Our week of learning - 7th Feb 2010 - Macbeth & Robots!

We've had a bit of a theme of Robots going on this week. Billy decided he wanted to learn more about them, so that's the direction we've headed (as well as a lot of other bunny trails).

Current Readaloud: The Lemonade Trick, Five on a Treasure Island

Audio books: Billy listens to audio books every night as he goes to sleep, plus on his music player and sometimes in the car, so I thought I'd start recording what he listens to.

We've been listening to Andy Griffith's "Just Macbeth" in the car - an adaptation of the "Scottish play" for younger audiences - basically add fart jokes into Macbeth and you've got the idea! It's actually very funny and well done - we'll have to keep an eye out for the stage play coming to Newcastle again. I think it toured last year but I thought he'd be too young.

He's also been listening to 'The Waterhorse' by Dick King-Smith.

English: We watched the movie 'Robots' which led to many discussions on character & plot development, as well as vocabulary work. There is a scene where Fender sings "Singin' in the Rain" so I found the original Gene Kelly sequence on YouTube and Billy watched it.

He's been reading a book of magic tricks that he got for Xmas, and then trying to do the trick by following the instructions - if that's not 'reading for comprehension' I don't know what is!!

To my great pleasure, he's been keen to actually sit and read this week - woohoo! The book that's grabbed his attention is a Jack Stalwart one: The Theft of the Samurai Sword. I like those books - they're a good mix of an easy to read chapter book with cultural information about a different country (in this case, Japan).

Maths: One of the magic tricks he learnt involved the use of parallel lines - this was a new concept for Billy so we had a discussion on those.

Science & Technology: He wanted to learn more about robots, so we got a few books out of the library. One that we've started reading together is called 'How to Build a Robot'. Obviously that meant he wanted to build one - so we trotted off to our local electronics store to see what we could find. I'd love to buy the Lego Mindstorm NXT kit but at $400+, finances just won't agree! So we ended up with a cute little sound detecting robot that we had to build. (ie I had to do the majority of the fiddly bits like building the gears and putting wires where they needed to go and he helped me with the bigger bits).


It's so cool - it turns towards the sound of your clapping and moves towards you!



He also spent some time updating his website.

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): We had a social day at Blackbutt Reserve with the natural learner's group, and had a great time going around looking at the animals.

On the weekend we spent ages looking at the mangrove eco-system and had a walk through the wetlands.

Creative & Practical Arts: Drama started back this week. He seemed to enjoy it again.

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): Little Dragons martial arts class, fishing, swimming, walking and running around at the playground.

Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): Just general contributing to the household.

School shows: Not on yet.

Other fun stuff: Joey's started back again for the year, and he's started working on his Promise badge.