Welcome
Welcome to my first newsletter and thanks for signing up to my mailing list.
Here you will find information about upcoming courses and workshops, the online Cosmos course I am currently offering and a recommendation and review of a free online science resource.
I have also included a project that one of my online students submitted for one of her Cosmos lessons.
I hope you enjoy this newsletter, feel free to
email me with your feedback.
New workshops
Last year I started running new workshops based on lessons developed by the Australian Cosmos magazine writers team. These workshops tend to be more visual with video clips and also the students get a booklet that they take home. The lessons are centred around a theme based on a recent science news item which means they are high interest topics. As always I try and incorporate hands-on activities as much as possible within my workshops.
These new workshops have proven to be popular and this coming year I will continue to offer more workshops. I am currently looking at developing workshops on the respiratory system, on electric cars and on rocks & minerals.
These workshops will firstly be on offer in Auckland, Hamilton and the Bay of Plenty. However, trips are planned to the Manawatu/Wellington/Hawkes Bay regions next month as well as to the South Island in Sep/Oct/Nov later this year. I will send out notices about upcoming courses and workshops through this mailing list.
Online science course
Last year in term three I started offering online science courses which can be accessed anywhere in the country (or even anywhere in the world!). The programme is written by an Australian science magazine writers team and the lessons are of very high quality. So if you are looking for a self-contained science programme for this coming year do check it out. At $75 per term it’s very affordable, the students have access to five different lessons, their work gets marked and feedback given so it’s very easy for you as the parent :). For more information about this programme you can click here.
One of my online students, Grace Smith, aged 10 of Taupo has given me permission to share her project with you. She did a research project on telescopes in her Gravity & Orbit lesson at year 7 level. Note that this is year 7 Australian which is equivalent to year 8 NZ.
You can view her project here.
Science hire kits
The science hire kits service that I used to offer has been taken over by Sophia, a homeschooling mum in Auckland. You can find her website here. Enjoy the many educational kits, I can really recommend any homeschooling family to sign up so you can hire some amazing kits. She has also started up a homeschool lego club, check it out!
Nathalie Thomas, MSc, dipT
ph: 07-5490383 or 021-1448841
