CLICK HERE FOR FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES, LINK BUTTONS AND MORE! »

Our Reasons for Home Education:

Lilypie Kids Birthday tickers

Although he was achieving good results, he wasn't reaching his full potential because his love for learning had been destroyed & hence his grades were steadily declining.

Lilypie Kids Birthday tickers

Completely failed by the system, he hated school, was always tired & homework time was a major frustration for both of us. He was severely frustrated & quickly heading to become yet another ADHD statistic.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Sonshine Ranch

2015_0218_0932462015_0218_093240We took Misha to Sonshine Ranch today to join a group of homeschoolers for some horse riding, flying fox, rope swing & a water confidence course. It is a pity that this was only aimed at the younger children as I think Jesse would  have really enjoyed taking part in those activities too.

Sonshine Ranch is a Christian outdoor recreation centre situated about half way between Papakura and Clevedon. It is an hour South-East from Auckland International Airport, and forty minutes from downtown Auckland. Getting there was our biggest challenge for the day. Even though it is just 50km from home, this trip during peak hour traffic took us just over an hour & a half. That being something to get used to when we used to drive almost 80km to our family in Vanderbilpark in half that time.

First up was the flying fox, which for some reason he refused to do even though he had  done the one in Stanmore Bay many times. Maybe this one seemed a bit too intimidating having needed a harness & being so much bigger.

2015_0218_101400 2015_0218_101454 2015_0218_105108 2015_0218_105340

We did however manage to convince him to give the rope swing a try after which he figured the flying fox wouldn’t have been so bad. Had they swopped these two events around he may have even attempted it later.

2015_0218_110918(2)

The horse riding was probably his main reason for agreeing to go. After this he was all relaxed & not concerned with all the new faces at all. This of course would have been the best ice breaker. Had he been in the first group, I guess everything would have been different for him.

2015_0218_113358 2015_0218_113530

After horse riding it was time for lunch.

2015_0218_121250 2015_0218_123032

Then off to the water confidence course.

2015_0218_130436 2015_0218_130808(1) 2015_0218_131156 2015_0218_132004(1)

Below we saw an amazing display of teamwork as the little girl in front got stuck getting to the other tire because she was so small. It took about 10 minutes for the kids behind to swing at each other hard enough to push her far enough forward to reach that tire as they had to get her out of the in order to finish their own course.

2015_0218_132438 2015_0218_132718(3)

Having had an eventful day by 13h30 the kids were getting ready to head back home.

2015_0218_134600 2015_0218_134856

Thursday, February 5, 2015

School Term Start

2015_0205_1152402015_0205_113354Here in New Zealand the schools close later in December than we’re used to & hence only start early February. Although we already started school straight after New Year because we still prefer to take short breaks more regularly in the year, we have to wait for the school term to start for homeschool activities to commence.

 2015_0205_121034  2015_0205_121144 2015_0205_121200 2015_0205_121204 2015_0205_121222

 

This year our first activity was stopping by the annual Auckland Home Educators picnic today. The boys met some new people there, but unfortunately none that live close by so they can see them more often.

2015_0205_125456 2015_0205_125602

Jesse tried his hand on some programming at The MindLab. However most of their classes are aimed at 16 & under so he got rather bored so will stick out the term & then we’ll have to find him something else to do.

2015_0205_140426 2015_0205_141446 2015_0205_142400 2015_0205_143746 2015_0205_152342 2015_0205_152356 2015_0205_152848

Whilst waiting for Jesse, Misha & I joined another Kiwi mom & her 2 younger kids for a walk through the area & ended up doing some geocahing. Misha got to navigate on the phone whilst moms just followed along. They did find 2 caches & got very close to a third one but due to not having a special tool we weren’t able to retrieve it. We figured we’d bring some tools next time we’re in the area for that one.