Children's Literature Festival

We went up to the mountains today for the Festival of Children's Literature at the Norman Lindsay Gallery. It was the ideal combination of literature and running around, with four great author talks (the first one a stand up comedian, which really set the scene) and lots of opportunity for running around with the proxy cousins in between literary events.

As a bonus, someone from Wires was there showing off some rescued animals. Declan got to have a snake draped around his shoulders, and we all admired the baby tawny frogmouth (even though it did eat a whole (dead) mouse).

Callum and Declan liked the first author (Oliver Phommavanh) so much that they each bought one of his books. You can see them reading here in between exhausting games of tip at lunchtime.

Hoarse

Callum is still hoarse after three days of non stop shouting at bush camp. It is quite funny to watch, as he really can't talk for to long before his voice gets tired. I'm using it to stop him talking to me about Minecraft. The downside is that he then won't talk to me about anything else.

Back to speeches

Now that they are back at Cammeray, the boys are back doing one speech a term. Declan's speech had to be on a famous Australian (person, or thing). He chose Howard Florey (but didn't do the same speech Callum had done three years before).

He was keen to research and write the speech himself, which meant it probably wasn't as well structured as the ones we used to write with him, but he had a lot more passion. He didn't make the speak offs, but his friends did, so he's happy.

Callum has missed out on the in class prep time for his speech by going to Cromer every Tuesday, so he's doing some practice this weekend.

The Great Aussie Bush Camp

Callum went off for three days this week (with Evan as a parent helper) to the Great Aussie Bush Camp, up near Tea Gardens, four hours drive north of Sydney. It was for the 60 Year 6 kids in Cammeray School this year, and they did a commando course (Callum had to pretend to be a hostage needing rescuing), mud assault course, giant swing, talent quest and lots of other fun activities.

Callum came home hoarse, from all the shouting, with flecks of mud still in his hair, exhausted, and very happy with his three days. He came second in the talent quest, with his card trick (learned at the Exploratorium). But he was very happy to sleep in his own bed last night.

Walking to the bus

This week, Callum and Evan have been away at Year 6 camp, and so Declan and I have been by ourselves since Wednesday morning. Declan has been very proud of himself, as he has walked up to the bus at North Sydney all by himself. He asked me to come down to the ground floor with him, but after that he walked very responsibly to the bus stop.

The trickest part is at the beginning, when he has to cross Lavender St, a very busy street. He usually waits for an adult to be nearby, in case the cars don't see him.

Catching the bus home

The boys are now advanced enough in their public transport capabilities to catch the bus home from school by themselves. They get on, watch carefully for their stop, and then get off and walk home.

It took a while before Evan trusted them to do it, as if they miss their stop they end up across the harbour bridge at the end of the run (which would mean having to figure out which bus to get back). But they are now old hands, and the only question for discussion is how fast they should walk home (Callum favouring a faster walking speed than Declan).

Shorn

For reasons which aren't entirely clear to me, Callum decided to get as much hair as possible cut in his latest hair cut. So he now looks quite different, and is noticing the difference even with his bike helmet, which isn't as snug as before.
I've uploaded some before during and after pictures for posterity.

Uber Gear engaged

After the rain stopped this morning we went for a bike ride to Barangaroo for a bit of exercise. The boys have started to get into the exciting feeling of riding fast, which they called uber gear. Callum, in particular, got into his top gear on the front wheel, which meant he was probably going faster than 30ks an hour (my guess, he doesn't have a cycle computer despite the electronics at home).

More school action

This week was a busy one on the high school preparation front. On Thursday morning, Callum did the selective schools test. He did about 20 minutes preparation the morning and evening before, which definitely put him at the bottom end of the level of preparation from any of the 13,512 students sitting the test this year (many of whom had coaching two days a week for the previous year). He said that he thought he had done a good job, so we will see in July how well he has done.

Then in the afternoon, Callum and I went to the International Grammar School open day, and had a tour taken by two current students (one of whom was also called Callum). We had a nice chat (partly in French) with one of the French teachers, but Callum was most taken with the laser etched medallion that he got in commemoration.

The final step in our current frenzy of tests and Open Days is on Monday, when Callum takes the test for the Mosman High academic stream.

Project work

Callum got a special extension project this term, which was quite extensive. He had to compare and contrast two books and their language used and present his results in an interesting way.

So with two weeks to go, we got him to prepare a plan for what he was going to do and by when, so that he would be able to finish comfortably.

But, given it was the first time we'd asked him to manage something like this, it wasn't a huge surprise that at 7.30 on Monday morning he was frantically making last minute edits to his speech and website, despite having had lots of time on the weekend to get it done. Luckily he hasn't yet worked out the concept of the allnighter, but give him time!

His website is here, we think he did a pretty good job, but his project management needs a bit of work!

Happy Birthday Grandpa

This evening we had a lovely evening with Grandma, Grandpa, Granny and special New Zealand guest Tiny. The boys had been looking forward to celebrating Grandpa's birthday which was last Saturday.

They baked him a cake, which he found touching. Less touching once he realised that they had actually iced a cardboard box, and sung Happy Birthday all with the intention of pranking him into trying to cut a piece of cardboard box to hand around.

Luckily there was also a real cake, and much enjoyment was had all round.

A soaking

In preparation for their intrepid trip to school this morning, the boys put on their Inca trail boots instead of their school shoes. By the time they got to school, though, the boots were soaked through as Sydney got 40mm of rain in the hour it took them to get to school.

Callum and Declan both had tales of the various unusual things their teachers let them do (stand in front of the heater in bare feet!) to compensate for the big wet.

And we were all competing tonight over dinner for who got the wettest this morning.

Mosman High Open night

This evening was Mosman High School's open night. We all went along to check it out. They put on a good show, with dry ice in the Science lab, a cool computer design project involving greek myths in the computer lab and some echidnas that turned into Sydney Opera Houses in the woodworking lab. (plus some very tasty hors doeuvres in the food tech section that only I enjoyed).

Callum came home reasonably happy with it, but Declan loved the place. He had never seen a high school before, and didn't realise what kind of science and woodworking equipment you might see. Plus he was very taken with the fact that the bus went from the door of Mosman High to our front door (particularly pertinent on a day like today where they got soaked 50 metres into the trip to school).

School interview at IGS

On Wednesday, Evan, Callum and I trekked out to International Grammar school to talk to them about Year 7 next year. We thought they were interviewing them, but it turned out they were interviewing us, as by the end of the interview they told us that Callum had a place if he wanted it.

It was Callum's first time talking to a high school, and he loved it, enjoying answering all of the Deputy Principal's questions, and lapping up the attention. She was clearly enamoured of his forthrightness and lack of self-consciousness (as well as his tales of our trip around the world) and told us at the end of the interview that she would love to have Callum next year.

Next step will be the selective schools test (in two weeks time), the Mosman high test (a little later) and various school open days.

At some point we will all have to make a decision (or else go back to homeschooling...)

Modern time capsule

Callum has just told me about his new time capsule. He's put an old USB stick into a test tube, and he plans to leave it there for a year, and find out then what his obsessions were.

Apparently it has all his old programming and robotics projects on it.

I didn't realise how much time capsules had changed since my time in primary school.

Sheep's brains

Callum continues to love his day a week at Cromer for extension. This week they dissected a sheep's brain (learning about concussion as part of the lesson) and then (hopefully after washing their hands) made apple turnovers.

Sadly I didn't get to eat any of the apple turnover (nor has he reprised the recipe at home) but by all reports they were delicious.

Pong is reborn as a Scratch program

Declan has spent all week programming in Scratch. He's been very excited. He programmed, all by himself, the famous early game Pong. You can play it if you click here.

If you don't have time to play it (or it doesn't work), you need to know that he has instructions, two players (with different controls) sounds every time the ball hits the walls, and a special "You Win!" graphic when a player gets the better of the other one.

He took his program to school this week, and showed it off to his teacher and the class, using the class smartboard. Unfortunately their excitement was tempered by the fact that the bell had already run for recess, so the game couldn't last too long.

He pretty much did all the programming himself, helped occasionally by Callum, who helped him think through a few tricky programming questions.