Holidays

The term 3 holidays here were very busy this time.  My brother turned up on his way from Asia back to Adelaide, and stayed for a while.  I had my home education report to organise for my moderator, we went to the Royal Perth show, and Arden was off to an Airforce Cadets camp for the second week.

Particularly the camp made things a bit complicated, as I needed to discuss aspects of the report writing with Arden.  So week one was busy getting prepped, with lots of reviewing our year, both via my planning and my notes on our calendar and pulling all of that together.  I was feeling a bit stressed out about it this time, as I had a new moderator again, and I had lost last years calendar, and some of my notes.  I did *eventually* find them all!

We went to the Show with the whole family, Willow had come up from the South- West, and my brother was here, and we had a fairly full day out at the show.  We went to see the racing ducks, and the alpacas in particular (Willow, Arden and Irving had done an alpaca handling course, so they were very keen for this).  We visited the dairy pavillion, watched the woodchopping, went on some rides, and got some showbags, and watched some of the stadium performances, including the fireworks.  The finale for the night, was Arden and I  heading onto the slingshot.  I wasn’t particularly keen, but it was quite magical being shot towards the sky with the moon as our target!  We were a bit lucky with that aspect.

We also headed North to visit some friends who live out of the city, and Arden got a second outing to the show with one of his homeschool friends.

Irving got into filming and photographing the showrides, after we dropped Arden off.

I managed to catch up with some crafts, and repairs, in the second  week of the holidays.  This time I did some fabric dying, and refreshed some faded clothing of both mine and Willow’s.

Arden got back mid-afternoon from his Airforce cadets camp, and we had a bit of a quiet afternoon before heading out to the Fire Garden festival at Government house.  It was visually spectacular, but a little hot!  Especially since we hadn’t had many hot days yet, when it was on.

Art, reading and life

This year we started the year with some painting.  Largely focusing on complimentary colours and how to mix them from after images.  We picked up some new Stockmar paints, as we were getting a bit low.  The book “Colour Dynamics” offered great inspiration and the idea for trialing mixing the colours we could see as after images.

Mixing after image colours.

Our stockmar paints.

Painting together

A selection of Irving’s paitnings.

A selection of Arden’s paintings.

 Veil Painting- stages….

 

 

 

  

A selection of my paintings.

Veil painting – transforming

Paintings on display.

Complementary colours in nature.

We also took a look at Jenny Hocking’s book “The Palace Letters” after coming across it at the library.  Arden and I heard about the letters regarding Gough Whitlam’s dismissal last year, and decided it was worth reading about.  Some of it was a bit dry for his level, but a significant amount of it was filled with intrigue and so as a book for us to read together it worked very well.  For more pleasureable reading we all read “Wind in the Willows” together.

Creating a cork board gradually.

We did some first aid again this Summer.  Arden and Irving’s turn this year.

Since we were in and out of lockdown during this time, we adjusted our usual start to the year, which is March, did painting took some time out again and “started” for the year.  Given that we do a lot of natural learning and interest led learning even during our structured time it didn’t hugely impact the beginning of the year.  As we always start gently as the heat can oftentimes still be oppressive in March.

This year we hired a car and did some weekend driving around Western Australia.

The Pinnacles.

Two Rocks

Crystals in the Caves at Yanchep.

Cervantes

Mandaring Weir.  Quite a big deal in Western Australia, where a lot of the state is desert.

The coast.

 Arden and Irving really enjoyed getting out and seeing a lot of the places that they have heard about.  Gabriel came along for abit, unfortunately Willow was busy for a lot of the weekend- so we were mostly a family of four for the weekend.  Something that is more common these days as we transition into a family with adults.  Sometimes all of us, sometimes 4 and sometimes 5.  It is interesting being able to experience the family in different ways as we transition into new ways of experiencing family life as a multi-generational family.

Dragonflies were studied for a bit, when we came across this one.

Arden had an opportunity to be photographed as a schoool student for WA maritime museum.  First time in a school uniform.  😀

Irving was making mobius strips.  We seem to have phases with them!

Some interesting reading on the English language.  Everyone enjoyed this!

Arden’s jeans being patched to get every last bit of life out of them, until they are too small!