Term 1

Our first term was very full, and filled with lots of interesting outings and activities- this term is looking to be similar so far!

Irving's pottery class has been going well, and we even started watching "The Great Pottery Throw Down" to compliment all the learning in the class that he's been attending in Guildford. It's also become a bit of a thing, to stop and look at interesting pottery shops.

Picking up a cute pot after pottery class.

And cute fish.

We continued on with Norse myths learning to write in Runes, drawing and painting some of the Gods and characters and reading Padraic Colum's version, and also reciting "The Poetic Edda- Voluspo", as well as reading some of "The Viking Tales" (we're big fans of Norse Mythology here!)

Irving's and my paintings.

Irving's,my and Arden's work.

Norse Reading.

Arden has been reading "The Greek Treasure" by Irving Stone, because we really enjoyed his book on Michaelangelo, this one took us awhile to get into, and Arden is still finishing it. It became much more interesting to read when Henry Schliemann discovered Troy. It's possible to virtually view some of the Schliemann's discoveries on this Russian Museum's site.


Arden finished the term looking at the way different aspects of the world are integrated together, doing some reading,writing and watching "Brian Cox's Forces of Nature" series. We finished off with looking at the Gaia theory, and the idea that the Earth is a living complete organism.

Irving looked at local Aboriginal culture, and we learnt about how the aboriginal people cultivated the land, and how that knowledge had been suppressed in our culture, We listend to Bruce Pascoe's tedtalk on this topic. We also read February Dragon, by Colin Thiele. A fabulous book the illustrates so well, the ever present danger of bushfires in Australia.

Hard waste collection happened again, and this time we found a vintage coffee table- it appears to be one of a set of nesting coffee tables originally. Irving and I are hoping to spend some time on it, repairing it.

Irving enjoyed our steam group this term and there were lots of interesting lessons on anatomy, and was complimented at home with watching "Operation Ouch" on some of the topics we covered- including the hand and it's joints, the brain, the heart, the bladder, the kidneys.

One of the completed activities from our Steam group.

Towards the end of term, we attended our first home school sport's day for the family. Arden was too old to participate, but acted as assitant coach with the Team captain, and joined the parent's races for some of the activities. Though the kids were keen to have him join in the parents versus kids, tug of war. Irving had a great time doing all the activities- three legged races, egg and spoon, relays. The only down side was it was the last very hot day of Summer and the first very hot day, we'd had for a week or so, so we were all struggling in the heat a little. Much fun was had at the end, with water fights, to cool off!

Damien, Arden and I headed to ECU Joondalup to find out about their aviation course, and to see their open day generally. We had a good chat with a couple of the lecturers there, and saw the flight simulators in action. Arden used one, and very nicely took off, flew and landed. It was interesting for me to see, because I had only ever seen his first home education session on a simulator, some years ago, where he needed a lot of help. After his years in the flying club at Bull Creek, he really knows what he's doing.

Arden's lemon tree is doing very well.

Okonomiyaki by Arden.

New shorts for Irving.

Black and white sesame balls.