The Week That Was

The week that was… Natural learning

Wow, what a huge couple of weeks it has been for our family! We have been away having a fabulous holiday. One thing I love about homeschooling is that we’re not restricted by when we can take holidays. We get to go whenever suits us, instead of only in the holiday periods when everyone else is doing the same thing and all the places are crowded!

Our holiday started when we headed up to stay with family at Hervey Bay. They have such a great place with lots for the kids to do and explore.

Feeding the quails and chickens and collecting the eggs. The girls also had tractor rides, patted pet snakes, played in the garden, helped in the shed, and we had a bonfire.

They even got a snake skin to bring home with them.

Nanna had even made the girls their very own fairy garden to play in. Doesn’t it look magical?

She’d gone to so much trouble, and the girls loved it of course.

Isn’t it gorgeous?

The girls spent many afternoons playing in there. They both love fairies.

Collecting flowers by the dam.

Next we headed to Fraser Island where we stayed in a house on the beach. Here Miss 5 and her Nanna are exploring the Maheno Shipwreck. We learnt about how it ended up there.

Floating down Eli Creek. This was the girls favourite spot by far. The water was so clear and the scenery was so beautiful. Miss 5 was very proud of herself when she leaned to balance on the body board standing up.

Littlest girl tested out her balance too! She floated the whole way down like this.

The girls were very excited to see a dingo on the beach while we were driving!

We had been reading the signs and the girls learnt all about dingoes and especially how to stay safe around them.

Miss 5 found a cicada shell…

And of course got straight to work looking it up in her bug book.

Littlest girl exploring at Lake Birrabeen. She loved feeling the texture of the sand, and practicing her digging. This trip was also the first time she’d been swimming!

Rocks and creeks to explore just outside the house while Dad was fishing. The girls learnt about how the creeks were freshwater and ran out into the sea. They saw jellyfish washed up on the shore, and collected shells.

One day when we were driving along the beach we even saw two turtles on the sand! Amazing!

Lots of climbing practice! From the top of these rocks we saw stingrays!

At home the girls drew what they had seen in their journals.

A visit to central station provided more learning opportunities. We learned about the history of the indigenous people of Fraser Island and how the worlds biggest sand island was formed.

There was lots of leaves to explore (and taste) on our rainforest walk.

And the girls also learned about Braille.

So many interesting places!

Ahh…Lake Mackenzie. Isn’t it beautiful? This was my favourite place (apart from the march flies!). The water was beautiful and the girls loved swimming and playing here.

Miss 3 exploring and collecting treasures on our last day at Fraser.

Next stop was Mon Repos where we hoped to see a turtle laying her eggs on the beach. There was lots to learn while we waited for the call. Here they are learning about the life cycle of sea turtles.

Here we discovered that turtles are endangered (or ‘in danger’ as Miss 3 says). She was actually really interested and excited. She was outraged that people were ‘making turtles in danger’.

The girls also got to do some colouring and a little ‘junior rangers‘ program. We finally got the call at about 9pm at night and went down with our group to the beach. Unfortunately Miss 3 was too tired and fell asleep before seeing the turtle. Miss 5 was amazed and excited. It was pretty magical to watch. Unfortunately I couldn’t take any photos while we were there, but that’s ok, what’s more important is not disturbing the turtle too much. I think there will be lots more learning about turtles in the near future!

And that’s it! It was such a wonderful holiday. It was sad to leave but also good to be home and get back to our normal life. See you next week!

Don’t forget to see some more inspiring examples of natural learning at Memoirs of a Childhood, An Everyday Story, and Racheous – Lovable Learning.