Long Absence

We have moved to a new home and a have a new fig tree that I will need to post pictures of here, but I have been unable to get the internet connected at our new house yet and so have not been able to do much blogging!

Our new home is further down on the Mighty Clarence river and we have wonderful river views, we have a beautiful house with a lovely warm fire and a bath tub that Mr7 is enjoying most evenings and Mr11 and I are using often as well. A lovely big veranda where Emerald now reigns and all the opportunities that living in town offers.

Mr11 has started rowing with the rowing club and had a great time, he is also enjoying his increased independence and often walks, skateboards or rides his bike into town, both boys are starting at scouts tonight and we are already on friendly terms with the staff at the local library- they have the internet so we are dropping in fairly often.

Hopefully we will be back online soon.

Farewell our lovely Reiley Dog

Our lovely Reiley dog

We fare welled another courageous canine friend today companion of many an adventure

supreme athlete

friend and guardian to two beautiful little boys

active homeschool membertireless, loyal and lovingwatcher of rising flood waters in pouring raincompanion and confidant.

We will all miss you lovely fellow,
Your barks will no longer guard our flocks at night,
Your tail will no longer greet us after we have been apart,
and your steady presence will no longer guide and protect us.

Farewell Reiley dog.

2010 Clarence Valley Home Educators Sports Carnival

A good crowd attended our annual sports day and despite the rain we had families from Ballina, Lennox Heads, and Coffs Harbour as well as our local families.The intermediate long distance runners seconds after the start,and coming in for the finish after 2 laps.The littlies long distance, just after the start.Mr7 came in 2ndoff to the recording tentMr 11 doing discusMr7 showing his style in the littlies javelinMr 11s winning long jumpMr7s discuss throwLong JumpThe Red Rangers lining up for the team relayMr 7 with the batonGreat leadership by our team captainMr 11 enjoying the relay

the competition was tough in the tug of war

The house cup
what a lovely trophy

The victorious Green Team after the presentation and victory lap.

lots of fun was had by all, new friends made and another successful day thank you to the wonderful people who organise this each year.

Lunartics

Today we have been learning about the moon and all things lunar, so we became the lunartics :-)

It was Mr7s birthday on Saturday and we celebrated at a local pizza parlor with some friends. One of his presents was this wonderful book
Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11
It is such a wonderful book all about that amazing first flight into space, it is so well written and full of information. WE have read it and reread it, it is Mr7s new favourite book.

I also came across this great free offer from NASA
DVD Journey to the Stars
it comes with lesson plans and activity sheets.

We have our annual Clarence Valley Home Educators sports carnival coming up next Monday and I have been working on a paper mache surprise for the day.

Galaxies

Today we learned how galaxies are continuosly expandingThey are getting bigger and bigger

and eventually they explode.
Mr11 has a smart new haircut.

Mr almost 7 made a rocket

and tried to power it with a balloon

and he made some beautiful galaxies with glitter.

Stars

Oh My Stars! what did we get up to?We were thrilled to get a break in the cloud cover last night to get out and have a look at the sky with our binoculars, we went out before dinner and identified the Southern Cross and gazed at the moon. After dinner we went out again and everything had moved much to the delight of my boys.

We have been learning that stars have a life cycle-
(I love homeschooling I get to learn so much right along with my boys).
I had no idea stars were born, grew through various life stages and then declined to death.
Mr11 did his first ever web quest, and Mr6 and I made word stars to hang everywhere to play word games.

Of course stars have long been a topic or beauty, mystery and inspiration with many poets, songwriters and artists paying homage to them and a lesson on stars was just too tempting not to break out the pastels and have a little bit of Van Gogh Starry Starry Night play, accompanied by Don Maclean.

Mr6's pastel

Mr11's pastel

Squidoo Lens
Starry Starry Night
The Wonder of Stars and galaxies (including an astrophysics lecture)

Origami Stars
3 stars
mini star

Some more Space Links thanks Nicole.
NASAs Landsat
Canadian Space Agency - great teachers section here with lesson plans and image library

Sea and Sky lots of good school links

space.com great star info

Psst Karisma, I hope we didn't get you with that falling / disappearing star :-)

Launch Successful

We have had a successful launch of our new term topic.

It started out a bit rocky with Mr6 not feeling 100%, so Mr11 read him a Magic School Bus book on space to set the mood.
Then we talked about ancient people and what they may have thought of the night sky, we looked at myths and legends and wondered what prompted people to start trying to understand the heavens and what they did with the knowledge they gained- a way to record the passing of time, a way to plan farming activities and navigation.

Today the boys have been learning about the first astronomers and we have been thinking about how mysterious the world really was back then.We read about Ptolemy and his belief that the world stood still and everything circled around it, then how Aristotle came up with the amazing concept that the Earth was not flat! So Mr6 did a little experiment with his ship the Purple Lady and he saw how the ship just disappeared at the edge-
but managed to slowly and evenly navigate around a globe, we marveled at the hundreds of years it took for Aristotle's radical theory to prove true.
We also looked at Copernicus and Galileo, Mr11 did a report on Galileo and learned a lot about this fascinating man and the consequences of being true to your science in that time we also covered Kepler's laws of planetary motion and Newtons discoveries.
After some lunch we looked at constellations and Mr11 did a pinprick southern cross.
The weather is cloudy and showery here at the moment which is a shame for our planned night time astronomical activities but the ducks are happy and so is the garden and the lorikeets.

History of Astronomy and Art Lessons

From Creation Myths to the Big Bang

Astronomy Timeline

A History of Astronomy
this one has lots of links

A Brief History of Astronomy
University of California

Art

Space art lessons

Spheres in space

Space Activities

Fun things to make and do

Work in a Space Journal
include L.A., handwriting,
art, experiments, research.

Design a Satellite

Build your own Satellite

Canon Creative Park

The Space Place - Nasa activities
inclubing building a solar sail, strong objects from flimsy materials.

Explore a satellites centrifugal force

Space alphabet with Mr6
A is for Astronaught, etc

Recycled art
space suit
space craft
diorama

Make a sundial

Design a little green man or woman

Online Live Telescopes free to play with

Bradford Robotic Telescope

NASAs MicroObservatory Robotic Telescope Network

New Unit Study SPACE

Next week we are starting a new term, it will be our third term so far this year and we are donning our astro suits and heading out into space.

I am collecting resources at the moment and am going to share them here.
Web Sites-

David Reneke is one of Australia’s most well known and respected astronomers and lecturers, with over 40 years experience in astronomy.
This site was passed on to me from my Mum- thanks Mum, and has lots of great resources, links and a news letter.

Astronomy for kids
this one looks good for Mr6

Sydney Observatory
link for monthly skymap for the southern hemishpere

Southern Sky Watch
providing a monthly and yearly overview of what is happening out there.

Sky and Telescope Magazinewebsite for the magazine of the same name, loads of info here on all sorts of topics, tune up your telescope , news, astrophotography, etc, lots of great stuff including Stargazing with Galileo that is one I know my 2 will enjoy.

Nasa Kids Club has games and activities online

Star Child a learning centre for young astronomers, lots of resources here for teaching.

Amazing Space this one is built around the Hubble Space Telescope and has lots of info and teaching resources as well, including some pretty impressive graphic organisers for all of those lap book fans out there.

Kids Astronomy
a fun site from the kidsknowit network
Places to Go

Australian Telescope Array at Narrabri Observatory

Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium
In the Brisbane botanic gardens, Mt Coot-tha

Mt Kent Observatory near Toowoomba in Queensland

Mt Stromlo Observatory Canberra

Siding Springs Observatory near Coonabarabran, and the wonderful Warrumbungles

More links

The Science Spot lots of space links

Squidoo Amateur Astronomy lens

and some for my history fan

Astronomy History

History of Astronomy - loads of interesting links here

Ancient astronomical tools- ask an astrophysicist

Books

DK Astronomy

Astronomy by Dan Green

Of Numbers and Stars the story of Hypatia

Astronomy for Begginers

A childs intro to the night sky


We have taken the telescope to be fixed, printed out the sky maps and now I need to gather all the space books onto the homeschool bookshelf and hang up new posters.