Homeschooling Monthly Memories - Feb 2012

I'm jumping onboard a monthly wrap-up post meme run by "Our Worldwide Classroom".  So here's Billy's February...

February has involved many days out:

An excursion to Tocal Homestead - learning about Australian history

A local art show

Homeschooler's swimming carnival

'Nerf' war day with the homeschoolers

Cubs has provided plenty of fun and learning opportunities:

Making chariots with lashing and trying them out

Learning how to roll and break the flag correctly

A weekend cub leadership course - first night away from home without family!  (A big milestone for him - and me!)
They did many team and leadership activities, as well as cooking, learning about the flag, knots, trail signs.  They even got to watch a movie!

Weekly activities are back into full swing - dragons martial arts, archery and drama.  He's moved up to the Yr 5/6 drama class and is absolutely loving it.  He loves the teacher, loves what they're doing and has friends in the class.


We're focusing on a few areas this year as far as 'intentional learning' goes:

Australian history

• Watched the complete My Place series 1, and several episodes so far of series 2.  
• Reading the book of My Place by Nadia Wheatley. 
• The visit (mentioned above) to Tocal Homestead

Computers

•  Billy's been continuing to create plugins for Minecraft using Java. He's been modifying one of his old ones with my help (I have to learn it as I go!), and has created a new one entirely on his own.  
• He's been using Corel Video Studio to create video intros for the start of the tutorials etc he creates and puts on YouTube.
  
• He's been researching how to create apps for an Android phone.

Maths

• Practising maths facts using Timez Attack
• Watching Cyberchase for maths concepts
• Discussions about pi, fibonacci numbers 

Science

• AND/OR logic gates
• Watched a Bill Nye video about Atoms

Reading

• The Jungle book
• Deltora Quest book 6 and 7 by Emily Rodda
• Toad Surprise by Morris Gleitzmann  

So it's been a busy month of getting back into routine - and then losing that routine as we have days out!

Quick 'me' update

I'll do a more in-depth homeschooling one soon (hopefully over the weekend) but just a quick one about me.  Since it *is* my blog and all :)

February was a very busy month - I had commitments with RWA, I was doing an online writing course that was very full-on, homeschooling and cub activities, defendo, work, family stuff (oh and hubby was away for a week and a bit during that time).

So I am particularly proud of myself that my 'progress' calendar looks like this -

Each day I put a sticker on the square if I write on my work-in-progress (it can be as little as 100 words, but I have to make genuine forward progress), and I write the exercise that I've done in the top of the square.  Look closely - every single day has been marked off!!  That now makes about 45 consecutive days that I have written and exercised!  (I have some cute 'teacher reward' stickers that I bought somewhere, so it gives me a lift to give myself a 'Great Work' or 'Super' sticker lol).

It's really working for me - if I feel like skipping a day, I think of how sad that empty spot will look and dig deep to find the energy to do it!  Even if it is 11pm!

My exercise has ranged from walking, running (I'm still making slow progress on my running goal), trampoline (I bought myself a mini-tramp or rebounder), defendo, yoga, pushups (I've started the Hundred Pushups Training challenge) or light weights work, wii fit, pilates and cardio workouts on YouTube.  Most are 20-30 minutes, up to 1.5 hrs for my defendo class.

I just wanted to share one of the lovely spots I walk on the days I drop Billy at drama - there are ducks and swans in this wetlands and its so nice to walk past!

My writing is also going well - I'm up to 27,000 words on my work-in-progress.  Unfortunately I couldn't keep up the pace in the online writing course I was doing, and got a bit left behind - I still have the lecture notes to read through though, so I'll still get value out of it.

I was just about to hit post when a fellow Defendo person posted a photo on Facebook of a seminar I went to on Wednesday night - on knife, gun, stick and hand defence with expert Hock Hochheim.  Hopefully I'll never need to use the knowledge, but it was very interesting.

Homeschool Swimming carnival

It's been a busy week (and it's not over yet!).  Today we had our local area's homeschool swimming carnival.  I didn't get many photos because I was busy helping out with time-keeping but I did manage to snaffle a few at the start and end of the day.  We had about 75 kids there - a great effort! - and everyone seemed to have a great time.

Lining up for the across-the-pool races.

And they're off...

This was the highlight of the day for Billy - the inflatable.

It did look like great fun :)

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.

Maitland Show

We met my parents and niece over at the local show today.  Despite being hot, we had an enjoyable couple of hours wandering around.

We looked at the handiwork displays first - photography, sculpture and artwork exhibitions - and the produce displays.  Sadly, these are much smaller than they used to be when I was a kid.

This platypus was my favourite sculpture.

Talented artists

The agricultural display - those are some big pumpkins!

Display of old photos from the local area.

There were the usual rides and food stalls.

The clowns have a special memory for me - I think it was the only thing we could afford to go on as kids.  Now however, it was $5 / game!

Greasy show food (with a strangely phallic looking pluto pup).

And the ever-popular dodgem cars!

There were lots of other rides, but I didn't take photos of them.

They also had a free circus - we weren't expecting a lot from it, but it was surprisingly pretty good.  It seemed to be a small, family run circus - the young boy in the last 2 photos looked to be about 12.  Very impressive!

'Nerf' War..

On Friday we went to a homeschool 'Nerf War' at a nearby picnic area.  From a rough count, we had about 20 kids there - ranging in age from 5 to 15 (they wouldn't stand still long enough to count them!).  The kids organised themselves into teams, worked out the rules and went hard for around 1.5 hrs - until we were washed out by a thunderstorm. 

It was great fun and the plan is to hold them more regularly.  PDHPE (physical education) - check!  Socialising - check!  Working in teams - check!  Having heaps of fun - double check!!