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)
Saturday was Defendo grading day for me. I went into it feeling focused and reasonably confident, but for some reason, once we got to the techniques part, it was as if everything I knew flew out the window. You know that feeling when you sit down for an exam and nothing looks remotely familiar? I was completely blank. My training partner seemed to be suffering from the same problem, and I think our nerves were feeding off each other. It didn't help that we were the only two going for the higher belt.
Afterwards my sensei said that by half way through the grading, he had decided to only award us black tips (kind of like a half-way mark to the next belt).
But we rallied, somehow, and dug deep enough to scrape through to our orange belt!
So I have a mixture of pride that I did it, and disappointment because I know I could have done better - but regardless, I have my orange belt!!
I have at least 12 months to prepare for my next belt - so I need to practice enough to transfer the knowledge from my head to my muscle memory. Obviously it doesn't stay in the head under pressure :)
I love this photo - this was before round 3 of 4 of 'back-to-back' ground fighting, with about 5 minutes to go of our hour long grading. We all look completely and utterly exhausted!
Every Tuesday after homeschool archery, we meet up at the nearby park, have some lunch and the kids play, or wander around chatting - you know, that socialisation thing that everyone is so concerned about with homeschoolers :)
Some time ago, a take-away shop opened up between archery and the park that makes the most delicious hot chips. It became a ritual for most families to stop there and buy hot chips to take to the park. A cheap and tasty treat.
A few months ago, it changed hands - and to our dismay, it closed on a Monday and Tuesday. Disaster! We had to go back to being organised enough to pack lunch beforehand!
I've been trying to lose a bit more of that stubborn weight around my belly, so I've been trying to eat healthily. This week, I packed a lovely chicken salad to take with me. We left archery as usual, and started to drive to the park.
And spied that the chip shop had re-opened! I couldn't resist the siren's call (and neither could the other families!) and had to stop.
I ask you - which would you prefer?!
But I was good (ish). I stole a couple of chips and then sent Billy to sit at the other end of the picnic table so I couldn't have anymore and ate my delicious salad :)
This afternoon, Billy went to a circus workshop organised by one of the homeschool mums. It was 2 hours of fun for the thirty kids who participated - with the opportunity to learn skills such as diablo, devils sticks, juggling, unicycle riding, trapeze / silks, hooping and heaps more, culminating in a small performance by each of them.
Billy used to take circus classes a few years ago but they stopped and we haven't found a local one to continue with. This one isn't exactly local (an hour's drive), but it may turn into a more regular activity in Term 2 if enough people are interested. (And if I can rejig the budget and the timetable to accommodate yet another class!)
I love my writers group. We meet once a month for several hours - and then usually carry on with lunch at the cafe next door, where we have the owner very well trained to put up with us!
Today we went through our goals - those that didn't meet their goals for the month got to wear the 'hat of shame', those of us who met our goals got to choose a small pressie. (I got a notebook and pen this month - gorgeous!)
We set our goals for next month, helping everyone set SMART goals (Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely). Erin ran a writing exercise - discussing 'wandering body parts' and tightening up a wordy paragraph. We 'interviewed' Mary's heroine, digging deep into her motivation and brainstorming possible plot twists.
We discussed and compared what sessions we're doing at conference, had a discussion about websites vs blogs and set our agenda for next month.
I'm sitting here rather discombobulated at the moment. I've got that 'post-holiday' confusion. Not that I've really been on holidays as such, but I have been away from home for 4 days.
Friday and Saturday I had a committee meeting with the RWA down in Sydney - we started with a meeting at 4-6pm with some external people, then had committee business from 6:30 - 9ish, then up again the next morning to meet 8:30am - 9pm. (With quick breaks for meals). It was very full-on, a packed agenda, but we achieved quite a lot.
I stayed down in Sydney on Sunday, with Pete & Billy coming down to join me. On Monday we went to the Powerhouse Museum and the Harry Potter exhibition! It was quite busy but well organised so that the crowd flowed well. We were able to look at everything without having to wait too long. Unfortunately you couldn't take photos inside but there are some on the official site linked above.
We spent a couple of hours wandering around the Powerhouse museum before our time slot for Harry, so we got to examine steam machinery:
Do some hands on experimenting:
Look at an exhibition on shopping in Australia in the 1880s - 1930s (tying in nicely with our Australian history focus this year):
Revisit the space exhibition:
And have heaps of hands-on fun in the experimentation section:
Then it was home in time to get to cubs for more fun - billy carts!
So right at this moment, I'm sitting here wondering what day it is, where I'm supposed to be, and how do I start catching up on the hundreds of unread emails in my inbox?!
