Grey Wolf Hike - and my new camera!

Yesterday Billy led his Grey Wolf hike at Mt Sugarloaf. He led 6 Cubs, various parents and the Cub leader successfully on the 2 hr hike (about 3 kms).

(And my new camera arrived so I finally have some better shots!)

I love this type of bush - the ferns and big rocks. Brings back great memories of hikes in my own childhood.

Firstly we went up to the Summit - as you can see it's quite steep.

The weather wasn't the best. In fact we had a shower of rain just after I took this photo. A bit of a difference to our practice hike last week.

We retraced our steps down from the summit, headed for the start of the Green Trail and stopped for morning tea. This little kookaburra decided to join us.

The green trail was much easier, winding its way through tall eucalypts.

I had to take this photo - the steps just look so inviting.

One of the parents who was with us is into geocaching. At one stage he took the kids off the beaten track to find a geocache.

Another gorgeous kookaburra joined us at the end of the hike when we stopped for lunch. He was halfway up a tall tree - I love my new camera :)

Exploring our local area - Mt Sugarloaf

As one of the last requirements of the Grey Wolf Award (the highest achievement in Cub Scouts), Billy has to lead a small group of Cubs on a 2hr hike. He's chosen the hiking trail based on website reviews and personal recommendations, and has sent the note out to his chosen Cubs, but we figured a practice hike beforehand would be a sensible idea. :)

So today we headed off to give it a test run. We took a friend and her daughter with us - the friend is a keen bushwalker so we hoped she might stop us getting lost somewhere along the line :)

The area we hiked is known as Mount Sugarloaf - a local landmark.

Firstly we walked to the summit from the carpark - about 15 mins walk. It was quite steep in places - probably to be expected for a summit - but the 360 degree views were amazing.

 

We retraced our steps back down to the carpark, then after a short detour (to look at the view of course *cough*), we found where the next trail started! When we stopped for a snack, we were supervised by these friendly kookaburras. They were pretty tame - obviously used to hanging around the BBQ area waiting for leftovers...

The trail was fairly easy walking in most places - and we managed to not get lost! (If you know my sense of direction, you know how unusual this is!)

Almost at the end of the trail, we found 'Hole Rock' - a large boulder with a hole going right through! We spent quite a while here - had a snack, climbed the rock and generally had fun.

We really enjoyed the morning and Billy feels much more confident in leading his hike next weekend.

Homeschooling monthly memories - Mar 2013

I'm not sure where March went. I know we were busy! (So busy in fact, I haven't updated the blog in that long - sorry!)

 

Cubs 'Curriculum':

• The cubs took part in 'Clean Up Australia' Day.
• He attended a weekend Cub Leadership course.
• Billy has been recently made a 'sixer', the leader of 5 or 6 other cubs. He and the other sixers in the group had to plan and run one of the nights, with each sixer getting to run 1 or 2 games each.
  

Intentional Learning:

Creative Arts

• Drama classes.
• More movie making, green screening. 
• Learning how to do image manipulation using Photoshop.
• Visit to an art show.

• Took lots of photos of the recent floods

HSIE

• Australian history
  
  • We read 'A Day to Remember' about ANZAC Day
  • We watched the Tony Robinson 'Time Walks' series where he digs into little known history of ten Australian cities.

• We're reading "Pennies for Hitler" by Jackie French about a German boy who escapes from Germany to London and is then evacuated to Australia during WW2.
• He watched lots of Brain Pop movies, BTN and BTN Specials.
• He investigated various Australian inventions.
• Lots of discussion about floods, coupled with real-life observations of the changes of water-level, speed of water, damage caused, smell afterwards etc.

Maths

• He started back on the Mathletics curriculum.
• Real-life fractions with halving recipes.

Science & Technology

• Watched episodes of Scope and Backyard Science
• We watched the International Space Station go over one night. (Gee it goes quickly!) You can see when it will be overhead using this site.
• He put together a Solar House kit.

Italian

• He's still doing Italian lessons, plus watching La Mappa Misteriosa.

English

• Reading Rangers Apprentice Book 2
• Scripted and recorded a podcast about homeschooling and sent it in to Behind The News.

PDHPE

• He's taken part in archery, martial arts and AFL training.
• Watched "My Great Big Adventure" on the ABC school shows about body image.
• Scootering and learning how to ride his skateboard.

As well as plenty of time spent hanging out with friends and family. And lots and lots of cooking with only minimal supervision.

red velvet pancakes

Turkish delight

very sad gingerbread man!

Homeschooling Monthly Memories - Nov 2012

Hmmm, somehow I seem to have missed recording what we did for some of November - but I know we were busy!  My camera is playing up so photos are in short supply. 

Cubs 'Curriculum':

• Billy completed his local history badge.
• One of the dads brought along some frames from his bee hive one night and showed the kids how they extracted the honey.  I'd never seen it done before, so I was equally as interested as they were!  (In truth, maybe more so!)  The kids all got to take home a sample of honey.

Intentional Learning:

Creative Arts

• Drama classes - they've been doing clowning this term.  Some of the exercises I've seen them do involve impromptu acts - for eg they choose a dress up item, create a clown persona around that and then have to be interviewed about their clown character.  Amazing stuff :)
• Billy has also has his keyboard out, teaching himself Jingle Bells and creating music for his videos

HSIE

• Australian history
• We finished reading Daughter of the Regiment by Jackie French
• We read Valley of Gold by Jackie French 
• Billy researched the Gold Rush for his history badge, as well as researching some local history

• He followed the US election.
• He watched lots of Brain Pop movies - I'm not sure what they were all about but I know some were about the American Indians
  

Maths

• He watched Cyberchase episodes
• He played Times Attack and we did more on the times tables from the Awesome Arithmetricks book

Science & Technology

• He's been doing more Java programming in Minecraft
• We watched a BTN Health special - discussing diabetes, vision and how sunscreen works

Italian

• He's continuing Italian lessons - clothing, vegetables and time.

PDHPE

• He's taken part in archery and martial arts
  

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

District Cub Camp 2012

Billy went on a District Cub Camp on the weekend, and once again, I went along as a parent helper.  (I was in the 'kitchen' which meant food prep, cooking and serving for ~100 people, using BBQs and gas stoves!)

Our tents set up at Clarence Town - Williams River Holiday Park

Our 6 cubs, leader and 2 Scout helpers...

joined with around 60 other Cubs, lots of leaders and helpers..

for a weekend of Scouting traditions..

learning about morse code..

semaphore...

braille (also phonetic alphabet and using communication devices)...

They ate lots..  (this was our kitchen - state of the art!) - and then came back for more!

And even got in some fishing..

while the fog burnt off for two gorgeous days..

And what finishes a perfect day better than a campfire!

Homeschooling Monthly Memories - Apr 2012

Most of this month has been school holidays here in NSW (and in our household).  So while there's been a lot of learning, we're still not back in the swing of 'intentional learning' yet.

Cubs:

Kite making

Carrying the pack flag in the ANZAC Day march

Games learning countries & their flags

Other activities:

Started a new circus class

AFL season has started back up - with their team winning 2 out of 2 so far

 Friends:

It's been a big month of visits with friends including having a friend sleep over.  He also spent time with cousins from both sides of the family.

We farewelled friends who are about to travel Australia for an indefinite period of time.  This is the most awesome piece of play equipment I have ever seen in a free playground!!

Intentional Learning:

We travelled to Sydney Opera House to watch the Bell Shakespeare production of 'Macbeth'.

There's also been time spent 

• coding
• making videos with friends and editing with special effects (like reversing the film, slow motion etc)
• more card tricks
• lots of Minecraft, TF2, Portal 2 etc
• and lots more...

Nerf Day, Clean Up Australia Day, Science kits, Cubs..

Catching up on some recent events in Billy's life..

Another nerf day with homeschooling friends..

Clean up Australia day with the cubs

Finding a Bower Bird's nest

Putting together a time capsule clock kit..

Making a Jungle Book memory game / getting to know you activity for cubs (part of the Grey Wolf Award)