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.