March happenings

The students at the Brian Street Learning Centre have been busy working on various projects over the past month involving taxonomy, history, physics and dance.
Both girls are interested in British history thanks to the wonderful Horrible Histories series and they have begun a very large and ambitious poster of British monarchs from the time of William the Conqueror.

Work on this poster is ticking many boxes: research skills, art, english and maths (working out dates and how long each monarch reigned). Most of the work is by the SnorkMaiden; Moomintroll helps out with the dates and has been making her own mini posters for her scrapbook.

Taxonomy or classification has always been an interest of mine, so I felt I had to start sharing it with the girls. We began with the five Kingdoms of Life and are now looking in depth at the Animal Kingdom.

a page in their scrapbooks

Of course this topic warranted a field trip, so we visited the aquarium and took photos and wrote down lots of scientific names for further research.

the newest Aptenodytes patagonicus chick

Phyllopteryx taeniolatus

Homo sapiens homeschoolicus

The sewing/craft set up has been a hit. Nearly everyday for a week both girls could be found sifting through piles of fabric and sewing up all sorts of items for their baby dolls like pillows, sleeping bags and blankets. Here are two of the best items they created - a quilt by Moomintroll and a tote bag by SnorkMaiden.

The girls entertained us with their ballet class open days:

We took a trip to the Cranbourne Botanic Gardens for easter. We're not up to learning about the Plant Kingdom yet but hopefully the girls soaked up some interesting facts while we were there :)

Our latest expedition was to Williamstown to see the fantastic Sea Shepherd boats - the Steve Irwin, the Bob Barker and the Sam Simon.  We toured two of these ships and learned alot about the injustices going on in the Southern Ocean.

surveying the damage done to the Sam Simon by Japanese whalers

sitting in the Skipper's seat

the Steve Irwin

We've had a really busy month. I am hoping to slow things down a little in the coming weeks. With the weather finally getting its act together and getting cooler I think we're all looking forward to some cosy and warm, in front of the heater, read all day, stay at home pajama days.