Kevin McCloud's Man Made Home - Documentary Review

I don't know about you, but all this talk of 'Off The Grid' stuff is not only new to us, but is also of great interest.
To live in a way that costs you the least amount of money as possible, but you can still have the things you need to live a fairly comfortable life, sounds really appealing to us.
Yes, I know it costs a bit of money to set up at first, but once you have it all done, WOW!
We want our money we earn to go to more enjoyable things than just for our home, food, power, water, that kind of things.
Any way because we don't watch regular tv, we missed this.
I only found out it had been on tv, because I shared the name of this doco with someone and they told me it had been on tv a while ago.
Never mind, better late than never :)

It was nice to see the guy of Grand Design doing something that was probably more doable for most people than most of the extravagant homes he has had on his show.

Hubby and I loved the purity of it all.
The doco is about Kevin McCloud creating his own little retreat he called The Shed.
The rules he set for himself was that it had to be all made from resources on his property or recycled stuff that someone else was throwing away.
We got to see him make a free standing fire place from an old thick metal safe.
Make gas to cook his food, from people poo. Yes you read that right :)
He makes a spa pool out of the cover from a aeroplane jet motor cover (well I think that is what it is called).
He made a lying back chair from a tractor seat and gears.
Really amazing all the things he creates.

If you are interested in 'Off The Grid' type stuff, then I recommend this one.

This Way Of Life - Documentary Review

As you know, we don't watch regular tv.
We watch a lot of dvd's and between the local dvd shop and the library we can cover a lot of areas of interest.
We all love watching movies and documentaries, and have found it is a great way of learning new information.

Any way, I came across this documentary.
Here is the blurb off the back:
As Peter hunts, trains wild horses and struggles to instill the values of independence and courage in his kids, his escalating struggle with his own father has a profound consequence for the entire Karena clan. Capturing their precipitous existence with equal parts glorious abandon and painful suspense, Peter and Colleen set up a series of makeshift camps as their brood of fearless kids ride bareback across the wild of New Zealand landscape. But ultimately, this complete immersion in another way of life reveals that the price of freedom is something that is well worth paying.

I found after watching this documentary, I nearly wanted to have my children all over again.
Not because I enjoyed child birth so much,lol.
But to raise them again, with my new perspective on life.
At first glance you see these kids running around with just pants on, long un ruly hair and no shoes, and your first thought it, wow, go put some clothes on.
But then you see their smiling faces, their calm demeanor, their closeness, and it gets you thinking, so what about the clothes.
Watching their dad (who just reminds you of a maori version of Tarzan) ride these wild horses he has tamed himself, talk about his integrity, and trying to find the balance between that and providing for his family. It just gets you thinking about everything.
This family, even though they live a simple life, have everything they need, each other, and they couldn't be any more happier for it.
I recommend this to any one interested, and you get to see some lovely scenery from our graceful country New Zealand.

Volcano Study Part One

While going for a drive into town, Miss Personality started asking questions about things we were passing in our travels.

Is Mount Maunganui a volcano?

Is it a sleeping one?

What would it look like if it erupted?

How does a volcano erupt?

Which resulted in us discussing our theories it all the way into town :)

So as per usual, when an idea starts developing in my mind, I decided to put together a bit of a Volcano study so that we could both learn more about it.

I tried to come up with as many interesting ways to open up an opportunity for Miss Personality to learn about what she was interested in.

In my researching I found a website that has free downloads of lots of different lap books.

This website has about 350 different lap books and I have used them in the past for many different things.

I found one on volcanoes and decided to incorporate it into our studies.

http://www.homeschoolshare.com/volcanoes.php

 
All these activities include a information sheet, that I asked Miss Personality to read to me, so I could help her pronounce any words she found tricky, and explained what any words mean that were new to her.
Then each information sheet came with an activity.
We try to do an activity once a day, depending on the interest level for the day :)

Then I went on You Tube or the University of You Tube as I have heard some people call it,lol.

I found an episode of The Magic School Bus on volcanoes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myUzw7ceO-I

I also found some great short clips on volcanoes.

How volcanoes work?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUWdkHPm4os

Formation of volcanic islands

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RMtuTfAqAbo

Geography Lesson - What is a volcano?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgktM2luLok

We also watched some movies on dvd about volcanoes.

And Dante's Peak.

Miss Personality also used minecraft on her ipad to create a volcano and included as much detail as she could. She proudly showed me it when she had finished, showing me the lava, fissures and even showing me the inside of the volcano and magma chambers.

I came up with a card game.

 A set of cards with all the different words that we had come across since we started learning about volcanoes.

 Made another set of cards with the meanings of the words written on them.

 Used the tiles out of our Junior Scrabble board game.

Match the word with the meaning, and then use the scrabble tiles to spell the word.

Then asked her to use some baking paper to trace the out line of New Zealand from a book with maps in it.

Then we used another book we had found in the library about volcanoes in New Zealand to help us find and label the volcanoes on the map.

                                

Since Miss Personality was starting to get a little bored and she isn't a huge fan of writing, mum wrote labels with all the volcano names on them, and Miss Personality glued them to the appropriate place on the map.

She also created a key for her map so she could also mark whether they are dormant, active or extinct.

    

So this is just what we have done so far.

If you are interested in what else we end up doing, please keep following our blog.

TO BE CONTINUED................

The Motor Camp Where We Lived For 15 Weeks

As I promised, I am doing a blog on the wonderful place that we have called home for the past 15 weeks.

It was called Pacific Park Christian Holiday Camp.
http://www.pacificpark.co.nz/

We found staying at a motor camp a great anitiation into bus living as we could still use the camping ground facilities like washing machines, showers, toilets, kitchen, BBQ area, as well as having access to a place to dump our grey & black water waste.
Washing machines and driers are coin operated, need a $1 coin and a $2 coin.
Showers are also coin operated, but you have to go buy special coins from at the office.
The other bonus was that the camping ground manager was happy to do us a weekly deal, because we were staying kind of long term, but also because it was there down time of the year being winter.
So we pretty much had the place to ourselves, which was awesome.

The other bonus to this motor camp, is it is situated right next to a block of shops with a dairy, bakery, real estate agents, and a few other shops as well.

This camping grounds has the rules of no smoking and no alcohol, which for us, made it sound like a great environment for children, as well as all these other fun things for you to be able to do with your family.

 This is the games room.

 Has air hockey, fuzz ball table, table tennis as well as a television for guests to use.

 They have all sorts of different cabins for guests to use. These are some lovely self contained family cabins.

Just over all the motor camp has just a great feel to it, and while we were there, the staff were always super helpful and Miss Personality made good friends with one of the ladies who works here and would often go and help her around the motor camp :)

The other bonus to this motor camp, is right across the road is the beach.
Papamoa has some amazing beaches, and they stretch for miles.
So if you want to be on a piece of it by yourself, you just drive along, till you find a space with no one on it, or you can go to the parts where everyone was.

So peaceful and tranquil is this place, that one of the memories we will take away, is getting to go to sleep in our bus listening to the sounds of the ocean every night :)

Bus/ Life Learning Week 15

Monday 11th August 2014

Miss Personality had a huge sleep in.
Don't like to wake her if that what she needs to do.
Plenty of time in the day to do what we need to do :)

When she finally woke up, she did all her personal jobs.

Miss Personality then decided to make T-Rex, following the downloaded You Tube tutorial. Counting how many bands of each colour she used, so mum could put together a kit for it later.

After she wrote down the amounts , used the dictionary to help spell words.

She then made a tiger strip bracelet, following the tutorial.

Watched dvd Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Shanghai Knights and Dante's Peak.
While she was watching the dvd's, she decided to make 'a daddy' using her loom bands.

Caught the bus into town, so Miss Personality could got to her Musical Theatre lesson.
Mum gave her the money so she could pay the bus driver as we hopped on the bus.

Tuesday 12th August 2014
Miss Personality must be going through some sort of growth spurt of something, as she has been doing some major sleep in's in the morning. Usually not waking up till some time between 8.30 -9am.

Mum had pulled out our magnetic words and placed them on the fridge, while Miss Personality had been sleeping.
After she had woken, Miss Personality spotted them on the fridge and started sorting them into groups, based on the extensions mum had written on the fridge.

While having breakfast, we started watching an episode of  Heston's Feast series 2.
He created a dinner party for some celebrities based on the 60's dinner party with the theme of Willy Wonka inspired food.

While Miss Personality had been having her big sleep in this morning, mum had been putting together a card game inspired by her Volcano interest lead learning she has been doing.
Mum made a set of cards with volcano words on them. Then made a 2nd set of cards with the meanings of the words on them. Incorporated the tiles from our Junior Scrabble board game.
Introduced Miss Personality to my game, and she loved it.
Match the volcano word with the meaning and then use the card with the volcano word on it to help spell the word using the scrabble tiles.

Then I asked Miss Personality to use some baking paper to trace the outline of a map of New Zealand.

Then I asked her to use another book we had found about volcanoes in New Zealand, and find them on her map. Mum created some label's, which she then had to glue on to her map, and then create a key, so she could mark whether each volcano was dormant, extinct or active.

After lunch Miss Personality watched the dvd '2012'.

Then Miss Personality did a word search on natural disasters.

Watched a couple of episodes of Horrible Histories Series 5.
We love relaxing in the camping grounds hot pools at the end of the day.
It is a great way to warm up before getting dressed into our pajamas before bed on a winter night.

Wednesday 13th August 2014
While having breakfast, watched an episode of Brainiac called History Abuse.

I asked Miss Personality to have another go at the volcano card game that I made.
She tried to negotiate on the spelling side of things, using the scrabble tiles.
But I feel that the repetition of using the scrabble tiles will help her to remember how to spell the words.

Miss Personality then decided to make a volcano on her minecraft game on the ipad.
She included as many details as she could, including lava and fissures.

Watched another episode of Brainiac - History Abuse.

Miss Personality decided to make a revised version of 'daddy'.
Using a combination of tutorials that included having hair that went on the back of his head, and gave 'dad' shorts instead of long pants as that is what dad wears all the time.


Later in the day, Miss Personality said that she had a bit of a sore tummy, so she spent the rest of the day just watching dvd's.

Thursday 14th August 2014 

Today is our last day at the motor camp.
Miss Personality is feeling a bit sad about the change, due to not getting to see the friends she has made since we have been here, as often.

She started off her day playing a couple of games on the ipad.
Then she watched a couple of episodes of Kid Detectives on dvd.
She said she still wasn't feeling 100%, could have something to do with all the changes going on.
So I let her just go with the flow of the day.

She watched a couple of episodes of Horrible Histories series 5.
Then she remembered dad making a suggestion a few days ago, of making pictures of some of the houses we have lived in. Including as much detail as she can remember. Using an app on her new laptop called Fresh Paint. So she made a picture of our house from Waihi Road.

Watched some more episodes of Kid Detectives.

Spotted the caretaker's son and daughter outside, so went and played with them for the last time, before we move.

Had dinner, then organised the bus ready to be moved.
Which meant securing everything so that when dad drove the bus, nothing would tip over or crash on to the floor.
Miss Personality was a great help making sure everything that was outside, was put back on the bus.
We also had to stop at the waste dump station at the motor camp, so we could empty out the toilet tank before we left.

Miss Personality traveled with mum in the car, while dad drove the bus.
She was very sad and I sat and quietly listened as she verbalised all her feelings about the change.
I know how it feels to just need to get it all out to someone who will listen.
It was interesting to listen to her words and slowly hear a change from, this is so sad, I don't like moving all the time, I am going to miss my friends. To change to, talking about the guinea pig at the place we will be moving to, I wonder what they eat, I will have to look that up on the internet when we get to the place we are house sitting, growing some sun flowers, and recording which one grows the fastest.
And that at the house we are house sitting, there are pet turtles, that she will get to feed and look after.
Her whole mood changed from sad to excited and happy.

Got the bus parked up and sorted at the place we are house sitting, and got to sleep safe and sound in our bus :)

Friday 15th August 2014
As much as we love our bus, we certainly enjoy and appreciate the creature comforts of home.
While we were invited to stay in the house we are house sitting, we prefer to stay in our bus, but use some of the amenities that a house provides.
So Miss Personality enjoyed using the shower in the house with out having a time limit :)
She also got to feed the turtles.

When it was mum's turn to have a shower, Miss Personality surprised me with a cuppa tea waiting for me, when I finished :)

We are allowed to use the car here, at the house we are house sitting.
So Miss Personality and I went out and bought her some ballet slippers for her Musical Theater lessons.
She loved admiring all the different costumes in the store and all the accessories.
Went to the supermarket and Miss Personality did her usual of pushing the trolley and putting all our items on the conveyor belt for the checkout operator.
Mum spotted a potato clock kit at the supermarket, so she got it for Miss Personality to do on another day.

Miss Personality helped mum unpack and put away the groceries.
Then made herself a luncheon sandwich for lunch.
Then we did the dishes together and Miss Personality spent the rest of the day watching dvd's and then she got to go into the house and watch some television programs on the tv up in the house.

Bus/ Life Learning Week 14

Monday 4th August 2014

Miss Personality read some books while eating breakfast.
They are called puzzle books, with different themes.
A bit like the Where's Wally books.

After she had finished all her personal jobs, and had a jump on the camping grounds trampoline.
I asked her to do an activity each from her 2 different lap books.

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.
http://www.homeschoolshare.com/cloudy_with_a_chance_of_meatballs.php
When we had read the book together, there were some words that she had struggled to pronounce.
So I had lightly underlined these words in the book, and asked Miss Personality to find these words in the dictionary and write/ type out the word and its meaning.
She is not a keen writer, to the point where she will just shut down and resist doing the activity.
So I have learnt that it doesn't really matter if she hand writes it or types it, as long as she is doing it.
And at the end of the day, they have to enjoy what they are doing or else, she won't retain any of it.
Learning is meant to be fun :)


Had lunch.

Then did an activity from her volcano lap book.
http://www.homeschoolshare.com/volcanoes.php

She had to draw a volcano.
Read an article - Volcanoes and the Puzzle Piece Earth.
Then cut out and create a booklet.
Included information like - How is the earth built?, Why are oceanic plates heavier?, How are volcanoes and earthquakes similar?

Lovely grandma, had managed to buy off a relative a laptop.
She then gave it to Miss Personality.
She was so excited and happy, words could not describe it.
So mum spent some of today setting it up for her.
Loading up minecraft, putting photos and videos on it that she wanted.
Especially loom band tutorials :)

Later we caught the bus into town so Miss Personality could go to Musical Theater.
Dad picked us up after he finished work and then we went to a friend of dad's, who had 3 children around Miss Personalities age. We stayed for dinner and Miss had an awesome time.

Tuesday 5th August 2014

After having breakfast, doing all her personal jobs and putting away her clean clothes from the washing mum had done the day before.
Miss Personality then went and checked the washing machines in the camp grounds laundry room to see if the wash cycle had finished.
I asked her to then put them into the dryer and put the right amount of coins in to turn them on.

Using a dictionary and ipad, Miss Personality is looking for the words and typing out the meanings of them .
There were words she couldn't find yesturday. So mum went to the library and got a better dictionary for her to use.

Then I asked her to go through the book 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs' and make a list of all the compound words she could find.

Then she did 3 pages of her maths workbook, which covered dividing by 3's, fact families and dividing by 4's & 5's.

Then Miss Personality read to me the information sheet for her next volcano activity from her lapbook called Anatomy of a Volcano. She then cut out the labels and glued them in the appropriate places on the picture of a volcano. She also coloured in her volcano.\

She then did some more minecraft on her laptop.
Later watched dvd 'Shanghia Noon' while playing games on the ipad.

Wednesday 6th August 2014
Miss Personality new we were being picked up at 8.15am, so she decided to set the alarm on her watch, so she wouldn't sleep in.
A lovely lady at the hair salon which is also a training school, asked if she could do a finger wave on mum's hair. She offered to pick us up, as we no longer had our own car.

After Miss Personality had done all her personal jobs, she decided to make a gymnast on her loom, as a way of saying thank you, to the lady who was picking us up.

While we were at the hairdressers, Miss Personality got asked if she would like to be a hair model for some of the students who were learning to be hairdressers. Which she was more than happy to do :)
Before each student could work on her hair, she had to fill out a client form.

First she got her hair braided by one student.
While she was getting he hair braided, she decided to share with them her passion, which is loom banding and minecraft. They were very patient with her while she enthusiastically chatted with them :)

 Next she got to have her hair washed at the fancy (her words) sink by a different student.

Then she got her hair blow dried by another student.
Miss Personality also tried to entice a few of the girls to buy some of her loom band bracelets.
Anybody who knows Miss Personality, knows that she is super chatty, so she just loved having all these big girls fussing over her and chatting away with her.

After all the students had finished playing with her hair, she spotted some mannequin heads that the students used to practice hair styles on.
Mum was still getting her hair done, so she asked if she could play with the mannequin head.
She put curlers in, taught herself how to do a simple plait/ braid.
Put hair ties in and created her own hair style.
Later one of the students who had blow dried her hair, showed her a book with hair styles in, and then showed her how to do a twist braid on the mannequin head.

.She had so much fun, she didn't want to leave when it was time to go home :)

When we got home, Miss Personality went and did some minecraft on her laptop, till the caretakers son came home from school. Then she went outside and played with him till it was time to have dinner.

As a part of her wind down process at bed time, she will go to bed for 30 minutes and read a book.
Her latest interest has been Harry Potter movies and books.
So when we were at the library we found audio versions of the book.
So she will listen to the book, while also following the story in the book.

Thursday 7th August 2014

Miss Personality started off her day, reading a puzzle book while eating her breakfast.
She packed all the things she would need, and then went off and had a shower in the camping grounds showers. These are coin operated, so she has to make sure she gets everything she need to get done in 5 minutes before the shower hot water turns off.
When she came back she finished all her personal jobs.

I asked Miss Personality if she could take a $50 note to the camping grounds office and ask them if they could exchange it for 4 $2 coins and 4 $1 coins plus the extra. As we needed more coins for the camping grounds washing machines. She absolutely loves running little errands like this for mum, as it gives her a sense of independence and she also gets the added bonus of being able to use up all her words, that she seems to have bursting out of her, at every chance she gets :)

When she came back, she did an activity from her Volcano lap book called  Dead, Alive or Just Sleeping.
She read to me the article that came with the activity, then for the activity, in her own words had to explain what 'Dead', 'Alive', and 'Just Sleeping', meant.

Miss Personality had a bit of a melt down when asked to tidy up her writing and to proof read her work.
It resulted in her spending some time out on her bunk bed to calm down.
We have found that when either of us starts to raise our voices in discussion, that it is time for us to walk away from each other and calm down.
We had a chat after she had calmed down.

Then mum decided that it was time to put some more fun into our day.
So I suggested playing a game of monopoly together, which Miss Personality was super happy to do.
I was very impressed with a bit of maturity that Miss Personality demonstrated while playing monopoly.
Monopoly can be a great game for some many things, like adding, subtracting, taking turns, reading, understanding a bit about owning property in regards to mortgage, working out the change to give players when buying property and many other things.
But it can also bring out some situations for them to learn other skills like the emotions that arise when you win or you lose the game.
I noticed that Miss Personality handled that fact that she wasn't winning, and did not give up.
Showed determination to see the game out to the end, even though it wasn't going her way.

I then asked Miss Personality if she could use my iphone camera to take photos of the motor camp, so that I can do a blog post about it at a later time :)

When she came back, Miss Personality had an interesting discussion with me, about the differences she had observed between the movie and the book of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

Miss Personality then used her laptop to watch a downloaded You Tube tutorial on making a Katy Perry with her loom bands.

She also did some minecraft and then went outside and played with the caretaker's son till dinner time.

Friday 8th August 2014

Miss Personality chose to start her day by watching  a dvd's today.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

After that she got out her laptop and wanted to make a butterfly with her loom band off the downloaded You Tube tutorial. She found it a bit of a challenge so changed it to making an elephant, but then she found that a bit to tricky too. So then she changed to a bunny bracelet.

Watched dvd Dante's Peak.
This is about a dormant volcano that erupts near a small town.
It was a great way to see what Miss Personality had remembered about what she had learnt about volcanoes so far. As I could here her using words like 'pyroclastic flow', and talking about lava bombs and things :)

Then she watched dvd  Shanghai Knights.

Miss Personality then made mum a bracelet using her loom band.

Then spent the rest of the day playing with the caretaker's son till dinner time :)