End of term

 This term has been a bit unusual with  Arden being at TAFE, and Irving and I doing two days of home based activities without him.  It made the dynamic quite different, given that it's the first time that I've only had one child to work with.  

Overall Irving and I had a very busy term- with our STEAM group, going to see Mary Poppins, music classes and pottery.  He also started doing Nippers on Sunday, and with how active that is, he was prefering to have a quiet Monday.

Our at home learning this past semester has involved Steiner grade 5 work, and we read a picture book version of Gilgamesh by Bernada Bryson and studied some of the early cultures of the world- with a particular focus on the Mesopotamian region.

Collecting mulberries

Waiting for Mary Poppins to begin

Pottery at home.

Irving's pumpkin head for Halloween.

A model sailing ship Irving bought on a day out in Fremantle.

Nippers and hanging at the beach.  In case you're not Australian Nippers is swimming/ surf life saving training for kids.  They get to swim, paddle board, run and do relays amongst other things.  We've never done it with the kids before, and tbh I think it is one of the best sporting activities that we've ever done.  The club is very supportive, and everyone is getting behind every other member of the age group and encouraging them through some rather tiring activities.

Irving working at the sewing machine, making treasure bags to sell at the homeschoolers' Christmas market.

Market stall on the day!  He only sold a few things at full price, and then he sold a few at a mark down towards the end of the market, and then he got into bartering.  Given his place in the family, he's become quite good at negotiation and persuasion, and so with bartering he was in his element.  He came home with a nice array of goods from some of the other stall holders.

Irving, Damien and I went out to see the Christmas light up by ourselves this year.  Willow was down south,  Gabriel headed home as he had an early start with work, and Arden was at airforce cadets.  Gabriel joined us for dinner beforehand, and it was a pleasant evening with just the three of us.

Our next book to read "The Phantom Tollbooth"

Arden had an interesting term at TAFE and completed his cert 3 in aviation (remote pilot) easily.  He enjoyed the course, and after some discussion we reconsidered our plans for his year 11 and instead of being home educated for the first semester we are looking at another TAFE course.  This time he's looking at engineering.  For now he has put in an application for a couple of courses, and we're waiting for January to hear back.

Otherwise we decided to read "The Iliad" since Arden is interested in the classics.  We have both just started and will continue to read this over the coming year.  We are up to our last 20 pages of "Tragedy and Hope" by Carroll Quigley and hope to finish tomorrow!  It's been a bit of a challenge at times reading it together, and it does feel great to be finishing!

Arden also just completed his first year with the airforce cadets, and  has graduated to the next level.  He loved this year and is looking forward to more activities next year.  He also just passed another Japanese jujutsu belt gradings, and is finally into the adult belts!

We had a lovely relaxed end of year movie session with some home ed friends last week, when we went to see "Wonka"!  It was a great way to finish the year and now we are taking it a bit easy.

Moderation

 In almost 18 years of home educating, I've had a lot of moderators.  

When we lived in Scotland, and we home educated for a few months, we were planning to leave, so we didn't bother with any of their system.  We started 2006 home educating Willow in class 1 in a Steiner method with a curriculum from a Queensland Steiner school, with the idea that this would be helpful for returning to Australian schooling by 2007.  April 2006 we made our way to London, and from there we headed to Paris where we spent two months life learning and using our Steiner curriculum, until we returned to Adelaide mid 2006.  The remainder of 2006 saw us home educating and looking at schools for Willow.

Willow working on a drawing in Musee d'Orsay

Gabriel working on a drawing too

In 2007 Willow attended two schools, Trinity Gardens, in class 2, in their Steiner stream, and then Kiranari, a small community school.  After six months, approx, we had enough of the schooling systems in Adelaide, and we registered to home educate.

Our first moderator was called Sally, and she ran the home education department in Adelaide, and she was lovely.  She was an ex-homeschooler and she made it quite clear that the department was not on my side and was not there to support me.  She did supply a few ideas for contacts, but again it was made clear that this was not her primary role.  Her role was to assess my ability to provide an education.

Vaccswim in Glenelg

For our approximately five years home educating in Adelaide,  I became accustomed to writing up my notes on our experiences, and reviewing our year, and reading the learning outcomes and connecting our curriculum to the learning outcomes.  I grew to find the experience quite useful and it helped me a lot to understand the progress my children were making over the year. 

Every year in Adelaide, we had a different moderator who was generally an ex-principal with no interest in home education, who the department was "retiring".  For six months they would cause havoc in the community and then they would work out how home education worked.  Generally we were lucky to have our review in the second half of the year.  Plus Damien and I had the advantage of knowing how to work the system. By our final year in Adelaide, after a few dramas, including discussing the dramas the Department of education were creating with the education minister, we were assigned a moderator who was to be our new permanent moderator.  By then, after five different moderators, we were off to Perth.

Arden working on geometry.

In Perth, in total, over approximately 12 years we've had three different moderators.  Our first was very supportive and indicated that that was part of her role, which was quite a foreign idea to me.  The longer we got to know her, the more we enjoyed her visits, and the better she understood our family's learning style and goals.  During our time with her as moderator we shifted from having learning outcomes to report on, to having the WA national curriculum to report on.  (I was less than impressed with this, when we lived in the UK the media was constantly reporting on how the national curriculum was failing our children, and it was one of the main reasons we decided to send Willow to the Glasgow Steiner school.)

Willow busking with Irving hanging out on his balance bike.

At an exhibition of historic pianos

Our next moderator, was a mixed bag, sometimes he would be ok, and other times he was trying to catch me out, which made the experience somewhat unpleasant.  It was like I was misbehaving in school and he knew it!, and if he just saw me it the right moment or time he could reprimand me.  After two years of  having him as our moderator, I sent him our notes, a week in advance, and this did help quite a lot.  Sadly I never really found a rapport like our first moderator here.

Arden working on some art.

Our current moderator came with a reputation for being difficult, so I made a few amendments to how I wrote up my report.  Instead of hand writing I typed it, and for each learning area bar english and maths, I added either a photo or screen shot as evidence of progress.  This seemed to make all the difference, and our first meeting with her was a pleasure, and a huge improvement on our last moderator!

Holidays

 The term 3 holidays here were very busy this time.  My brother turned up on his way from Asia back to Adelaide, and stayed for a while.  I had my home education report to organise for my moderator, we went to the Royal Perth show, and Arden was off to an Airforce Cadets camp for the second week.

Particularly the camp made things a bit complicated, as I needed to discuss aspects of the report writing with Arden.  So week one was busy getting prepped, with lots of reviewing our year, both via my planning and my notes on our calendar and pulling all of that together.  I was feeling a bit stressed out about it this time, as I had a new moderator again, and I had lost last years calendar, and some of my notes.  I did *eventually* find them all!

We went to the Show with the whole family, Willow had come up from the South- West, and my brother was here, and we had a fairly full day out at the show.  We went to see the racing ducks, and the alpacas in particular (Willow, Arden and Irving had done an alpaca handling course, so they were very keen for this).  We visited the dairy pavillion, watched the woodchopping, went on some rides, and got some showbags, and watched some of the stadium performances, including the fireworks.  The finale for the night, was Arden and I  heading onto the slingshot.  I wasn't particularly keen, but it was quite magical being shot towards the sky with the moon as our target!  We were a bit lucky with that aspect.

We also headed North to visit some friends who live out of the city, and Arden got a second outing to the show with one of his homeschool friends.

Irving got into filming and photographing the showrides, after we dropped Arden off.

I managed to catch up with some crafts, and repairs, in the second  week of the holidays.  This time I did some fabric dying, and refreshed some faded clothing of both mine and Willow's.

Arden got back mid-afternoon from his Airforce cadets camp, and we had a bit of a quiet afternoon before heading out to the Fire Garden festival at Government house.  It was visually spectacular, but a little hot!  Especially since we hadn't had many hot days yet, when it was on.

Term 3

 During the break Arden had an opportunity to do a barista course and a half day of work experience.  He headed to the course with one of his home schooling friends and they both enjoyed the day.  

Irving having hot chocolate at the cafe.

When the term came around again it was my turn to host our STEAM group and this time we were hand-sewing treasure bags.  I practised a few versions at home, and tried to approximate time, but my doubling time for the kids was woefully inadequate, though at the end everyone did get the bag finished.

Variation 1

Variation 2

Last term was very busy as we took up a term of iceskating with some home school friends.  There was a lesson followed by social time, and just like before covid times, when we did iceskating, this quickly became one of my favourite activities for the week.  Pre-covid we went to a rink north of the river, and we spent the afternoon there before heading to music lessons.  This time we were at a rink south of the river, and the classes were much more focused on getting all the kids skating well, rather than doing the individual levels.  Both Arden and Irving could already skate well, so really it was a chance to have a review, and hang out with  old friends, and make some new ones too!

After iceskating one wee, we  headed out to Jandakot TAFE and had a chat with one of the lecturers there, who was very generous with his time, and gave lots of interesting advice and ideas regarding Arden's first steps into tertiary education, and his goal of being a pilot.

At Jandakot

Aeroplanes at Jandakot

Arden headed off to King's Park for an orienteering session, and Irving spent quite a bit of time sitting in a tree reading. 

Irving's steam group, were also lucky enough to do a tour of Browne's dairy, including getting to milk a cow!  The dairy was very interesting, and the farmer who spoke to us was very informative on the processes of the plant, and the care of the animals.

Milking time

Irving started to hand sew his pyjamas.

And got most of the way through his top.

Irving started to make snails at pottery class.

Arden did one pottery class and made a very cute duck. (Although its eyes ran, and it came out a little horror movieish in the end!)

I started knitting a "Weasley jumper" for Irving, and finished it by the end of term!

    

We had a few movie sessions.  Willow, Arden and I went to see "Barbie",  Damien, Gabriel and Arden went to see "Oppenheimer",  Damien and I went to see "Sound of Freedom", and Damien, Arden and Irving went  to see "Across the Spiderverse".  We hadn't been to the movies so often in years! 

We took up swimming again to make sure that Irving would qualify for nippers, since it was winter-time our pool was closed, so we went to a few different pools around the city and practised doing laps.  Just when we thought we had everything prepped, Damien took Irving and registered him, and we discovered that he might have to do 100m freestyle, and so we went in did more practise! Freestyle was not his preferred stroke, he loves to breaststroke!

We also went to the Ancient Egyptian exhibition that came to Western Australia.

We finally got to Araluen's tulip festival, where we could appreciate our volunteering and everyone else's too, that helped to contribute to the festival.

We grew a few potatoes.

Irving also did some work on gardening, and got a few more plants for our balcony.  He learnt a little about monocots and dicots, and planting according to the moon and astrology.  Arden's main focus for the term was physics and history.  He decided to review "Life of Fred physics", and also to do Khan academy's physics course.  History involved us doing a lot of reading of "Tragedy and Hope" and we are not far from the end now.  There was quite a bit on the development of nuclear weapons, so the timing of "Oppenheimer" at the movies was quite nice, as we had been reading about him quite a lot.

First Day of "School"

 So tomorrow sees Arden off to study at TAFE, hopefully on the way to journeying towards a career in aviation.  This year has seen a bunch of changes to our routine including Arden starting  to volunteer with the airforce cadets.  He has really enjoyed the experience with them so far, and he has continued to enjoy being part of the youth flying club, and so we headed out to TAFE and ECU to discuss options he needs to consider on his path to becoming a pilot.

After conversing with TAFE, we decided that Arden would apply to study a cert 3 in Aviation (Remote Pilot) in term 4.  We lodged his application mid last term, and he was quickly accepted on the basis of his year 9 NAPLAN results.  There was some back and forth organising things, and although I did some of the initial calls, Arden did all the emailing, and the later phone calls.  Given that he is moving into tertiary education younger than his older siblings, I wanted  to give him a chance to hear some of the interactions, before he had to do them himself.

Tomorrow Damien is going to accompany him to TAFE, as he hasn't been there yet, and it will be a bit strange around here!  For this term at least, I will only have Irving to home educate.  The course is a full time study load, although he only has to attend two days a week.

For more on tertiary life, there's a bit of info here regarding Willow getting into university, and a post here on how she found university.  Plus some info here about Gabriel getting into TAFE.

Willow's process involved a lot more examination of specialised skills as she had to audition and be tested, and submit a portfolio to get accepted.  Gabriel needed a year 10 report.  The older kids had very different experiences getting into tertiary education for the first time, and although there were some hiccups, on the whole the process was positive.

Knitting, Thinking and the Importance of Handicrafts in a Steiner Education

 https://educationfreedom.locals.com/upost/4672591/knitting-and-crafts-in-steiner-education

This article that I've shared in my local's account, on knitting, is a great read, and clearly explains why handicrafts are so important to life, and bodily development.  All of my children have followed a variation of this plan to become accomplished in a variety of  handicrafts, and on a more personal level different crafts continue to appeal to each of the children as they grow older.

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.

Waiting for "The Mousetrap" to begin.

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!

In the discover centre

On the sealion cruise

View on the island.

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.

Planting

Arluen

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

Jumping Rabbit

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.

Evaporating our sea water

Sea Salt collection

Making Soap from ghee

Displacing 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.