Holiday Time

Well our first term in Perth has finished, and we are now on holidays. The Royal Perth show starts this weekend, and so we have plans to head off to that. I'm looking forward to exploring Perth further, over the next two weeks.

Last weekend Parklife was happening across from our place, so we headed out for the day. The Onwilliam festival was happening as part of Perth Fashion week, so we spent most of the day wandering around Northbridge. We all really enjoyed it, the kids particularly liked going around to collect the badges and get their passports stamped. It was also nice to see so many interesting craftspeople, selling their stuff. Afterwards we headed to South Perth for dinner, and a small work along the river before catching the last ferry back across.

Willow has just finished a two week block on astronomy, which has worked out quite nicely. Hopefully we can get out for a walk tomorrow night and do a bit of star gazing too. We're better a spotting the southern cross now that we know to look out for alpha and beta centaurus, and we spotted venus setting last week which was nice too. We haven't really added any further constellations that we can spot, so I'd like to try and see if we can do that tomorrow night too. But the block has certainly improved our understanding of the movement of the stars and planets, and we've been fortunate to have a homeschool outing to the Observatory in the next few weeks.

Willow's painting of the Southern Cross with it's pointers.


Arden's star painting. He's become very focused when painting.


Willow is also getting quite experimental with her poetry writing. She decided to try some older english for this.
Venus
Oh, Venus, thou lovely one, the evening star,
the goddess of love and beauty,
how brightly thou doth shine in the sunset,
kissing us goodnight every so often,
thou art like the Dove, bringing peace and beauty to Earth,
like the rainbow I doth see,
never more beauteous I hath seen, than the Evening Star.

Gabriel has been getting through the animal block, and we have the last week to finish, after the break, where we look at man. Again we've been fortunate in that over the holidays there are some great kids workshops run, at various centres, and so Willow and Gabriel will be off to an afternoon with raptors. Gabriel has also just finished his zebra on his cross-stitch cushion. It's coming along very beautifully.



Willow has just had a trial sew up of her horse toy. A few adjustments are needed but hopefully she will be finished it quite soon. She has also been doing some crocheting recently, as part of the yarn bombing of Subiaco, for Christmas.

A few more pictures.
Willow's painting of Venus rising.


My painting of Venus setting.


Homeschooler's tile around the Bell Tower.

Some New Aquisitions and What I'm Reading

I started reading this when we arrived in Perth, but I must admit I haven't read much of it recently. It is totally fascinating, but incredibly depressing IMO, so I've put it aside at present, and have just been reading bits of it incidentally. Though for anyone that thinks vegetarianism will save the world, I highly recommend reading it. ('The Vegetarian Myth' by Lierre Keith)

This is equally depressing, but I guess I know the outcome, so it's less disturbing. The wisdom of the ancients is quite amazing. ('Eve's Herbs' by John Riddle)

Some recent homeschooling purchases.

('Physics is Fun' by Robert Trostli)

('Sky Phenomena' by Norman Davidson)


I'm finding this last one fabulous for explaining Astronomy, and it's so nice that it has an explanation for the Southern Hemisphere too. We're about to start on some of this next week- and even better for us, there's a planned homeschool excursion to the Perth Observatory in October.

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2025

I still haven't finished "The Vegetarian Myth"!  And with all the things I've ended  up doing with the kids over these last 10years, my book pile has grown horribly.  Now that I only have Irving left, my goal has been to shrink it.  Unfortunately home schooling has expanded my hobbies enormously too, so between children and deciding what to do, the reading sometimes tends to get neglected when we're busy. 

Eve's Herbs' was a fascinating read on how women have managed their fertility, and complements my current  reading, Portal, quite nicely.

Physics is Fun is amazing, and is one of my favourite homeschool resources- we have used it so much over the years!

Some of our physics over the years can be found in these posts.

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

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2013/11/physics-maths-parliament.html

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2016/10/science-arts-craft.html

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2011/12/loose-ends.html

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2020/02/2019-close.html

Some Recent Work

Willow's swan poem.



Gabriel's Eagle poem.



Gabriel's celtic knot sword picture.



Gabriel is progressing through his cushion.



My pin cushion is finally finished!

Exploring and Settling In

Over the last few weeks, we've been out and about around Perth, done some research in terms of classes and been sick. So generally times have been busy.

Last week Willow went off to try a new choir - Cottage Children's Choir. She had a great time, and overall their teaching technique appealed to me. It was very active, and fun and made the singing look much less like work. I've also been looking into music teachers, and sport classes, but unfortunately this has all been slowed down a bit by Damien and I being unwell.

We've now been to City Farm, and although we love the feel of the market, it is very small and really won't be suitable as a place to do our food shopping every week. So at this stage we're thinking of alternating between it and Subiaco. City Farm has a fabulous cafe, and also has a circus skills class happening there on the weekends, so overall there's lots of great stuff on there that really appealled to us. Yesterday we went back to Subiaco, and Willow did some finger knitting, to help with creating some knitted pieces to yarn bomb Subiaco for Christmas. Over the course of the coming months, a local artist is working at the market to get the community involved in the project.

We've been getting out to a few homeschool meet ups too, and meeting lots of foreigners that have moved here. It seems Perth is very international- I had no idea prior to moving here, and I do like the way that makes for a more diverse city. We've met homeschoolers from Portugal, South Africa, Ireland, Queensland, NSW- it even amused me that most of the Aussies we've met here, have been from other parts of Australia. The last homeschooling outing we got to was at Scitech, the kids really enjoyed it there, and they certainly had a diverse range of activities happening. Last week we missed an excursion to Whiteman Park, which I was sorry about, but hopefully we'll get out there one weekend ourselves. In the coming weeks we'll be getting to the Observatory, the Bell Tower and the Mint- so it seems there are lots of interesting activities being planned by people.

Just to finish off, we've found a french cafe here- Jean Pierre Sancho, which I'm very happy about. Real French bread is so good.

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2025

We still shop at City Farm semi-regularly, and in fact we've done a bunch of things there over the years.  Willow, Gabriel and Arden all took circus classes there, as for a while there was a circus school running from their hall.  Willow also volunteered with a local artist, and disability support group and helped work on some of the mosaics there.  I helped out a friend's daughter by selling her goat's milk and cheese there for about a year.  These days I do most of our shopping at Manning Markets, and when I feel like staying nearer to home, I head to City Farm.

A unicorn mosaic, on this post, by Willow, from her volunteering days at City Farm.
https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2013/08/change.html

This one has a bench that she worked on.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2012/06/happenings.html

On the stilts with a circus friend.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2012/11/counting-down.html

At home in Perth

Perth, from the South side of the River



So we're settled into our new apartment in Perth. It's been a few weeks, but the ADSL only arrived recently, so it makes it easier to 'connect' with the rest of the world. The apartment is comfortable, and the space suits our needs, plus we have two balconies overlooking a park, which is great. My only minor concerns, is our storage space is a little small (hopefully we'll be able to sort a way to balance things) and we're on the second floor- even with airconditioning I'm not sure that's going to be great come summer.

Otherwise we've been getting out and exploring the city, as well as doing some schoolwork. Our trip across the Nullabor took almost two days by train, and it was quite relaxing on the whole, plus the view of the stars at night was spectacular.

The first few weeks here, Damien had lots happening at work, so we were only getting to the farmer's market together. We've been heading to the Subiaco market every Saturday so far, and have found the selection quite good, though it's much smaller than the Adelaide market and has a different feel. This week we're planning to head to the City Farm, to check out their weekend market.

We've also been out to meet some homeschoolers, both times at a playground, and so far the playgrounds here have been amazing. They seem to have retained more playgrounds with equipment for older kids. The pirate ship at Applecross really went down well, and it was in such a beautiful location, overlooking the Swan River.

A black swan with her cygnets.


During all this we've been doing maths and English around here. Willow has been looking at the structure of sentences, and doing some writing. I also took her to her first performance of Shakespeare- Julius Caesar. Gabriel has finished his writing block on the Norse Myths, and has moved back onto fractions. We've also been getting into some more complex celtic knots, and drawing the King's crown for geometry. Craft has seen Gabriel finish the first picture on his cushion, and Willow move onto designing her pattern, for a toy horse.

Willow's picture of Kilhuch and King Arthur, to complement her writing for the week.



Willow's model unicorn


My cross stitch is finally nearly finished!

Reading

Full Moon Feast
I loved this book! So interesting, and beautifully combined fact with story. Absolutely essentially for any WAP eaters out there.

We've also just started Willow's language block reading Beowulf and The Story of King Arthur- we'll be looking at doing some poetry writing and creative writing with this block too.

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2025

Oh this is about where I'm at with Irving at the moment,  we finished reading "Robin Hood" by Roger Llancellyn Green not long ago, and ATM we're taking a winter break, and he's been doing some knitting, and we've also been reading "Pinochio".  The Story of King Arthur is on our list for this year, and Beowulf, is on the plan for the end of the year I think.

Latest activities

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2025/06/we-made-it.html

Time for a Break

Today was our last bit of planned school work before leaving Adelaide next week. It's been a little hectic around here, with socialising, school work, packing, inspections, finding a new home and sending Damien off to Perth. He's been there 4 days now, and we're all glad to be at the half way point, and are counting down til he gets back.

I thought it was funny that one of the coldest and wettest days we've had this year occurred with Damien interstate, I'm sure he's sorry to have missed it, even with all his fun experiences and adventures around Perth.


Willow has just come to the end of her block on Ancient Rome.


And here's her latest geometry.



Gabriel is working on the structure of english at the moment. Here's his picture of Thor throwing Miolnir at Hrungir.


And finally Gabriel's progress on his cushion.