Responding to Readers' Questions || Life as a Homeschooler

I received another comment in response to the one I responded to here. I'm going to address three of the questions from it here: 1) Do I like homeschooling? 2) Do I ever wish I went to school? and 3) What kind of things do I do in each day? 

1) No, I don't like homeschooling. I LOVE it. Haha. My years of formal homeschooling (academics) are nearly over, but I am, and likely always will be, a homeschooler at heart.

2) Are you kidding me?! I'm nearly eighteen and more interested in job opportunities actually! :) But in the past . . . Well, for a short time before entering high school (level, that is) I did. But otherwise, no. I loved life as a homeschooler too much! :)

3) My average day would involve school work, music practice (flute especially, maybe guitar as well), folding washing (we all have assigned chores and that's my daily one), teaching (recorder) and some free time. One day a week I work with my dad in our family-owned import/wholesale business dispatching orders and doing some data entry, invoicing, taking/editing images, and updating catalogues and various other documents. Currently I'm designing a new catalogue as well. 

So there are my thoughts on those three questions. And if anything isn't clear, well then there's a comment section. ;) haha

Rainbow's End!

My friend Becks and I went to Rainbow's End together in November on the day homeschoolers could get in for only $16. Although the weather looked a bit dodgy in the morning, it soon cleared up - to the point that we got sunburnt! We spent much early part of the day queuing for rides, so it was nice when the schools all left at 2pm - suddenly we managed a whole lot of rides in a much shorter time! Somehow, though, there were few enough people there that I managed to be the only person on the Invader once! (awkward lol). Anyways, we had an AWESOME day!! :D

: : Me, Becks, Katherine : :

: : Ruth and me : :

: : About to ride the {18-storey}Fear Fall : :
Do I look nervous? lol

: : EEEK! About to drop! : :

Homeschoolers out there...

...you HAVE to watch this!!! :D :D

12 Days of Homeschooling

Operation Christmas Child

A skirt I made to go in a box.
I almost wanted to keep it for one of my sisters!

Back in October (OCC's national collection month), my dad came with my friend Becks and me (and a few other home-schoolers) to volunteer at Operation Christmas Child for a few hours one Saturday.

Operation Christmas Child, a project of Samaritan's Purse, provides underprivelaged children aged 2-14yrs with a shoebox containing various gifts for Christmas. Some of the impact stories are very moving!

My boxes all packed up!

I figured since we were going to the warehouse anyway, we should take the boxes I was filling, rather than having to drop them somewhere else. So on the Friday we went from one shop to another, buying the rest of the fillers I needed; I ended up spending most of the day working on the boxes! 

Becks and me

We left home around 9am Saturday morning, so we could be at the (OCC) warehouse in Henderson by 10 o'clock. We spent the next few hours unpacking boxes, checking the contents for anything that wasn't supposed to be in them, making sure (as best we could) that there was something from each of the listed categories, removing unnecessary packaging, and filling (from stocks they have there) any that didn't have enough 'stuff' in them. 

2 o'clock came all too soon and we left since we didn't want to be home too late. We stopped in at The Coffee Club for afternoon tea before dropping Becks home. :)

Afternoon tea...

And I won't mention what the house looked like when we got back...suffice it to say my mum and siblings were in the midst of a massive cleanup/out, which involved taking everything out from under the beds in the girls room...!

Rainbow's End

Written 29/11/11 to 5/12/11

Ok so I've lived about 5 or 10 minutes drive from Rainbow's End, New Zealand's largest theme park, for my entire life, but I'd never actually been there, until a couple of weeks ago...

The day of Friday ?? November began like any other day - searching for clothes to wear, deciding what to eat for breakfast...lol Finally my uncle managed to drag all four of us out the door, and into his car, with Mum giving last-minute instructions all the while. =)

When we arrived, we lined up to be ticked off the list of homeschool attenders, and recieve our wristband-our pass to get on the rides for the day. Homeschoolers had come from all over Auckland, and even a large group from Hamilton! 5 or so school buses also came with eager students. 

This is just a portion of the crowds; to the left were the school groups.

While waiting in line (the first of the waiting we would do that day), I was pleased to meet some friends I hadn't seen in a loooong time! Jarrod also met up with the Campbells', who he was to spend the day with.

Eventually we were allowed inside the park, and wondered what ride we should do first? Uncle Pete decided the Motion Master would be the one, so we proceeded to line up, and finally, enter it. The current video was Journey to the Center of the Earth, and I think Uncle Pete enjoyed it, but Monique, Danielle, and I weren't so enthusiastic. lol The three of us spent a minimal amount of time looking at the screen...

  

Uncle Pete thought it would be good to do a more Danielle-suited ride next, so we proceeded to Cadbury Castle. She and Monique enjoyed the carousel, and I did the Dragon's Flight with Monique, but Danielle deemed it 'too scary.'

After a bit of a walk, Monique decided she would like to do the Invader, so Uncle Pete took her on that. Apparently she did ok until the first rise, then, well, let's just say Uncle Pete was a bit worried about her..

Next up was..um... the Bumper Boats, I think? The waiting in line actually took longer than the ride... Anyway I kinda enjoyed crashing into people...lol

Oh great, my brain's fuzzing out a bit here, but I think we did the Dodgems, had lunch,  then did the Log Flume, before riding the Pirate Ship.

ok random but anyway...lol

Then Monique and Danielle rode the Jumpin' Star (mini fearfall).

Uncle Pete and I did the Gold Rush, while Monique and Danielle waited at the entrance/exit.
We then proceeded to ride the aforementioned Pirate Ship three times in a row, on which I met some friends, so yeah we had fun raising our arms (you are instructed to raise your arms if you feel sick so they can stop the ride, but I seriously wonder how they know if someone's actually sick!), and screaming on the count of three....lol

Uncle Pete (half jokingly) asked if we wanted to ride the Roller Coaster. He looked slightly shocked when I said yes...I'm not really THAT much of a scaredy-cat am I?!? or maybe I am... *grin* I replied that I seriously couldn't go to Rainbow's End and NOT ride it..lol thats one ride I've read about/seen in books since I was little! So yeah I did that a couple of times, managing to sit next to Bernie the second time =)

I then decided I wanted to ride the Invader (I hadn't had the guts earlier in the day when Uncle Pete and Monique did it!). Lol I think it may have been something like what Uncle Pete said - it was getting late in the day and I was freaking out 'cause I hadn't done much!  So yeah I did that with Uncle Pete. and yes it was AWESOME!!!! lol!

Uncle Pete and I did the Gold Rush again, this time with Monique:

Then the Dodgems again for Danielle, and (you're not gonna believe this one!) as I had decided I wanted to ride the Fear Fall, we ran to it, but unfortunately it had closed for the day. Finally, as it was kinda late, I rushed to ride the Invader again, this time sitting next to one of the Holmes girls. =)
Last of all, I raced over to see if the Roller Coaster was still open, but unfortunately the 'closed' sign was out...

And that was the end of our (first ever) trip to Rainbow's End! Tired and sunburnt, we headed home, where we watched Mr Bean's Holiday and Soul Surfer, two cool movies! =)

Until next time,
Bianca =)

Athletics

Hey Everyone,

We had our first club night for the season tonight!!!
We weren't sure whether it would be on because there were lots of grey clouds.
But it went ahead, and there were a few homeschoolers trying it out for the first time, and some returning.

I did Discus, missed the 200m race, and ran the 100m. I threw 9.52m in Discus, and came 3rd - or last! in the 100m sprint. Both of those are an improvement on last year.

It started raining just after we had finished!

Diana (4) Did it for the first time, and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Better go do flute practice,
Bee