Our homeschooling week #2

Another week has passed us by and as the weekend was so busy I am a little late with posting our weekly adventures.

Life Learning

This week Z did not work as it rained on his first day and his boss was away for the next one which actually worked out well as he had had a bit of an accident at the beach. He was reminded just how unpredictable and dangerous the ocean actually is when he was tossed on the bank head first and then tumbled quite forcefully. This resulted in him being not only winded but unable to get up which was very frightening for him at the time. Z is not normally the complaining type when hurt as he hurts himself all the time. He was however complaining this time so I knew he was hurting quite a bit as one would.

After checking him out for signs of concussion and broken bones, we treated him with some massage and arnica oil and some nurofen for the pain. He initially said he would not go back in the water but after a bit of peer pressure the next day he manned up and went in for just a little bit which was of course the best medicine. Getting straight back on the horse and all that. It took several days for the bruising to surface and he is well on the mend now.

On the weekend we had a bit of a working bee in the back yard. Our garden had become quite overgrown and the yard was a mess. So Z helped out with weeding, cleaning, mulching, the removal of a lemon tree which has been making far too much mess and not producing edible lemons, some measuring and cutting of cardboard to use as a weed mat and placing it down and the building of a fire pit to burn off some excess cardboard boxes which had  accumulated.

This resulted in a visit from the fire brigade as one of the boxes which was printed let off a bit of black smoke and one of the neighbours called them. Oh dear! We learned that technically we are not supposed to burn anything in our yards anymore which was interesting since everyone else around here does it. They were really helpful and friendly and suggested that if we stuck a bbq plate on the structure it was all fine. Checked that it was not a hazard, which it was not and off they went.

Maths

• We worked our how much our weight was worth in gold. Weighed various nugget sized crystals and rocks, looked up the current price of gold and did the math. Z enjoyed this immensely. He is worth a fortune it turns out. LOL
• Worked on Squared and Cubed numbers.
• Number lines and patterns
• The power of numbers
• Operations with powers
• Measurement and shapes

English/Spelling

• Got 100% in his spelling test this week 
• Worked on compound words, word meanings, descriptions, world building, using the words and learned that a running sentence is NOT a short story. Also worked on some word history. 

English/Science/Astronomy

• Pluto and other dwarf planets
• Reads and comprehends information about dwarf planets
• Finds and writes words derived from mythology
• Using the dictionary
• Computer Research

History/English/Australia

• Valley of Gold (read and discuss)  1870-1890 
• Chinese diggers (Read and discuss Immigration policies of the time, racism issues, complete cloze passage)
• Women on the diggings (reading, comprehension, synonyms)
• Rich and poor relationships (discuss and chart differences for women at the time) 
• Gold in Legend (reading and comprehension worksheet)
• Gold in History - Alchemy (cloze passage, word puzzles) 
• Microfilm extract (WA state library) Reads newspaper article and complete comprehension sheet)
• The effect on Aboriginal People (read and comprehend and discuss what should/could have been done better at the time). 

Creative art

• Drawing
• Chinese character ink painting

Science

• Online Science class - Chemistry
• Watched lesson and experiments
• Explain, using examples, the differences between physical and chemical changes.
• Understand the terms 'exothermic' and 'endothermic' as applied to chemical changes. 

Computer

• Minecraft
• Research
• Computer broke down, so he learned to wipe and re-install programs

PDHP

• Body boarding, swimming, beach fitness
• Surf Life Saving
• Gymnastics
• Healthy body/Healthy mind
• Watched movie "Mental" - discussed matters of mental health, who really is crazy (quite an interesting take on mental matters, funny movie but not really appropriate for kids I think) 

Social

• Spent lots of time with friends this week, beach and other activities
• Attended a farewell bbq
• Had a sleep over

Music

• Lots of Ukulele practice and U-tube watching of others playing. 
• Tuning the new Uke (he upgraded over the holidays to a larger uke) 

The self led cooking adventures have been going on as usual. He is getting better at turning off the stove but not so much at cleaning up after himself. I live in hope! He has also been watching My Kitchen Rules the past few weeks.

Not such a bad week considering he was not feeling the best.

Have a wonderful week everyone!

Hugs and smoochies xoxoxoxox