This evening we wen to the Combined Churches Christmas Carols evening.  Prior to the carols they have a family fun hour or so, with games, face painting and balloons.  Our family organised the balloons.  During the day the kids blew up a stockpile of balloons so we could handle a rush of kids.  Unfortunately, this year numbers were low.  Jess helped me with the balloons for most of the afternoon while the other kids played games.  We decided we were going to limit choices – purely from a speed point of view.  Choices were dogs or flowers.  But we got creative as we went along and entreated the kids to use their imaginations and dogs became dinosaurs and giraffes, we even did one cat! 

The local Catholic school performed a nativity pageant which was well done and well received.  We then spent an hour singing carols, listening to the scriptures and a message from one of the pastors.

The kids enjoyed themselves. 

Monday:

Today we drove into the airport to pick up Peter.

On the way we stopped to see a tree hedger trim/prune mango trees.   This evoked a lot of conversation on pruning trees and keeping them healthy.  A little further along we see another mango plantation and it has been pruned another way.  The first farmer pruned his trees into a hedge, trimming the sides and the top of the trees.  The second farmer pruned his by hand and worked from the bottom and opened up the middle of the trees.  It was interesting to hear the older two discuss why the hedge trimmer wouldn’t work to open the trees up from the bottom!  The farmer would be left with no tree.  As we drove along I thought how this was a great “Carschooling” moment – the younger ones observed and discussed the workings of a machine and the “problem” that machine solved.  The older two discussed reasons for doing something different and the limitations on the very same machine.

Another “Carschooling” moment was Jessica asking which way we were travelling – north, south, east and west.  She could see where the sun came up – so that was East, so she knew where West was.   This was a great opportunity for Joshua to “teach” what he knows.  By the time we got to their airport Jess could tell which way we were travelling after each twist and turn in the road. 

We had a storm today with lots of wind.  The kids just love running in the wind.  Watching them out the window, running crazily in the wind, reminded me of my childhood and the excitement I always felt with an approaching cyclone.  Of course I had no real understanding of the threatening danger!  But today’s storm was not that severe just strong wind and a little rain.  Jessica estimated (Math) how much rain we did have and she was very very close!

Josh and Daniel both did their Math today.  Jessica has worked steadily on formatting her book.  Josh helped her by scanning in illustrations.  Nomi worked on finishing various artworks.

Joshua has been watching the first Ashes Cricket match.  He has worked hard early in the morning to get his chores and independent work requirements finished.  Just goes to show what can be done when there is sufficient motivation!   Daniel has had a hard time understanding why Josh can watch TV all day but her can’t watch videos all day!  He has a point!  But in a few years time when he is into cricket he may see it all different.