Ashleigh Whaley
Our Homeschooling Adventures and Activities May-June 2024
Homeschooling Adventures May-June 2024
Homeschooling.
Busy Polo Season.
Our homeschooling adventures and activities in May and June are always very busy and stressful, as we have polo practice and/or tournaments every weekend! The children are put under pressure to get their schoolwork done before the weekends.
Often, we have Fridays away from school, as we prepare and travel with our horses to polo tournaments. We have to be very disciplined and push hard with the schoolwork on all the days between tournaments. I am always amazed as to how we manage to keep up with our academic goals throughout this busy period.
Home Club Polo Tournament.
In June we had our home Club , where the children needed time off from school, to learn how to prepare, organise and run a polo tournament.
They had to help with the erection of paddocks, putting up sponsorship tents and flags, decorating tables and recording the scores for each team, – plus commentating on the matches and making sure that the games all started on time!
They both worked extremely hard to help make the tournament a success. It turned out to be a wonderful, active and fun weekend, where the children came away knowing that they had learnt a whole new set of skills.
We strongly believe in homeschooling around life, as many life skills are learned outside of the classroom.
Murray John’s 13th Birthday.
It was Murray John’s 13th birthday, on the 23rd of June. He had a wonderful day at polo practice, where he shared his special birthday cake. Murray John is an incredible blessing to us all and it is great to see our boy reaching thirteen years old, as an accomplished happy and healthy boy.
ADMA Show.
The ADMA show is our annual Agricultural Show held in Harare and it is when the children take two days off school to attend the Show. They love seeing all the new equipment, finding out more about vehicles and tractors and basically just enjoying the show environment. It is an event they never miss!
Homeschooling Friends.
Happy Farmyard Animals.
Our garden on the farm is full of animals and birds, – from egg laying hens, and chickens, to an assortment of bantams, as well as some ducks and a white goose that needed a home. We have added two more guinea pig friends to keep Fuzz company and we still have three rabbits. We love our farm menagerie!
Horses.
Polo Practice.
For the whole of May and June we didn’t take a weekend off from polo, as we had a tournament every alternate weekend, with a polo practice day in between.
It is extremely hectic and busy, requiring a lot of planning and hard work. However, as a family, we just love all our weekends on the polo field!
Best Turned-Out String.
Paula Joy won ‘the best turned out string’ at the first polo tournament, which is an award she’s always wanted to win, as it’s something she has worked extremely hard to achieve.
Amongst the wins there are always losses… At our home tournament the children lost their match by half a goal. Despite the loss, they really enjoyed the weekend, and learnt a lot from playing faster polo with adults.
Goodbye Parade.
Sadly, we lost one of our favourite polo ponies, ‘Parade’, to a hoof injury, which could not be repaired. It is always very sad to lose a special horsey friend. However, we have good memories of the fun we have had playing polo on Parade.
Horse Transport.
It certainly is a major exercise, moving horses to polo each weekend! The roads we travel on are often very bad and it takes many hours for our truck to get to the various polo clubs.
Horsemanship.
The children continue to learn much about how to manage polo ponies. There is the necessary fitness exercise between tournaments and practices, plus how to manage their diets, how to heal their various injuries and the constant need for correct shoeing. They have to make sure that their ponies are in peak performance for each weekend.
Every day they are at the stables, checking on the feeding, the exercise routines, overseeing injuries and general stable management. They also need to stand in for the grooms, when they have days off. As parents we constantly guide them and check that they always make the right decisions.
The end goal is for the children to be good polo players and well-rounded horsemen, who can look after and prepare ponies for the level of polo that they play.
Homeschooling Sports.
With the demands of the polo season the children have stopped playing cricket. They are now playing the odd round of golf, as and when they have the time. Their total sports programme will resume in September, once the polo season has ended.
Homeschooling Activities May-June 2024.
Farm Life.
Winter wheat.
By the middle of May the winter wheat had all been planted. It’s lovely seeing the green wheat emerge, adding huge patches of green to the dry winter landscape.
Other Crops.
The tobacco sales continue, along with the preparation of tobacco seedbeds. All the commercial maize, seed maize and sorghum has now been harvested.
The banana reaping and sales continues throughout the winter.
Zimbabwe Economics.
The economic situation in Zimbabwe continues to worsen, after the introduction of the new ZIG currency. However, most people have chosen to continue trade, using the US dollar, as it is a far more stable currency.
Our roads are often horrendous, with masses of potholes and some very bad dirt roads, which are not fun to travel on! Electricity load shedding continues, resulting in many days on the farm without electricity. Subsequently, all the irrigation has to operate at night, as and when the electricity is on.
Zimbabwe is not for the faint hearted! It continues to become more difficult to make ends meet, which in turn makes for a tough country in which to live. One has to dig deeper and deeper, in order to survive.
What lies ahead?
Looking forward; July will start with a trip to South Africa, for a kid’s polo clinic, followed by more polo tournaments in Harare and home club practices. We are also looking forward to an August holiday adventure in Victoria Falls!
We look forward to sharing all these adventures with you.
Until then keep well and God bless!
“Turn to God. Then times of refreshment will come from the presence of the Lord.” Acts 3 vs 19-20.
Please write your comment below….
- Our Victoria Falls Celebration Trip.
- Our Homeschooling Adventures and Activities for May-June 2024.
- What is a Healthy Homeschooling Culture?
- Our Homeschooling Adventures and Activities for March-April 2024.
- Developing Life Skills through a Houseboat Adventure.
