Looking Back over the Year, 2009-2010
This year (2009-2010) our main units included natural disasters,
China, biomes/animal habitats, ancient Greece (we did ancient
Egypt just before this school year officially started and before I
started this blog), flowers and apples (the last two were geared
more towards my preschooler). We also enjoyed lots of science
experiments (almost weekly) and the younger kids really enjoyed
the theme time tables.
We did a lot with geography throughout the year and really
enjoyed doing country/continent swaps with families
in Singapore, China, France, and the US. The kids were really
thrilled to see what was sent to them and we enjoyed hitting the
tourist shops to send examples from our region of the world
(aboriginal art, Australian flag stuff, a few coins, a few plastic
Australian animals, postcards, books, and tourist brochures from
our region and things like that.) It’s been a good experience for us!
It’s been a wonderful year musically. LD has come quite far with
the piano and had the wonderful great fortune to have two
months of trumpet lessons with “Uncle Peter,” the French horn
player in the wind ensemble in which I play (oboe). We played
lots of music games (see the elementary music category) which
reinforced some basic music theory for LD. We also enjoyed
dancing, singing and playing instruments together using the
kindermusik program (we did two different units, one for ED and
one for DD and LD). Oh, I just thought I’d add that DD was
begging to go to trumpet lessons too. We told her she’d have to
learn a bit of piano first and she has been sitting down at the
keyboard and demanding lessons!
DD enjoyed a fully year of dance classes, swim lessons,
kindergym and gymnastics. LD enjoyed a season of soccer,
T-Ball, swim lessons and gymnastics. He’s now enjoying the
new soccer season, but will only have three more games before
we leave. ED enjoyed a full year of Kindergym.
Finally, we really thoroughly enjoyed the Outback and Australia
in general which has been our home these past twelve years. Feel
free to look through the photos of our area (as well as Sydney and
Adelaide) in the Where We Live category.
