Homeschooling Jan - June 2014

OK so my monthly updates have slid out to term updates, now to a 6 month update! We're just too busy living life to blog it!

Creative Arts

This continues to be Billy's focus. He has weekly music (singing & trumpet lessons), is heavily involved in drama and has this year started with a Scout media unit (JNN) to learn and take part in producing, filming, audio, and editing short video segments.

• Music
• Weekly singing and trumpet class
• Drama
•  As well as weekly drama class, he was backstage crew for Upstage Youth Theatre's Romeo & Juliet production - including taking part in all day bump in (technical set up of lights etc).
• He took part in audition workshop
• Went to the Gloucester Shakespeare Festival and watched "Much Ado about Nothing"
• Participated in a Bell Shakespeare drama workshop
• Is involved with weekly JNN TV Media unit training - filming, editing, audio etc
• Art
• Regular visits to Maitland Art Gallery

 

Bell Shakespeare Drama workshop

 

JNN Media Crew - editing room

Cast & crew of Romeo & Juliet

HSIE

    Australian History

• Historical walking tour of Maitland
• SteamFest
• Tunnel tour of Fort Scratchley

Historical walking tour of Maitland

Fort Scratchley Tunnel Tour

 Other cultures

• Chinese night at Scouts - ate food, made kite, discussed Chinese culture

Maths

• Billy is working through the Maths OnlineYr 6 curriculum
• Some exercises from Targeting Maths Year 6
• Everyday maths - cooking, measuring, budgeting etc

Science & Technology

• Billy watches lots of science videos including the VSauce and Veritasium channel.
• Heavily involved in creating videos including use of programs such as Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Photoshop, Avid

English

• Read "Refuge" by Jackie French, "The Road to Gundagai" by Jackie French, "So Much to Tell You" by John Marsden as well as listened to numerous audiobooks.
• Writing short films, plays and stories.

PDHPE

• Participated in the Homeschool Swimming carnival
• Participated in weekly Archery in Term 1
• Did an overnight hike in Brisbane Water National Park
• Took part in Menu planning for hike - discussion on nutrition, hygiene
• Basic First Aid training (emergency DRABC, snake / spider bite treatment, recovery position)
• Bowling

 

 

LOTE

• Italian classes (Term 1)
• Duolingo Italian app

Scouts 'Curriculum':

• Citizenship badge

• Knots, bushcraft construction

Making a Rope bridge

• Community service 

• helped out with crowd control at SteamFest 
• Colour Party (flags) at Region AGM
• Working bee at hall
• Masters BBQ fundraiser
• Clean Up Australia day

Clean up Australia day

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

Homeschooling Monthly Memories - Aug - Oct 2013

Between our trip away and what not, I have been really slack in updating our homeschool learning on the blog. It's been on my to-do list for quite some time!

Scouts 'Curriculum':

Demonstration of smoke filling a house - very graphic.

• Scouts has involved campcraft skills, ropes/knots etc.
• Fire safety night - talk by the Rural Fire Service, and camp cooking.
• Navigation via GPS - they were blindfolded, driven to a location and then in a group had to find their way back to the hall.

Intentional Learning:

Creative Arts

• YouTube videos - editing with Adobe Premiere Pro and Sony Vegas.
• Drama classes
• Classes - this term he has been invited up to the Yr 7 & 8 drama class (he's officially only in Yr 5!)
• They are currently studying Romeo and Juliet in his class.
• Crew for 'Charlotte's Web' - he had many roles including lighting, stage door, runner. 
• Saw 'Rosenkrantz and Guildernstern Are Dead' at the Sydney Theatre Company. 
• Singing lessons & trumpet - he took part in the mid-Year concert his music school puts on (in the music teacher's backyard!).

HSIE

• Australian History

 


• Finished reading "A Waltz for Matilda" by Jackie French
• Went to a talk about researching Irish convicts and another about growing up in the area in the 1950s.
• Began receiving the Inside History magazine.
• Read "The Horse who bit a Bushranger" by Jackie French.
• Trip to WA - visit to New Norcia, the Rabbit Proof fence, Albany Whaling station, Rottnest Island, Fremantle Prison & Roundhouse
  
  
•  Medieval history day with other homeschoolers

• Attended the Maitland Riverlights multicultural festival.
• Made a chinese lantern to float down the river
• Watched national dances and displays such as Indian, Chinese, Aboriginal and Brazilian.

Maths

• He continued using the Mathletics curriculum.
• Learnt about prime numbers.
• Real-life use of Maths in cooking, measuring - he made a b'day cake for me from scratch - chose the recipe, shopped for the ingredients, cooked and decorated from scratch (no packet stuff!) with no assistance.
• Longitude and latitude practice - reading and following the GPS.
• Codes

The b'day cake he made for me with no assistance!

Science & Technology

• Java coding
• Improving Photoshop skills
• Visit to natural formations such as caves, rock arches, rare forests, Pinnacles, Wave Rock
• Dolphin watching, dolphin discovery centre / aquarium,

English

• Read "Tales of Shakespeare - Romeo and Juliet"
• Writing stories

PDHPE

• AFL / AFL training (now finished for the year)
• Archery
• Yoga
• Watching "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" series.
• Swimming

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

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.

Homeschooling monthly memories - April 2013

April was taken up with school holidays, so most of the regular activities were paused for a few weeks. I'm sure he did more than this during the month, but I wasn't recording, so I'm going off photos and my very poor memory :)

Cubs 'Curriculum':

The cubs had former Olympic road cyclist Scott Steward talk to them about bike and scooter safety.

Billy marched with his Cub pack in the ANZAC Day march. (For the non-Aussies, ANZAC Day is our to remember those who have fought and died at war.)

Intentional Learning:

Creative Arts

• Lots of movie making and editing
• Billy took part in a 2 day Glee-style Musical Theatre workshop during the school holidays.

HSIE

• Australian History

•  Billy created a video about ANZAC Day

• We finished 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.
• Also read "Hitler's Daughter" by Jackie French exploring the idea of Hitler having a daughter.
• We went to Steamfest - a local festival celebrating everything steam - steam trains, steam engines etc. Billy also had a lovely chat with a coin collector about old Australia currency.

Maths

• He continued using the Mathletics curriculum.
• Graphing of data.
• Real-life use of Maths in cooking

Italian

• He had his last lessons of Italian for a while. Classes aren't running in Term 2 (as his teacher is off to Italy!) but we will try to keep up practice. 
  

Science & Technology

• Watched episodes of Scope
• Watched the documentary Stephen Fry's Top 100 Gadgets
• Set up a Minecraft Server hosting company and is running into real-life difficulties of getting clients to pay!

English

• Read "Staying Alive in Year 5" by John Marsden
• Reading Rangers Apprentice Book 2
• We went to an author's talk by John Marsden, author of the Tomorrow When the War Began series. We enjoyed the school talk so much, we went back that night for the adult talk.

Billy meeting John Marsden and getting books signed

PDHPE

Playing AFL games 

Went ten-pin bowling with friends

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

Finger buns

An old classic - jam drops - using my grandmother's handwritten recipe!