Enjoying summer..

while it lasts.

A couple of weeks ago we caught up with a bunch of other homeschoolers for a morning at Cornwallis Beach. It's a great place, bordering the Manukau Harbour, but close enough to the harbour entrance to have lovely clear water and not be so tidal that the water just about disappears entirely, like happens at some of the beaches closer to home! 

One fascinating aspect to this beach is the combination of normal, beige coloured sand from the harbour, and the black, iron-rich sands of our west coast beaches -

It was just after low-tide when we went, so not so good for swimming, but fantastic for exploring -

and there is grass and shady trees right next to the sand, so it's perfect for relaxing or playing games

Nothing seems to make this boy quite as happy as a good tree.

then once the kids had got tired of the beach, we went for a geocache hunt, one of which took us up to the memorial at the top of the hill -

which looks back over Cornwallis Beach -

and the entrance to the harbour -

and the bays around Huia - 

On our way down the hill, I spotted some white daisies, which means only one thing to us educatory types - 

the green hardly worked at all, mostly just added a slight tinge to the edge of the centre, I wonder why that was?!

This is the perfect experiment for illustrating the need for a control, especially when one doesn't appear to have changed much!

Lego Club

I don't know how I stumbled upon this, but sometime last year I signed Lexi up for this Lego Club for Homeschoolers (well, it could be for anyone really, but I think the session times are 10am or 3pm our time), and with our usual efficiency, we finally got round to joining in the February session.

It's a free, online, guided club, each month Roni - the tutor/host/presenter - puts together a theme, a supply list, and a presentation, then at the appointed class time (the sessions repeat several times a month, though you only 'attend' once) everyone 'meets' in a digital space where Roni does a live webcast about the topic.

This month's theme was fairy tales, so there was a short presentation about what a fairy tale is, common motifs, and famous fairy tale authors. Then Roni lead the kids step-by-step through building a little fairy tale cottage - 

 (check out the cute little fireplace & hearth! It does actually open into the wee chimney outside)

We rummaged up some suitable accessories to furnish the cottage too (thank you to Lego Harry Potter, Lego Friends, Lego Pirates arrrh, and our Lego Minifigure Leprechaun for the teeny tiny cauldron!)

Lexi really enjoyed it, and is looking forward to the March instalment, which is making a set of constellation viewers (like binoculars, but with constellation cards to drop in & compare) coinciding nicely with our space theme, mwahahaha...

If you decide to join in, I highly recommend hunting out all the pieces WELL in advance, *not* the night before and then during the class when you realise that you missed one page of the PDF supply list! For those with less time but more money, or just less Lego, you can actually buy each month's pieces in advance via the class, or you can fudge it and make do with whatever you've got. Lego is good like that, and it's encouraged in the class too :)

I really love that this sort of fun opportunity is available to our kids!

Crater caching

Have you ever heard of Geocaching? I had come across the term years ago, but never really thought about it. Then a friend mentioned a couple of time that she had taken her boys out geocaching... and then eventually (a bit slow off the mark) I decided to find out what it's all about!

I won't go into all the details, there is a much better explanation than I could ever give on the link above, but basically geocachers have hidden little containers ALL over the world, and you have to hunt them out, using GPS co-ordinates, some stealth, some puzzling, and sometimes a bit of scrambling too.

 This is a screenshot of the Geocaching map of One Tree Hill Domain / Cornwall Park - 

 Each little symbol is the rough location of a cache. As you can see, there are 16 of them, just in that one little patch of Auckland! The smiley faces are ones we've already found :-)

We were visiting Greenlane Hospital again, so took the opportunity to pop next door to the park, and hunt out some caches!

We found a tree that you could climb right through the roots of - 

We climbed up the side of the western crater

(that's our 7 seater car down there!)

Paused to rest our (ok, my) legs at the top of the ridge,

then descended into the central crater, where evidently it's a 'thing' to create pictures and words out of the volcanic rocks that litter the grassy crater floor -

You can see the long U-shaped western crater and kidney-bean shaped central crater really nicely in Google Maps - 

Then we trekked back to the car...

Before a quick run up to the top-

Then into Stardome!

So it was a pretty fun morning out, and one of the reasons I think geocaching is great for kids is that it really gets you exploring in-depth in places that you might never otherwise get round to visiting, or possibly not even be aware of! Despite using a GPS (or in our case a GPS capable phone + the c:geo app, and apparently there are some brave souls who are GPS-free cachers!) it's a good introduction to distance, cardinal points, and co-ordinates, and you often have to solve a puzzle to get the real co-ordinates, or follow a clue to find the actual cache. In fact, I've just solved one of the One Tree Hill puzzle caches by using the Arecibo numbers! Now we just have to go see if I got it right....

February Frivolity

Sorry, alliteration is my Achilles' Heel...

Sorry.

Anyway, the weather has been pretty fantastic, so we've been trying to make the most of it! A few adventures, a couple of which I'll blog separately, and of course trips out to the park too - 

Still got the usual things like maths happening - 

Little brother & sister like to join in too, Maia really likes these magnetic foam shapes ("Magnetism Jigsaw Puzzle" according to the box!), and Leo just likes anything he can bang together -

Lexi mixed up a batch of playdough, but this one doesn't use Cream of Tartar!!

Cooked Playdough WITHOUT Cream of Tartar

1 cup flour

1 cup water

2 table spoons oil

3 teaspoons white vinegar

1/4 cup salt

Mix all ingredients in a pan then stir over a medium heat until it clumps together.

Knead on a floured surfaces

Add colours as desired.

(thanks to Nina from the NZ homeschooling Facebook groups for sharing the recipe!)

We decided to head along to the local "Natural Learners/Unschoolers" group, who meet fortnightly for adventures & play, this time at the secluded Titirangi Beach - 

See what I mean about the weather? Brilliant.

February is famous (infamous?) for being the haunt of Valentine's Day, and whilst we don't usually do anything to celebrate it, I thought it sounded like a good excuse for baking.

Lexi made a chocolate brownie from Who's Cooking Tonight? by Tauranga teen Claire Gourley

and slathered it in this obscenely good brownie frosting (butter, chocolate, sugar - the ultimate food pyramid)

and we made some little chocolate hearts with the left over chocolate -

(with not a small amount of muttered cursing, I'll admit)

Eli has started on Grade 1 of the Math Mammoth "Light Blue" series curriculum, and is flying through it! I've found the pacing of this to be really good for my kids, just a little bit challenging, but doesn't labour over a single item to the point of drudgery. Despite being worksheet based - she gives recommendations for manipulative games and web activities that complement each chapter - it uses lots of images and drawing to illustrate concepts.

And Lexi has now officially moved onto the next stage at St John, she is no longer a Penguin and has moved into the Green Cadets group!

It's time for a new uniform!

Day at the museum

Yesterday marked the first of our 3x per week hospital trips, which would naturally be a pretty dull 2 hour round trip, most of that spent in the car. So instead of coming straight home, we went further afield instead, to the Auckland Museum!

It's free for locals, and a wonderful resource! We haven't been in a while, so the kids were very keen. Unfortunately someone forgot to replace the memory card in the camera, so it was the dodgy phone camera to the rescue!

First stop is always the volcano room! The museum is actually built on the crater rim of Pukekawa, one of Auckland's oldest volcanoes.

It's nice getting to watch a volcano being created right outside your window, whilst being in complete safety!

Then off to explore...

Spotting the live cave wetas -

Mealworms and assorted things in jars -

Playing with the electronic microscope -

Watching crickets -

And finding Nemo -

The armoury and WWII planes are always interesting -

There's also currently a free special exhibition on called Moana - My Ocean, which takes you from the tiny creatures that live near the surface of the water, right down to the denizens of the deeps in the Kermadec Trench.

I thought this was a cool idea, a giant pink anemone made from pool noodles forming the walls of a 3D cinema space!

And this was cool, a wrap-around projection room showing how a 'Bait Ball' of small fish is created & how the various predators manipulate it - 

And who can resist some sharks?!?!