Jocelyn's blog

Oct. 10, 2008

Music and Movies

Great combination aren't they - music and movies?

Last week enjoyed both of these things in an unconventional way.

Well, Music at Midday, put on by the Royal Military Concert Band, is somewhat conventional, we just don't happen to attend it often. The concert runs for an hour and entry is by gold coin donation. These are held every couple of months at the Canberra Theatre. In fact, they are so popular that instead of there being one session at midday, there's two - one at 11am and another at 12.30pm.

After attending the 11am session, we then picked Andrew up from work and headed into Floriade for lunch. The theme for this year's tulip display is "Australian Movies". So, take a walk down the red carpet,

...grab some popcorn

.... and join us for a quick walk through.

The first photo is of "Muriel's Wedding"

After going past some fabulous floral displays, like the one below,

we came to my favourite movie design...can you guess?

This one is for "Shine". The piano keys run for a full octave and it was on such an impressive scale (pardon the pun)

Here's a few more movie designs:

"Moulin Rouge"

"Puberty Blues" - can you see the surfboard?

"Kenny"

The design for Gallipoli was hard to capture with the camera. I took a photo of the sign so you can get the idea of how it went. It also shows you how they introduced each movie.

Then below is a photo of one side of the sun.

Of course, Floriade isn't all about the tulips. There's other nice flowers, like these irises

and as it is set on the lake, it is a beautiful, tranquil environment. Just right for some "time out" with the ducks...

"Crocodile Dundee"

"The Rabbit Proof Fence"

Unfortunately, I didn't photograph all of the movie designs. A lot of the pictures were done flat in the flower beds with no elevated walkways. The pictures for "Babe" and "Happy Feet" were hard to make out.

We went twice this year. I would have liked to go another time, but it rained that afternoon. We love Floriade in Canberra, the colours, the warmer weather, the atmosphere. If you are anywhere near us why not join in one year? It's always on from mid September until mid October.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Sep. 27, 2008

Visiting a Refugee Camp

Posted in excursions

Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without borders) have been staging an event called, "A Refugee Camp in Your City" in different cities in Australia. Friends of ours went to the Brisbane event and gave us advance notice of the event in Canberra.

Part of Glebe Park was sectioned off and MSF had turned it into a replica of a Refugee Camp. We were led through each section of the camp on a guided tour. The lady who took us through had recently returned from Afghanistan, where she had been working in a clinic.

She told us so many areas in war-torn countries are covered in landmines. It is a grim reality.

We saw small tents and dwellings no bigger than our bathroom and were told that often families of 10 or more would sleep in that space.

The people in the camp are so resourceful, making toys. shoes and other things from whatever is at hand. Adam looked at the cars made from vegetable oil cans and said, "Those people are smart, Mummy. Look what they can make! I couldn't do that."

One of the items that was highlighted was the making of sandals from the tyres of cars. A friend wrote on her blog that she found it humbling to see this. I couldn't agree more. I certainly feel blessed to have what I do and the vast range of choices that confront me every day.

Interspersed with the tents and items directly used in Refugee Camps were some information posters. The ones below is entitled, "Where will I find food?" and has a picture of a lady, trying to put together a meal in rudimentary circumstances. These photos and the information about the harsh realities of life in other parts of the world brought one girl in our group to tears. Did it mean that the rest weren't affected? I'm sure they were, though she chose to show it in this visible way.

The photo above shows the food ration that would probably be shared between two people for a whole day. Rice, legumes and other staples are provided by the World Food programme, which is under the auspices of the UN.

We spent a while talking about water. As the picture above shows, most water is collected by women and children in developing parts of the world. In the camps, every person is given a daily ration of 20 litres a day. It looks like quite a bit of water but then we were informed that the average Australian household goes through 282 litres per day per person and we were a bit shocked!!

A few of the children tried to pick up the 20 litre container and carry it. There's a catalogue in the side bar.

Another part of the work is looking after the health of the refugees. If is all too common for people to arrive in the camps in a malnourished state. Babies are weighed (as you can see from the picture) and a measuring band is used on the upper arm to quickly ascertain whether a child is at risk. A few of our group tried the band and yes, they were all in the green zone.

So we came away with a deeper sense of just how much suffering there is in our world, the lives lived in stress and fractured environments, how blessed we are in our relative comfort and how we need to pray and support those who are reaching out to the needy.

We were given some information to take away with us. We'll keep talking about this and going through some of the material in the weeks to come.

• Comments (1) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Sep. 18, 2008

The Running Track

Posted in Homeschool life

I have been meaning to blog about this for a while now...

Most of you know that our Fridays are quite busy. We host a scrapbooking / craft morning, have lunch at the in-laws and then Mum looks after the children while I go grocery shopping and run errands. I am blessed by the help I receive.

A couple of months ago, Mum started taking the boys down to a running track while I went out. They started to get competitive about times (funny that..) so I thought it best to buy a stop watch.

Recently, I was able to go along, see where they run and how they were doing. Here's some photos:

Mark points out which route to use on the track. It's called "Deek's Track", after Robert de Castella, Australia's famous marathon runner.

The boys start warming up...

On your mark...get set...

Oma starts the clock...

Zac smashes his previous record. He cracked 5 minutes for the first time in the 1000m ( or 1km) distance. He ran it in 4.49!

Stephen matched Zac's 4.49 when he ran the second time...could not be outdone by a younger brother!

Adam brings it home...

and then collapses!

What of Mark?

He just wanted to keep going by himself. Sometimes off -track and not always in a straight line but he can go the whole way around without stopping now and clocks it in about 8 minutes.

They all enjoy it and look to better their times each week. It is a beautiful setting and I am so thankful to Mum for taking this on with the boys and being able to share it with them. She's a homeschooling Grandma!

• Comments (2) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Sep. 15, 2008

Snow Day 11th September ~ hold this space!

Posted in excursions

Yes, this is not the snow but the lovely roaring fire we had going at home on the day Andrew took the older three boys to the snow. I stayed at home with Mark, even though I didn't have my knitting partner this year (sob).

I'm still waiting on photos from our neighbour who went along as well. Will post about the day when the piccies come through...

• Comments (1) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Sep. 5, 2008

Bellmaker Day - 3 September

Posted in Redwall Book Club

Wednesday the 3rd of September was the date set for the next installment of Redwall!

For those who don't know, a group of us have been reading through these books by Brian Jacques and having fun "book club" days. Up until now, they have been hosted by the Luptons. With their early departure to the USA (sob), The Bellmaker Day was rescheduled to September.

Our household had to "gear up" as I had offered to take over from Donna as the organiser of the day. The boys helped with the preparations in the week preceding. We made a Pinata in the shape of a bell.

Stephen made up some introductory words and we had people identify the characters from their pictures as a condition of door entry. The picture is not coming up on shutterfly right now so I will have to try and reload it...

Once we got to our friends' house, her children and mine helped to fill water bombs for one of the games - even though it was ...brrrr...cold....

We decorated the place with maps, posters and books from the series and everyone came dressed as their favourite character from the book.

Stephen was Rab Streambattle, Zac was Finnbarr Galedeep, Adam was Blaggut and Mark was Mousebabe.

Everyone else explained to the group why they had chosen their character. I must say that this is one of my favourite parts of the whole day as I hear why the children have liked the various characters. It was also great because this was the first time that Mark stood up and spoke up for himself - he seemed so grown up!

We had some colourful characters too. Urgan Nagru dressed with great style...

and one who chose her character because her mother told her to!!!

Maybe that's because she couldn't make up her mind which character to be...and now I can't remember which one she said she actually was!!! Ummmm, can you tell I was laughing too hard at the time???

I could go through all the characters but it would take me too long, besides, the children are in other photos as well so you will see the costumes on the way through. Needless to say, we did have one Bellmaker so he needs to get a mention here:

After this introduction time, we played bingo with the character names and then divided into groups for a "who said what?" game. There were some intense expressions as the problem solving got under way...

Some had a more "laid back" approach...

although it didn't help them solve it faster than anyone else!

After some good rousing (or should I say ear-piercing?) war cries, we were off outside to conquer an obstacle course. I was too busy making sure everyone was doing the obstacle course to take photos at this point. Each team member had to run down into the gorge, across the dry river bed, up to the rock hill, pick up a weapon, run back, jump through some hoops, dodge some water bombs and tag their next team member so they could run the next leg. Apart from a couple of scrapes and some over-eager water-bombers, this worked out okay.

The next activity was to use the words of the "Shrum Song" and staying in groups, come up with a nice tune to sing just before lunch. I thought this would be a good idea as most hadn't managed to get the audiobook for this one and wouldn't have heard the song before. Zac had typed it up for me beforehand and each group had ten minutes to try and sing the same tune as their team members. I made the parents the judges for this one. Here's some photos of the groups in action:

Two Meldrums were in this group and their song was proclaimed the winner.

After a quick prayer, we started lunch. I was pulled up for being the rookie I am by Mother Liz, who works so hard in the "kitchens" - I had forgotten to let her introduce all the lovely foods which made up our feast for the day... I also didn't get to photograph it all before everyone tucked in. Maybe that's why it was easier when I was photographer for Donna because she was too busy to take some of the shots!!!

Anyway, here's what I got:

We had such lovely offerings (and this was not all of them): Veggible quiches, Haversack crumble, Strawberry fizz, Autumn oat favourites, Damson wine, Hotroot soup, Harvest Vegetable Soup, Summer Salad, Cheese and onion hogbake, October Ale, Spiced Gatehouse Tea Bread,Apple Fizz, Spring Garden Salad Delight, Dibbuns' Delights, Spring kiwi ale, Warriors' Staples (aka sausage rolls made by one of the dads), Cheerful Churchmouse Berry Crisp, crusty bread and these beautiful hedgehog rolls made by one of the girls:

After the feast, it was time for the quiz, an animal match-up game and the pinata.

Of course, I should have blindfolded them all because it cracked after two people...at least they had fun chasing down all the sweets!

and even though this was the end, I think they all had fun. I know that our family did and we are hoping to get an earlier start on reading the next book!

So...watch this space because in November, we plan to have the next day for Outcast of Redwall.

• Comments (2) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Aug. 27, 2008

Australian Science Festival - 22 August

Posted in excursions

The Annual Science Festival was on again last week and we went as a small group of homeschoolers on the Friday. Some people went on Wednesday and Thursday as well but we only committed ourselves to the one day.

Oma very graciously had Mark again for us so I could just take the older three along. Our first session was "Things that Go Bang in the Night". It was about killer asteroids, blackholes, aging stars/suns and other information about how vast our universe is in comparison to the small section we inhabit. Some of the pictures were stunning, break-taking actually, and yet, this backyard astronomer painted a bleak future for the world. He basically saw earth being blown up by one of these astronomical phenomena in the future. I'm not discounting the possibility but as Christians, we have more hope as the universe is one that is completely within God's control. He chooses to protect us with an atmosphere that makes smaller asteroids burn up before they reach us and He alone will determine the end of the earth and the means by which it will happen.

After that first session, the boys were walking into the main exhibit hall and who should they meet???

DALEKS!!!!!!

Our second class was called "Dancing Robots" and we almost had the class to ourselves. The kids had to use a computer to program the robots to go forwards, backwards, spin around, sense a line, sing a song and other challenges made up by the instructor.

Here's some of the group listening to the instructions.

Zac and Adam program their robot.

Two Kirkys with theirs...

The robots in action....

Will they do the right thing??

After this, we had lunch together as a group in the main foyer. Some of us enjoyed ourselves a little more than others...

but all had a good time.

We then wandered through the displays before going to a class in the afternoon. The boys posed for the picture below:

They all tried to pedal up to 1000 watts of electricity on the exercise bike, making some a little flushed in the face...

Stephen actually had his photo taken while he was on the bike and made it into the local newspaper.

Our last session was called "Cool as Liquid Nitrogen". The lady running this class showed us what this liquid could do and explained just how cold it is....( -196 degrees C!)

I would say that just as Professor Bunsen with his explosive show last year was a hit, this one on a cold substance was their favourite this year. A banana was super-cooled and smashed to smithereens, even a "my little pony" suffered this cruel fate.

It was interesting, fun and they did learn something about science...

I could put in even more photos and talk about a couple of other things but this will do. Thanks to those who made a "day of it" with us.

• Comments (2) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Aug. 27, 2008

Gold, Silver and Bronze

Posted in Homeschool life

It was the Olympics last week but I thought there were three main things that week that I could class in the Bronze, Silver and Gold categories.

I'll go in reverse order:

BRONZE
Well, Andrew's soccer team were effectively playing for Bronze. They came 4th in their soccer league, losing their semi-final. The soccer dinner was on Saturday night and Andrew & I went to a crowded Italian restaurant to celebrate the season with the team. Thankfully, it all went well and the guys were great. Most of the team aren't Christians, even though they play in the Christian soccer league.

SILVER
I was reminded of a concept in the Bible in the past week - being refined by fire and the dross coming out. It made me think of silver! Zac was laid low all week with gastro and it showed all over his face. We probably watched more of the Olympics because of it as he couldn't think much nor did he have the energy to do much. These times of trial can test the character and God can use it to refine us. Not sure he liked me saying that too much when he was sick so after a couple of times, I left him with that thought...

GOLD
The gold winning performance of the week has to go to my friend, Terry den Dulk. He and Liz have come out from London with the kids for a holiday. Being the incredible opera singer that he is, his Canberra counterparts couldn't let the opportunity pass, so he sang in a concert on Friday night. Those privileged to be there enjoyed a selection from Mozart, Verdi, Bach, Pirates of Penzance, Phantom of the Opera, Gorky and Bess and more! He sang some solos but most of the performance was with a soprano singer. Our dear family friends, the Semples, were in town as well so Brian accompanied me to the opera.

Gold was also the colour of the dress I wore. My son, Stephen, looked a bit shocked when I first came out all dressed up, saying, "Mummy! I've never seen you like this before!" I did take it as a compliment and added that I probably hadn't been as dressed up since my wedding day so it was no wonder he hadn't seen me like this before!

With Liz.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Aug. 14, 2008

Shelfari and reading books

Posted in History Happenings

Reading good, living books has always been a part of our history studies and really, just part of what we do.

At the moment, we have been reading through some fantastic books for history. Our core book has been "The Puritan Revolution" by C Walter Hodges. Hodges is known for his great illustrations but this series on the "Story of Britain" combines his skill as an illustrator with his abilities as a writer. He has great passages of writing, explaining some of the complexity of the tensions between Parliament, the King and religious factions with relative ease. He highlights the problems of too much power being concentrated in the one place or person, and in the space of 64 pages, is able to build a good picture of the struggles involved.

Added to this we've looked at some books on John Bunyan. Zac has enjoyed the level at which "Traitor in the Tower" is set and has been keen to read more of this Trailblazer series in his own time. We have a few of the books in this series already but I am now tracking down more...

I recently bought a book on Robert Boyle just out of interest as I have enjoyed all of John Hudson Tiner's books. Little did I realise, not being a sciency type, that he was a contemporary of John Bunyan and much of the history in England at this time is reflected in the biography! The timing could not have been better and I am going to pass that book on to the boys to read next week.

Then, Zac decided to take a break from Pathway readers for his read aloud to me and asked if he could use "Ten Boys Who Made History". Of course, that was fine with me and the first story this week was of Samuel Rutherford. a Scot who also lived during this time period and was part of the assembly in Westminster that put together those great confessions of faith. It is truly amazing how God causes these events to conspire! We are certainly gaining a rounded view as we linger a little longer in the mid 1600s in England.

So, go and check out my bookshelf - left hand margin to see all the main books we are reading at the moment. Adam is getting into Encyclopedia Brown after some gentle encouragement from Miss Libby but maybe that is an entry for another time.

What books are you reading right now?

• Comments (1) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Aug. 14, 2008

Maths Musings

Posted in Homeschool life

Toward the end of last year, I mentioned to my husband that I was finding it hard to explain some of the Maths to our eldest. Yes, he was only 10 at the time but was doing Grade 5 Singapore Maths. Some of the concepts in this course are not taught until Year 7 in Australia.

The biggest issue was that Maths has never been a favourite area of mine and I did not think I was the best teacher of it. I can explain it "my way" but don't have the expertise to explain a problem from a different perspective or with any depth of understanding. I was looking into getting a DVD course with a Mathematician explaining all the concepts. Many have used Math-U-See with success. In the meantime, a great special came up for an online course in Australia. We decided to give that a try for a year, research other options and then make a decision this year.

Adam doing Mathletics on the TV computer. It has improved his speed drills.

Of course, we didn't get far into the year when our trip to the USA came along. One of the families we visited had children a similar age to some of ours. Their dad had been teaching the children Maths for several years and had a good routine going. Yeah sure, this dad is a rocket scientist but it was helpful to see someone else doing this.

When we got back from the US, Andrew said that he would take the oldest two for Maths. I tried not to apply too much pressure and leave the decision with him. Needless to say, I was so relieved when he offered - it was a load off my mind! They start at 6.30am in the morning and do three mornings a week with Dad.

Zac presses on one morning and finished his work by 11am

Sometimes, they decide to keep working from that point on and get their work finished by an early time in the day. Other times, they take a break from 7.15 until 9am. They still have bible devotions and other things to do in their morning routine but they are at leisure to determine how all of that happens before 9am.

I have enjoyed that development as well. They are becoming more responsible for how they manage their time and make choices based on day to day happenings.

• Comments (2) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link

Aug. 5, 2008

Who Owns the Sun? FIAR Volume One

Posted in Five in a Row

If you have never encountered this book, I would say that you have missed something special. It is not my favourite Five in a Row book (FIAR) but it is certainly amongst my top ones.

The story starts with a child, we find out later that it is a boy, asking his father who owns the sun, the stars, the flowers and so on. The pictures are stunning and the explanations given as reasonably good. The freedom of these natural wonders is there for all to see - no man can hold them captive. Although no man owns such things in creation, as a Christian, I would say that God does "own" these things. That would probably be the only difference I would have with the author.

That "no man holds the works of creation captive" is the argument that is slowly built up, page by page, as this young son tries to make sense of his world. The trust, respect and love he has for his father shows through deeply as well.

The book then shifts slightly, for the young reader. Older readers will pick where this supposed "aside" is going... The story then centres on the father, Big Jim and his work in the fields, the pride his son has of his father's reputation and finally, the betrayal and humiliation that is felt as this son realises that his father, and therefore, he, is a slave on a plantation, supposedly "owned" by a man.

The father, somewhat bowed, is also courageous as he speaks to his son of the inner man that still is captive to no one.

These truths are told simply and yet profoundly through the rich pages of this picture book. Whether you use the Five in a Row program or not, I would heartily recommend reading this book with your children and talking through the issues it raises about captivity, freedom and the spiritual side of our existence.

• Comments (0) • Post A Comment! • Permanent Link