7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol 25)

1
My brother Callan(19) and his mate Ben were staying for a few days this week. Having a very small house we installed them in a tent. Well they left the fly open during the night and Callan woke up to see 3 chooks in the tent, one on his bag, one on the end of his bed and the other on Ben’s chest. He softly calls out to Ben to wake up. Imagine poor Ben’s fright to wake up with a chook that close to his face! Callan laughed and laughed as Ben ran in fright from the tent. (I do believe the tent was zipped the next night;)

2
For the past several weeks I have been giving Aussie Book Threads a massive overhaul. There are lots of new pages, with lots of categories. I have sorted the books into in print and out of print. I’m pretty happy with the result, my next task is to add more in print Australian picture books to the lists. And for those of you who are under the misapprehension that Aussie Books lists only Australian books, it is not so. The majority of books listed are either in my personal library or in my own local library and we have used them for various units. So you will find books on Roman History, American History, China, Birds etc as well as Australian titles. I’d love some feedback and/or requests.

3
Michelangelo has finished reading The Fellowship of the Ring!!!! Big, big excitement here. The Lord of the Rings books have become a rite of passage for my boys, something they must do when 10. Well done Michelangelo.

4
Talking books, my friend Jane has introduced me to a new Australian site; Booko! Booko is a site with a very simple goal – to find the cheapest place to buy books & DVDs in Australia.
Booko is not an online shop. It goes out to the Internet and looks up book & DVD prices for you and figures out the shipping costs. For the international sites like the Amazons (.com and .co.uk), the prices are converted into Aussie dollars. Fantastic:)

5
Regards affordable and Australian, I stumbled across Abacus Educational Games & Puzzles. I’m considering some of their Geography range.
I find Geography games next to impossible to find.

6
Am I the only one who finds searching for file folder games overwhelming? It reminds me of my reactions when clothes shopping; its all too much, I feel like a ‘roo caught in highbeam, powerless and then I bolt. For me searching for file folders is a time waster, not only do I have trouble navigating but when I finally arrive, I’m not happy with the results. So I’m sticking with hands-on manipulatives; I went and bought a couple of new card sets this week.

7
I’ve recently received some lovely comments from readers. I want to thank you:) Not only do you make me smile but be assured that I follow your link to visit you. I’ve recently added a few new blogs to my google reader;) If you read here regularly, or infrequently, I love to hear from you.

Bonus
We are eagerly looking forward to PC’s arrival home today:) He has been at a conference in Sydney enjoying the luxuriousness of 5 Star accommodation. A bit of a change coming home;) But I know he’d rather be with us:) He is on the road as I type, we’ll be praying until he arrives safely, 7 hours on the highway always worries me. Actually the highway he travels everyday worries me. St Christopher protect him.

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