Break Time

We made it to our Christmas break, through our outings and our annual review.  (This last  one with a new moderator.)  Arden turned 10, and I finally sat down to plan his yr 5. 

Carving pumpkins at Halloween.

Irving discovered that he could lock our cupboards.

Irving and I discovered that Govt house's gardens are open during the week, and we spent some time enjoying their grounds.

A selection of Arden's craft from this year.

His cushion.

Embroidered sneakers.

Tongue drum, made at Joy of Wood class.

Weaving on the inklette loom.

Blackforest cake made for Arden's birthday.

This year we decided to use a seasonal tree for Christmas, and thus we decorated a frangipani tree.

We have some general ideas about what Gabriel will be doing in yr 11, but the aim will be to mostly follow his interests.  Willow has just heard that she has passed all her Diploma in Classical voice subjects, and so is pleased about that.

Summer is Creeping In

This post has been a little slow making it out in the world.  We have had a fairly busy term with outings and various things going on, and so I got this half here, and then life happened....


Games Workshop miniature by Gabriel.

Some early ideas and brainstorming for Gabriel's yr. 11 next year.

Beautiful evening in Fremantle enjoying the start of Summer, and getting some rock climbing in.

Taking a look about Perth's Heritage buildings.  We really enjoyed seeing the change in this building, which was once the Gas and Electric building, but which we remembered as an ugly (maybe 1980s) bank.

Inklette loom arrived in the post, didn't take long to assemble and get started.

A small cross stitch project by Arden.

Science experiment with ice.

My crafting...making some bags

Learning pattern drafting

And a guest....a red wattlebird come to visit our balcony.

Fishes, Family, Learning

There has been a mixture of interesting things going on around here, over the last month or so, with the last couple of weeks being holiday time.  The last couple of weeks of term 3 we had quite a few outings, and Damien had just finished a contract, so he was at home a bit to help out, before starting his new job.

A rare moment of just Irving and I hanging out; so we made a fabuland lego village.  (Willow was at uni, and Gabriel and Arden had gone to basketball class with Damien.)

Gabriel and Arden did another first aid class, and refreshed and built on the skills that they had learnt previously.  I have been meaning to enrol Willow and Gabriel into a first aid certificate, now that they are both older, and especially because we live almost adjacent to red cross.  Hopefully we can get to that next year!

I arranged an education session for Gabriel and some other home educated students with UN Youth, which proved to be quite interesting.  It had been a bit chaotic to organise (as sometimes happens) so it was quite a relief to get there on the day, and have everyone turn up, and it all go to plan.

On the way home after the UN talk, Gabriel and I head to Koko Blacks for a relaxing drink and chat.

We also had a couple of performance outings- everyone but Willow went to see Spare Parts Puppet theatre perform Shaun Tan's "Rules of Summer" and then Willow, Gabriel and I went to see WA Ballet perform "the Great Gatsby".  Both of these were my favourite performances by these groups.  "Rules of Summer" was very interactive, and "The Great Gatsby" expressed the interplay of relationships through dance in what I felt was an interesting manner, compared to the very traditional ballets.

Hard waste time was on around here again, so we went for a bit of an explore to see what we could find.  Arden and I came across this vintage sewing machine, seems to need a bit of love, so we're now taking a look at sewing machine repair.

On the sewing theme, I made Gabriel some trousers recently, and he has almost finished putting the markings on his pieces,so that he can sew himself some corduroy pants.

I added some embellishments to this old skirt, that I had sitting around in the cupboard, after taking in the waist (it was a modern hipster waist).

I am currently working on some bags, with the view to try selling some.

Arden has been really enjoying photography, and I recently saw someone mention that they really enjoyed being in the MOSAIC project, so we all went out and took photos, of what we were doing on Sat 23rd around Perth.  Arden got to share my and Damien's cameras.  Here are a few of his and my pics.

Arden's photos

My pics.

Our first week of holidays was very quiet, and we had a few outings over the second week.  Gabriel headed off to basketball training most of the second week, and he and Arden also took a fishing class, down on the Swan River.  Irving and I went exploring around Mosman Park, and visited the toy shop and fabric shop, amongst other things.  I had been hoping to mostly wander along the river with him, but it turned out to be really windy, and far too cold for him, so we stayed away from the river bank. 

This week sees Willow mostly off uni, she had a week off at the beginning of the break, and went back last week, and has this week off again, so that has been interesting.  Arden, Gabriel and I are starting our last term activities tomorrow, we were all feeling a bit under the weather today, so we took the day off basketball training.

I've ordered a loom for Arden to do some more weaving projects this term, and we will be doing some more cooking amongst other things...hopefully finish reading "the Never Ending Story"  soon, and the current "Little House" book that we are reading together.

Gabriel has been a little disorganised this past term, and Damien spent a bit of time helping him to come up with a way that he could better keep track of what he's done and has to do, and it looks like he's mostly on track now.  We've been discussing ideas and plans for him for next year, but he doesn't have a concrete direction he'd like to go, so I am imagining that next year might be filled with some variety.

A Collection

Ab it of a collection of recent activities.

Arden has been working on some English recently-grammar and poetry, as well as us doing some ink drawings.

Fish by Arden.

Examining phrases, clauses and sentence (in Arden's usual creative writing style- the more artistic the better LOL!)

My eagle pen and ink drawing.

Irving's pen and ink drawing.  He seems to love pen and ink.

Some poetry and sketching by Arden, about lions.

My lion sketch.

Fabuland lego village building session with Irving, whilst all the big kids are out.

I've been using everyone's old trousers to make Irving new pants.  These are out of a pair of Willow's old jeans.

He was so happy, he did lots of posing for me!

Another pair out of Damien's old trousers.  Irving wanted yellow stitching.

A final pair out of Damien's old jeans.

Again lots of happiness, but this time couldn't keep still!

Out for a walk, just to splash in puddles.

Last bit of form drawing for this year, an interesting looking fish, which Arden found to copy.

Arden, planning a flag design for a t-shirt.

An experimental embroidery project.  Arden created a cactus.

And this lead to Irving wanting a cactus patch.

Now Arden is working on some ideas for embroidering into sneakers.

Making pumpkin bread!  Mostly me, with a bit of help.  (We've been doing some German cooking.)

Gabriel made us breakfast bagels on father's day for brunch.

Damien and I decided that Willow and Gabriel need to learn a bit about doing the shopping, so we headed to City Farm, gave them the grocery money, and ordered coffee.  Seems to have been a successful experiment so far, and will be happening fortnightly, in an attempt to encourage them to be aware of what's in the fridge when they cook dinner.