This is a video Esther made many years ago, before we moved to New Zealand. She did a short tour of our farm, plus some fun bits of her brothers playing. This is quite a keepsake to us; we love to watch it every so often.
Back to Kaikoura!
The highway to Kaikoura was closed just before Easter, when we had two back-to-back cyclones. The cliffs that were already weakened from the earthquake did some more slipping, and a hillside that hadn’t moved before came down. We had about given up hope of getting to church in Kaikoura before leaving on our trip to America, so we were quite happy to learn that the road was to be opened for a week and a half over our last weekend in New Zealand! It was wonderful to get to see our friends there again, after missing 10 Sundays there.
We had to stop at a light near Barney’s Rock, which gave us a good look at a slip that happened during the earthquake in November.
This hillside slipped more in April.
During one of the cyclones, this hillside slipped so much more that the containers, which are filled with rocks, chained together, and bolted to the cliff, were being pushed out to sea. Five of the containers were unhooked and removed so they wouldn’t be lost.
The new slip. They built a new one-lane road over the seabed for temporary traffic.
We were impressed with the size of the boulder that obviously hit this container. I wouldn’t have wanted to be in the way when it came down!
May 2017
And the rest of the pictures from May! This is a fairly common sight in the morning; here Mr. Inventor is doing his typing lesson while his cat keeps him company, and Mr. Sweetie is trying to get himself started on his Math in a cozy spot in front of the fire.
After a heavy rain, the underground cistern overflowed, so Mr. Imagination and Little Miss had great fun playing in the puddle one morning. Great fun, that is, until she got muddy—see the picture below! Then, she was done. Because the cistern was overflowing, and we had no need for the water, I let the boys pump it out to the duck pond. They forgot to turn the pump off at bedtime, though, and Esther discovered it sucking air the next afternoon when we were away! Oops. It’s refilled now, though. Quite a contrast to a few months ago, when we were saving water in every way we could. We’re so thankful for rain!
Mr. Sweetie was playing with a candle one day. The wick was long enough he was able to get it to curl around like this, and he wanted to take a picture of it.
On chilly days, the fire is a main focal point.
I’m not sure what these two were up to. They made a line of the Childcraft books along the hallway. And the blankets wrapped around them? I don’t have a clue!
Mr. Sweetie and Mr. Imagination again.
Product Review—MarshMedia
Some reviews are more popular around here than others. When I first read the description of MarshMedia, I was not interested. Then, I got an email virtually begging for more reviewers, so, reluctantly, I signed up. We have been watching a movie a day while we eat lunch, as we have time. It tends to be difficult to find time for movies in our house. 
MarshMedia offers short (15-20 minute) videos on various topics for schools to use in their health education programs. They have 54 vidoes about hygiene, health, puberty education, safety, immune system disorders, head lice, nutrition, etc. Though MarshMedia has offered their videos to schools up to this point, they are now wanting to reach out to the homeschool community. If you wish to take advantage of the opportunity to introduce the MarshMedia curriculum to your home schooler click on this link for more information: https://marshmedia.com/pages/homeschools
There are the most about puberty, a few of which I have watched. We also watched a couple from the hygeine topics. The one about protecting your hearing was unanimously voted boring, unfortunately. So was the one about head lice, although there was some interest, since a family we know had problems with them recently. Once I discovered the Character Education movies, though, under the Guidance tab, there was more interest in watching these. The Character Education ones each feature an animal who acts in pretty natural ways as he narrates the story. Stanley’s This is the Life was about a bear who found a snack inside a camper whose door was left open, and found himself transported to a place far from his mountain home. He discovered a drive-in theater and found lots of food there, but after awhile he realized that he wasn’t feeling good anymore. The moral of the story is obvious! Feathers at Las Flores was a fun story about a talking parrot at a cafe in Florida who repeats what he hears—with disastrous results. We found it quite funny, and I was able to refer to the story when one of my sons was tempted to gossip a day or two after watching it. We also watched Inger’s Promise, about a reindeer in Lapland who learned to be reliable. The best part of that one was the glimpse at life in a fascinating culture. These movies are not quite animated, but almost; the camera zooms in and out on a painting, and moves around the painting or from one illustration to another, as the story is narrated. The pictures are lovely and fairly realistic.
As I said, I watched a few of the Puberty videos myself. I wasn’t comfortable with showing them to my boys. They aren’t very explicit, but there are line drawings of undressed people, showing the changes that occur in the human body as they mature. One thing I did appreciate about the one, A Baby is Born, was a quote near the end. It was something about that you are born either a boy or a girl and cannot change that. Not politically correct now, it seems, but certainly the truth!
My personal opinion? If you want or need to come up with a health education course, MarshMedia’s videos would be a great resource. For our family, they aren’t very helpful. Take a look and see what you think!
Product Review—K5 Learning
My 5-year-old has been asking for school, and begging me to teach him to read. I’ve given him the attention I could, but I wasn’t sure he was really ready to learn to read, so I haven’t been pushing him at all. When the opportunity arose to review K5 Learning, I showed it to him and asked him if he wanted to try it. He was excited to do this online program, and couldn’t wait till I got the information about logging in to do it. He faithfully does his “school on the computer” every day, and wants to do the worksheets, too. 
There are three parts to the K5 Learning. Mr. Imagination has only been using the Reading and Math; he’s too young for the Spelling. He is doing very well with the Math part. I usually just let him do it by himself, because I’m busy helping the older boys with their schoolwork when he does it in the morning, but a couple of afternoons when I’ve been working in the kitchen he has wanted to do his school, so I’ve gotten to observe. I couldn’t believe what he was able to do! He was supposed to put numbers in order the one time, and they gave him 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, and 95. He did it correctly without hesitation. He was also supposed to use the greater than and less than symbols (> and <) that day. He had a little more trouble with that, but caught on pretty quickly. Yesterday he was working on addition on it, and when he finished he came running into the kitchen saying, “Two plus two is four!” I quizzed him on a few other simple facts and he figured them out pretty fast, too.
On the other hand, he’s having more trouble with the Reading section. I can’t tell that he’s really learned much there although he picked up rhyming words very fast from working with them on there. I’m guessing he is dyslexic and that reading will be a little harder for him. It does seem like K5 Learning does not start at the very beginning; my impression is that even Kindergarten starts with some prior experience presupposed. They do say they are a supplementary course, rather than a complete curriculum. My impression is that they spend more time working on sight words than phonics.
There are worksheets to go with each lesson. You can actually use the worksheets without having an account. Mr. Imagination loves doing them, and has done very well. On the sign-in page, worksheets are suggested based on the lessons the child has been doing recently. (It looks, though like he didn’t understand what he was supposed to be doing on the one page here!)
In my opinion, if you have a child who wants to play games on the computer, and you want them to be doing something educational, K5 Learning would be a good choice. As a replacement for other schoolwork, I don’t think it’s a very good choice. One thing that would make it a lot better would be the ability to choose the lessons you want your child to do, and to be able to start them where you want them. As it is, if you want them to be working at a different level from where the program puts them, you have to contact the website. I did do that when Mr. Imagination started out, because the math he was being given was too advanced for him. I asked them to reset him at the beginning of Kindergarten (he had tested between Low Kindergarten and Low 1st grade for reading, and Intermediate Kindergarten to Low 1st on their assessment), but when he got on again the next time he was still at the same place he had been before.
Mr. Sweetie has also used K5 Learning a few times. He mainly does in the evening after his chores are done, when he feels like playing on the computer. He has mostly done the reading part. He’s been given exercises like finding the main idea of a paragraph, or figuring out the meaning of words. They spent a lot of time having him do reading comprehension exercises. I did enjoy the opportunity to have him do the assessment and get a bit of an idea where he is academically. He tested from just below to well above grade level in the various areas they tested. Nice to know he’s average!
Since I don’t have anyone doing the spelling part, I took a look at it myself. There were two areas to choose from, Vocabulary Tutor and Spelling Tutor. In Vocabulary Tutor, you are given a definition and a sample sentence, and must determine what the word is. They do give you dashes to show how many letters are in the word. The Spelling Tutor is similar, except that they pronounce the word for you. In both cases, you have to spell the word correctly before moving on. They seem to be coordinated; for example, I misspelled a word on the Vocabulary part, and that was the first word when I switched to the spelling part.
My final opinion: There are pros and cons to K5 Learning. I like that it is self-directed; I don’t have to help my boys with it much at all. When they want to play something on the computer, they have an educational activity to do. I don’t like that it is sight-word based rather than phonetic. Also, you must keep in mind that it is not a complete curriculum, but supplementary. The part I don’t like about using as a supplement is that you can’t choose the lessons you want them to do. If you’re interested in seeing if this program is a good fit for your family, they offer a 14-day free trial. Up to four students are allowed per account.
Little Miss in May
This is a busy little girl. She’s always looking for things to do, especially if they feel like she’s helping with something. Here, she found the tomatillos I had just washed, and spent about half an hour transferring them from one container to another and back again.
Little Miss is happy—but is the cat as happy? This cat is extremely tolerant of her tormenter. She’s only scratched Little Miss a couple of times, and she is mauled daily and hauled around a lot.
Two little people in a boat!
This little girl doesn’t like having her hair in ponytails. I put the rubberbands in to go to church, and tell her she can’t take them out till after church, and she mostly leaves them. One day, she brought me five rubberbands and wanted them all put in! Silly girl. They didn’t last long, though; she soon pulled them out.
“Want to take this book to ‘Merica! Read it wif Gamma.” She has no idea what an airplane is, but she’s pretty excited about the upcoming trip.
She got one of my coverings out of my drawer and put it on. She was pretty pleased with herself!
She unloaded an entire shelf of books the other day, onto the couch. When I told her she would need to put them away, she sat herself down and said she had to read all of them first.
Busy Boys
My boys know how to keep themselves busy. Here are a few of the projects they’ve been doing lately. Mr. Inventor built this tandem bicycle. He cut apart a couple of bikes and welded them back together. The boys love it; they can hook a trailer to it and with two of them peddling they can carry quite a load.
Counting down…till we fly to America. This was a few weeks ago; the chains are pretty short now!
Mr. Diligence made a cross, and Mr. Intellectual engraved Seth’s name and dates on it, to temporarily mark the grave until we get a proper headstone.
Mr. Diligence researching something.
Some of the busyness is not serious—sometimes they pull shenanigans like this! It took Mr. Intellectual quite awhile and a bit of help to free himself.
Mr. Inventor spent one morning trimming trees so he could mow under them.
The loggers. Mr. Inventor cut these logs across the road, and they hauled them home this way!
Mowing lawn one last time before we leave. He didn’t want to rake up the grass clippings, so he used the bag and pulled a wheelbarrow tub around to put the grass in so he didn’t have to walk to the other side of the yard every time it was full.
April 2017 Pictures
Time to get caught up with the random pictures!
Remember that post I did about salsa? After I added all the other ingredients, I ended up with two pots full!
Does Little Miss look like she has gained some weight? We were given a big boxful of shoes, gumboots, and a few dresses, her size or a little smaller. She wanted to wear all the dresses at once, so she has five dresses on in this picture!
One afternoon when everyone was away except her and me, she found this sunflower head and sat herself down to pick the seeds out. She got a handful before she got tired of it.
Yes, this is me laughing. I had sent a text to Gayle at work, and although he got an advertising text sent him just before that, he didn’t see mine. So, I sent him another, and we were all laughing about the ridiculousness of the whole thing.
Gayle reading my text.
One of our favorite meals—straw hats.
Little Miss
What to do with an empty chips bag—tape it shut tightly, then pop it with a bang! Boys….
We didn’t have a hard frost till early May, but I picked all the peppers the end of April. These were all from the greenhouse. I was astounded; I hadn’t thought they did so well this year!
This silly cat is always looking for a new spot to sleep.
I’m fixing my bicycle!
Gayle took the boys to the beach to get some sand, so the sandbox is full again. It’s been quite popular—although I’m glad the main popularity only lasted a couple of days; a lot was tracked into the house during those days.
Mr. Diligence and Little Miss mowing lawn.
Mr. Inventor, Little Miss, and Mr. Diligence all mowing at once.
Evening Walk
We don’t have enough grass here for our animals, so we graze the cow on the roadside during the day. We bring her home every evening before dark, to milk her and keep her in our paddock overnight. Seth always used to bring her home, and after he died Mr. Intellectual took over the job. One day around the first of February, though, I went to get her when everyone else was away and decided it would be a good way to get my daily walk in. I do it when I have time in the evening. Usually I take Little Miss in her stroller, but one evening in April I invited Mr. Imagination to go along instead. He was thrilled to get to go, and rode his bicycle ahead of me. One treat was seeing the moon rising over the hills to our east, the other side of Cheviot.
There’s our cow, waiting for us!
Product Review—The Typing Coach
I have been trying to teach my boys touch typing for a long time now. Esther learned when we still lived in America, using an old typing book I had picked up somewhere. It was very similar to the way I had learned, and really worked. The boys have been using a variety of computer programs, and none of them was working as well as I thought they should. I had been thinking about finding something else, so when The Typing Coach Online Typing Course, from The Typing Coach, was offered for review, I jumped at the chance. Mr. Intellectual has been using it for five or six weeks now, and he is really happy that he got to. 
This program is quite different from the other online typing programs I’ve seen. It took awhile for Mr. Intellectual to get started with it, because there is a lot of introductory material to get through. To start out, you read a brief introduction, then watch a video introducing the method used in The Typing Coach. After that, you are asked to print several documents, which contain the passages you’ll be typing for practice, and then watch another, much longer video explaining how the course works. It took my boy several days to get through all that! The last step before actually learning to type is to do the Before and After Snapshot—type the Gettysburg Address for three minutes and take a screenshot of your results.
Finally, you’re ready to start the first lesson. That covers good posture while typing (mine isn’t very good all the time, to be honest). The second lesson covers the home row. It begins with an audio in which the instructor tells you where to have each finger and what letters to type. Then, you practice, using the student packet you printed out earlier, until you can get through several lines without a mistake. When you feel ready, take a test. You will not pass the test until you have 100% accuracy! The big difference I’m seeing between The Typing Coach and the other programs we’ve tried is that you are not to look at the screen. You are to keep your eyes on the paper you’re copying from. While you listen to the audio, of course, you won’t see anything on the screen, either. You are to type in a word processing program, such as Microsoft Word or Google Docs. That makes it work much like real life.
Does it work? Yes, at least for Mr. Intellectual! He already knew how to touch type, but was very slow and not accurate. He had been averaging 6-10 words per minute, with several errors. Today, when he did the Top Row Learning Check in The Typing Coach, he typed 11 words in 40 seconds, with no errors. He’s pretty happy to be able to type faster. In fact, when he writes stories, he is now typing them rather than using a speech-to-text program! I will probably be using this program for some of my other children in the future (you don’t want to use it with children much younger than about sixth grade, unless you have time to help them through it). One thing I really appreciated is that Mr. Intellectual was able to do this program pretty much on his own.
We did have some frustrations with this course. At first, the website seemed pretty clunky and hard to navigate. After playing around with it and looking closer at everything, we found what we needed, though. We did notice that things were changed as we used it, and it’s actually much better than it was before. Another frustration was that you have to wait two days, to the minute, before retaking a test that you have failed. That is especially aggravating when you’ve left Caps Lock on accidentally! We did find a way around that, though; if you enter a different name you can retake it immediately, so my boy used his middle name a couple of times. However—remember that the purpose of this course is to teach mastery and accuracy! That is why the rule about not doing the test again immediately. You are to practice and practice until you are absolutely accurate. 
The suggested pace is a lesson a week for ten weeks. Mr. Intellectual hasn’t quite held to that pace, because life is pretty crazy around here; he’s finishing lesson 3 right now. We’ve had a lot of days we had to take off school to go to Christchurch for appointments, or other life happenings, including our upcoming trip to America. He has learned a lot, though, and plans to finish the course after we get home. I highly recommend this course for anyone who wants to improve their typing speed or accuracy, but you will have to have the patience to figure out the course.
To read what 100 reviewers think about The Typing Coach, click here: