melbournebudgies

Mostly mine love tearing the bark off. It's good natural enrichment for them :hap:

My mum makes her roast potatoes as chunky chips and adds 1/2 a cup of white wine to the pan, they are AMAZING! I can ask her for more info if you like. Otherwise I parboil them first so they are cooked through and then put them in a pot with a little butter or olive oil and shake them up so that it roughens the outside of them, then into a hot baking pan with olive oil

I'll hae a look at it. They use some good programs at his kinder. He is good at recognising his letters now and he will tell you that a letter is 'for' the corresponding sound and they put it together with a adjective and name for that letter associated with a picture of the 'person with the letter'. His favorite is Munching Mike because it is the same letter as his brother Max.

okay thanks, I'm still able to use the library at La Trobe Uni so I'll have a look what they have for me to read up on it. By the way, I'm an Erin too Was just thinking and maybe I'm way of the mark but is it sort of the stuff they do at his kinder with same sound letters? He'll often say thngs to me like,"Max(my youngest) starts with the same sound as 'Munching Mike'."

My pet store sells feathers, they are generally for canaries/finches to use for nesting so I would imagine they would be clean. They are probably not a good idea though as the chicks will poop them up quickly and they could get stuck to them. A better bet would be some wood shavings

Unfortunately $6000 is just not an option for us especially if I'm stopping work to care for them, we just don't have that sort of money spare, even on a payment plan. If we had that sort of money we would have sent him to a private pre-prep. I'll have a look into what programs are available within our financial abilities.

Yes Elly I know my library has them, not sure if they are "Hooked On" ones but they have a good range. He loves going to the library so we'll definatey be borrowing some of them. Do the hooked on ones have notes to the parent/teacher on how to use them? When I was a kid phonics wasn't taught much and to be honest it's a concept I'm struggling with, now when Alex asks me a question about something sciencey I'm set but ask me to teac him to read and I feel like a fish out of water. It was one of my best subjects in high school, but it was a long time ago when I learnt to read and I really picked it up easily because I had an interest in it. However Alex is too 'busy' to sit still and learn to read.

Thanks Erin, we have a few phonics readers already but it's actually me that has trouble teaching them. What I need is a little instruction book that tells me how to teach him to read in simple steps

I think homeschooling is much more common in the US than it is here but they are around, you just have to look for them We have some very good online groups and even a Yahoo group for defence force homeschoolers

That's Exactly what I have in mind Elly At this stage I'm still working so he will stay in full day kinder atleast for another couple of months but I want to be all set up and prepared because otherwise it will be chaos :hap: Since this has turned into a more general interest topic I'll expand a bit on my plans What I want to do is have a theme each week, so the theme might be weather or africa or maps or reptiles, etc. Then we will spend the first day of each week planning our week, the boys will be involved in this process, helping to decide on an excursion (not necessarily a costly one but something that fits with the theme if possible), talking about the different aspects of the topic and what he wants to find out about. Then the second day the boys will have a day at kinder/creche so I can do a bit of research/organisation and they can have some time socialising. During that day I'll hunt out worksheets for that theme. I plan to incorporate aspects of numeracy and literacy into each theme in subtle ways (since Alex tends to get bored with pure maths and reading) I suspect that once Alex can read for himself he'll become a sponge for books so I'm hoping to get him reading as quickly as possible. Oh and Neat, you didn't ruffle any feathers It's a common misconception that homeschool kids are sort of shut away from society a bit and can be lacking on the social side of things but it really is what you make it and how you choose to do it

Yeah I know we call them different things in the different states. He is in 4 year old kinder (the year before prep). He shouldn't be in 4yr old kinder yet but he was bored in three year old kinder, now we are facing the issue of him having to do a whole nother year of 4 year old kinder again. We looked into schools that do pre-prep but they are all private schools and we really can't afford it I'd just like to say for all those worried about the social side of homeschooling, homeschooled kids can have a great social life. There are heaps of groups for homeschool kids, as well as sport, music and some of the science education centres around here run special programs for homeschooled kids too. We are a very outgoing family and the kids get heaps of opportunity for social interaction which is why they are such outgoing kids, I am not at all concerned about this side of their development

Sooty and Sweep

He has a lot of work books already which he enjoys Our only other option is to get a school readiness assessment plus an IQ test done. The problem is that we are looking at alot of money to get these tests done and we can't afford it at the moment and it needs to be done before September In Vic he needs to turn 5 before the end of April and he turns five on the 2nd of June, so it's only one month. Wow, so if we moved to NSW he would be in school next year

The way I see it if she was flying around in the aviary you wouldn't have even noticed the poop issue, so if she seems perfect otherwise go for it

Does she seem well in general? As with humns and any other animal there will always be some who's bodies seem to work just slightly differently from the rest. If you have tested her for everything possible I'd give her a shot in the aviary, sometimes there is always something not as it should be and it's not anything contagious.

I don't have chicks in that aviary so no worries there They don't seem to poop in it very often as it is well away from their perches in the flight area of the aviary. I wash it out once a week and more often if it needs it

I hadn't thought of Kumon, there is a centre in Montmorency which does preschool age groups and correspondence also. Do you know how much it costs? I had a look at their site but it doesn't really say.

I think that soccer player is playing as a true greek olympian...naked

In Vic it is compulsory that your children are educated, that does not have t happen in a 'school' so homeschooling counts They are going to start registering homeschooled kids down here soon which will mean that those homeschooling can recieve the things that other families get like the school starter payment which is to help with the cost of books, etc. It is actually not me mainly that wants him to go next year, he's my baby He has got out of bed every morning for the last six months and asked me if he can go to school today I have a lot of those internet worksheets Elly They are great for "lessons" but what he really loves is being able to go to his bookshelf and pick out something to read. Magic I would LOVE anything you had, especially on guiding literacy and numeracy, I'm feeling a bit lost in the way of how to get started on these things with him so some guidance, even if it is aimed at older kids would be great

The tough thing is he is actually only too young by about four weeks which is why things are so hard. He was in the room at kinder with the kids who will be going to school in 2010 but he just got bored, his kinder teacher does feel that from an emotional/social point of view he is ready I come from a long line of gifted kids, some who've excelled and some who've crashed and burned so I'm pretty careful about this whole thing. I will definately make sure he doesn't miss out on the social side by homeschooling him, I plan to enrol him in a short day kinder one or two days a week so he still has friends He is just desperate to turn six because he wants to be a scout

Best bet are those kids non-toxic felt tip textas Also you can use a 6B pencil, they are much softer than a regular pencil so you can write without putting much pressure

All your hens will be cinnamon, about half the males will(in theory anyway), all chicks will be opaline, chicks may be sky or cobalt and about half willbe yellowface. I'm not sure how dom pied works soeone else will have to tell you that

Just make sure with those largre cages that the bar spacing is less than about 15mm at the most As Jodie said, the bigger the better

Soccer: These ar spectators

Well Elly the kinder teacher thinks he is ready to go to school next year, he is actually in the 4 year old kinder at the moment even though he really should be in the three year old kinder, because he needed more than what the littlies kinder could offer as far as keeping his brain busy. The kinder he attends is an all day kinder through a large childcare company who may or may not have been in the news alot lately. They have a head office ruling apparently that they won't write recommendation letters. Wthout said letter from his kinder teacher he can't get assessed for early school entry. I'm not too worried, I think a year at home with me to get him focused could do him good anyway and if at the end of that he needs to go into grade one anyway it's no great loss, if he ends up in prep hopefully that year will have just given him a bit more focus, etc.