Big Day Out - The Museum!

I wanted to give the kids a chance to be 'the leader' every once in a while, so we have designed something pretty fun. Once a month, we will go on a 'perfect homeschooling big day out' which has been designed, planned and budgeted for by one of the kids. Yesterday it was Christian's turn, and he had us all head into the city to visit the Australian Museum, eat KFC and play in a park.
He was in charge of buying the train tickets, deciding where we would sit and other such details. It led to a really interesting discussion on what makes a good leader...the kids thought that 'thinking of others', 'being kind', 'knowing what you are doing' and 'not being bossy' were important, as well as 'sharing' and 'not just doing it for yourself'. Wise kids.
Our first appointment at the museum was with a Canadian journalism student who was doing a research assignment on homeschooling and wanted some families to interview and film. So we did that and the children were articulate and honest in their responses to various questions about homeschooling. They also had that weird experience of having to repeat conversations so the camera could capture different angles! They did really well.

We then went on the explore the amazing world of nature that the museum serves to showcase....the awesome microscopes were very popular...Flex loved looking at tiny fish;

And his fingerprint. Check out the patterns! They remind me of the fossilised sea bed we saw at Kings canyon in the outback....

Lissette had a ball examining her 'disgusting' bitten fingernail...even the passing high schoolers found it pretty gross!!

Lucky and Lissette are developing a lovely friendship. They seem to really enjoy each others company. Here they are watching the reenactment of the dinosaur stampede at Lark Quarry in outback Queensland (been there!!!):

Soon it was time for lunch....we had discussed the KFC option earlier in the day (while looking up all the artificial colours and preservatives on the iPhone) and Christian as the wise leader had consented that we could find a healthier option....I'm not sure exactly how much healthier it is, but we ended up having Ogalo chicken burgers and schweppes lemonade, and enjoyed watching music videos in the shop while we ate.
LMFAO are still pretty funny.

Then it was time for the play in the park. The kids gathered small yellow figs and chucked them at each other, which developed into a mammoth game of 'Get the Flag'. They ran, they yelled, they argued, they sorted it out.
I lay on the grass and napped ;)
Back to the museum, where everyone could kind of do what they wanted. Christian went off exploring, Lissette, Lucky and I did the Alexander the Great treasure hunt and checked out a REAL mummy, Flex finished writing out his favourite specimen work and we all oohed and aahed over the gold nuggets, diamonds and other precious things.
And, there's always time for some dress ups.....

The train home was chockers and we were lucky to get seats. Then a group of elderly people came along and after a meaningful look from me, the kids all got up to offer their seats. It led to lots of chatting with this lovely group, one of whom was an ex school teacher. She was naturally very curious about the why and how of homeschooling, and commented on how friendly and confident the children were. The kids were showing them photos of our day on the iPad and we laughed and played charades the whole way home. Walking back to the car we gave Christian a golf clap for designing a great day out, giggled at the funny points of the day and slept REALLY well that night....