Term 2, Lockdown and Winter Solstice.

Co-vid lockdown saw us enjoying the restfulness of the city and some of the littler things, such as quiet displays for Autumn.

As Irving was a little confused about our “home school” also turning into “home office” signs were placed on doors, so that he could work out if Dad and Willow (DD20) were free for a chat.  Eventually he worked out their daily flow, and the signs became unnecessary.

Lockdown cooking with Irving- potato scones.

And some German biscuits known as railway tracks.

Me having some fun with decorating my coffee.  🙂

Robin Hood with the boys.  Reading together is still one of my favourite family activities.

Working my way gradually through modern history.

Learning about Saints with Irving.

And Arden’s rabbit.

Arden has moved onto doing more complex geometry this year, and Irving loves joining in.

Irving working on woven stars.

Arden’s star.

Me working with Arden and Irving.

Arden’s floral pattern.

The underlying structure for the above design.

Irving having some fun.

Looking at various polyhedrons and the 12 division of the circle.

24 division of a circle.

Preparations for a spiral.

Making progress on perspective.

 Hexa-flexagon’s thanks to Vi Hart.

And borromean rings also thanks to Vi Hart.  (Irving made heaps of these, and then later moved onto paper chains.)

Arden finally finished knitting his socks, and since I was required to knit at his pace for this project;so did I.  He was not a fan of knitting the whole way through (we kept having chats about he never needed to knit again if he dislike it, but this skill would enable him to fix his knitted clothes for the rest of his life) and finally after doing the whole thing quite slowly but very competently, he declared knitting was ok and knit a strawberry!

Arden’s knitted and wet felted strawberry.

Socks finished for Irving.

Irving’s knitting for bilby.

Arden and I started pattern grading these slippers for him- though progress has been a little slow.

Arden working on a bag for his harmonica- he did both machine and hand sewing for this projects.

And he was very pleased when I finally finished this blanket for him.  🙂

Hard waste find being re-newed.

Working on string games.

Arden (and I) have been learning Latin using the Lingua Latina series.  (We’ve also picked up “The Gruffalo” in Latin and Harry Potter- though we’re a way off reading them yet!  :D)

Celebrating winter solstice with a fire, sunrise and damper baked in the ashes.

Our Kodaly music teacher suggested this book- so with the help of Willow, who studied at WAAPA (Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts) Irving, Arden and I are working through this.  Both boys have been self-teaching piano with the help of youtube, and this is give some extra structure to their progress.

Finally just because in lockdown all these little moments in nature were so appreciated.  Walking past the bird sanctuary at Alfred Cove at sunset.

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.

 

Projects

Homeschooling with our busy crawling baby Irving has been rather hectic recently.  He’s been enjoying our music and dancing outings, though sadly our dance lessons have ended for now.  Everyone has gotten quite good at rockabilly especially, and can do a bit of a few other rockabilly related styles.  We all got out to do quite a bit of dancing over the Easter break, and enjoyed watching the Cotton Tail trio on ANZAC day.

Prior to easter we went to see the Spare Parts Puppet theatre do a performance called , Hachiko, it was a very touching story about a dog, that spent years waiting for his master to meet him after work.  Apparently it has been made into a film,and strangely, my mum had bought it for my niece and nephew, the same week we went to see it. 

Arden’s  block of cursive went well last term, and interestingly he said that he found it easier than printing.  We’re making cursive practise part of form drawing to keep it part of his regular work. 

Here’s his cursive and form drawing.

 

Craft wise Arden started with finger knitting, then onto a knitting fork and this week he started knitting.  He’s being enjoying it so far.

He made his doll, Holly, a finger knitted scarfe.

His plan with his current knitting, is to make Holly an orange bag.

This is some work Arden and I did together on fractions; using kite paper to fold into different sizes.

And some modelling he and I did together.

Last term Arden started circus and music classes, and he’s taken to them both very well.  I sat in the first few so I could see how he would go with taking turns, and putting his hand up, etc and after each lesson I gave him a few tips on how the “rules” work.  So during the holidays he went to his first class totally by himself, he was a little nervous, but had a wonderful time.  He came home with a t-shirt he had screen-printed, which he was very pleased about. 

Finally he’s been getting inspired to try writing his own music.

Gabriel finished his perspective block successfuly, with some interesting pictures.  His breathing exercises were quite interesting.

 

 This is a building plan that he did for the block.

He’s now onto physics, and has been working through light and sound so far with Damien.  These two pictures show a tealight reflected in a mirror appearing to be on the paper- the back tealight is the reflection.

Willow has been busy working on finishing her latest history project- a study of a medieval era painting.  Her craft projects are getting closer to completion- her blanket is coming along nicely, and her doll is finished, and is awaiting her clothing; so far she has a dress.

 

Gabriel and Willow have both been working on busking together recently too; playing flute and recorder together, as well as trying out Willow juggling or hoola hooping whilst Gabriel plays recorder.  They spent quite a bit of time doing this during the holidays. 

This is my experiment of grinding cacao beans and making hot cacao, in more of a coffee style.  Very tasty.

Arden and my cooking croissants.  Arden spreading the butter.

Ready for the oven.

 And ready to eat !  🙂

 

Summer Schooling

We’ve had  a very busy start to our homeschool year, and I must admit I’m feeling inclined to cut back by a couple of weeks next year.  We were out and about quite a bit for the fringe, and saw some good shows.  Arden has ended up starting musicianship last week, which he really enjoyed.  It was really interesting to see the little people’s class in action, as it was very much play based.  Then we met some homeschoolers last week, at Sacrilege: A giant inflatable version of Stonehenge.

I had a short go on it with Arden, and it was quite fun, but very hot!  We didn’t even go on a super hot day, can’t imagine what it would have been like if it had been 40.

Arden and I have been reading some Grimm’s fairy tales, and working on numbers at the moment.  Here’s some of our work.
These ones are Arden’s.

These are my paintings.

Arden and I have also started doing recorder, working on times tables, continuing with JUMP maths, learning to read and write, some songs and games, form drawing and craft.
Here he’s working on making a form drawing into a picture.

Practising printing and cursive.

Finally a mini-craft project, finger knitting a bracelet.

Gabriel has been getting into the rhythm of working independantly.  Presently he’s working on  perspective, is continuing to work on finishing knitting his socks, he’s also reading about Michaelangelo, amongst a few other things. This week he’s taking a short holiday, having save enough money to visit family in Adelaide, he’s heading off to Womadelaide, with my brother.

Here’s some of his drawings.  The first ones are breathing exercises.

 Some work on perspective.

Finally Willow is working on catching up some of the things that she didn’t quite finish last year.  Here’s some of her Geometry.  She’s currently working on a dress for the doll she was working on last year.