Finale

Term one is over again, and has disappeared very quickly as usual.  We seem to have a much more relaxed rhythm this year, which is lovely, three days of school work at home, one out, and one day off.  Willow is following her own timetable this time, and getting herself to most of her out of home activities.  She's had a busy term, and is enjoying rehearsing for her latest performance with Gilbert and Sullivan; this time they're doing "Pirates of Penzance".  She has been finding herself a little too busy, with her school work, music practise and circus teaching, and we have been trying to find a nice balance so that she has time for her own interests.  Currently she's madly knitting half her friends fingerless gloves!

Willow working on making herself a pillowcase.

Gabriel is now working through his second block of the term: geometry, unusually we started with geography this time.  Looking at the poles and North and South America.  Currently he's working on making a stuffed toy zebra and planning the pattern for it.  He's also decided that he wants to learn the unicycle at circus, and so has been focusing on that as his main skill.  He also passed his first jujutsu belt grading recently, so that was a bit of an exciting moment for him, and he's already planning for his next grading.  (Willow meanwhile is hoping to delay grading her next belt for as long as possible!  She likes being better than what her belt suggests.)

Gabriel's map of Antarctica

Sketching a Zebra

Arden and I worked together on lots of interesting symmetrical pictures for our first block for the year.  Some were painted, and some were using filed pieces of wax crayons that were then melted; we also did some work on his printing and cursive during this time.

Mix of symmetry works done during our form drawing block

I have been busy doing some more craft, and am gradually getting through some projects, as some things start to get easier to do again, now that Irving is getting bigger.  I'm onto my third pair of tap shorts, and have finally made Irving a Christmas stocking, and done a little bit of work on Arden's (which was fraying around the edge.)

The lining!

I found this book in David Jones for only $10.  Was a great surprise :)

We have just finished reading "The King of Island's Son" by Padraic Colum, and have really enjoyed it.  We started it when Gabriel was doing grade 2 but for some reason never finished it. so it was nice to come to the end.  We've now moved on to the "Celtic Wonder Tales" for story time, and Arden's main lesson story is Aesop's fables, whilst Gabriel is reading 1421 and Willow is reading HMS. Ulyssees.  As a family we are reading "The Princess and the Goblin" by George Macdonald- he and Padraic Colum are two of our favourite authors around here.

We had a fabulous time going to many events during Fringe and Festival time- there were a few bonus surprise outings (Arden got free tickets to a show, and we made a last minute booking into a yo-yo class), as well as planned in advance outings to see the Swing Revue.  Damien took Willow and Gabriel off to see Madama Butterfly, and we also attended some baroque orchestras and an education session on Baroque music(which was fabulous and lots of fun).  Last but not least, I must mention the giants, as they were certainly a high point of the festival.  We were very spoiled with them spending quite a bit of time in our park across the road!

The giants asleep.

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2025

I just read 1421 again last year with Irving,  I wasn't sure that he'd be that interested in it, but because he loves sailing, he found it very interesting.

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

We're considering reading Gavin Menzies follow up book, 1434, later this year.

Week one- Class 6 and 4

It's lovely to be sitting in the quiet after a very busy week this past one. Since Saturday we've been so busy doing all sorts. We headed to Womadelaide again last week, and saw some fabulous bands, had lots of fun dancing and ate some lovely food. Strangely this year, we didn't see that many of our friends, normally we almost spend more time socialising than seeing bands, this year was the opposite- despite lots of our friends being there. Musically we particularly enjoyed the Allan Kelly Quartet, Imelda May, Amadou and Mariam and Hanggai. Willow found Imelda May a bit loud, but decided she(Imelda May that is) was ok, after she autographed the CD we bought and was very chatty and friendly.

School wise we started on geometric drawing and Norse myths. The geometric drawings have been very popular, as has the geometry book we've been reading. It puts the development of geometry into a very entertaining story form.

We started with some simple geometric drawing this week using a compass, pencil and ruler. Initially there was a circle, then the sixth division of the circle by circles, and finally the sixth division of a circle into hexagons.  These are all in pastels.

Circles




Circles into sixths





Circles into Hexagons





For our Norse Myth block this time, we are reading two texts- The Children of Odin by Padraic Colum again, which I love and Norse Mythology by Charles Kovacs.

The book progresses in a more chronological order of the story, and it seems to nicely complement the Padraic book, in that they offer different details. So far this block we've been busy writing in runes and drawing the gods.

Our first craft project is almost complete too! It was just a little taste into making a toy figure - a little mouse. I've finished mine, I did a tiny orange one for Arden. Gabriel's is sewn together, but in need of details and Willow's is part was along. It was a nice taster for Willow before she starts planning her toy making project starting next week, Gabriel will be onto cross stitch instead.