The week that was…Natural learning
Going through my photos this week I realised there was so much going on! It always seems to take me by surprise, the amount of learning they do in a day. Generally our days feel relaxed and easy, full of play and fun. Sometimes at the end of the week I wonder to myself if we have really done much learning at all. Then I look back through what I have captured and realise the learning is always there, in everything they do. They’re just enjoying themselves so much that there is no definition between ‘work’ and ‘play’. I think that’s what I love about natural learning the most.
It was hard trying to choose just some of the photos this week! Be sure to also pop over to Memoirs of a Childhood, Racheous – Lovable Learning, and An Everyday Story to see some other beautiful examples of natural learning.
The week started with an excursion to our local environmental centre with our homeschool co-op to learn about worm farming! The girls loved it and asked lots of questions. They even packed a backpack with some paper and a pen so they could take notes about what they learned. It’s always great catching up with our homeschool friends and watching the relationships between the children grow. Miss 5 spent most of the day hand in hand with her bestie. Afterwards, we headed over to the nature centre to have a look at all the Australian animals too.
Fresh new journals! We filled up the old ones a while ago and hadn’t gotten around to buying more yet. The girls are excited to be back into ‘journal time’. Yes, that does say malteasers, LOL. While we waited for my oldest at ballet on wednesday her little sister bought her a treat at the shops for when she was finished.
Story stones and some Spielgaben made their way to the block area with all of the other things that are currently crowded around there. They spent a lot of time telling stories here.
Interest in the human body continues. Here my 3 year old is doing a layered human body puzzle, while my 5 year old looks at slides of the kidneys, brain, blood, and heart under the microscope.
Homeschool co-op day! We learnt about maps this week. The kids looked at maps of where they lived, a map of Australia, and drew their own maps of the yard.
We have a subscription to Story Box Library but haven’t used it much lately. The girls were back into it this week though, catching up on all of the new stories.
This weekend we took a trip to the beach for the day. I asked the girls to grab some books for the car trip and coincidentally (or not) my 5 year old chose this book about the ocean. She found an experiment about how salty sea water is and read the directions to me.
When we got to the beach she asked for a bottle to collect some water in so that she could do the experiment when we got home.
I love watching them at the beach. This is my 3 year old dancing. She spent most of the time running fast, spinning, rolling in the sand, running away from the waves, and collecting shells.
She also sat down for a few seconds to do some writing in the sand.
Even the littlest girl was intrigued by the feel of the sand in her fingers.
When we got home the sea water was put onto a tray outside. We are waiting for it to evaporate, leaving behind salt crystals.
Miss 5 is on the corner of our street here in the late afternoon with her magnifying glass, pondering why these flowers close up at night but others don’t.
She wants to check on them again in the morning. An interesting question to follow up next week.
Comments
Beautiful! I love that photo of our girls holding hands so much and it is lovely to watch friendships grow 🙂
Me too. They’re so cute 🙂