Titanic, Stars, Rocks and Craft

We have had a rather hectic and enjoyable couple of weeks around here, with plenty of outings, and some great activities.

We made it to the Titanic exhibition, over the last weekend it was on.  It was insanely busy, but still worth seeing. As everyone here is quite interested in the story, we'd been watching some of the films made about it with our favourite being "A Night to Remember", which I've also just purchased a copy of the book for us to read.

We've also been watching the BBC series "Back in Time" which we've been enjoying.  We've found some of the details interesting, but would have like to have seen the people taught some of the skills (as people of the era would have just known them-particularly knowing how to use an old fashioned can-opener).  Though we've only just watched the first episode of the weekend, and they do appear to be teaching them some skills this time.

We had a lovely simple Easter this year, lunch at home (Arden made stout pie and Willow made hot cross buns), eggs selected by everyone and purchased by everyone (we had a jar sitting in the kitchen that everyone added money to so that we  had a treasure jar for our egg purchasing!), eggs from our two favourite chocolate shops; Sue Lewis and Koko Blacks) and a night out of dancing to Shotdown from Sugartown and Johnny Law.  Damien and I have been working on learning some jitterbug, so we got to do a bit of that, and Arden has been learning the basic step, as he would like to learn a dance where he gets to do lots of spinning(he learnt recently that the focus of rockabilly is on the girl!)

Gabriel and Arden went on a geology outing around Perth; Arden came back very enthused, and I'm planning to get him a hand lens soon.  Irving and I met them after the outing,down at Cottesloe, we had a bit of a look at the last of the sculptures that were still out from the Sculptures by the Sea.

Arden has just finished doing a block on stars.  We focused on drawing multi-pointed stars; from 5points through to 12.  We also did some sewing, making fabric star decorations, and finally we finished the block with tea-light holders.

Sewing stars

My star for Irving, made from Damien's old shirt :D

Star painting with Irving

Arden's stars

Painting to make our star lanterns

Stage 1, oiled and cut out

Folding

Ready and lit!  Last time we made these was 2010 and we had a small incident with one catching alight!!!  Though it was my fault for doing small and large size candle holders (large is best!!!)  Would like to try these next time.  Might have to do them for this years solstice...

Gabriel finally finished his Zebra!

And now he's on to hand sewing a tie. 

Gingham for the lining of the tie. (Gabriel is using the same fabric for the main part of his tie, that Willow used for her skirt).

Gabriel is currently working on a block of geometry using our Wooden books.  I absolutely *love* these books; they're like little works of art, and filled with obscure and interesting information.  Gabriel has been working from the Islamic Design book.

Part of visit to the city routine presently-visiting London Court to see the knights and dragon!  (Irving loves it!)

Looking back through this, it is apparent to me that I'm not sure what Willow's been up to, other than making a video and hot cross buns, getting through her craft pile, and generally doing maths and writing and music.  She's still been  helping Arden with violin, but I haven't yet had my weekly/fortnightly chat with her.

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2025

We spent quite a bit of time exploring the Titanic at this time.  I bought a book called "The Wreck of the Titan" which is apparently eerily similar to the story, but unfortunately we still haven't gotten to reading it.  I also recently came across a book called "The Truth About The Titanic" by Archibald Gracie.

You can find instructions to make the lanterns on this page.

https://www.bellalunatoys.com/blogs/moon-child-blog-sarah-baldwin/origami-candle-holder

Autumn

Gabriel's first sock .

More Zebra sketches- this reminds me of art deco drawings.

Some recent geometry, Gabriel's dodecagon, followed by my dodecagon.

 Gabriel's been busy working on geology these last couple of weeks, as his main lesson.  There's been quite a lot of writing work, and we've been focusing on his cursive.  Today we discussed the evolution of alchemy into chemistry, and elements.  We've been using 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth' by Jules Verne, as our story for this block. Since Gabriel has finished his first sock, we've had a couple of weeks off, so he can focus on his main project for this year- making a zebra- before he gets onto doing sock no 2.  Gabriel and I finished reading the Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets together, and so we've moved on to the Lord of the Rings- The Fellowship of the Ring.  Gabriel's goal is to improve his reading enough, that after reading the first book with me, he'll be able to do the others by himself.

Willow's geometry from the last week- making a variety of stars.

Willow is moving onto chemistry this block, and has also been busy progressing along  her doll.  She was hoping to finish the doll's hair last week, but unfortunately they'd run out of black wool.  I've also ordered a square loom, so that Willow can do some weaving; she was thinking of doing a blanket out of squares.  Last weekend Willow and Gabriel got to try out surfing at Trigg beach, as Willow won a voucher to try surfing.

Arden has been working on numbers and reading and writing them this block.  Previously I'd done more of a creative maths block for class 1, as in the waldorf style, but I really like the JUMP programme and how well it's worked for Willow and Gabriel, so I'm using it as the focus of our maths with plans to complement it with some of the creativity that accompanies waldorf.

We're coming to the end of term one, so I'm looking forward to a couple of weeks off.  Will have to spend a bit of time, getting baby stuff sorted, so that we're ready for June.  We've all still been learning rockabilly dancing, and have been getting a few lessons of kick step in before Gabriel has musicianship lessons back on.  We've all been loving the dancing, and I've been trying to get lots in before the baby is born, as it will be tricky to get to lessons then.

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2025

We actually continued to do a lot of dancing once Irving was born, as it seemed he was accustomed to music, and so he just slept through it.  Later on we all learnt some blues and kick step rock and roll too.  Plus when towards the end of high school for Gabriel, Willow and Gabriel, did some swing lessons, and Willow also did some ballroom.  All this was part of our plan to complement her desire to be an opera singer/performer.

Some posts discussing our dancing experiences....

Highland dancing

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2008/11/whats-been-on.html

Lessons with Cool Cats

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2013/05/closer.html

Rockabilly

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2013/06/dancing-numbers-astronomy.html

Tap dancing and rockabilly with Arden.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2018/04/summer-holidays-finally-here.html

Willow and Gabriel doing swing lessons

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2018/01/gradually-planning-2018.html

Swing dancing scence.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2015/10/timetables-part-2.html

Arden trying cossack dancing at Womadelaide.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2019/04/trip-to-adelaide.html

A Wicked Week

So Willow has come to the end of another block, and Gabriel and I are getting through his local history work. I was hoping to have picked up a copy of Kovac's Geology book before Willow's block, but it didn't arrive in time, so we made our way through the block without it. Fortunately it didn't matter, we stocked up on books from the library and visited the crystal collection at the SA Museum. There's quite a good selection there, and it was great for getting a feel for the way crystals grow, and the fact that each has it's own very distinct shape.

Since it's been history month, and Gabriel has been looking at local history we've been trying to get out to lots of activities. Last weekend there was a re-enactment of the opening of the Institute building on North Tce, so Willow, Damien and Gabriel went along. It sounded very interesting. Apparently originally the opening went for 5hrs with thousands of people there wanting to come in, and there were bits of modern technology(for the era)being demonstrated, and not working very well. We've also been continuing doing the Engineering tour of Adelaide via a guide from the Adelaide city council- this week we were looking at the water system.

Willow and Gabriel also headed to Wicked this week. Apparently it was fabulous, and Willow keeps telling me that I need to go and see it.

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2025

I never did buy the Kovac's geology book.  Given that it was combined with astrology and he was in the Northern hemisphere, I think I decided that it would likely not be a very useful resource for us.  TBH I don't love his books, but they do give a nice starting point for research, discussing accuracy, and discussing changing knowledge over time.  It's so important, to never trust one resource, especially in this era, and I like to start that conversation fairly early when we study history.

Well I have seen Wicked the movie now- we went to see it with a bunch of our home schooling friends as an end of year outing last Christmas.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2024/12/closing-on-another-year.html

Chilly Autumn Rain

We are having some lovely Autumn weather at the moment, and all of us are enjoying the change of seasons. There are many lovely leaves lining the streets, and it is a lovely time to be out walking about.

We've had some interesting outing in recent weeks, and some lovely work has been done. We visited Urrbrae house and did a tour of the Urrbrae wetlands. Willow and Gabriel were given names to match the era of Urrbrae house, for their visit there. Willow was called Harriet and Gabriel was called Clifton. (The year for their vist was meant to be 1892). They both enjoyed the morning, pretending to be school students back in that era. It would be interesting to visit again, as the kids were divided into different groups, and each group had different activities. There were also a group of ladies and gentlemen and a group of servants.

Gabriel has now finished his first piece of embroidery for the year, and since the weather has been busy changing and we're also getting out and about a bit for his local history block, we made pinwheels as an interim craft activity. Here is Gabriel's pincushion.


Willow has finished her first block on Ancient Rome, also had a small block on the Australian Govt- examining the different levels of it and will be onto studying geology this week. We bought some sculpey and made our own mini aquaduct, using it. I had been hoping to do a tour of the town hall, but they are not happening at present. Anyway here is our mini aquaduct.


Gabriel has just started learning about the local area and doing local history, and fortunately it's history month here, so there are lots of interesting things happening. We've done a tour of the local train station, are going to tour St Peter's Cathedral, and attend a reopening of a building in the Victorian era (everyone is really looking forward to this, as they will be getting dressed up). We've also picked up some of the local council's guides and have been following these too.

Finally just because I really liked these. Here's a couple of photos from Gabriel's animal block- a beeswax giraffe and sculpey zebra.