Sunday, July 21, 2013

The last few weeks...

A few photos to catch you up on what we've been doing lately.

We've done a few more geocaches and seen some lovely sights like this pair of swans.

AFL season is drawing to a close - 3 more games to go.

Billy has started Scouts officially - here they were making a very wonky tables with knots.

He was invested into his Scout group - now I have to sew his badges on his shirt!


My writer's conference is coming up very quickly for me - in mid-August. It's in Western Australia, so we're making it a family holiday and hiring a motorhome for a couple of weeks afterwards. We've made our itinerary - it'll be a busy holiday but we're looking forward to it.

Sunday, July 07, 2013

Geocaching!

We have a new obsession - geocaching. To use the official definition - "Geocaching is a free real-world outdoor treasure hunt. Players try to locate hidden containers, called geocaches, using a smartphone or GPS and can then share their experiences online."

We're just using my phone as the GPS with the official app. We headed out yesterday with the plan to find 2 caches.

The first location is only a few minutes from our home at this lovely wetlands area. I've actually walked in this area before with a friend but it was Billy's first time there.




We spent over an hour looking for the cache but to no avail! However, we did get up close and personal with a mob of kangaroos who decided to bound past about 5 metres away from where we were.


Eventually we gave up and headed off to the 2nd cache. Our bad luck continued - we were walking to the spot when my phone battery died. We had a quick look around where we thought it might be, but didn't find anything.

We headed home disappointed...

Undaunted, we went back out today. We went to the 2nd site first and found the cache easily. That cheered us up!



While we were there, we decided to play tourist in our own town and went for a ride on the mini train around the lake :)



After our success, we headed back for the original cache and found it within a couple of minutes - and yes, we had been searching very close to it!

We're already planning our next search! It's great fun, good exercise, out in the fresh air and we get to see some lovely places. What's not to like?!


Thursday, July 04, 2013

Homeschooling Monthly Memories - June 2013


Cubs / Scouts 'Curriculum':
Test-driving the hoses at the Rural Fire Service
On the fire trucks
  • Billy has been transitioning to Scouts this last month so he's been attending both Cub and Scout meetings. He's now officially finished as a Cub.
  • He successfully led his Grey Wolf hike
  • He completed his International Culture badge looking at the Maori culture. 
  • Other activities have included: a trip to a Rural Fire Station, map & compass work, geocaching, knots, learning about latitudes, longitudes and the circumference of the earth. Also took part in phone book deliveries with Scouts for fundraising.
 
Intentional Learning:

Creative Arts




  • Part 2 of the Zombie movie. He's busy editing it now.
  • The usual drama classes. Plus Drama class presentation to family & friends.
  • Singing lessons
HSIE




  • Australian History
    • We finished reading "The Girl from Snowy River" by Jackie French set in the 1920s.
    • We're now reading "A Waltz for Matilda" by Jackie French (the previous book in the series)
  • As part of his Cubs International Culture badge, he did a Maori drawing using ochre, and made a replica bird spear and model of club.
  • Avidly followed the leadership spill in politics.

Maths
  • He continued using the Mathletics curriculum.
  • Real-life use of Maths in cooking
Science & Technology
  • Created animations using Mine-imator (3d animation software for Minecraft)
  • Learnt how to create animated gifs using Photoshop
  • Learnt various Photoshop techniques
  • Looked at the Supermoon and learnt more about it.
English

  • Finished his story and submitted it for the Write Now competition
  • Reading "Macbeth and son" by Jackie French, based around the possible history of Shakespeare's Macbeth.

 PDHPE






  • AFL / AFL training
  • Archery
  • Mt Sugarloaf hike


As well as plenty of time spent hanging out with friends and family.