Learning in our Life

Friday 12^th May 2006

Today was our Homeschool Co op once again.  We were planning a musical emphasis for this month due to the Kimberley Moon Experience.  At the last minute Margret found a percussion band, who are in town for the Kimberley Moon, and they were willing to give us an hour of their time.  It all fell into place really neatly – we were doing music anyway, they were camping at the same venue we were going to be at! 

They were great – they got the kids to limber up first, get to the beat, and then they “jammed” together playing beats with their bodies as instruments.  Hard work keeping to a beat so continually and moving different parts of your body.  The kids seemed to enjoy it though.

Then there was the super-fun …. Binstruments!  The group, called Junkidellic, uses recycled materials for their instruments etc…. They lined the kids up with barrel-drums and shakers and played music together.

We are hoping to get them up here again next year but spend some time doing a workshop or the like rather than just sharing an experience with them for an hour like today was.

 

After the hour with music we returned to our regular routine for our Co ops with morning tea, Oral presentations and Character session. 

Josh spoke on the Battle of Agincourt and was disappointed that there were no boys in his audience as he felt the girls were bored and didn’t give him any encouragement.

Jess spoke on CS Lewis and from all accounts spoke well, using her palm cards as prompts.

Nomi gave a very theatrical performance as she gave a book report on the Narnia Chronicles (actually, since she has only just started reading the books it really was a report on the Dramatised CD’s!)

Daniel spoke well, though the kids struggled to understand him, on Volcanoes.

For our Character Session we looked at Responsibility.  After we learnt the memory work we split into two groups so the younger ones could be taught “Monkey Business” (that your responsibilities are like little monkeys and you have to look after your little monkey else they will jump onto mummy and she has to help you look after your responsibilities aka monkey!)  The older group discussed that being obedient for the rest of their life is not good enough – they have to move into being responsible.  This discussion was very opportune as it lead to some real heart searching and responding!

Tonight for our movie night we watched the new version of Narnia.  The kids were so excited.  It was a real educational experience for them actually as they compared the movie to the books, how they gave full marks for the way the movie makers depicted things, they could see why the movie makers would leave this bit out or express this bit this way.  It was very interesting to sit there and listen to their thoughts and judgments! 

 

Coming from a person who has never read the book – or watched any other movie through – I was astounded at the analogies and I wished I wasn’t so tired and our day tomorrow wasn’t so full so I could have sat and discussed it with the kids some more.  We did wrap it up with a short discussion on the analogies but not as thoroughly as I would like to… not to worry I am sure the opportunity will arise again.