Meanderings

This bridge can be seen from our new house and Mr11 has an ongoing love of bridges so he is thrilled to have this bridge in view when ever he wants to look.

It is called McFarlane Bridge and was opened in 1906 and the curved track for the counterweights was based on the work of 18th century French engineer B F de Belidor, all of this is fascinating stuff for my bridge loving history buff, but Mr7 and I are more interested in the pair of Brahmany Kites who nest up there in that purpose built nest cradle, you can see one perched on top of the big wheel and the other one in the nest, It will soon be spring and we will certainly be keeping an eye on what happens up there.

We are living in a sugar cane farming area here and the cane fields are bright green and vast, it is harvest time and on dusk the farmers burn the fields, creating an amazing orange glow, it is a brief burn though they are really only burning off all the blades of this giant grass to make the harvesting of the cane easier. We also have showers of black ashen grass blades, that are strangely beautiful (as pointed out by my friend Amala.)
The harvest machinery has been really interesting to the boys as well, loads of cane trucks rumble past on their way to and from the nearby sugar mill and the machinery in the fields as we drive by always starts a discussion.

We can see this boat from our home,
we live over there on the other side.

and this is a sunset last week, looking out our dining room window, it is very beautiful here.

Sadly we are unable to have ADSL broadband here and mobile wifi is patchy and slow so we are reduced to dial up and the slow uploading of pics.

A Beautiful Blogger Award

Thank you my lovely friend Alecat from Serenades and Solace for awarding me as a beautiful blogger- I am honoured.

The regulations state the recipient of the beautiful blogger award must:
*Add a link and a note of thanks to the person giving the award,
*Pass the award onto the most beautiful blogs you love
*Share 7 things about yourself.


Blogging is such a peculiar pastime, I often feel like I am sitting here in my pj's and jotting down my thoughts or our days homeschool adventures and it is quite a solo experience, but when I read all of your lovely comments or am given an award or as has occasionally happened I meet a reader in real life I realise how nice that feedback is, how lovely to have others interested in what the boys and I are doing and even inspired by our activities. So thank you Alecat for your award and for sharing all you do on your lovely blog, I am often inspired by what you and Maestro and Mariposa are doing and it has been a lovely journey we have travelled together as we have developed our friendship online.

There are many beautiful Blogs that I love.
Here are 7.
Joannes beautiful photographs at Framed are a rare but special treat.

Moonbindery is a very talented and inspiring maker of hand made books.

Monika and her Bohemian Shadows is a delight, I enjoy her art, her thoughts and the inspirations she shares.

India Flint is an incredibly talented artist who does magic with natural dyes, her beautiful blog is not all those who wander are lost

I love to read what Ariad and her gorgeous kids are up to at Rainbow Love Farm

Kez's blog is another great blog I enjoy as a peek into anothers homeschool.

And the last but certainly not least beautiful blog I will share today is Barnacle Goose Paperwork's another fabulously talented artist writer and bookmaker.

And 7 things about me.

~I have just moved into a beautiful warm house with stunning river views and I am so happy about that. I have a drafting table and some shelf space permanently devoted to my art space- yay!

~After years and years without a bath tub I am having 4 or 5 long soaks in the tub each week. I take something to read and a cuppa and lie back in the warm and fragrant bubbles and R E L A X ahhh

~Some of my best friends live in my computer, I am a member of The Rockpool Homeschool forum and Milliandes art community for women and both of these online communities are wonderful safe supportive places than nourish me and many many other women. I feel blessed to have these communities in my life.

~I love to cook and to experiment with new recipes, we have been eating lots of fish from the local co op and I want to make a nice fish curry in the next few days.

~ I have a huge colony of red headed flying foxes living in some remnant rain forest near my home and I love them. I love the musky animal smell and the noises and the thousands of bats that flow through the sky just after sunset, and I love the ones that get in my garden and wake me at night, their cheerful chatter delights me, just don't tell the locals ; )

~I have pulled a muscle in my b.. last night at scouts, my gluteus maximus I think it is called and am hobbling around, but it was a great reason for a soak in the bath today. I hope it does not take too long to heal.

~I adore my kids and love our homeschooling lifestyle. I love seeing them learn, develop and grow.

~I am preparing a body of work and a portfolio to apply to a local art gallery to be an exhibiting artist in their gallery.

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.