Birthday week no. 5 for the Season

We had a madly busy week, last week, and I'm glad to say that this week is quieter and cooler!  Doing school work last week, was a bit of a challenge, with us all popping down to the pool at lunch time each day to cool off. 

Here's some geometry from last week.

Gabriel's six pointed star.



Gabriel's and my six circles around a circle.





Willow's cube folding exercise.


Gabriel, Arden and I headed to the museum last week for a couple of homeschool classes.  Gabriel's was on fossils, and he really enjoyed it.  Arden's class was about dinosaurs.  It was Arden's first class to attend without Willow or Gabriel, so I was a bit curious how he'd find it.  Initially he wanted me next to him, but he quickly got the idea of sitting with the other kids, and looking out for me as needed.  He'll be starting circus class this weekend, and will be going to another museum class in March.

Willow has been making progress on her doll- starting to work on embroidering her face.


We ended the week with Gabriel's 11th birthday- he was very excited about it as we said that he could watch the first part of Lord of the Rings.  Everyone really enjoyed it.  Gabriel also got a hobbit lego set for his birthday and a skateboard, so he was pretty happy all round!

Week 1 2013

So we started our schooling this first week of Feb- so unusual for us- but necessary this year, and have had a good start so far.

Willow has only done one day of stuff at home, so she has two more days to do this week.  She's working on English at the moment, studying Romeo and Juliet.  She's also working on a small business project, as a project for class 8.  Currently she's doing lots of knitting for it.

Gabriel and I are reading 'String, Straightedge and Shadow' for his geometry block.  It's a nicely put together  historical story of how people learnt about geometry.  This is the second time that we've read it; last time was for Willow's geometry block.

Here is some of Gabriel's work.




Arden was also getting involved quite a bit this week- so I helped him by doing the shapes for his picture, and he did the decorating.  He says that it is a flower opening up.


A lot of our classes have also restarted for the year- musicianship is back on, as is basketball.  Plus we've found a new flute teacher for Willow, who she will start with next week.

We've not done school Mon- Wed for awhile, so it will be interesting to see how it works for us. (In recent years, we've done Tues- Thurs).  Though since Willow is largely working independantly, she intends after this week, to have Tuesdays and Fridays off.

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2025

The last few years, we just kinda move the days about during the week however suits us, as we've had fewer regular daytime home ed classes.  At one point Wednesday was our day out and about as we had iceskating and music happening then.  Our usual routine ATM is Mon- Wed learning at home (with woodwork on Tuesdays too), Thursday for home loving/housework, and Friday chill.  This also works really well because Arden's at TAFE on Mon- Wed, and this means we can do things with him Thursday and Fridays.

Pictures- knitting and Cake

Just finished Arden's doll!  He has named her Honey, and she's now happily tucked into bed with him.



Plus I just finished my first hand-knitted dish cloth.  Tried it out this evening, feels so much nicer than using a sponge!




Also I made my self a soaked grain lamington cake with 'body' cream for my  birthday cake.  It's the first time in many years that I've had a lamington cake, and the raw cream in it was delicious.

Books for science and other things

Picked up a couple of science books that will hopefully be helpful for this year.

The first one is a pictured guide to the elements.

Elements, Theodore Gray

I reckon it would've been great when I was learning about the periodic table, to get a better sense of some of it's items.

Then there's a general science book by DK.
Help Your kids with Science, DK

Plus we've picked up a copy of Antony and Cleopatra, as part of Gabriel's Ancient Rome studies.

Finally a book to help with Willow's grammar- The Art of Styling Sentences.

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2025

Probably the most useful out of these ended up being the DK book, and somewhat the Elements book. 

The elements  book has been great to take a look at and see what forms and various items are made from the elements, and so it has proven to be helpful in having a better understanding of these things.

DK books overall seem to cover topics in a very comprehensive manner, and this one is as good as any of their other books that we have used over the years.

Getting ready

Well since baby no 4 will be here in June, it's only a week til we start more organised schooling this time.  Fortunately I have most of our stuff sorted out, we just have to finalise details on our first block for the year.  Gabriel is starting off with Geometry and Willow is starting off with a block on Shakespeare- studying Romeo and Juliet. 

We've also arranged most of our classes for the year too, though we're yet to sort out Willow's music teacher.  Everything is more or less the same as last year, except Willow will be doing jujutsu instead of basketball.  There are a few interesting homeschool outings too, that I'm thinking about booking us into.

Gabriel received a surprise ticket yesterday, to a Fringe show, whilst busking in the City, so I went and bought a second ticket, and he and I headed of for a show.  It was a combined performance of Classical and Jazz harp, and was very entertaining.

Christmas, Holidays and 2013

Well we've had a busy Christmas/ New Year season as expected, though not as busy as last year.  Arden turned five at the beginning of the holidays, and we had a lovely family dinner to celebrate.

The Perth Christmas pageant was on 15th December, and Willow managed to walk the whole way on stilts, which was quite a feat given that she'd only got the hang of them a couple of weeks before.  (The walk in the pageant was 6km!)  The pageant was at night this year, and I thought it was much nicer than being at a daytime pageant, where it frequently ends up being far too hot.

Damien had a couple of weeks off over Christmas, so we went on a few outings, that we'd been meaning to do for a while.  The first one was an outing to Hilarys to visit AQWA, and have a swim.  The underwater walkway, was liked by all, except the moving floor made Willow, Gabriel and Damien feel a bit ill. We also finally got to Perth Zoo (everyone loved the giraffes, zebras, and orangutans), and Damien took Willow and Gabriel out sailing on the Swan River again.

We also are celebrating Willow's 13th birthday today.  We've spent a fairly quiet day at home, but will be having an afternoon tea out at Koko Black later in the week.

I've got my homeschool stuff planned for the year, I did most of it before Christmas, and it was nice just to be able to set it aside and forget about it.  Our plan is to start in Feb this year, with some part time school, as we're expecting baby no. 4 in June.  I'm also going to do class 1 part time with Arden this year, to cover the govt requirements for pre-primary.  I'd prefer to wait til he's but given timing and how interested he is in learning to read, I feel quite ok about doing class 1 over this year and next.

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2025

Willow attended a friend's wedding on Saturday, who was one of the girls at her 13th birthday party and one of her first proper friends in Perth.  There can be so much anxiety around friendships and homeschooling, and it's really not necessary, as there is just as much possibility of finding people that you relate to as at school.  Many people come out of school without really creating lasting friendships, and sometimes even confused as to what a friend is, because they felt that they had to hang out with someone or they would have been alone.  

Recent Activities

Well we've mostly finished our organised school work for the year, which is just lovely, though Willow has a couple of things to finish off with Damien.

This week has seen us doing another woodworking project, making a stool, with Greg Miller.  It was a lot of fun, though rather a long day.  Our teacher, hadn't done the project with a larger group before and we ran a lot over time......I ended up spending almost 7hrs on mine, and Gabriel and Willow spent less time.

This is Gabriel's bench/ foot stall.   His is designed to use whilst practising his guitar.

Normally Gabriel loves doing woodwork, and certainly by the end of the end of the project he was doing very well with it, but he got overwhelmed initially with some of Greg's explanations about angles and measuring during his demonstration, and it took him a little while to recover from getting confused.  (Gabriel hasn't yet done that sort of geometry.)

Willow's bench will be used in her bedroom.  Both Willow's and mine involved legs on 10degree angles, which made them slightly trickier to put together.


My bench is currently being used for my laptop.


And finally whilst we were out today, Arden got to do some woodwork with Damien.  He did lots of hammering to make a mini wooden boat.  The nails sticking out sideways are apparently jets of water.


Willow has finished off all her chemistry experiments this week, and she seems to have generally enjoyed it.  These pictures are from making solutions of salt and sugar, and leaving them to crystallise.

Sugar crystals

 

Salt Crystals

Gabriel got an introduction to Pythagoras this week, with some sketching of his thereom.

This week also saw us having our homeschool review, so that's done for another 12months.  It's always interesting to look back over the year, and see what we've done, but it's also nice just to get through the process and know that we're all good for next year.