No first day here...

This week held special meaning for us. Many of our 5 year old friends and a couple of nieces started school. All those First Day photos on facebook and in the media brought into focus the fact that we weren't experiencing this significant milestone, in the conventional sense at least.

While we don't have a First Day photo to share most of our regular homeschool activities resumed this week after the summer break. It felt like the start of the homeschool year for us. Last year, while involved in our homeschool community, we were just a family with young kids who weren't yet of 'school' age. This week we're proper homeschoolers. It's a milestone for us. Minus the uniform, packed lunches and school-run traffic.

So in lieu of that first day moment snapped in front of the school gate, here's a little wrap up of what our not back to school week looked like.

On Tuesday Dexter enjoyed a special day with his Granny Kim which included a double-decker bus tour of the city no less. We visited the library on Wednesday morning where we borrowed, among others, his favourite bridge book. Only the 3rd or 4th time we've borrowed it I believe?! (Should I just buy it for him do you think?) The afternoon was spent at the PHM, one of Dexter's favourite places in the world. And yes, it was mostly spent in the Space section. Yesterday we enjoyed our SHRIMPs (homeschool) meet at the shiny new pool (pictured above) up the road instead of the usual park. Because if you hadn't noticed folks, we're in the middle of a heat wave.

Moments after our return from the library Dex and Hugo got to work on a project to build their own cottage from a book we borrowed - Building Houses. Here's the finished cottage below. I only helped with the occasional steady hand while they applied sticky tape. Lots of sticky tape.

Remember the reading area we set up last year? It comes and goes but has made an appearance again this week, by the fish tank this time.

Another library score - Clifford Phonics CD-ROM. He enjoyed the change from Reading Eggs. Got to mix up this learning to read business!

Here are the kids as we were about to ride home from our SHRIMPs meet at the new pool. Do they look tired and hot? We're experiencing a heat wave in Sydney - and have been car-less all week. Biking everywhere we need to go. It's been 30 plus degrees each day. Seriously. We ARE hot.

We took a different route home from the pool, zig zagging back and forth in the back streets of of South Newtown and Erskineville. Truth be told I was avoiding the hills - best way to do that in our area is to stick close to the train lines. Of course train lines equal underpasses. We hung out in the deep shade of this one for a while to cool off.

The boys were excited to discover the acoustics inside were seriously awesome. So we stayed a while, shouting and singing. We were loud. Several pedestrian's and drivers turned our way and smiled. It was fun!

Echooooooooo!

Today we had ourselves a bit of a nothing day. If it had been a school day you could say we 'chucked a sickie'. (Oh, that's such an awful saying isn't it?!) We had lunch with Will at our new cafe. Cleaned the kids craft tables. Rearranged some stuff, including a fair whack of strewing (mwahahaha). Ate ice-blocks. Did NOT get on the bike. Dressed up as I don't know what.

How great is homeschooling? Or bus-, library-, museum-, pool-, bike-schooling as it were!

Wow, nice one if you read all of that! I'm done waxing lyrical about our school-free life now. We're a little bit excited. Thanks for bearing with me.