Term Four: Week Three ~ Aussie Bird Count

This week our routine was a little bit out of whack.

It was Aussie Bird Count week and as we missed it last year, the boys were determined to participate this year.  So each day they scrambled to get their schoolwork so we could go outside to a park and do our bird watching/counting.  Essentially we timed ourselves for 20 minutes, noting what birds we saw during that time, and then logged on to the website to list what birds we saw where.  The boys LOVED it.  I was quite excited as well as I saw a few birds I had never noticed before.

 The above photos are snapshots of the three boys working on their maths, handwriting, and IEW paragraphs.  They put in good hard work with their written work this week.

Monkey jotting down the birds he spotted during one of our many aussie bird count outings. 

We ended the week at our favourite park with our homeschool group.  Monster, Monkey and two of their friends climbed to the top of the spider web to be "kings"!! 

We spotted all sorts of beautiful birds during our Aussie Bird Count outings!  I spotted this Kookaburra in the tree.  Later we were rewarded for our patience and quietness and got to see him catch, kill and eat a lizard.  Sadly I couldn't get my camera out fast enough to photograph it. 

Sulphur Crested Cockatoo 

Pelican 

I was super excited to photograph this bird I had never even seen before... A Scarlet Honeyeater. 

Ducks 

Pigeons 

Dusky Moor Hens 

More Sulphur Crested Cockatoos 

More Ducks... 

Purple Swamp Hen 

 Even with my super zoom lens I couldn't get close up shots of these two tiny birds... and I'm waiting on a friend to identify them for me.

 The boys were ecstatic to find a family of baby ducks.

And I grabbed this quick photo of a Rainbow Lorikeet. 

Our selection of books for the week.

Term Four: Week Two ~ Changes to Our Co-Op Class

I was rather slack with the photographs again this week ~ I guess it is taking me some time to get myself back into the habit of snapping pictures of our learning activities...

 Munchkin and Monster did some beautiful work on their handwriting this week.

Our co-op now meets on Friday and this suits us MUCH better.  We thus have FOUR days at home without interruption to get all our school work done.  We end our school "week" on Thursday at 3pm with a trip to the library.  Then Friday morning we pack up and head to our friend's house for co-op lessons in the morning.  In the afternoon we join our homeschool group at whatever park they are meeting at, and then in the late afternoon (around 4pm) we meet up with some public schooled friends at our favourite park for a play.  It is a LONG day out but is lots of fun and also an excellent way to end our learning week.

This week at co-op we reviewed our Latin vocab (above photo) with a "go fish" sort of game. 

Then the children were allowed to draw while we read aloud about Augustine.  The older boys drew comic strips that corresponded with the story while Munchkin used drawing websites on my phone to draw animals. 

Finally they ended their day helping their friend put together his solar system model. Sadly the pouring rain kept us from participating in homeschool group, but we desperately need the rain (we've had no measurable rain in nearly four months) so we weren't complaining. 

We did read LOTS of books this week... 

First we did a mini unit on celebrations (see more books we read below) 

Munchkin often likes to raid the board book box at the library... 

 Some information book read alouds for the week...

 I finished the evening read aloud chapter book that I was reading with Monkey and Monster

Science and history read alouds for Monkey and Monster... 

 And Munchkin's beautiful selection of picture books for the week.