Monday, July 05, 2010

Our week of learning - 4th July - Submarines, Silliness and Stars


We went to Sydney for 4 days this week which was just chock full of fun, hands-on learning. 

English:


Current Readaloud: "Misery guts" by Morris Gleitzman (finally finished!), and "How the aliens from Alpha Centauri invaded my maths class and turned me into a writer and how you can be one too" by Jackie French.

How the Aliens from Alpha Cent  Misery Guts


Audio books:  "Sam Hawkins: Pirate Detective" by Ian Billings

Independent Reading: - "Crackle" by Margaret Clark, "Psycho Gran" by Christine Harris.

OtherBilly spent time on Spellodrome and earnt a weekly certificate.

Maths: He also spent an hour on Mathletics and earnt a weekly certificate.  He watched a couple of videos I found online about "borrowing or regrouping" in subtraction.  Hopefully those couple of explanations will make it easier for him to understand than just my explanation!

Science & Technology: Our trip to Sydney included a trip to the Sydney Observatory.  We got to look through 2 telescopes and see Mars, Saturn & Venus, as well as the binary star Alpha Centauri.  We also were shown how to identify constellations like the Southern Cross, and watched 2 3D short films about space.  On another trip, we'll have to take a daytime visit so we can spend more time in the museum part - we barely scraped the surface in the 15 mins before the night tour.   (Photo from the Sydney Observatory website).

We also went for a quick trip to the Powerhouse museum where once again, we barely made it out of the science section!

HSIE (Human Society and it's environment): One of the highlights of our trip to Sydney was a trip to the Australian National Maritime Museum.  Our visit included a tour of the submarine HMAS Onslow, and a tour of the replica of Captain Cook's Endeavour.




Creative & Practical Arts: We also went to see 'Just Macbeth' at the Sydney Opera House.  It's a version of Macbeth by Andy Griffiths, aimed at introducing kids to Shakespeare.  It was hilarious and we all loved it. I knew Billy would because we'd listened to the audio book together, but I didn't expect to enjoy it so much myself! Check out the promo below:

PDHPE (Personal Development, Health & Physical Education): Martial arts and lots of walking!

Life skills (cooking, gardening, housekeeping): We weren't home long enough!


Other fun stuff: Playing with friends at the natural learner's picnic.

I'll be giving the recording a break for a couple of weeks while we have "school holidays" here in NSW.

3 comments:

Butterfly said...

How cool to explore inside a submarine!!

Life skills ... train travel, urban survival tactics, restaurant etiquette? Just being cheeky!

Glad to hear your MIL is safely through surgery. Enjoy your holidays.

:) Vanessa

Suji said...

Awesome photos :) Looks like loads of fun was had by all.

"bouroged"? LOL

Kez said...

Vanessa - yes, it was cool. Rather cramped though :) And yes, all of those life skills!

Suji - I think you may have invented a new term - not sure how to pronounce it though :)