Aotearoa Region GirlGuides

This term we had a lot of things planned, a month of holidays with the Papa, down the bach (where we can still homeschool early in the mornings or in the afternoons when it's too hot for the beach), and then a month over in Melbourne, Australia with my folks, whilst the poor Papa stayed behind to look after the livestock.

Sitting out on the bach deck playing cards in summer.

 

As the girls love their GirlGuides and I didn't fancy paying for a full term for the couple of weeks that they could attend, I transferred them to Aotearea Region GirlGuides (formerly Lones in NZ). Aotearoa Region is a section of Guiding for girls who cannot make a weekly unit meeting due to location, the unit currently being full, it's simply it's not on the right night, no transport and so on. Essentially it's like doing GirlGuides by correspondence.

By the way, the word Aotearoa means 'Land of the Long White Cloud' which is what the Maori's called New Zealand way before the before Pakeha (Europeans) settled here.




Working on some badge work



Making  "Biscuit (Ginger) bread Houses"

 



Making and blowing bubbles

The participants work on their badges at home, they receive either a pack at the beginning of the term, to work on throughout the term, as does the Guide age level, or if they were a Brownie they'd receive a badge to work on every fortnight from one of the Brownie AR leaders (I am one of AR Brownie Leader although on leave until May). The leaders touch base via email or sometimes phone the girls to see how they are doing.

Each AR GirlGuide is assigned to a nearby unit and whenever there is a camp, special activity, or special day, etc. they also receive invites to participate with that group so they are still having new experiences and participating with groups at special events.




Selling GirlGuide biscuits with the local GG unit, in 2014

Whilst they have enjoyed their AR packs, they have very much missed catching up with their friends at the local unit but, what a great opportunity for them to try something new and yet being able to continue working on their badges in their spare time. No "I'm bored, what can I do?" is ever heard around here!

Many other countries also offer a similar alternative to AR Guides (could still be called Lones in your country) so if your child simply can't make one more evening out, or there's no unit (troop) in your area, etc. look into it. The girls still get to go on camps and attend all kinds of fun stuff and earn badges at the same time.



The A-Z Blogging Challenge for April 2014 - BRING IT!

As I have been positively slack with my blogging for quite a while now, I have decided to take on the "Blogging from A to Z April Challenge". I will probably start whining part way through when I run out of ideas, so be warned!

 

Basically every day, except for Sundays, you produce a blog posting that begins with the letter for that day. ie April 1st, your blog might be April Fools Day, 2nd April, Brilliant Baby, 3rd April begins with a C and so on. Remember you don't blog on Sundays so you get your 26 days and letters.

The blogs can be on anything but, you can also be specific and write on a certain theme if you want. I am going to be trying to write on things related to my family and home education in our home.

Each day you try and visit five or more bloggers who are also taking part in the challenge and in turn you'll have new visitors to you. There are already 1675 bloggers who have signed on, so there are a few mad people out there apparently!

If you'd like to take the challenge with me (you can start prewriting posts now) then go through to the sign up list here.

Give your Kids a Massage!

My two precious ladies love to give their mama neck and back rubs and even foot massages. I lap these up like a cat at a bowl of milk. I unfortunately do not really like giving massages as much as receiving them, I know I am so selfish!

So in appreciation of all those neck and back rubs I surprised my daughters earlier in the year with vouchers for a massage each at a local business, Body Synergy Massage. Body Synergy Massage is a beautiful little business in the centre of our town and the owner / operator Rachel Ferregel is very professional, yet warm and welcoming. She is a mother herself, and she treated the girls beautifully. She had them fill in their own patient forms, which makes a child feel so good and builds their confidence, and explained things to them as she would anyone having a massage. Despite them being young, she even left the room to let them slip out of their clothes so they were left feeling comfortable, respected and safe at all times.
 

They were a little nervous going in, "you go first, no you go first" but coming out ... well I think you can tell from the smile on The Fashionista's face that it was rather enjoyable. I see elbowing each other out of the way to get there first on the cards for their next visit!

After each child's massage Rachel, commented on different things about the children and commented that AS had a very, very tight neck, funnily enough AS had been getting headaches, so yes do try and get a professional who knows what they are doing, it's so worth it as that massage actually eased the frequency of them. She's probably only had one in the last month and she was probably start to get them weekly.

Whilst I did it simply as a thank you after reading up on the benefits of massage and children, and seeing their own reactions first hand, I am going to see if I can arrange a professional massage for them once a term. Babies and young children can be just as stressed and anxious as adults and the benefits of massage therapy is a reduction in stress and thus stress hormone levels. It has been said that the benefits are a happier, calmer (Agent Smelly briefly dozed off on the table) and you will even have a healthier child with the lower stress hormone levels. That's got to be a good thing, especially if you have a wriggly, hyper kid or even a worrier.

And we all know how children like to imitate life so last week I was invited into the guest bedroom where Agent Smelly had set up a massage bed, the CD player, some oils, etc. I had to fill in a patient form and then they left the room for me to strip and get under the towel, just like they had. It was awfully funny but really good actually!

Drawing Success

Agent Smelly eats, breathes and lives mermaids. So today for art I pulled up this You Tube tutorial How to Draw a Mermaid and set the girls to work. They absolutely LOVED doing this.
 
  

 

First they were taken through the step by step drawing in pencil.

 

 

 

Then they used markers to outline the final picture

 

 

 

Then they got to colour them in.

 

 
They enjoyed this so much so that they ended up doing another one on drawing a cartoon whale.

 
The Fashionista was happy with her pictures but it was pretty amazing to hear Agent Smelly so excited over hers. She usually complains that she can't draw. She told me when showing me her pictures, "Mama I am so proud of myself". Obviously a pretty awesome homeschooling moment.
 
 

Writing in 2014

We haven't done a lot of writing as a class subject over the years and last year, both of my girls I noticed, really started to enjoy writing their own stories. Every now and then after we had done our regular schoolwork the pair of them would take off and start writing their own stories.  As they seemed to enjoy it so much, I thought I'd foster that interest and incorporate it into our schedule.

I had planned to write out some writing prompts (otherwise they can complain they don't know what to write about) but came across 100 Writing Prompts from Curric Click. It's a cheap download; I think it was US 99 cents but really, really well worth it.

I printed the pages onto A4 card stock, cut them into small cards and placed them in a wee container and the girls simply take one card out and write on whatever it reads on the card. They are allowed to choose up to three cards, if they find the first or second hard to do but, no more than that.

There is no amount they have to write but they have a small exercise book to write in and usually keep them to about a page long. I do realise they need to know some grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc (we have studied that formally before) but I am being very careful in those areas so as not to kill their creativity ... I don't want to stifle their writing at this stage. They can always tighten up on some of the other side of things later on. For instance if there is a word misspelled that I know they should know I will point it out to them to see if they realise.

The stories coming from them have been awesome, even the Papa has been reading them and having a laugh and been astonished at some of their ideas and creativity. We have been using them for a couple of months now and not once have I heard "do we have to" in fact although I only ask them to do it once a week they will ask some mornings if they can do one of the cards. Who am I to say no!