Last of the Year and a Graduate

Well we have been quite pleased that Gabriel has been offered a place in tafe next year, studying cert 3 in screen and media, for the first 6months of the year.  He's not done any formal schooling, so we thought starting with a cert 3 for the first half of his year 12 would give him an intro into classroom study, and we could look at the follow on cert 4 class for the second half of the year.

This year he has had quite a few interesting experiences including volunteering at making hot dogs, at Supernova and Heritage Perth recently.  I think the Supernova experience might have set him up for expecting better organising skills from organisations....apparently Heritage Perth were a bit slow in certain areas, but they did provide a much nicer lunch! :)

Recently all the older kids-Willow, Gabriel and Arden did a chocolate making class at Sue Lewis' chocolate shop.

Irving has been working alongside Arden on patterning.  Arden has been doing mental calculations, whilst Irving has been building the patterns.

We went out exploring the Columns in Perth recently as part of our Greek studies.  We have been reading "The Adventures of Odysseus and the Tales of Troy" by Padraic Colum.  We love his writing style and re-telling of the myths, and even Irving is starting to listen for longer stretches.  We also watched a few videos on the Greek alphabet, which Irving, Arden and I can now recite fairly well.  Next week there are plans for Arden to make a Greek meal for dinner.

Corinthian style columns.

Mini-columns on the Treasury building.

The only example of Doric columns that we found- on the old court house.

As part of Perth Heritage days we visited the Bon Marche building.  Strangely it has a mini-prison gate on the top floor.  We're hoping someone will spend some time and money restoring it to it's former beauty.

My pile of paper-work for writing up my notes for our home education review.  Our moderator visited last week, and we are all done for another year.

Finally my sewing.  The dragon in my last post, made it onto this vintage pattern dressing gown.

Which has some left-over star fabric for its lining.

Term 2 in Pictures (mostly)

Irving worked out how to draw stars! This was a pleasant surprise, and he had a little burst of drawing five pointed ones.

A bit of maths. (we like to get these blocks out for our pattern making section of Arden's JUMP maths book, and Irving always enjoys joining in).

Working together.  Pre-primary and grade 5.

Labyrinth puzzle....art and maths....crazy family project!

Chocolate making.  We learnt a little about tempering with a second chocolate bar at a free workshop by Sue Lewis, and we made dark chocolate with thyme oil creatures.

Reading one of my favourite children's authors, Padraic Colum, "The Golden Fleece".

After reading about the minotaur we looked at labyrinths and mazes.

More patterning.  Working on rose windows.  These are a lot of fun to make, but can get a little complicated. (Some other examples by Willow when she was 12).

And a variation, using the kite paper to make layered pictures by tearing/cutting shapes and layers.

Reading related to our Australian history studies.  We actually took longer to read this than intended  (we just finished it recently) and it is wonderful for showing the older and slower Australian lifestyle prior to the arrival of the car. 

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During this time we did a tour of Karakatta Cemetry.

We also did a tour of the Perth mint (again)! And the Perth Bell Tower.  View from the Bell Tower.

  These are the beautiful flame trees along the river, on our walk from the Bell Tower to the Mint.

The impressive 1 tonne gold coin.  (Though I missed seeing all the beautiful collectors pieces that they used to keep in the secure vault, and which this coin has replaced).

Some of Gabriel's reading.  Gabriel is very interested in military history, and increasingly interested in working and rendering 3D objects on the computer using blendr.

Working on improving crochet, by making some dishcloths.

A blanket that I was making that is still not finished unfortunately, as I haven't found the sort of blanket binding that I would like yet.

Some new books.  Latin dictionary to help Gabriel's study.  Plus the Long Winter because we are still getting through this Little House Series.

Finally two of my favourite things about home education; Pleasurable family outings and slow breakfasts.

Gabriel, Arden and I went to see WASO performing "The Goblet of Fire", to the film.

And enjoying a family breakfast.

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2025

Link to the rose window book can be found here.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2011/10/southern-aurora.html

Some of our rose windows over the years.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/search?q=rose+windows

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2012/10/recent-work.html