The Fig Tree: March 2010

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Weathering the Years

It was Daddy's birthday yesterday,

and to mark the passage of time,

we headed to the beach

to see some weathering and erosion.

We went to Blue Pool at Angorie,

on the NSW North Coast.

It was a beautiful sunny afternoon

we even had a play in the park

and we had so much fun.

Happy Birthday Daddy
We love you.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

We have been learning about continental plates and plate tectonics today.
The boys have been fascinated with the theory's of plate tectonics.
Pangaea to Gondwanaland and Laurasia.
We have cut out the continents and made our own little puzzles to piece the continents together and move them around.

There are some great clips showing plate tectonics on you tube
and an interactive animation at Origins: Antarctica:
One other resource we are finding really help full is a free text book online Earth Science
and another lovely book arrived in the post today-
DK Smithsonian Institute Earth- by James F. Luhr

We are slowly getting back into the rhythm of our homeschooling days, it is amazing how disruptive 2 weeks holidays can be. When Mr11 was younger and we followed the 'school' year timetable and had a long 6 week break in summer he would have forgotten so much and we had to do a lot of catching up, it must be so much harder with a whole class full of kids.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Earth Science

Our unit study this term is Earth Science

We started today and made some new workbooks,
that is Mr6's title page,
Some of the books we are using are
Children's Encyclopedia of Earth- Michael Allaby
The Magic Schoolbus- Inside the Earth
My 2 love the Magic Schoolbus and tell me
if they could go to Miss Frizz's school they would.
Rocks and Fossils
Dinah Zikes Great Science Adventures-
Discovering Earths Landforms and Surface Features
Planet Earth Inside Out -Gail Gibbons
Australian rocks and minerals - John Child
Geology Rocks
DK Eyewitness Books Earth

and while we have been away so much has happened-

Mr 6s garden has grown so much,

he is eating a cucumber he just picked

Emerald has found a very special friend.

Meet "Saphire", he is Em's mate

and they are doing lots of spring things here,
they both freely come and go from her cage
and we have put in a nest box for them in an old water box.
There is a lot of rustling going on in there,
we can hand feed Saphire now.

look what has happened to Mr6's little Nutmeg-
they grow so fast, she lives out in the chook dome now,
and perches up the top with the big chooks,
she is still very friendly and rides on Mr6's shoulder.

Holiday March 2010

The boys and I have just had 2 weeks off
and we went on a holiday.
We went down to visit Nanny and Poppy.

Stopping at the spectacular Ebor Falls on the way

and visited the Old Dubbo Gaol

They loved the stocks-

Gelato's at the Molong Gelato Factory were delicious

as we headed down to Canberra to see the
Masterpieces From Paris Exhibition
and were amazed,
it is a big collection and there were lots of people,
If you can get to see it, it is wonderful.

The boys were excited to see Parliament House

and I loved all the public art everywhere.

Here are the boys and Nanny
looking at a giant Bower birds Bower.
Holidays are so much fun.

Sunday, March 14, 2010

snakes

My boys love snakes, and all animals really- we went to the Wellington Vintage Fair and it was rained out, luckily the snake man was there and the boys found him.