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

Ancient China and Perspective

We have had a rather busy week- out on Monday for a homeschool group at Piney Lakes reserve on Monday. The kids enjoyed it but thought our outing to Urrbrae wetlands last year, was better, since they were allowed to collect their own water samples and use the microscopes themselves. Tuesday we were out and about being touristy, we jumped on the Midland line, and got off and on along the way looking about various parts of Perth- Maylands, Bayswater, Midlands. Then the rest of the week was filled with lots of interesting activites at home.


Gabriel's and my form paintings





Gabriel's and my painting for this weeks work on Ancient China
Gabriel's dragon


My phoenix




Yin/Yang




Willow's perspective drawing- 2 and 3 point perspective




Willow and Arden's baking this week- bagels!




Arden's cat hat- being modeled by Gabriel

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.

Hens

Using some plans from Mrs M off the Waldorf home educators message board, Willow and Gabriel made some hens. Conveniently Willow had a couple of knitted squares she'd been wondering what to do with. Here's how they turned out

Links

I've come across some interesting articles/ pages for homeschool this last week(via message boards, and exploration). Haven't read them yet, but here they are.

By Robert Trostli who wrote Physics is Fun.
http://www.waldorflibrary.org/Journal_Articles/RB5201.pdf


On Wish, Wonder and Surprise- the theme for English in class 7
http://www.waldorflibrary.org/Journal_Articles/wish.pdf


Generic Curriculum guide for Waldorf schools
http://www.beaconmama.com/WaldorfTable.pdf

Documentary on the Story of Maths
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-story-of-maths/

First week of Class 5 and Class 7

We're in the middle of a rather hot spell, but fortunately we had some cooler weather for our first few days of school last week. I've been wondering how we'll manage with Willow running through her work independently, and Gabriel and Arden and I working together. Pleasingly it went very well. Willow worked through her planned work over 4 days, whilst Gabriel and I did school stuff over 3, and I have a planned activity (painting, drawing, modelling, cooking, home loving) for each day of the week for Arden. Arden loved it, and Gabriel really enjoyed doing the kindy stuff with Arden once he got into the idea of it.

Here's a selection of work from this week.

Willow's first week of class 7

Willow's bread- baked this morning for breakfast


One point perspective


Modelling


Breathing exercises


Willow found the dark centre to the lighter edge more difficult.


Geometry




Some of Gabriel's work from our first week of class 5

Modelling



Mandala


Forms


My mandala (drawn with Gabriel for his form drawing this week)

Books

Some fabulous books arrived for me in the post this week.

Maths in Nature, Space and Time.
We've drawn quite a lot of the geometric patterns in this over the last year, but there's some extra details and explanations in this that just make it really useful IMO. Particularly some of the details about Fibonacci patterns, and noticing the patterns of maths in Nature.

Perspective and Other Optical Illusions.
This was purchased to complement Willow's perspective block. The main text that she will be using is Perspective by William Powell, however we have a few of the Wooden Books and have found that they have lovely details and pictures to add to a variety of topics.

I also purchased a couple of books by George MacDonald. 'Phantastes: A Faerie Romance' and 'The Lost Princess'. I've loved all his books that we've read so far, and I just finished 'The Lost Princess' last night- worth all parents reading IMO. As well as being beautifully descriptive, it illustrates well what it means when we encourage our children to believe that they are entitled and deserving, without raising them to be responsible.