Our first week - a review

We are now a week into the Tassie school term & I feel the need to document what's happened in that time.  I'm not diarising our days or anything like that at this point, but I know how easy it is for one day to blend into another & to forget the moments along the way.

The start of term meant a return to the activities of last year, plus new ones.  Jasmine has gone back to her beloved Contemporary Dance classes, along with a few of the same kids from last year & a couple of newbies.

Last year she was doing Wrigglers, which is a gymnastics class for 3-5yo's.  After a year and a half of that, it was time to move up.  She tried the older FunGym group last year, but had a breakdown during one of the classes when asked by the instructor to do something she wasn't ready to do & she vowed never to go back.  We talked about it for a while & she agreed to return to the Wrigglers group for the rest of the year.  She was happy again, except for the times the FunGym instructor was standing in for her regular Wrigglers instructor.  As soon as she saw him, she froze & refused to move a step further.  It really was like a PTSD reaction.  Because of all of that, she really didn't want to move up to FunGym this year.  Her best apparatus was the trampoline (and she loves using her tramp at home), so this year she's started Bouncers, which will eventually lead on to more advanced tramp skills if she decides to stay with it.  She seemed to enjoy the first class, despite dripping with sweat, looking like a beetroot & feeling "completely exhausted".  She had spent a couple of hours before that playing with her favourite friends, so it had been quite an afternoon for her.

For the trifecta, Jasmine started ballet classes today.  Dancing and performing are such a big part of her life, so after a couple of years of being hassled about ballet lessons (she insists she's going to be a ballerina when she grows up), I finally agreed.  Her genetic makeup means she's never going to be built like a ballerina, but there's a strong family history of dancers and her technique really is impressive.  I'm sure she'll grace many a stage in her lifetime :)

Now, driving to classes three times a week has seen the return of auto-education.  No, not exactly autodidactic education - more education in an automobile ;)  For some reason, that drive to the sports centre always inspires a barrage of questions and observations on all sorts of topics.  Thankfully, I know enough to answer most questions as they're asked.  For the others - well, there's the internet when we get home :)

Things covered this week include:

• Tell me how bones work (this is the lead-in to all questions on human anatomy & physiology)
• How does the eye work again?  Why is there a cord going into the brain from the eye?
• Why is the television tower so much bigger than the telephone tower?
• Tell me how rain works again (following on from a conversation we had about evapotranspiration the other night whilst watching juices drip off the chicken roasting on the rotisserie)
• Why did you take your hands off the wheel when you were explaining that to me? (Ooops!!!  I'm sure I was Italian in a past life ;) )
• Why are some clouds darker than others?
• How do we make water? (and the mention of oxygen was followed with, "and when we breathe out, the trees breathe in")
• Why aren't there any more dinosaurs? (the dinosaur phase has just started, following on from a fossil obsession)
• Why do flies have worms in them? (after squashing a fly she found in her room birthing maggots - noice!)
• How was the Earth made?
• Why do we blink?

There were lots of others, but I really need to carry a notebook around with me so I can make notes before the next dozen questions make me forget.  One thing that did make me smile was listening to D teach Jasmine the rules of Chess.  He just bought a set so they can play it together. 

The kitchen plays a big part in education around here, too.  Jasmine loves to cook!  Sometimes it's pure experimentation - with some rather inedible results - but other times she presents something really impressive, of which she's super-proud :D  We're basically a family of diabetics, so I try to limit sweet stuff when I can, but this week we made meringues.  I admit - I have a weakness for them (and fond memories of my mum & nanna making them), so it was hard to say no when badgered into it ;)  Jasmine was really interested to know why we used caster sugar instead of regular granulated sugar and why we added it gradually instead of all at once.  She also understood that we had to handle the mixture carefully so as not to remove to much of the air we'd just spent all that time beating into the egg whites.  It was also a lesson in the fickleness of natural food colourings, as the pink food colouring turned purple when it name into contact with the egg protein.

Homemade pizzas are always a hit here (although unfortunately, they're gluten-free these days - just not the same).  She knows too much cheese will result in a soggy pizza, so she's really getting the hang of just the right proportions and distributions of toppings.  It's always a good time to discuss fractions, too ;)  Now, she didn't admit to this, but I'm SURE I heard her say this (repeatedly) as she was oh-so-artistically scattering the toppings: "A little dash of this!  A little dash of that!  A little dash of evil!"  So THAT's her secret ingredient?!?    o_O

Tomorrow is a much-needed downtime day.  As much as she loves seeing friends & doing the classes, she does share my homebody tendencies & just craves some time to chill out rather than go out.  We'll probably pop down to the fruit & veg shop at some point as she's hanging out to make some soup, but apart from that, we're both looking forward to a quiet one.  Then on Friday, we're going to check out the local homeschool group that meets once a month.  We always had something on at the same time last year, so never had the chance to go before.  We're meeting up with Mummy Snow and the Snowflakes and I know a couple of other people likely to be there, so hopefully a good time will be had by all!

But now, I am being called to the bathroom for the umpteenth time since sitting down to write this.  Last time I checked in on her, she was shaving her legs with a toothbrush.  Who knows what she's going to be doing now.....