Term 3

With Arden back at TAFE, and with only Irving to home educate I decided it was time to slow right down.  Irving's whole life had been chasing around older kids, and trying to keep up with both what they were doing, and their time schedules, so we dropped iceskating, and decided just to stick with woodwork and music.  Unfortunately there were not enough kids for the woodwork class, so with another friend, we decided to do private classes so that we could continue.  This gave us 5 weeks of woodwork, and we decided to try archery classes for the last couple of weeks of term.

Irving's treasure box

My treasure box.

 

We did some more watercolour painting together.  Mine is the turtle on the left, and Irving's is the full moon.

We looked at platonic solids and built a bunch of them with toothpicks and modelling wax.

Tetrahedron and cube.

More shapes.

A merkaba and our copy of Quadrivium.

Wandering around our local area, and admiring this house since it has been restored.

One of Irving's favourite times of year- the hard waste treasure hunt!

For this years Homeschool Christmas market, Irving decided that he would add plants to his collection of things to sell (he had a few things left over from last year, and some golf clubs he found in the hard waste.)  So we got onto learning about taking cuttings and and grew a few things from seed.  He ended up with some succulents, some herbs and a rubber tree, which he was very pleased with!

Taking cuttings of Rosemary

Irving's prepared plants on the metal shelves.

Archery classes were a little different to previous versions that we had tried.  This version is called archery tag, and the bows have soft padding on the ends so that the kids can shoot at or towards each other.  It was very dynamic and a lot of fun.

During the holidays he did Tacker 1 sailing classes at Nedland's Yacht club, and absolutely loved them.  We discovered during the weeks lessons, that he received complementary membership with the club, and so he's been along for the Sunday sailing sessions a few times too.

Getting ready to try sailing

Out in the dinghys.

I've been continuing to learn about redbubble and ordering a few products here and there, to see what the quality is like.  I ordered a couple of my cat sketches as cards, and  a few other styles too.  I really liked how my turtle painting, that is pictured above came out.

I've also been continuing on my theme of painting pastries for my shop.

Irving really liked my painting of the Frasier at Something French, from earlier in the year, so I framed that for him.

Welcome to 2024- Four Months In!

The first term is almost finished, and Summer is on the way out fortunately.  Every year I look forward to Summer, and every year, I'm glad when we get to March, and the weather is more comfortable!  This year Irving and I have only been doing formal learning since the beginning of March, although Arden started a little earlier- given that he's up to his final years of schooling.

Irving did vaccswim classes for the whole of January down at a local beach, and continued with Nippers for the rest of the summer.  He also won an award at Nippers - for embodying the clubs values- which was a lovely surprise.

Working on rescues at the Beach.

Paddle boards waiting for action.  This was Irving's favourite activity this year.

Coastal walk after swimming lessons.

I got into having Kombucha Spiders over the Summer.  I was partcularly pleased with the colour of this Dragonfruit hippie kombucha.

We continued with some of the same classes we've been doing previous years, and we had a few adjustments too.  Both boys are continuing with music classes, and they are also doing iceskating again.  Arden is continuing with his flying related activities- the youth flying club and airforce cadets.  We went to a few Steam sessions this term- I had organised the activities- but we had quite a bunch of things going on this time, so we got there rarely.  We did really enjoy the outing to the Royal Perth hospital museum and to AQWA, right at the beginning of term.  Arden has also taken up fencing.

A day at AQWA.

Entrance to the Royal Perth Hospital Museum,

Some historic treatments- antiphlogistine amused us as a name for a product.  Phlogistine for a bit of reference.

Arden practising fencing.

Arden was offered a place in a TAFE course, but decided to turn it down as it wasn't his preferred preference.  He's been gradually working through Khan academy trigonometry and physics, and is intending to return to "Life of Fred" now that he has some of the basics of trig sorted out to support his physics education.  We've both been reading "The Iliad" for his English this year, and he's working through his Basic Aeronautical Knowledge- Aviation Theory book.

Irving and I have started off the year reading "The Voyagers" by Padraic Colum and using that as inspiration of painting.  This year's painting  themes so far have been to paint within or  using a circle, and also painting in black.  Irving has also been interested in learn lettering and calligraphy, so we've been using "The Voyagers" chapter titles, as inspiration for writing in a fancier style.  Ocassionally Arden has gotten involved in our art sessions and done some drawing,  and Gabriel is interested in art generally, so he's also done some painting with us.  By the end of the term we had moved onto reading "Hawaiian Myths", also by Padraic Colum.

A couple of Irving's paintings.

One of my paintings.

A bunch of Irving's, Gabriel's and my paintings from our block.

Working on lettering.

Irving finished off his hand sewn pyjamas with a little assistance.  He has been wearing them most of the Summer.

Irving has also taken an interest in baking, so we've been trying to ensure to fit in a weekly bake.

Hot cross buns for Easter.

We're learning French this year so we've also been trying some French baking.  These are called Langue de Chats.

Off listening to Bluegrass Parkway- a local Bluegrass band.  Over the Summer.

One of our favourite shops in Freo, Compendium closed down over the Summer, and I was lucky to find Gabriel this excellent TinTin tshirt in the closing down sale.

We haven't found the Perth Festival or Fringe particularly engaging in  recent years.  In fact I'd say the Perth Fringe is just outright boring these days.....particularly the Pleasure Garden...it has turned into a very bland bar in Russel Sq.  That said we did really enjoy this wetland and lighting installation in the old Carillon City, as part of the Perth Festival.

We found a witchety grub in one of our garden balcony pots!

Irving and I have been plodding along making some designs for our redbubble stores.  This design is off mine.  Here is a link to Irving's store too.  He'd love some support, if anything catches your fancy!

I'm now part way through another Harry Potter jumper, this time for Gabriel.

By the time I got to adding the pics to this post, the next term has already begun!  I had planned to do more posts than last year, but we've been busy out and about so much that it's not happened!  We had a particularly busy April break, as we had family visiting from Adelaide, and we were out and about being tour guides with the family.  Arden also did a cyber security course in week one, and we were out a lot last week with friends.

Term 3

 During the break Arden had an opportunity to do a barista course and a half day of work experience.  He headed to the course with one of his home schooling friends and they both enjoyed the day.  

Irving having hot chocolate at the cafe.

When the term came around again it was my turn to host our STEAM group and this time we were hand-sewing treasure bags.  I practised a few versions at home, and tried to approximate time, but my doubling time for the kids was woefully inadequate, though at the end everyone did get the bag finished.

Variation 1

Variation 2

Last term was very busy as we took up a term of iceskating with some home school friends.  There was a lesson followed by social time, and just like before covid times, when we did iceskating, this quickly became one of my favourite activities for the week.  Pre-covid we went to a rink north of the river, and we spent the afternoon there before heading to music lessons.  This time we were at a rink south of the river, and the classes were much more focused on getting all the kids skating well, rather than doing the individual levels.  Both Arden and Irving could already skate well, so really it was a chance to have a review, and hang out with  old friends, and make some new ones too!

After iceskating one wee, we  headed out to Jandakot TAFE and had a chat with one of the lecturers there, who was very generous with his time, and gave lots of interesting advice and ideas regarding Arden's first steps into tertiary education, and his goal of being a pilot.

At Jandakot

Aeroplanes at Jandakot

Arden headed off to King's Park for an orienteering session, and Irving spent quite a bit of time sitting in a tree reading. 

Irving's steam group, were also lucky enough to do a tour of Browne's dairy, including getting to milk a cow!  The dairy was very interesting, and the farmer who spoke to us was very informative on the processes of the plant, and the care of the animals.

Milking time

Irving started to hand sew his pyjamas.

And got most of the way through his top.

Irving started to make snails at pottery class.

Arden did one pottery class and made a very cute duck. (Although its eyes ran, and it came out a little horror movieish in the end!)

I started knitting a "Weasley jumper" for Irving, and finished it by the end of term!

    

We had a few movie sessions.  Willow, Arden and I went to see "Barbie",  Damien, Gabriel and Arden went to see "Oppenheimer",  Damien and I went to see "Sound of Freedom", and Damien, Arden and Irving went  to see "Across the Spiderverse".  We hadn't been to the movies so often in years! 

We took up swimming again to make sure that Irving would qualify for nippers, since it was winter-time our pool was closed, so we went to a few different pools around the city and practised doing laps.  Just when we thought we had everything prepped, Damien took Irving and registered him, and we discovered that he might have to do 100m freestyle, and so we went in did more practise! Freestyle was not his preferred stroke, he loves to breaststroke!

We also went to the Ancient Egyptian exhibition that came to Western Australia.

We finally got to Araluen's tulip festival, where we could appreciate our volunteering and everyone else's too, that helped to contribute to the festival.

We grew a few potatoes.

Irving also did some work on gardening, and got a few more plants for our balcony.  He learnt a little about monocots and dicots, and planting according to the moon and astrology.  Arden's main focus for the term was physics and history.  He decided to review "Life of Fred physics", and also to do Khan academy's physics course.  History involved us doing a lot of reading of "Tragedy and Hope" and we are not far from the end now.  There was quite a bit on the development of nuclear weapons, so the timing of "Oppenheimer" at the movies was quite nice, as we had been reading about him quite a lot.