2019 a Close

Well, again it seems for the past year I've been a bit slow.  I had a few health issues at the end of the year, and so this got a bit neglected, plus my computer was being a little odd.

We've made it a habit this year to have holiday catch ups with our home ed friends for some free form play with our general social group.  It has been quite pleasant to get out and about and explore some different areas of Perth with our friends.

Cottesloe civic centre had been on my list of places to get too, and we had a great time;it is just so beautiful!

Waiting for WA Ballet to perform "Peter and the Wolf".

Working on some maths.

Illustration of Briar Rose by Arden.

Irving's sketch of the Frog Prince- who's green skin one can see sticking to the door!  :D

I particularly liked the creativity in this sketch by Irving.  It could almost be mistaken for just being paper!

Some more sketches from Grimm's fairytales, this time "Godfather Death".
My sketch.

Irving's.

And Arden's.

Physics in action- creating a scale using bottles and water.

Patterns in percussion, and our reading for this block.  Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything."

Magnetism.

Some class 1 science, making a spinner, and looking at optical illusions.

Opening night for Mosaic exhibition- A day in the life of Western Australia.  We love this and have done it for about three years now.

Learning mandolin.

And joining the pickers' club for a jam.

Irving spent some time examining how to pull this guitar apart.

We happened across ABC Perth's open day, which was surprisingly interesting.  Arden and Irving had a good chat to a camerman, and we got to the sets of "The Heights".

Gabriel and Arden tried out dinghy sailing, and Arden is now enthused to try more.

A few of us  headed to Rooftop movies to see "Casablanca", as it is a favourite around here.

And we were excited to see this in Camelot's movie program, as Willow is an extra in it!

We also had our home ed review, and I must admit I'm always glad to get that done.  Ours is now at the beginning of term 4 and it makes life a bit easier to have it then, rather than having to rush around about it at the end of the term, near Arden's birthday and Christmas.

Term 3

We have had a few family things going on around here this past term, and so I seem to have taken fewer pics than usual.  Irving has been continuing along learning to read and write, and count and all the usual things that little people do, which in his case includes experimenting with instruments, paper cut outs and working out how things work.

Arden has been continuing along on latin, using Lingua Latina, learning about Ancient Rome, Hawaii and the Polynesian nations, and geology.  We've almost finished knitting socks (Irving has been learning to knit too) and he's been learning to sew on the sewing machine.

This game has ended up being used quite creatively for various constructions by Irving.

 

 

One variation of the game.

Flower Pressing and decorating candles.

Arden progressing through his knitting.  One sock down, one sock to go for both of us.

Constructing platonic solids out of modelling wax and tooth picks.

Woodwork with the "Joy of Wood".  Using traditional tools.

A dice by Arden, out of wood, and a dice by Irving out of aluminium.

Working on some handsewing- beanbags and a scabbard.

Arden working on designing a harmonica bag for his first machine sewing project.

Some of my sewing.  Pyjama repairs.

Learning to do bound buttonholes.


Finished!

Turning jeans into a skirt with fringe.

Arden's cooking- checkerboard cookies.

Streusel.

Some of our garlic harvest.  We've also had tomatoes and capsicums and potatoes this year.

Our drawings from reading "Red Riding Hood"
Irving's.

Arden's.

Mine.

Out enjoying the Winter Light's in Brookfield Place.

-

2025

I've been repairing the socks that I made that year, earlier today, they've been very comfy for around the house, but need a bit of attention to the soles to keep them going a bit longer.  My sewing and knitting pile is currently a bit ridiculous and I'm gradually getting through it. TBH there's a few too many loose ends around here and one of my goals is to finish up a bunch of things this year.

Tomorrow we start back at our woodwork classes for term 3.  Continuing on our lund stools.

Term 2 part 2

Towards the end of the term we spent a month looking at poetry, in different styles and learning about metres, and how to understand them.  Arden and I worked together to come up with the our own poems in the various rhythms. 

We have a few poetry books at home, but I figured we needed a greater variety for this, so collected some more from the library.

The poetry books we used.

During this time we were also reading Beowulf. 

Plus we ordered a denk fire bowl to use in the colder weather.  It doesn't really get cold in Perth, just overnight, so we got up early on Winter solstice and made a small damper to bake in the embers of our bowl.

It got a bit stuck to the aluminium foil, but was still delicious!

We were playing hopscotch whilst out and about for a while, after meeting a lady who drew up a game of it for us!

Arden recently finished reading Hemmingway's "Old Man and the Sea".

We read "Tom Sawyer" earlier in the year, and we used Kovacs' "Ancient Rome" as well as Emily Frenkel's version of "Aenas" for Arden's first block on Ancient Rome.

Third time around we are using "Lingua Latina" for Latin.

Irving and I had been working on some cursive, helping to build up his familiarity with the alphabet.

Irving experimenting with celtic knot patterns.

Irving and Arden working on geometry.  Irving likes to join in, so he does the bits he can manage.

I'm still working on this,just recently traced the quilting image onto it, unfortunately it won't be ready til next winter! (I'm sitting under it right now!-2025)

Irving is starting to get the hang of skateboarding.