We keep fish. We’ve had them for a couple of years now.

In terms of keeping pets, fish are probably the easiest, quietest, cheapest (cheap to buy that is, it does cost a bit to set up your tank initially) and least messy. So often I forget we even have “pets”.

It’s great for the kids learning about the fish, watching them eat, how they interact with each other (some fish are territorial and aggressive), behaviours and also learning about life and death (yes fish die and often too). It’s actually been a good lesson when their favourite fish dies and has been opportunity to talk about it openly. In fact we had a beta fish (or Siamese fighting fish) that died last year and I was quite upset about it, he was sick for a day and I kept going in to check on him it really affected me more than I thought it would.

We’ve just added a recent addition to one of our tanks, a blue yabby. We’ve called him “Bluey”.

Being this is the first time we’ve had a yabby it’s given us the opportunity to read up about them.  We’ve found out a few interesting facts about yabbies like the fact that they like to eat carrots and they’re apparently very good escape artists.

The latest amazing thing that has happened is he moulted or shead his outer layer.

There are so many varieties of fish and we’ve had a lot of the tropical varieties that are available.

The kids have really enjoyed looking and learning about the fish and so many ‘lessons’ have been learned purely by observation.
What about your family, what pets do you keep?

Well it’s finally happened Lego fever has hit our house. This has been a long anticipated event for me. I’ve been waiting and waiting for the boys to want to build with their Lego but it just wasn’t happening. They had a few different sets but they just weren’t playing with them. Then it suddenly dawned on me it was the way it was presented and that’s when I had the brilliant but very simple idea to throw all our bits in one box and let them use their imaginations to build and … It worked!

   
 
By simply throwing them all in this box and letting them use their imaginations all sorts of creations have been made. 

Here is one day’s worth of creations:

   
    
    
    
    
    
    
 
Here is another days worth of creations:

   
    
    
    
    
    
    
 
This has been fantastic for afternoon rest/quiet time as it keeps them occupied and happy. 

So what was it that made the difference? I worked out the boys were looking at the Lego boxes and instructions that came with the pieces and getting overwhelmed by how complicated it looked. We initially made up the trucks and cars as per the instructions for them as the kids wanted them made up but then didn’t play with them after that. So by pulling everything apart and popping them in a box together with no instructions they didn’t get caught up making it try to look like the picture and their imaginations could invent some new creations. 

Admittedly the boys are only 4 and 6 years old but they are still more than capable of creating some awesome vehicles.  

Looking forward to more of their creativity. 

It’s funny how when you’re homeschooling you become more aware of how simple everyday activities can be a teaching opportunity. 

Take for example our latest breakfast time ritual. On the days when we have eggs on toast about twice a week the kids love tomato sauce on toast. 

Somehow it came about that we starting drawing on the toast with the squeeze bottle of sauce. It started off as smiley faces, then the first letter of each person name, then we’ve moved on to numbers. 

  
The younger ones now tell me the letter or number they want written and then we say it together. I’ll usually say the letter sound and we talk about words that start with that sound. 

  
Our oldest writes his own which has been fantastic to practice letter/number formation and also for fine motor skills. It can be quite a challenge to get the letters just right. 

Just recently the kids have been asking for double digit numbers including our 2 year old which is a great learning experience and so much more interesting than just reading it off a sheet of paper. 

What different or weird ideas do you use as “teaching” opportunities?