Caz

The last week has been UNbelievably busy in the Hobbit house!  We only had 3 days worth of 'formal' school time this week, as we had the last of our art & gymnastics classes for the term on Monday and then Friday was our ALL day long excursion to Dreamworld & Whitewater World!  We still squeezed a fair bit in there though :)

Math:  We had our M&M math graphing lesson, which was an EPIC hit.    The boys also spent a bit of time on Mathletics & Rainforest maths, and there was plenty of daily 'incidental' practice (especially for Sam)  Frodo wowwed me with his money skills on Mathletics! 

Language Arts:   Sam did a bit of Reading eggs and we practiced the sounds he's covered with flash cards (the cards have a picture on them and he has to say the word, concentrating on the starting sound and match it to the letter that makes the sound).  Frodo had a reading comprehension lesson (fantasy vs. factual writings), as well as worked through Grammar once a weeks' next lesson (which was on making plural by adding s).  Both boys did a bit of handwriting practice also.

SOSE/History:  For history, we covered the last of our lessons in ancient history, which was the Aztec/Inca.  Frodo did his vocabulary definition and map work (his favourite part of the whole thing) After learning that the Ancients in the Americas were a whizz with gold/metalsmithing, the boys created their own  Aztec pendant.  (very simple project involving rolling out a 5mm thick slab of play dough, playing a circle of foil on it and 'embossing' your design in with a pencil just hard enough not to poke thru the foil.  Then wrapping the foil over a circular peice of cardboard.)  They were pretty proud of their projects, but I could not get a pic to save my life.  Reflecty foil and all that :P    We also watched a documentary on Machu Pichu, to wrap up the unit.  

Sose this week was mainly online ;)  Our Skwirk memberships came through so the boys have been after me to get on it a lot.. so I gave them a list of which things to do and turned them loose.  Sam learned about community and family groups and Frodo learned about Australia.  He named all of the states & territories (including the ACT, which I  ALWAYS forget lol) and created his own word search using terms from the reading..

Science:  We finished up the rocky planets this week, with Mars.  Sam has decided Mars is his favourite now.  The boys both made 'books' from enchanted learning.  Frodos was quite a big book and had a couple of quiz questions on bottom of each page,  Sams was a simpler book, with big lines for handwriting practice.  They learned Mars has 2 very small moons, is about half the size of Earth (boy I hope I remembered that right LOL, bad form if I did not!) and is considered the most Earth like planet.  They thought it particularly cool that scientsists think that over time they could actually create an atmosphere and humans could possibly live there! (this would obviously take a VERY long time lol)  We also caught a program on ABC about Stars and Space that was very interesting.

Art:   Monday was our last art class with Miss Liz, until May.  Frodo created a 3d face sculptured plaque, which Liz will fire and have ready for them to paint next term.  Sam made portrait prints using his very cool 3d face 'stamper', which was made last week. I don't have pics of the prints, but I do have a pic of the stamper!  Isn't he CUTE!?  I had to help him with some of the cutting, as parts of it are done with heavy upholstery fabric. But he did all the selecting, placing & gluing of parts.  He even came up with a decent way to make a nose :)    

HPE:   Gymnastics class finished up on Monday for the term as well.   One day this week, the boys built an 'obstacle' course around the backyard using plastic stepping stones and other bits for zigging, zagging and balancing on.  Friday we walked like umptymillion miles.. sorry kilometres.. around Dreamworld!  

Technology:   Both boys spent a bit of time on skwirk, Reading eggs and here.  Lots of great learning activities and games there.  

I suppose I should have put this in science ;), but that felt oddly organized for me, so it is going here!  We had our excursion to Dreamworld/Whitewater World on Friday.  All in all, the day went fairly smoothly... the boys had a safari talk where they got to see a Ringtail possum  and a Children's python.  (scroll down a little bit for that one, interesting that it's name is NOT for the reasons you'd think!)  Mery was stoked as he got to pat Kangaroos and drive an antique car (on a track.. and with help reaching pedals lol)  We also got to see a rather LARGE saltwater crocodile in an enclosure that rather squicked dh out by how CLOSE we were.  Until I reminded him that croc's cannot fly, nor can they climb glass walls ;)

After the educational part of the day was done, we had FUN, and lots of it!  Bumper cars were ridden, as was the Big Red Car in Wiggles World, and remote control crocodiles were cruised around.  The kiddie water slides were a big hit, as was the Nickelodeon water play 'thing'.. I have no idea WHAT to call it... but it was a massive, multi-level waterplayground!  There were water cannons, dumping buckets, sprayers and every so often, a HUGE bucket at the very top would DUMP about 1000litres of water down on everyone below lol.  There were also cool waterslides off each side that the kids loved.

Merry's favourite was Wiggle Bay, which was basically a shallow pool (deepest about .5m) with water sprayers and a few waterslides for the younger set.  Frodo was quite put out when they wouldn't let him slide down because he was too tall!

Of this excellent and adventurous day, I have zero photos!  When we got there, we discovered that the memory card was NOT in the camera.. I'd left it in the sd reader on my computer when I emptied it for the trip!  And I was SO organized otherwise! lol  We did take a few on our mobile phones, but haven't found the cord to upload them yet. 

A great week, but I'm totally looking forward to a bit of a break!  We have a friend up from Sydney at the end of the week so we'll probably have just over a week off.  I'll try to pop by blogs then, and maybe blog hop on Monday, but otherwise it may be quiet here at Hobbit central.

4 Responses
  1. Kez Says:

    A huge week! The trip to Dreamworld sounds really cool.


  2. Stacy Says:

    Sounds like a great week with a lot accomplished! My daughter loved reading eggs so I had to check out skwirk, too - Australia has some cool tools :) We quit reading eggs when the pronunciation and spelling differences became confusing to her...although she still gets a kick out of saying "zeb-ruh" instead of the American "zee-bruh" :) She fancies herself to be a bit Australian, I think!

    Stacy


  3. Caz Says:

    Kez, it was great!

    MMs.. LOL that's part of the reason it works so well for us. The spellings & accent are what my boys are used to hearing (well, except from their mum lol) I should share some Aussie slang .. she'd find THAT really funny!


  4. Unknown Says:

    WOW, such busy Hobbits! I love reading about families who are enjoying Home School as much as we are. Keep it up