Suzuki Spectacular: Boysterous Bows

This was our first Suzuki concert of the year. Previously it was called the family fun concert but it has been renamed Suzuki Spectacular to give each teacher an opportunity to show off her particular flavor of Suzuki. It was also the first concert for our group Boysterous Bows.

Above is our tuning instrument for the debut of Boysterous Bows.

This photo shows "anonymous Fred" who was an addition to the cellos!

As you can see everyone had a great time.

Some helpful tips

My son found this site with some good tips to follow if you know a homeschooler and I copied a few to this post!

Please stop asking us if it's legal. If it is — and it is — it's insulting to imply that we're criminals. And if we were criminals, would we admit it?

Learn what the words "socialize" and "socialization" mean, and use the one you really mean instead of mixing them up the way you do now. Socializing means hanging out with other people for fun. Socialization means having acquired the skills necessary to do so successfully and pleasantly. If you're talking to me and my kids, that means that we do in fact go outside now and then to visit the other human beings on the planet, and you can safely assume that we've got a decent grasp of both concepts.

We don't look horrified and start quizzing your kids when we hear they're in public school. Please stop drilling our children like potential oil fields to see if we're doing what you consider an adequate job of homeschooling.

Please stop questioning my competency and demanding to see my credentials. I didn't have to complete a course in catering to successfully cook dinner for my family; I don't need a degree in teaching to educate my children. If spending at least twelve years in the kind of chew-it-up-and-spit-it-out educational facility we call public school left me with so little information in my memory banks that I can't teach the basics of an elementary education to my nearest and dearest, maybe there's a reason I'm so reluctant to send my child to school.

Stop saying that my kid is shy, outgoing, aggressive, anxious, quiet, boisterous, argumentative, pouty, fidgety, chatty, whiny, or loud because he's homeschooled. It's not fair that all the kids who go to school can be as annoying as they want to without being branded as representative of anything but childhood.

OPQR:Of plumbing,quotes(and) review(book!)

Hmmm I sometimes think I am a tad obsessed with my post titles but for whatever reasons this above seemed a good fit. woke up this morning to an overly blocked toilet. Phoned our friend to cancel a play date for today. Toilet effluent then started covering the floor.Phoned plumber who was unable to visit before lunch but would arrive "sometime this afternoon".Finally finished this readaloud. A very funny sweet book which is not at all preachy so please don't let the quote I am sharing put you off reading it. The quote just fits the day...or was contemplation given to me unasked for, which I think the really good things to meditate on often are!

"Problems don't always get fixed.Lots of the time things are boring and dumb for no good reason. Or even terrible.And you can't do anything about it.That's life."
Penny thought about this for a minute. Then she sighed."I know," she said. She thought about it some more."Or maybe I don't," she said."But I'm startin to anyway, I guess." There might have been other good things to say about that, but just then a shooting star flew through the inky darkness, causing both girls to gasp....Lying like that, quiet and full and tired and home, Penny knew that everything was as it should be; everything was perfect. Just like she knew that someday soon everything wouldn't be again. But that was okay. The stars weren't going anywhere."(from Penny Dreadful by Laurel Snyder)

One thing we really enjoyed about this book was the reference to 15 other good children's books that are incorporated into the story. Great to see how many we've already read and that other people like our favourite books
An interesting thing to note:one of the chracters has two mums. This is not a plot point, just another set of characters in the story. Great to see a book that has diversity in characters when its not a major issue but rather just is:-)

Pagoda Magic

Ds has been working over  a very long time to complete his Japanese pagoda. It is still a work in progress and will remain that until he is totally convinced he has done enough. At our recent Education Department Review he was commended once more on his skill and dedication to detail.It is always good to have praise from people outside your family. I will add more pictures to this post so please come back to check progress!

Here are some updated images as promised:

Para Wirra Recreation Park

We spent  a very enjoyable time at Para Wirra Recreation park. We have volunteered as part of a small group to do some weed clearing in this park. As we drove in we noted the results of a deliberate burn in October/November last year. We admired the new growth establishing itself. After lunch and a chat with the park ranger we went to mark the area we will be working in. Finally we collected some samples for our herbariums we will be making over the year.

learning about topographical maps with ranger Steve

marking our specific work area

looking into the centre of our area

another view of our area

still another perimeter marker

final marker

 I love cloud scapes and sunrises. This mornings was so good I thought I'd share it!

The Blue Umbrella

A sweet and funny video to watch for our India study

Journey North Week Six and Seven

Because we have been out so much doing lots of exciting things my time to write up and blog our Journey north data has been limited. so I am incorporating our findings for 2 weeks.

m/class    wk1  wk2      wk3       wk4     wk5       wk6      wk7       wk8      wk9      wk10

#1	10.29	10.41	10.54	11.08	11.22	11.36	11.51
#2	13.32	13.21	13.10	12.59	12.46	12.34	12.21
#3	11.20	11.25	11.31	11.38	11.45	11.52	11.59
#4	13.52	13.38	13.25	13.10	12.56	12.40	12.25
#5	8.45	9.12	9.39	10.08	10.38	11.08	11.38
#6	18.43	16.44	16.04	15.52	*14.59	14.06	13.15
#7	12.04	12.04	12.04	12.05	12.05	12.05	12.06
#8	12.49	12.44	12.38	12.33	12.27	12.20	12.13
#9	10.36	10.46	10.59	11.12	11.24	11.39	11.52
#10	9.44	9.53	10.06	10.30	10.54	11.19	11.44
us	14.46	13.37	13.26	13.11	12.56	12.41	12.26

 Using the data we determined that :
In the North West hemisphere were #1,#5,#10
In the North East hemisphere were #3,#7,#9
In the South West hemisphere were #4
In the South East hemisphere were #2,#6,#8,and us!
We were able to predict the degrees in all whose sunrise was on the 12th March in UT but not for the following whose sunrise was on the 11th in UT:#3,#6,#7. We think that's right! And so we colored the degree section that the others occured in on a map.(see image below).

As you can see 2 classes share the same "possibilities"!

Afternoon with a Junior Symphony Orchestra

Ds had orchestra camp this weekend. He came home hungry(but what 14yo's aren't!?) and happy. Went straight from 2 days of music playing to a rehearsal for Boys club.They put on a small concert for us parents, before the camp break-up.

One of our good friends used to conduct this orchestra and the camp was his idea...thanks Philip.You can just see ds in the first picture in green.And the video is (I think) the third movement of "Little Suite for Orchestra" by Malcolm Arnold.

Succulents at Government House

 We have made some new friends that live close by. They have recently started homeschooling. Their oldest son is interested in succulents He has a small collection of the ...only 70 or so. Ds has decided he would also like to collect succulents, so be prepared when we visit to share a leaf or two! Here are some we observed at Government House open day.

Government House Open Day

looking into the city

The first Government House, the "Government Hut" was constructed of timber slabs, wattle and daub, a thatched roof, calico ceiling, and external stone chimneys. It is believed to have been on a site between the present railway station and the River Torrens, and was destroyed by fire in 1841.

pretty roses

a door in the wall

a closer view

icecream anyone

spotted these strange people!

Did you know , Government House, Adelaide is the oldest Government House in Australia.

pepper trees have their place!

ditto!

name the flower?

That's Not Garbage!

Ds had a great morning making stuff out of junk with some of his friends. The place was a hoarders paradise!

Here are some things other people have made.

Ds wanted to make something like this with nails and threads but the one thing we couldn't find in all that "junk" was nails!

What you can do with your used barbed wire!

ds made Shambles  (amongst other thins) which in layman's terms is a simple magic detector...and yes Terry Pratchett fans he is aware it needs something live added to it but he hoped to rectify that issue with one of our bantam eggs when we arrived home!!

NOTE:In Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels (notably "Wee Free Men" and "A Hatful of Sky"), a shambles is a magical device used by a witch to focus her concentration and reveal the unseen causes of a current situation or perhaps the future consequences of current events or actions. It is constructed by creating an unorganized collection of string and other small available objects such as buttons and pins and at least one living thing such as a egg or an insect, and manipulating it until the desired information is revealed. The term shambles reflects the disarray of its various components.