Term 4 - we have a plan!

Hahahahaha! Well we do okay? And the aim is to follow it through, provided nothing drastic happens to change it! I say that because so far I am having trouble getting a hold of one particular book that we need! I will get it though, I will I tell you! And there is also the fact that everytime I seem to make plans something or other happens to thwart them!

MATHS:   A will be finishing up his self teaching, maths online adventure this term. Why? Well, I am finding it hard to believe he is actually learning enough from it doing only one work sheet per lesson and B, his programming adventures have far outweighed and surpassed the maths level he is working on, so we will let him continue with that till the year ends and next year he will start on something different.

Z will attempt to chug his way through his last book of Targeting math for year 6 and he also will start a new programme next year.

COMPUTER:   Adem will continue with his HTML 5 programming. He has almost finished his huge text book and I am sure his dad will extend him once he has.

Zak is going to also begin some programming once his dad sets it up for him. Excuse my ignorance but I cannot remember whether he was going to use Star Logo or something else. Will let you know once I see it myself.

They both spend a lot of time online gaming.  While they do learn quite a lot from this, I am trying to get them to tone it down a bit this term and spend more time outdoors for health and socialization's sake. Zak is pretty involved in Minecraft and Adem plays HON and other such games a lot. Of course the whole time they do this, they are on Skype so not entirely alone, but still I think there needs to be a line drawn somewhere, so we are working on this.

There is the possibility of a joint blog coming to life. I won't tell you more until it is decided for sure.

ENGLISH/HISTORY/HSIE: 

After our enormous success with learning history with Jacki French last term and the ease with which it flowed into our lives, we are once again planning to use this little gem and this time read "How the Finnegans saved the Ship"  (once we can get a hold of the book that is!).

This time our journey into history will cover a bit about immigration to Australia, Ireland, Ships in general, the Titanic voyage, settlement in Australia, what it would have been like for the children, , maps, geography, our ancestors (how did they get here?), oh the list again will be endless once they get those thinking  caps on and of course the lessons and learning will vary as I catch onto their interests and follow them through (come on, you didn't think I was actually going to force the learning on them did you? All I have to do is read and ask a few questions and hopefully, once again they will be off on adventures of wonderful learning opportunities!) Oh and there will be at least one excursion thrown in to Sydney to look at ships and visit the Immigration museum.

Of course in my usual fashion there will be loads of Vocabulary, grammar, writing, computer, creative art and what ever else I can sneak in without them noticing. Amazing how easy this can be if their interest is tweaked! (Insert cheeky witches cackle!)  We have a couple of friends joining us on this adventure as well so hopefully we will all learn to work in a group and bounce ideas off each other.

As part of the journey touches on the Titanic Voyage, we will also be reading My Story, TITANIC and watching the movie at some stage, just to give them a view of the whole sinking ship scenario. We may even get a bit scientific and delve into icebergs and how they are formed etc. Shhhhhh we won't tell them because naturally they are going to think of it themselves! 

Until we start this, A and Z will also be reading "Igraine the Brave" by Cordelia Funke. We will delve into the realm of magic and knights and castles and such. Not getting too heavy as once we start the other lessons we won't have as much time, but hopefully we will still manage to get a bit of history, geography and English thrown in. :-) Yeah, I don't think that teacher in me is ever going to lie down and be still entirely!

SCIENCE: I am not planning anything shhhhh I can sense some experiments coming on, this will be entirely in their hands this term.

Metal work:  The boys are taking a metal work class once a week at a highschool with other homeschoolers.

Sport:   Swimming and Nippers for Zak. Body boarding and swimming for Adem. Also we are encouraging a bit of walking and jogging as we need to lose a bit of weight.

Of course in the usual fashion there is bound to be more learning than the plan, I don't like to over plan for this very reason. When things come up, we must follow along as the learning happens best this way. 

Now I must be away! We have some reading and math to do and then a trip to the pools for a swim. Hopefully at some stage I will also have time for my "one a day project" and some gardening, if the weather clears up of course. Oh and I suppose I should dash out and get some food too, we seem to be a bit short.  Have a lovely week all! Its NOT back to school day for us!

Hugs and smoochies xoxoxoxo