End of Term 1

Our first term was very full, and filled with lots of interesting outings and activities- this term is looking to be similar so far!

Irving’s pottery class has been going well, and we even started watching “The Great Pottery Throw Down” to compliment all the learning in the class that he’s been attending in Guildford. It’s also become a bit of a thing, to stop and look at interesting pottery shops.

Picking up a cute pot after pottery class.

And cute fish.

We continued on with Norse myths learning to write in Runes, drawing and painting some of the Gods and characters and reading Padraic Colum’s version, and also reciting “The Poetic Edda- Voluspo”, as well as reading some of “The Viking Tales” (we’re big fans of Norse Mythology here!)

Irving’s and my paintings.

Irving’s,my and Arden’s work.

Norse Reading.

Arden has been reading “The Greek Treasure” by Irving Stone, because we really enjoyed his book on Michaelangelo, this one took us awhile to get into, and Arden is still finishing it. It became much more interesting to read when Henry Schliemann discovered Troy. It’s possible to virtually view some of the Schliemann’s discoveries on this Russian Museum’s site.


Arden finished the term looking at the way different aspects of the world are integrated together, doing some reading,writing and watching “Brian Cox’s Forces of Nature” series. We finished off with looking at the Gaia theory, and the idea that the Earth is a living complete organism.

Irving looked at local Aboriginal culture, and we learnt about how the aboriginal people cultivated the land, and how that knowledge had been suppressed in our culture, We listend to Bruce Pascoe’s tedtalk on this topic. We also read February Dragon, by Colin Thiele. A fabulous book the illustrates so well, the ever present danger of bushfires in Australia.

Hard waste collection happened again, and this time we found a vintage coffee table- it appears to be one of a set of nesting coffee tables originally. Irving and I are hoping to spend some time on it, repairing it.

Irving enjoyed our steam group this term and there were lots of interesting lessons on anatomy, and was complimented at home with watching “Operation Ouch” on some of the topics we covered- including the hand and it’s joints, the brain, the heart, the bladder, the kidneys.

One of the completed activities from our Steam group.

Towards the end of term, we attended our first home school sport’s day for the family. Arden was too old to participate, but acted as assitant coach with the Team captain, and joined the parent’s races for some of the activities. Though the kids were keen to have him join in the parents versus kids, tug of war. Irving had a great time doing all the activities- three legged races, egg and spoon, relays. The only down side was it was the last very hot day of Summer and the first very hot day, we’d had for a week or so, so we were all struggling in the heat a little. Much fun was had at the end, with water fights, to cool off!

Damien, Arden and I headed to ECU Joondalup to find out about their aviation course, and to see their open day generally. We had a good chat with a couple of the lecturers there, and saw the flight simulators in action. Arden used one, and very nicely took off, flew and landed. It was interesting for me to see, because I had only ever seen his first home education session on a simulator, some years ago, where he needed a lot of help. After his years in the flying club at Bull Creek, he really knows what he’s doing.

Arden’s lemon tree is doing very well.

Okonomiyaki by Arden.

New shorts for Irving.

Black and white sesame balls.

2022 part 1

So at the end of 2021 my PC died and so did my attempts to keep this blog up to date. Since I now have a new PC and I was thinking about blogging again, I thought with the new year I would start with a recap of 2022.

For quite some time we have taken the beginning of the year slowly, avoiding any structured work until late February/ beginning of March and we continued in this style. Taking the Summer to swim, visit the library and celebrate 5/6 of our birthdays! By March we started to ease into some more structured activities, and as usual we began with some geometry and painting and reading.

Arden and I started the year reading about Shakespeare, by Bill Bryson, and reading the first section of “Tragedy and Hope” by Carroll Quigley for History.

Meanwhile I was working on re-upholstering a circa 1940’s sofa we had found in the hard waste, which at times was being delayed due to comfort!

Arden and Irving both did some weaving for their first craft project. Irving wove a small rug out of wool, and then did a second version from embroidery thread. Arden worked on a band on the inklette loom.

We all worked together on a domestika illustration course- which we have been rather slow completing! Arden’s, Irving’s and my sketches.

As usual we started the year with watercolour painting- this time we did lots of coloured themes and worked on a flowing colour wheel.

We’ve been having some regular bird visitors to our place, and Irving decided he had had enough- Our residence was declared closed!

Arden got into “The HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” this past year, I’ve been gradually getting through this excellent book of celebrity interviews from the 60s’ “Limelighters” that was a hard waste find. “Covid-19: The Great Reset” was my first foray into reading the World Economic Forums take on our future, and finally we read “The Never-Ending Story” by Michael Ende together (so much better than the movie IMO).

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Term 2….

This year keeps on rushing on, and I keep meaning to post more regularly on here, though we just seem to have a constant flow of activities and interests going on that these days journalling our learning on here is not the priority it once was.  Particularly as I now have a sense of understanding and confidence in where a home education journey leads.

And so here are some highlights from our second term this year.

Making a ladder for a fairy house.

Runes from the Viking exhibition at the Maritime museum.

Working on watercolours, with a particular focus on mixing greens.

WASO concert.

Learning to rollerskate.

A favourite read around here- George MacDonald’s at the back of the North Wind.

 

 More watercolours- this time exploring Arden and I were exploring red, whilst Irving did his own thing.

Working on geometry.

Woodwork.

Pyjamas for Arden.

Amazing autobiography on life in the North Territory.  “We of the Never Never”.

ROKR clock project.

Dying with tumeric and repairing a vintage dress.  Experimenting with mordants and getting various shades of yellow from the tumeric.

The old entrance to the Subiaco oval.

 

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!

Term 4 and Summer Break

 Term four saw us getting out and about along the beach and river a bit.  Arden had a chance to try sailing at Hillary’s Yacht club, and would probably like to do more, but so far time has not fallen into place to make this happen.  We had planned to do a few beach walks this Summer, but we only managed that once, and it was a hilarious day filled with misadventure- including the shark siren going off and us not getting to have a swim.  We also did a short walk along the Swan River to Fremantle.

Swimming and sailing at Hillarys.

First time to City Beach.

Heading to Freo.

We met some homeschoolers at AQWA- somewhere I’m always hoping to get to more often!

Working on painting ships.

Working on breathing exercises in our shading/ drawing.

Working on Rose Windows as we progressed through our history studies.

A favourite book around here, and one that we only bought because JK Rowling apparently loved it.  The Little White Horse.

Geometry- Arden’s followed by mine.  24 division of the circle and connected to every point.

Arden’s pie.

Birthday and giant jigsaw puzzle of Mars.

Making jeans last. Possibly *too* long….

Re-covering a stool and giving it a second chance at life.

Winter Term 3

 As co-vid lockdown receded and we thought about our coming year, we decided to try to continue with a slower pace of life for at least the short term.  Sadly Arden’s favourite activity- iceskating – came to an end as our preferred iceskating rink closed during lockdown.  We decided to go and trial an ice hockey session; just after having enrolled to do ten pin bowling.  The ice hockey went down well.  As did the ten pin bowling.  We had enrolled in the teenage class- Irving had said he wasn’t interested  in doing ten pin, but by mid term he was part of the teenage class and loving it.

For quite some time we have attended plenty of arts events- Fringe, Festival, Ballets and Operas.  Due to co-vid we decided to slow down on this and take the year more slowly.  We did still get to a few local gigs, but much fewer classical performances.  Historically it was Willow who had expressed a particular interest in these, and as she had not been home educated for about 3yrs, it seemed to make sense to redirect our time.

Enjoying a piano concert in Government House’s gardens.

We had a lot of fun doing chemistry in our kitchen using  “The Wonders of Waldorf Chemistry” as our guide.  It was interesting to try some of the experiments that I didn’t get to with the older kids- such as burning sulphur, and also to have some trouble with experiments I expected to work, because we had done them before.
 

Making charcoal.

Attempting to burn charcoal.

Burning some different items-including sulphur, which has the blue flame.

Acids and Bases.

Our reading- King Arthur and the Knights of the Round table by Llancelyn Green, and The King of Ireland’s Son by Colum– which we did a series of paintings about.

Paintings by Irving. (All paintings are inspired by the King of Ireland’s Son.)

Paintings by Arden.

Arden’s painting on the left, and mine on the right.

My paintings.

Our first carrot from our balcony garden.

Cable socks for me.

Repairing Gabriel’s satchel with berry coloured velvet.

A new quilted blanket for Gabriel; made from an old cotton blanket, his old comforter and cotton and cotton flannel.

 

Mosaics

 I like to start the year in a fairly relaxed way, so this time we explored colour and mosaics.  First we painted a sheet of colour- starting with the primary colours and building up with new colours each week, until we had a full range of colour for our pictures.

Irving was very focused on creating this first piece with a lighthouse.

By Arden.

I wasn’t quite sure where I was going with my first mosaic, but it reminded me of reading about Matisse’s paper cut outs.

Irving’s second picture.

By Arden.

Mine.

Week 3’s colours before cutting/tearing for our mosaics.  Irving had a tendency to always leave a lot of white in his colour painting.

 

Moving into our full colour paintings.

Irving liked to keep it simple.

Arden’s

Mine.

2020 Before Covid and Heading In

The start of the year was much the same for us as any.  Taking our time and being relaxed in the heat, swimming, keeping cool and being outdoors. 

Wandering around Dalkeith and enjoying the Summer.

Plus learning some local history along the way.

We usually start into our at home activities gradually and we did that again this year.  Starting with painting.  We did some work on mosaics and finished off a story book that we were working on for Irving’s Grimm fairy tales work.

Snow White and Rose Red paintings.

Irving.

Arden.

Mine with and without heading.

Arden and I worked together on painting two types of colour wheel.

Arden and Irving went through a domino/ marble run phase including making paper dominos and watch hours of youtube tutorials to develop ideas.

We spent some time reading the Mr Penguin series, and finally got around to reading Farmer Boy together.

We moved onto geometrical drawing for Arden this year, and Irving loves doing it,so he joined in a lot of the time.

We worked on more images with Irving.

This inclueded making images from plants by hammering them with a mallet to see if they would “print”.

Arden started working on perspective drawing using this book.

We didn’t go to as many fringe/festival shows as we often do during the Summer season, but we took full advantage of Highway to Hell after we discovered “Steve’n’Seagulls” were playing, we followed them along the first leg.

Briefly saw “Shonen Knife”  at the Highway to Hell stage.

Eventually decided we were walking to Fremantle since it was unlikely that Canning Highway would be open for a walk again.

Looking east towards the rising moon.

 And west toward Fremantle.

 

And we made it to Freo! (Irving was inspired to make it when he realised we could stop off for icecream in Fremantle.)

We got a surprising harvest of bird’s eye chillis which sprouted up on our balcony garden.

We moved onto biology by the second half of the term using these books.  “Muscles and Bones” by Kovacs and “A Leg to Stand On” by Oliver Sacks (one of my favourite authors for science.

And as covid came into life and caused lockdowns and turned the world upside down, I had the luck to find a coffee machine very cheaply priced in the op shop.

Learning to use the coffee machine.

 

1 week In

We started this years new learning with some painting and reading.  We continued where we left off with this “Colour Dynamics” book.  Last year we worked through the individual primary and secondary colours as the start of the year.  This year we worked through the colour combinations- through working with red, blue and yellow, and the rainbow colours.

Colour dynamics book

Painting in the primary colours

Version two with the primary colours

Rainbow paintings…..by Irving

By Arden

Mine

All our paintings from last week.

Our current reading, “String, Straight-edge and Shadow”, one of my favourite books for understanding the development of geometry.

Heading out to ice-skating again.

I received this excellent vintage slipper pattern in the post.  I am thinking with starting off by making Arden some moccasins for the winter, since the pattern is about his size.

 We’ve been making bean bags for juggling and counting games.  Irving is enjoying improving his sewing.

The finished results…Arden made his out of an old pair of green cords he had worn to death, and I made one out of one of Damien’s old ties, so I could work on sewing in silk.

 

 We had a very small but appreciate potato harvest, which were boiled and covered in butter!

So far we have had a lovely start to doing more structured stuff together again this year.  Arden has been also learning mandolin, after receiving one for his birthday.  We haven’t been doing a lot of music yet this year, but we have gotten to quite a few musical performances and this will be continuing.  Irving seems to finally be enjoying counting, and we are starting off doing some number work this week.

Planning and Term 1

When I make a plan for the year, I like to do it at the end of the year for the coming year, and then forget it for the Summer.  This  year, like some other years, I have totally failed to get my plan done when I prefer, so it looks like I’ll be finishing it off in the next few days.  When planning I also like to cross over themes with my children as much as possible, and this year, this is the one area that I am still reviewing in my plan.  I also like to make a plan, as it gives me a sense of the areas, that I hope to cover in the year, and it is amazing how often I come across activities, or interesting books, or resources, just because of reviewing the ideas that we wish to look into for the coming year.

Willow is working an office job as an operations assistant and loving it.  Turns out all her volunteering on message boards as a moderator was useful for getting and succeeding at this sort of work.  Gabriel has started a cert 3 in Screen and media (digital) this is a 6month course, and he has plans to follow on with a second course later in the year.  It is feeling good after 13yrs to have two completed, and enjoying where they are.  The younger two are up to class 6 and class 1, and we have had a lovely gentle start to the year.

All the kids together on Gabriel’s 17th birthday.

Lots of lovely moments at the beach and in our pool.  We are truly blessed with glorious beaches, beautiful water and perfect Summer weather in Perth, much of the time.  Especially when I remember beach life in Adelaide. (Usually the water is freezing in Adelaide, unless it has been *very* hot, and on the way home, one can’t help but wonder if the trip, to feel pleasant for 1/2 hour of so, was worth the effort.)

Watching the water

Swim between the flags!

Painting with the younger two.

Doing some sewing.  I have done quite a lot this Summer.

We got to a couple of shows in this  years Fringe, and Willow was working flyering again at it.  We also spent some time in the Pleasure Gardens where we came across these “magic apples”.  The youngest two *loved* them and the process of collecting the peel, making a wish, and watching them being coiled and covered in cinnamon sugar.  One of the lovely things about how we homeschool, is that the magic of life is kept alive for such beautiful simple joys.

We also got to a home ed excursion to see a Fringe show about culture, performed by young Korean and Vietnamese students who attend an American school in Vietnam.  It was quite insightful into a different way of learning.  The students of the school seemed to have the advantages of what American schools offered as topics long ago, but sadly lack the ability to study them at a higher level at home in Vietnam, as there is nowhere to study drama,etc.

Irving discovering what it’s like to be a flyerer in Perth fringe, by assisting Willow on the job.

Collecting leaves, just because they were gigantic for London Plane trees.

Starting on some Shakespeare for Arden’s yr 6 family reading.  We all sit around one evening a week (the first time someone in the family reads Shakespeare) and read together…..sometimes it can get confusing remembering who we are.  LOL.  Previously we have read Julius Casear and Antony and Cleopatra, this time Cymbeline that is about a British King in the Roman empire.

Onto the next book in the Little House series, plus Irving and Arden just finished listening to “The Wizard of Oz.”  The book is quite lovely and it is the first older kids’ book that Irving has really enjoyed.  Though it does still seem funny reading it and know that Dorothy has silver slippers and not red!

Irving was excited to get a smartrider finally and especially to get a changing colour sequin holder for it.

It looks like Autumn might be coming a bit earlier this year….noticing the season changes with the kids.

Off to see Kwongkan with Arden at Fremantle Arts centre.  It was a Perth Fringe Performance about taking care of our home this Earth.  Beautifully done as a cross cultural experience of Aboriginal and Indian performance, Arden and I enjoyed it very much and thought that it communicated the changes across time well. 

As a whole family we also got to see A O Lang Pho, the Vietnamese circus in the festival.  It was very interesting to see them after the Fringe show by the Vietnamese students and to learn that there are very few places offtering opportunities like this in Vietnam.  In fact the circus show’s booklet stated that they were expanding there, but that the show we were to see, received a better response in France!

We started ice-skating lessons again this year, with Irving taking his first formal lesson.  He did very well on his first try, and seems to have gained the maturity at 5 1/2 to manage himself for his half hour lesson.  I did wonder if he was ready, so it was a nice surprise to see him do well, and not look to me much.

Again at Fremantle Arts centre, this time to see a Bluegrass band- Bluegrass Parkway.  We felt the gig was too large for their style, having seen them at other more intimate locations, particularly as they use old fashioned microphones for amplification, so we stopped in the cafe for coffee and enjoyed the music from the distance instead.

Finally this pic of youngest and oldest child is why we started to home educate 13years ago.  Family.  I feel blessed that we made this choice, as it has transformed our lives, and especially anyone (like us) who has a child close to the cut off date for starting pre-primary in WA (Irving is 6 days off it), and is finding that their child is already being labelled a “problem”, contemplate the idea that the child is simply too immature for a system that has forgotten how children learn.  When I was 5, 40yrs ago, and 4yr olds were expected to start school, we often started with half days,  had afternoon naps! and there was so much play (my favourites were dress up, and water/sand play on hot days). Our culture that encourages adults to become parents later and later, has lost its ability to understand how children learn, and is causing immense emotional issues for many small people who simply have nothing wrong with them other than needing more time to grow, so that they can cope with skills in a flexible age appropriate manner.  
Scandinavian countries start school at an older age-7- knowing that this is the age that most children will succeed to learn to read easily.  If that is the case, starting 4 1/2 yr olds, we as a culture and schooling system are  sacrificing a lot of children to a school life of feeling like a failure and various forms of anxiety.