, maze, etc. which I printed from free sites. Sometimes there will be a recipe in there, for instance in this case it was how to make Shamrock pancakes.

I always use a few different sites for my print outs because sometimes some of the activities may be too young for her or something we've done before. This gorgeous wee front page and some of the pages I used were from Embark on the Journey's blog page. I just use google or pinterest to find things on the subject that I am wanting to put a book together on.

Because Agent Smelly quite likes music we also listened to some Irish music, folk type and also The Pogues (her dad likes them so we have some CD's). 

I really love doing activities like this -- they learn so much whilst having fun and learning things in a completely different way. 

*Please note this post is delayed posting it's from last year. 

Piano for a Song

Both girls have often expressed how it would be cool to play the piano so recently I saw a rather old piano being sold locally for the grand price of $10.00   So of course I thought 'why not' if they don't take it to it, it's only $10 that it's cost us.  

Bonus is the Papa just loves it when I tell him things like, oh hun can you put the trailer on the car, I've just bought a piano. Well I think that's what it means when he rolls his eyes and takes a big drawn in breath. 

So we are now the proud owners of an old piano, it even came with a stool. It has a couple of sticky keys but other than that it's perfect to start learning on. Agent Smelly particularly has taken a liking to it is so we are looking for piano lessons for her. 

It's been placed in my study ... so I can close the door to save my ears ... I mean so they can practice in peace.