Term 3

During our winter break, we started, and finished this 3,000 piece “Where’s Wally?” jigsaw puzzle.

Arden and Irving finished their weaving. Arden’s was done on an inklette loom, and Irving’s a lap loom.

Since Arden has done quite a bit on biology before and is also inclined to doing lots of physical activity, we pulled out my massage books from when I was studying, and learnt a little about massage, reflexology and essential oils.

Irving designed and hand sewed, embroidered, and appliqued a cushion cover for himself. This project last a little while as he built up the patience to keep going, and he developed more speed as he got better at it.

Damien took Arden and Irving off to Wild movement to learn about making spoons using fire.

As part of our chemistry block last year, Arden made soap from a base of lard and lye.
Just finished.

And curing.

There was some experimenting with bending glass, and copper wire.

Since Arden is interested in aviation for his WW1 studies we read “The Red Baron”, unfortunately we watched the movie too! We do not recommend it at all- the story veered far too much from the truth for both Arden and I. We also watched the movie “Fly Boys”- which was about the first American aviation pilots who flew with the French, before the US joined WW1. Some of this movie was also apparently inaccurate, however we used it as a starting point for further research.

“Joyeux Noel” has been a favourite around here for our WW1 studies. It is the history, of the Christmas Armistices, where the Germans, French and Scotts, decided to lay down their weapons and celebrate together. It’s also worth watching the research they did to make the film- they were very attentive to detail, and brought in some very interesting facts- such as the execution of a cat, who was seen to be a spy!

We also bought a double distiller to experiment with making our own essential oils.

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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Crafts

Since people were sick around here,  I’ve been a bit slow about posting what’s been happening.  So here are some recent crafts.  I finished off a new bra, in green gingham, and I’m feeling very pleased with the results.  This is the first bra that I’ve made that has straps that are really comfortable.

I started making Damien another knitted tie.  It’s looking good so far, and I’ve been surprised by how much I like the colour combination.  (I’m using some left over wool out of my basket.)

I finished some jamies for Irving.  He’s very pleased to have some that match Arden’s.

Irving picked the red buttons from my stash of vintage buttons.

Arden and I have been working on a block of crafts relating to how people clothe themselves.  He did a small project on our lap loom and made a cape for a teddy bear.  We were also lucky enough to come across WAFTA doing some demonstrations on weaving, book binding and basket making. 

Getting set up.

Shuttles are ready.

Making progress

One completed cape!

Teddy modelling the cape.

Arden and I have moved onto spinning this week, learning to use a drop spindle.

Arden has almost finished his pyjama pants.  He is up to sewing the hems, and we threaded the elastic into the waist band yesterday.

Gabriel finished has handsewing project, and is very happy with his new tie.

Gabriel started using the sewing machine yesterday, generally experimenting with it, and getting a feel for how it works.  He is making a book cover for his first project on the sewing machine.

The start of the book cover.

2014

We’ve recently had our annual review, which as usual I’m pleased is done, and we’ve pretty much finished our work for this year- Willow and Gabriel are just finishing off a few extra things. It’s been very hectic chasing around our almost 18month old Irving, and doing yr 9, yr 7 and yr 1, but there’s been lots of lovely work done and some really enjoyable events this year.

So after a very hectic term and year we are finally finished.

Arden finished his first knitting project earlier in the year.  A purse for his doll.  It was knitted with pure wool and then wet felted, and finished with a button.  We didn’t really need to wet felt it, as Arden’s knitting was very beautiful.  Often little people make a few mistakes here and there, and the wet felting helps to finish it off nicely.

Arden has been working at his cursive and print this year, with the focus on cursive.

 

I’ve been learning to write right handed at the same time!  The top is left, the bottom right.

 

Arden has been very lucky to go busking with some friends of ours this year.  He’s been loving busking the harmonica, and has been experimenting with lots of instruments.

Gabriel finished knitting his socks.  He’s become adept at following the patterns and has finally really settled into knitting well.

Willow finished her doll off finally.  She’s being well loved by Irving 🙂

 

And she finished her weaving project: a small blanket!

She was lucky to get an opportunity to make a harp.

She also got to attend a recording session of voice overs, and get an idea of what it’s like to be a voice actor.  She’s also joined the Gilbert and Sullivan society with her dad, which she is loving.  She’s really enjoying getting to perform and sing on the stage again.

There has been a lot of interesting excursions and activities this year and particularly this term.  We’ve been to Herdsman Lake and the Literature Centre and learnt about beekeeping.  We’ve done lots of circus, jujutsu, basketball and dancing.  We’ve been to the ballet a few times (last performance is this week) and we won an incursion to the balllet (thanks ballet WA 🙂 !) where we discovered that ballet originates from fencing! Not surprising when one thinks about it.

Anyway it’s been a very full and interesting year.  With everyone progressing along nicely, and lots of fun and work along the way!

Camping to Cooking

I’ve been busily spending the morning trying to make arrangements for Willow to attend a homeschool camp.  At this stage we’re just booking the first leg of the trip- to Adelaide and later when she’s saved some more, we’ll sort out the rest.  She’s been wanting to go on a homeschool camp for quite some time, so she’s pretty excited at the idea of it.

Willow’s also has been busy explore lots of aspects of Ninjago and Lord of the Rings.  This is her singing “Pippin’s Song“, though my preference is for “Golum’s Song“, though the recording doesn’t do justice to just how beautiful her voice sounds.  In relation to Ninjago, she’s been making up her own fan stories, and some poems too.

Here is some of her other work for the week.

Progressing through geometry

Blanket making- this rug is being woven using a square loom.

Gabriel has been working on geography- we’re looking at the Asian region.  This last week saw him doing some map drawing, and writing about New Zealand and the Maori people.

Gabriel’s map of Oceania

Geometry from the last two weeks- spiral drawing

Arden has been busy working through his jump maths book doing some basic adding questions, which he’s been loving.  He’s also currently into Jamie Oliver and doing quite a bit of cooking.  This week we’ve made scones, and oat cakes together, making sure to soak our grains overnight.

Some Highlights from this Past Week

This past week has seen us reading ‘The Golden Goose’.  Arden has liked this story much better than Rapunzel, and we only worked on two letters this week, so there was some extra time for modelling.  Since we were working on the letters ‘b’ and ‘k’ and Arden was curious how they sounded together, we decided to put some vowels in the middle, and made the word ‘book’.

This is Arden’s painting of the king from the Golden Goose- using the ‘k’ to make the king.

Willow has been experimenting with weaving on our new square loom, as part of her craft project for this term.

We’ve also been setting up an etsy account that she can sell some craft stuff on, as part of her main project this year.  Her project is focusing on creating her own small craft business.  She had her first market stall for this year, selling her brooches at City Farm for mothers day, and we’re now looking at ways that she can sell online too, as well as other projects that she might like to try selling.

This is from Gabriel’s geometry from last and this week, dividing a square into halves and thirds, and extending the pattern.

Gabriel has still been working on physics this week- we’ve been looking at light.  There’s been some fun experiments with colour, and light and darkness this week.

Finally I came home tonight to find Arden playing his own special version of pinball.  Gabriel came up with the layout, and Arden added the flips-  I thought this was very cool!

Activities

We’ve been very active round here the last week with all sorts being planned and happening round here.

Willow and Gabriel’s cousin Dale came for a sleepover last week, so there was much excitement and late night chatting for that. Whilst that was going on I managed to finish making Gabriel’s felt slippers, and I was really happy with them, since it was my first try. Willow wants a pair now too.

We celebrated the Spring Equinox last night with a lovely dinner, and a candle making ceremony. We had collected and pressed flowers for it months ago which we pressed into the wax. The candles were melted in hot water for a minute, the flowers were pressed in, and the candles were put back in the hot water again. We’re probably in need of practise to get a really nice finish, but we were satisfied with our results.

This week there are some interesting things to try, so we’ve booked in for the Butterfly Plants session at the Botanic Gardens, and the Art Gallery is doing a workshop on Screen printing, so that should be good too. We were thinking of trying Cirkids this term, but everyone now is keen to try Young Adelaide Voices, so we’re off to their trial evening before making a decision. Willow would like to try horse riding, but that may have to wait til next year, if we do the singing. And finally we’re all planning to give Scottish dancing another try, we really enjoyed it before, but I was anaemic for part of Arden’s pregnancy, so we only did it for a little while before stopping. So many things to do!

Plus presently we’ve been weaving and learning about fabric’s and making fabrics, and clothes, in our current homeschooling activities. The weaving projects are quite simple at this stage, and for our first sewing project we’re going to handsew Willow a pair of pyjamas- still early days in the pattern but it should be very interesting!