Kuitpo Forest

Yesterday a group of home schoolers met up at the Chookarloo Campground within Kuitpo forest, which is a plantation forest in the Mt Lofty ranges about a half hour drive from Adelaide.

“Established in 1898, Kuitpo was the first of a number of forest plantations in the Mt Lofty ranges to ensure a sustainable timber resource for South Australia.

Today, Kuitpo covers and area of some 3,600 hectares, of which 60% is softwood plantation.Kuitpo’s plantations yield some 25,000 cubic metres of timber each year, valued in excess of $1.5 million.

Kuitpo is modelled as a community forest, managed for sustainable commercial forestry, while providing for the conservation of native flora and fauna and community use for recreation.” 

~ Forestry SA pamphlet

There are great places to camp, so we hope to head back that way when we’re ready to travel.

We had a campfire and some of the families cooked lunch in the coals. We discovered that throwing dry eucalypts leaves on the fire was quite spectacular which lead to us chatting about  wind, heat, fire safety and bush fires.

Of course we toasted marshmallows, set a few on fire and got pretty smoky and sticky.

Certain children (all four of mine and 2 others) had fun making a mud slide into the little creek. We’d come prepared with a change of clothes, which was a good thing because they were needed. It was lovely to spend some time chatting and playing and we’re gradually making new friends, which is something that isn’t always easy and does take some time.

I always say that the dirtiest child is usually the one who had the most fun. This time the fun factor was rather high. Everyone needed a shower when we got home and we were all nicely tired and ready to sleep at bedtime.

Science Alive

Yesterday we all went off to the Adelaide Showgrounds for Science Alive Show 2012, part of National Science Week. It was our first ever science show and what fun it was. We were there for more than 4 hours and still didn’t really finish exploring everything there was to see.  The range of displays was broad, with plenty of fun for kids and adults alike.

Our kids had their faces painted, then had lots of fun exploring the displays.

We got up and personal with some reptiles.

Here is Ben holding a Black Headed Python found in Northern Australia. Today we did a bit of googling about them and enjoyed this page with photos and video.

Ben and Ryan enjoyed this simple activity. The yellow buckets were spring loaded like a pump and had a hole at the end. The folks from the University of Adelaide filled them with (presumably) dry ice and the kids then got to shoot the gas rings into the air.

There is so much more…Ben explored some astronomy, D had a look at the electric car, and a big as telescope. All the kids watched a chemistry show, and the older kids tried to figure out why it didn’t hurt to sit on a chair seat of nails. Ryan discovered a solar powered toy train, and Emma submitted some invention ideas. All the kids LOVED the tasting kinds of exhibits and they are desperate to try make some Sherbert, which they saw demonstrated.

We went along just for the fun of it, and to expose the kids to some sciencey fun. I really think it’s important to keep the fun in learning. I remember school excursions when I was a child and I’ve seen the same thing recently….kids on a fun outing to the zoo or the museum eager to dash around and discover things, but being tied down to trailing around as a mob with piece of paper in hand to answer required questions. It killed it for me, and I generally found such excursions tiresome and frustrating. We did just dash from one exhibit to another, at one stage we’d completely lost all three of the older ones as they all became so excited to see the things they wanted to see. Apart from the anxiety it caused me to track them down and make sure they were all safe, it really was fun for them to explore at their own pace the very things they were interested in. They didn’t write a single thing down, but everyone learned stuff and discovered a little bit about how cool science really is.

See more of this weeks Unschool Monday posts here.

Some Recent Things

I bought the kids this world map puzzle, (because Ben asked for one) which includes some of the nations flags.

While they built it, we talked about what a continent is, and identified some of the capital cities for example, Canberra and Wellington being the two most relevant to them. Both Ben and Emma enjoyed spotting South Africa on the map because that’s where Dad comes from. Emma was surprised to discover that Egypt is on the same continent. She also thought the UK would be as big as the USA and was surprised by it’s tiny land mass.

Afterwards we pulled out the World Atlas and spend a few minutes browsing maps and Ben said he liked how you could see on the map where the mountains are. I showed them the Key to symbols on the map so they could start to understand what they were looking at.

And I spotted Emma in Sam’s bed piled up high with spare mattress and blankets with one of her library books from the Horrible Geography series.

(Unschool Monday  is hosted over at Owlet. Pop over to find posts about other unschooly days.)

Tangari Regional Park – Woodcroft South Australia

Today we went on a nature walk with some other home schooling families in the Tangari Regional Park. It is about 60 hectares of native woodland which contains large sections of remnant vegetation and gives a good idea of what the Adelaide plains would have looked like before European settlement in the 1830′s. We had Jason with us from Natural Resources Management who shared his local knowledge with us. It was such a great time and kids and adults alike all learned something.

We learned to identify some native grasses and trees, as well as some weeds. This is a weed:

While this next one is not. The easy way to tell the difference is the shape of the seed heads. This native grass is called Kangaroo Grass (themeda triandra)

Next up is acacia pycnantha, whose common name is Golden Wattle. It’s Australia’s floral emblem. It isn’t in flower at the moment but is known for it’s bright yellow (hay fever inducing) blossoms. We also learned that the Kaurna people (the local indigenous people) called it the ‘shut up’ tree. For children who talked too much, they would use the leaves (I think) to make their mouths go dry so they’d stop talking so much. When the acacia pycnantha is young it’s leaves look like pigs ears.

 

This little easily missed plant is a Sundew (drosera). It’s is carnivorous plant and likes to eat insects. If you look up close you can see little sticky hairs on it’s leaves.

Then we learned about Kangaroo Thorn or acacia paradoxia. The Kaurna people used the thorns from this plant to cure warts, by sticking the spines into the warts. We don’t seem to have a photo of this one.

We learned about the importance of tree hollows for bats and birds, and that there are about 8 species of bats in South Australia. I didn’t know this, and have never seen one here. Tree hollows only form in very old trees, and so many native vertebrate species are now threatened partly because of land clearing.

Someone found this moth casing.

And we saw a big ants nest:

We also compared native and non-native pine. This first picture is non-native, and the second one is a native pine. (I’m not sure but I think it is Callitris columellaris)

We took a close look and compared a couple of gum trees to learn how to identify a Blue Gum. I am now a little muddled about the ones we looked at, but here are  the various nuts:

There was wildlife around too. Along with the common Magpies, we saw Rosellas, Sulphur Crested Cockatoos, a single Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo and while we didn’t see one, there was evidence of echidna diggings.

A few minutes drive down the road (on Tripodi Road, Woodcroft for locals who might want to see it), is this massive Red Gum, estimated to be about 400 years old. It’s right in the middle of suburbia, and crosses the boundary of someone’s house so they have fenced right up to it on either side. There’s a tiny reserve the size of a house block, presumably to protect this grand old tree. It’s nice to know it wasn’t just cut down to make space for one more house in the development.

 

Another Special Tree Planting

 

With our last days in New Zealand approaching, we all wanted to visit the trees we’d planted back in September last year. The children wanted to see if they’d grown big enough to carve their initials in. Of course being very very slow growing trees, none of them had gained more than a few milimetres at a guess. Nevertheless, they are still there and doing well.

We had another reason to visit though, that is we are expecting our 5th child and it didn’t seem right that he/she would be the only one without a special New Zealand tree to honour their roots. Being conceived in NZ (but will be born in Australia) this little one needed a tree too. Tom and Mahrukh were very kind to arrange a visit just for us and at late notice. Here are a few pics from the day. These were taken by Mahrukh…we have some too which I might post at a later date.

In the back of Tom’s truck for a short ride up the track.

Tom and Doug digging the hole.

We chose a Miro this time.

A little Miro tree for Baby Johnson

When Emma’s Puriri tree is about 150 years old it will look a bit like this one.

Many thanks to Tom & Mahrukh from Cue Haven. They have such an inspirational vision to restore a 59 acre farm back to native forest. I think I’ve caught a tree planting bug. I definitely want to do this again.