Time Out Referee!

This week we are calling a 'time out' ....... Miss Ant doesn't cope overly well with stress (she's 7..... So quite natural!) and she has her 1st ever ballet exam next week, as you can imagine the pressure is on! So instead of fighting it, and pressuring her, we are embracing it. How this goes will determine how she tackles stressful situations in future (now I'm stressed!) so, we are relaxing, doing one thing at a time, having small play dates, doing only the work that tickles our fancy and enjoying practicing and seeing the improvements each day.....to be confident for the exam.
I know in the 'real world' you can't call a time out during stressful times, but she is 7 and learning.....she's not ready for a bombardment of real life stressors yet! You simply don't learn to run before you crawl, nor can you understand stress management without nurturing support from those close to you.
This is truly one of those 'I am so pleased we home educate!' moments. I am not sure I would be able to be there for her as much as she needs, if it weren't for home education. After all, we have chosen this path as it best suits our family right now. When she was at school, I always felt removed from the situation and was often confused and misled by outside influences as to how to support her through tough times. But not anymore. Now we have our finger on the pulse and our whole family is much better off for it.



Eating cake....made by Miss Ant! Chocolate mud cake with orange icing (even though the icing is pink!).... Was delicious with peppermint tea :D

Celebrations

In July we were also busy, preparing for Miss Ant's 7th birthday! After her recent success with chopsticks and exploring Japanese, Chinese, and Thai foods in their traditional settings while we explored Sydney in June, Miss Ant decided she would love to host an Asian-inspired party! In our home education, we take every opportunity to learn....this was a great opportunity for us to learn more about an array of Asian cultures/customs and then creating ways to fuse what we learnt with our own birthday traditions.



Rice crackers and folding fans...each child got a fan to keep.




Lanterns through our living room :)



Food! Yum cha was the request, so flavored teas, pork buns, dim sims, spring rolls, rice paper rolls, Thai fish cakes and many more delights!



Chopsticks for eating, playing games with and taking home as a treasure.



Complete, only with a pic of the birthday girl herself xxx

Defrosting Time

Oooh, it's getting chilly in Hobart! We have snow on our mountain and ice and frost in our garden every morning.....winter is here!

In June, we went to Sydney to defrost, have fun exploring the treats that only Sydney has to offer and of course catching up with some of our old friends. We saw Mary Poppins - the show and visited The zoo and the science museum. It was a grand home Ed excursion!



The carousel at Darling Harbour...isn't is magical!


Antonia showing us her new skill....chopsticks!



The 3 of us (Simon is taking the picture otherwise he'd be there too!). It was so nice to not wear long sleeves and thermals! Though all the locals thought we were crazy :)