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.

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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.

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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...

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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.

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Mar. 20, 2008

Reading Challenge!

Posted in excursions

Last year, I signed Stevie And Zac up to be part of the Chief Minister's Reading Challenge. It a scheme run in every state and territory to encourage reading in young people. The challenge requires them to read 12 books in 9 months from a set list. They can make two selections themselves from other sources. They get a certificate of achievement for this.

Well, there just wasn't time at the end of last year to have a little presentation so we decided to have it now! We gathered at a local park, sat together and had our own little celebration.

The children were asked to do a short report on a book that they read and why they liked it.

Here's a photo of Stevie reading his report. Below is Zac:

Liz shared one of her favs (well, her son's actually...)

Then they received their certificates and were encouraged to read more books for this year's challenge.

I must admit that my older boys find this easy as they are reading constantly. Still, it's nice to recognise some good reading and have the opportunity to share about that with others. Even I found out the name of a children's book that I'd like to track down for us!

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Mar. 19, 2008

Swimming on Wednesdays

Posted in excursions

For almost 6 months now, the boys have had swimming lessons on Wednesday mornings. This means getting dressed in their swimmers just after breakfast, taking their clothes in bags and heading out the door at 8.30am. The lessons start at 8.45am and go for half an hour.

The lady who teaches them is a qualified instructor and operates from her own home. She has a dome cover over the pool in colder months and leaves it open (as you see below) in warmer months. There's still a black shade cloth "sail" over the pool to keep the extreme heat from affecting those in the pool.

We kept up the lessons this term so that Adam and Mark would be more confident in the water just before we went over to warm weather in the USA.

Adam is able to strike out on his own now. He doesn't need a kick board or flippers! He's starting to learn the freestyle stroke too.

Mark has the "floatie" backpack on in this picture but he went without it for the first time today. He loves the water and tries to keep up with the others.

Stephen and Zac do freestyle laps for a lot of the time. The one I took of Zac was blurry but he was basically doing the same thing.

Occasionally, they catch up to eachother and have a bit of fun, but their teacher is good at keeping them moving. Thankfully, they are the only ones in this class so they do get a lot of attention.

We're looking forward to extended "pool" time as we prepare for our trip away. It's also been a good habit for the boys and they enjoy the morning exercise.

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Dec. 19, 2007

Building a Radio

Posted in excursions

On Tuesday (two weeks ago) Stephen & Zac joined a small group of homeschoolers and started to build a Radio at Peter's place. Peter took a session on the Mightly Electron in October and has great enthusiasm for electronics.

This Radio will not be using any electricity and will be able to be listened to 24 / 7 ! The children started out by making a capacitor out of cardboard, silverfoil, stickytape and some wire. That took so long that another session had to be scheduled.

For "homework", the boys had to wind some wire 12 x around a fruit cardboard box and then, this Tuesday, they had the opportunity to join up the capacitor to the wire.

Peter made a tuner to go into the capacitor so they could receive a few of the AM stations.

Once it was all connected, they could have a listen through an ear piece.

Like all radios, you have to move it around to get the best reception!

They were able to pick up 3 or 4 stations and Peter has offered another session to make a speaker, powered by a 9 volt battery so that they can have amplified sound.

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Nov. 27, 2007

Symphony for Kids

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Yesterday, we joined a group of homeschoolers to hear the "Symphony for Kids". We first went to this 4 years ago and I took a 6 year old Stevie and 4 year old Zac! Now, Adam is 6 and that's about the average age for this audience.

The aim of this short concert is to introduce young children to the instruments of the orchestra and show them how they make their sounds and fit into the orchestra ensemble. The violinist undid his bow to show the horse hair, those on wind instruments played their mouthpieces before connecting them to their instruments and we had some amazing solos!

The lady playing the xylophone was amazing! The fingers of the musicians playing the clarinet seemed to fly!! The tuba was incredibly huge and the trombones an absolute blast (sorry for the pun...) Each musician played a little piece of music that showed the unique qualities of their instrument. The Pink Panther sounded great coming from the basses, the piccolo's "flight" as a bird from Peter and the Wolf was magical and the drummer even had a little interlude where he acted like Animal from the Muppets.

This program was so much fun and achieved its aim of interesting kids in classical music and the orchestra. There were a few soundtrack pieces as well as a Teddy Bear's Picnic, so it was enjoyable!

Do any orchestras put on a similar program in your area?

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Nov. 15, 2007

New Parliament House visit

Posted in excursions

Stephen and Zachary went on an excursion to New Parliament House today. It was for ages 8 and up so I stayed back with the younger ones. I didn't have my camera there so I am using photos available on the web. It's called New Parliament House because this building was only opened in 1988. Up until then an older, smaller building was used.

Here's a shot from the top of the front entrance, looking back toward Old Parliament House and in the distance, the War Memorial. I could go a little crazy with pictures as there's so many nice ones out there. I will rein myself in now and get back to the script...

Here was the program for the morning:

10am: A role play of a parliamentary sitting.

The boys said they had a mock debate on whether the use of rain tanks is beneficial. They had to divide into teams, work out their points and argue their case. Stephen was the Clerk for his side.

11am: A tour of both the Senate and the House of Representatives.

This is a photo of the House of Representatives. Parliaments isn't sitting at the moment as we have a Federal Election in 10 days' time. Apparently, the Senate, which is a red chamber, has the only "EXIT" signs in red in the world. I'm not sure if that referred to a public building or not but it was something they remembered!

After a tour of both chambers, they walked down the corridors with paintings of Prime Ministers.

They told me about a PM who only had the job for 8 days, one who died of a heart attack while in office and another who was swept out to sea and never found again. Isn't it interesting which information they choose to retain???

12 midday: Snacks provided by our local member.

It was nice to know that they were shown this mark of hospitality. It was hosted by Gary Nairn, the member for Eden-Monaro, though he couldn't be there in person.

It was great that the boys had this opportunity, especially given that our country is in election-mode right now. It was a good follow-up to the Electoral Commission trip too, as lately, we have been talking a lot more about elections and how our processes work.

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Nov. 6, 2007

Electoral Commission Visit - 31 October

Posted in excursions

We have a federal election coming up in a matter of weeks and so, it was great to go along to Old Parliament House with a group of friends and learn about our voting system.

There was a short presentation on the history of voting in our country. In the 1890s, women were given the right to vote and not until 1967 was this right extended to the indigenous population. Mind you, when we got home that night and Andrew asked them what they had learned that day, Adam said, "Women can't vote." He obviously wasn't listening to that segment until the end...

After this, we went into their activity centre. There, the children went to different work stations and found out more about the voting system. I'll include photos now (so sorry to those on the email feed).

At this corner of the room, the "green" section, we learned about the electoral roll. If you knew the name of someone on the roll, you could look them up on the computer. The boys had fun doing this as the next couple of photos will show:

Adam gets help to fill out his sheet.

The "red" room talked about voting procedures in elections and referendums. They had to listen to some audio on each segment.

The "purple" section of the room gave scenarios for different voters and their circumstances and asked you if they could still vote in an election. For instance, Jack working as a jackaroo on a sheep station in the remote outback - can he still vote? Yes, he can send in a postal vote. Theresa working in Paris can go to the Australian Embassy and cast
a pre-poll vote.

In the "yellow section", they learned about the division of government into House of Representatives and the Senate and how the voting was counted. In the "blue" section, they looked at stages in the elections.

After being moved along from this room, we went and staged out own election. We had polling assistants, a ballot paper, used the same screened booths that voters use on election day and put the ballot papers into a box that was heavily guarded. Here's the photos:

What were we voting on? Which fruit we liked the best of the four choices given - Apple, Peach, Orange and Banana. Votes were tallied with eager scrutineers watching the counting and then the preferences were worked out on a whiteboard.

Banana won the day!

We had some of the families back for a quick lunch and then my boys finished off their activity sheets from earlier. Yes, I'm a "mean" mamma!

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