Homeschooling monthly memories - July 2013

This feels like the geocaching edition of our homeschool post :) It's formed a big part of our life in June and has resulted in lots of cool learning.

Scouts 'Curriculum':

• Scouts has involved campcraft skills, ropes/knots etc.

Intentional Learning:

Creative Arts

• Finished editing the Zombie movie and made a DVD cover for it.
• Drama classes.
• Singing lessons & started learning trumpet as well. (Oh my aching ears!)

HSIE

• Australian History

• We're reading "A Waltz for Matilda" by Jackie French 
• Our geocaching has taken us to a lot of historical places around the area including:

This 'tempietto' is a water-fountain built as a monument to West Maitland's first mayor, Richard Alexander Young

A monument to the dairy farmers of the area.

Christ Church Cathedral, Newcastle, and gravestones dating back to the early European settlers in the area.

The graveyard at Cathedral Park is one of the earliest burial grounds in Australia and was featured on Tony Robinson's Time Walks around Newcastle.

Rose Cottage, Newcastle's oldest surviving building.

A lane-way in Maitland, decorated with a mural of the history of the area - but also the site of a public hanging - yep, our history is covering everything!

A local barn decorated with an historical advertisement for the wonder-cure of the time.

Maths

• He continued using the Mathletics curriculum.
• Real-life use of Maths in cooking, measuring
• Coding puzzles 
• Longitude and latitude practice - reading and following the GPS
  

Science & Technology

• Java coding
• Photoshop
• Researched different operating systems and set up Ubuntu Linux to trial

English

• Watched the "Animated Tales of Shakespeare - A Midsummer Night's Dream"
• Learning about definite / indefinite articles

PDHPE

• AFL / AFL training
• Archery

Italian

• Back to Italian class

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

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.

Exploring our Local Area: Tea Gardens

Today we met up with family at a little township about an hour's drive away called Tea Gardens.  And no, I didn't see any tea gardens so I'm not sure how the name comes to be.

Anyway we spent a delightful afternoon there.  We had yummy fish & chips for lunch at a local fisn'n'chip shop, then caught the ferry from Tea Gardens to Nelson Bay and back.

Photo by Billy

Photo by Billy

On the way over and back, we were joined by some delightful playmates.  The dolphins kept surfacing near us and even came quite close.  The ferry man stopped the boat for ages and let us all watch them and take photos.  (So much for his ferry timetable lol).  It was truly magical!

After we got off the boat, the lighting was amazing, so we spent probably another half hour wandering around taking photos.  

This hasn't been photoshopped at all - the lighting is real.

Even though it was so cold the pelicans were huddling to keep warm :)

All in all, a delightful day!

Tocal Homestead Excursion

Yesterday we went on a homeschool excursion to Tocal Homestead, a local historical property established in the 1820s.  We had a huge group - around 35 families, adding up to about 120 people (adults & kids).  We split into 8 groups to make life more manageable, and rotated around different areas / activities.

The beautiful homestead built in 1841.

A small collection of the families that were there - not every one had arrived at this stage.

Water carting - fortunately they didn't have to go down to the creek to get the water :)

Watching the blacksmith at work.

Scrubbing the clothes

Exploring Webber Cottage - also known as Thunderbolt's Cottage. The bushranger Thunderbolt lived in it when he worked on the property.  The huge tree in the background is all one tree - it was massive.

Old-fashioned fun - tug-of-war.

Quoits

Elastics (Not so old - I remember playing them at primary school!)

The old men sitting down chatting the day away :)

Exploring the barn and farm machinery

Welcome to the Homestead

Just for laughs, compare the photos from last time we went.  Billy has certainly grown and changed :)

I love visiting the Homestead, and a hands-on day like that really sticks in the kid's minds.  Great fun.

Exploring our local area: Clarencetown

About 30 mins away from us is the little town of Clarencetown.  Its not really somewhere we've been to much, but we headed off there today when one of the homeschool mums organised an excursion.

After meeting in a carpark, we headed off to visit The Goat Soap Lady.

She showed us her soaps and explained how she made them - I treated myself by buying some soaps and lotion.

We also got to feel the angora wool.

Christine (the Goat Soap Lady) was generous enough to make the kids some vanilla slice (using goats milk) and gave us all a taste of fresh, cold goats milk.

And we got to pat and feed the goats.

After that, we headed back down to a park on the Williams River for an enjoyable few hours...

Time to eat and chat..

Time to climb trees and make forts..

Time to swim and paddle..

We were planning on heading out for a bush walk after the picnic, but it was a warm day, and everyone was far too content doing what they were doing.  There's always next time!

Exploring our local area: Newcastle Museum

In August 2007, our local museum in Newcastle closed its doors in preparation of moving to a new site.  It was sorely missed by us - being free, and having a great hands-on science section was a godsend!  Four long years later, it finally reopened last month.

We called in there today to have a look around.  When we weren't innundated with school groups, it was quite good!  The main attraction was the Supanova hands-on Science section, but there were also sections showing things related to Newcastle's past.

Lifting a car with ropes at various points along the lever

Plasma ball

Robot arm - making him pick up a ball, move etc.  Billy even made him dance :)

Speed check to see how fast you can throw a ball

A display about the old BHP steelworks which used to be Newcastle's main employer, now closed down.

A really cool spinning globe hanging from the ceiling

A now defunct Newcastle tram

Topped off by lunch at the cafe :)