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.
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| Collecting mulberries |
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| Waiting for Mary Poppins to begin |
Pottery at home.
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| Irving's pumpkin head for Halloween. |
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| 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.
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.
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| 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!
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.
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.
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2025
Irving's market stall experience last year can be found here.
With some of the prep for it here.
https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2024/12/term-3.html
https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2024/12/term-3.html
He is keen to do more sweet snacks for this years market, after having a successful day selling brownies last year, as well as supplementing with his left over goods.
I discovered over the course of the last few year, that as Willow and Gabriel had transitioned into their own adult lives, that I had inadvertantly allowed Arden to fill all the space. So the past 18months have been interesting for me, learning to put some boundaries back, and reclaim time for myself, and develop a rhythm that works for Irving and I focusing on learning together three days out of the week. (All the TAFE course Arden has done have been Mon-Wed, so this has worked best for us). ATM Arden is studying a Diploma in Aviation Management, and he has also completed a Cert 3 in Ground Operations.
I discovered over the course of the last few year, that as Willow and Gabriel had transitioned into their own adult lives, that I had inadvertantly allowed Arden to fill all the space. So the past 18months have been interesting for me, learning to put some boundaries back, and reclaim time for myself, and develop a rhythm that works for Irving and I focusing on learning together three days out of the week. (All the TAFE course Arden has done have been Mon-Wed, so this has worked best for us). ATM Arden is studying a Diploma in Aviation Management, and he has also completed a Cert 3 in Ground Operations.
