Back to School!

I had one of those nights. One of the ones where I wake up at 3am with my mind racing like an old cartoon character (ie furiously running on the spot in mid air and getting nowhere), thinking about school. It's nearly time to 'go back' after the holidays and those old anxieties had crept back in. Was I a good enough teacher? Were the kids learning enough? Were they 'behind' their peers? Would they in fact be better off back at school?????
As it tends to do, the lovely universe gave me exactly what I needed to be reminded of....the joys of rockin' it home school style! Here is a snapshot of the last 24 hours:

 A rat (rattus rattus) had gotten into our cupboard and chewed through the bottom of a box of corn flour. As I growled at the mess, the boys spotted an opportunity to make....quicksand! After watching it done on Mythbusters, they mixed cornflour with water and of course lots of colouring to make the funkiest putty ever seen! This stuff defied logic - was it a solid? Yes, if you smacked it with your hand or scraped it with a fork it behaved like a solid substance. Was it a liquid? Yes, if you placed your fingers onto it, they slowly sunk in and it dripped just like a gooey milkshake. Wow! Cool! This experiment engaged us all for ages as we discussed molecular theories and tried different techniques to test the state of matter.....and all at the impromtu time of 9pm!
Science TICK.
 

The following morning we found ourselves at the table doing watercolour painting - the final Christmas present to be explored!! Flex painted a tree and I painted (face those fears!) a shark. While drinking tea and listening to the rain fall outside.....so when we headed out for the day, the art gallery was a perfect first stop. There was a stunning watercolour exhibition on and the boys were really impressed. As our mate K said "I thought watercolour was just flowers and stuff, but this is so cool! I want to paint like this!" or as Flex said "No way! That looks like a photo! Until you get really close..."
Art. TICK

With eyes wide open (as they tend to be when I'm enjoying myself which I tend to do at art galleries) I noticed the gallery had a treasure hunt going on...so we grabbed our maps, and proceeded to run around the immaculate Japanes garden searching for hidden animals and filling out the missing letters in the booklet. This involved reading signs, discussing clues and writing neat legible letters as they would be (gasp) checked by the lady at the desk before giving out the prizes....
English. TICK

Then it was a walk to the playground near the gallery - and a very 'arty' playground it is! Minimalist constructions of shiny metal poles and blue spongy balls...this really stretched the kid's imaginations as they had to invent activites and games...which of course they did marvellously! There were balancing competitions (35 seconds on one foot was the record), hanging upside down, negotiating slippery metal, lots of laughing and three sweaty, happy boys walked back to the car...
PDH/PE. TICK.

The final item on the agenda for the day was a free viewing of the film 'Bag It' and a talk by local environmental campaigner Tim Silverwood. This inspiring young surfer has taken up the challenge to help clean up the sea and educate people about the dangers of plastic polluction...he spoke passionately about his travels and experiences and presented both a slideshow with commentary and the 65 minute film. Both were informative, full of disturbing statistics, showed maps of the world and where the swirling gyres which held garbage were located. We saw images of dead wildlife with hundreds of pieces of plastic in their stomachs and heard from all sorts of scientists about the growing problem of non biolegradable plastic in our environment. We also learned about how dangerous the chemicals in many plastics are for our bodies and how truly unregulated the recycling industry is.
We decided in the car on the way home that we would keep every piece of plastic we purchased for a month to see how much it was. And pick up 3 bits of plastic every time we go into nature. And never forget our canvas shopping bags EVER AGAIN!!!!
Human Society and it's Environment: TICK
Maths: TICK
Science: TICK

So there you have it. A day in the life of our fun schooling family. Needless to say, I slept like a baby last night ;)