Term 2

I’ve been meaning to post this for a few weeks, but our term was hectic and our holidays have involved doing a bunch of catch up work at home! Normally I like to keep our at home life and our out of home life nicely balanced, and this year there is a lot more out of home activity than usual.

The whole family in various groups made it out to see Agatha Christie’s, Mouse Trap, at His Majesty’s theatre. One of the best performances that we’ve been to in years!

Irving was doing local history this past term, and we did a bunch of local walks and excursions, including heading to the roundhouse in Fremantle. We also did some watercolour painting to create a map of WA.

Watching Bluegrass Parkway perform in the mall.

There’s been a lot of gardening happening here, as Irving has taken an interest in plants, and in particular herbs. He’s even taken up writing about them! Not something I expected, but a pleasant surprise. Arden got a new pot for his lemon tree, and Irving’s herb collection continues to grow.

We spent a lovely day at Penguin Island with some homeschool friends- doing the Penguin tour, and the sealion cruise, and taking a walk around the Island. The rain had really settled in the walk before, and we were *very* lucky and got a perfect day! Everyone was so tired on the way home, that there was dozing on the public transport!

Irving and I also ended up at Araluen helping to plant for their Tulip festival. Arden was busy doing a two day TAFE taster course, learning about tiling and bricklaying.

Irving got one of his t-shirt designs printed off Red Bubble.

Arden did some chemistry and we focused on salts. There was collecting river and ocean water to make sea salt, soap making, and electrolysis. Overall it was a very interesting block. The soap was made using ghee, as Arden was interested to see how that would come out- it very quickly changed from a rich yellowy colour to a creamy colour. We are yet to try this batch, as it finishes maturing- probably we will try it later this week. (For those that don’t know- soap is a salt- the combination of lye and fat). In our first electrolysis experiment we separated hydrogen and oxygen, and in our second we used a copper cathode and anode, and displaced the copper.

We all did our first Joy of Wood class with Greg Miller again, after quite a few years. This time the focus was on whittling birds.

It was our turn to host book club, as Irving’s book- “Nancy Drew” was chosen for the term. Since the focus was mysteries, we found some mazes of varying levels for the kids to try out. We also had a turn hosting a week of our steam group- this time we made nib pens. There was a little bit of chaos, when we couldn’t get the council’s oven to work, but once we got over that hurdle, it was a fun session, with the kids getting to try nib pens and feather pens, and then creating their own pen from a feather. We got a lot of inspiration for how to make the nib pen, from the How to Make Everything Youtube channel, which we love!

To finish the term we moved onto the human body, and we watched quite a few Operation Ouch episodes, but mostly we focused on reading Bill Bryson’s “The Body”. We haven’t yet finished, though as usual he has all sorts of fascinating stories about the development of our understanding of the body.

This week we get back into term time, with classes on again. Other than having to be out and about more, we’re still taking it slowly at home, as I find taking a longer mid-year break helps us to be motivated for the rest of the year.

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!

History of Education in Australia

Came across this article yesterday, when I was looking at one of my preferred home education magazine’s “Otherways“.  I was very interested to discover (and not surprised) that the segregation of families in Australia was deliberate due to the settlements being convict based. 

They also refer to South Australia in the article, in terms of absenteeisms, however I would be interested to know how the education philosophies varied there, as South Australia was the only part of Australia that was never a penal colony (interestingly many people outside of SA seem not to know this part of Australian history).  Certainly our experience of home education in South Australia and Western Australia has been significantly different.  With the SA community focusing on natural learning, and WA focusing on structured class opportunities.  Personally I’m in favour of a blend, but the focus needs to be on learning with the family, rather than being out every day at a class, at least til the children move into a more outward experience of the world, in my opinion.

It does seem to me that many of the local people (there are a significant amount of foreigners here) lack the inward confidence to be authorities in their own lives, and believe in the school system and what it offers, much more than the people we know from home educating in South Australia.  This has resulted in, what seems to me, an enormous range of organised class opportunities for home schoolers.  This  can be very positive, numerous opportunities to learn, with people with expertise, and surrounded by other home schoolers.  However this can turn into another form of school, where kids are dropped off to activities and parents are not involved in their child’s education, and the children end up with the same issues of schooled kids (not looking adults in the eye, believing adults don’t see them, not choosing to mix with kids outside their age range).  Of course schooled kids don’t need to be like this either (it all really comes down to parent involvement.)  Since living in Perth we’ve met many home schooled young people with these school type issues, and it simply seems to me that their parent’s are not raising them to be the authorities in their own lives, and maybe this history of convicts and education explains it a little.  After all, our stories create our cultures.

Western Australia- shipwrecks, and progress

Gabriel’s latest block is Geography in Western Australia- we’ve spent quite a bit of time looking at shipwrecks and explorers, as well as settlement in Perth and how this affected the aboriginals this week. Over the weekend we’re hoping to get to the Shipwreck museum in Fremantle.

Willow’s come to the end of her first block for this year, and we planned her next block -wish, wonder, surprise (English)- last weekend. It will be interesting to see how she finds it- she has two texts to read- a modern one, Harry Potter, and an older one, The Princess and the Goblin, so she can get a sense of the difference between writing a narrative and a descriptive. There will also be a bit of poetry reading- sections of Idyll of the King by Lord Alfred Tennyson.

horse by Arden, on the blackboard

Star and heart shaped scones- baking with Arden

Geography of Western Australia is Gabriel’s current block

Gabriel’s form drawing- straight lines and pick up sticks

Willow’s rainbow, as part of geography and nature

Apron for Arden- almost finished

Willow’s final perspective picture for the block

Some work

Some work from the last week…..

Willow’s apron for Arden

Moving onto 2 point perspective

Willow’s growing collection of hens

Map of Ancient India by Gabriel

Gabriel getting back into knitting- an Easter chick and a leaf

My knitting- a hat for Arden (with lovely wool from Calico and Ivy)

Meanwhile Willow and I are reading The Agony and The Ecstasy
, the biography of Michaelangelo, and Gabriel and I have read a condensed version of the Ramayana. I’ve also started planning Gabriel’s next block- on geography of Western Australia. I’m planning a few outings for it, so that should be lots of fun.

At home in Perth

Perth, from the South side of the River

So we’re settled into our new apartment in Perth. It’s been a few weeks, but the ADSL only arrived recently, so it makes it easier to ‘connect’ with the rest of the world. The apartment is comfortable, and the space suits our needs, plus we have two balconies overlooking a park, which is great. My only minor concerns, is our storage space is a little small (hopefully we’ll be able to sort a way to balance things) and we’re on the second floor- even with airconditioning I’m not sure that’s going to be great come summer.

Otherwise we’ve been getting out and exploring the city, as well as doing some schoolwork. Our trip across the Nullabor took almost two days by train, and it was quite relaxing on the whole, plus the view of the stars at night was spectacular.

The first few weeks here, Damien had lots happening at work, so we were only getting to the farmer’s market together. We’ve been heading to the Subiaco market every Saturday so far, and have found the selection quite good, though it’s much smaller than the Adelaide market and has a different feel. This week we’re planning to head to the City Farm, to check out their weekend market.

We’ve also been out to meet some homeschoolers, both times at a playground, and so far the playgrounds here have been amazing. They seem to have retained more playgrounds with equipment for older kids. The pirate ship at Applecross really went down well, and it was in such a beautiful location, overlooking the Swan River.

A black swan with her cygnets.

During all this we’ve been doing maths and English around here. Willow has been looking at the structure of sentences, and doing some writing. I also took her to her first performance of Shakespeare- Julius Caesar. Gabriel has finished his writing block on the Norse Myths, and has moved back onto fractions. We’ve also been getting into some more complex celtic knots, and drawing the King’s crown for geometry. Craft has seen Gabriel finish the first picture on his cushion, and Willow move onto designing her pattern, for a toy horse.

Willow’s picture of Kilhuch and King Arther, to complement her writing for the week.

Willow’s model unicorn

My cross stitch is finally nearly finished!

Leonardo da Vinci

This past weekend we attended the Da Vinci’s Machines Exhibit. Overall I found it interesting, and the kids enjoyed it, although it was a little overpriced, compared to similar exhibitions I’ve been to. That said the machines were great, and it was nice that some of them were able to be used- Arden certainly enjoyed trying them out. He was rather taken with the leverage model- he kept pulling the rope and letting it go, so that the weighted bag would drop rather heavily.

We’ve had a rather busy past week, with the da vinci outing, and also a visit to the zoo again- spent a while watching the pandas eat this time, and a performance at the Grainger studios of Peter and the Wolf. Plus Damien has been offered a job in Perth, so plans are ahead to move in about 5weeks. Quite a lot to do, but we’re all looking forward to the move.