Closing on another year

 This past term seems to have flown by and also to have been filled with a wide range of entertaining activities both at home and out and about.  What at first impression seemed to be going to be a quiet term ended up very busy.

We started off the term doing some geography- in particular looking at the areas extending out from Australia- Asia and New Zealand.  Our corresponding reading was "1421- The Year China Discovered the World" by Gavin Menzies.  Since Irving had taken to sailing, he was very interested in this book, because although it is a mixture of geography and history, it is written from Gavin Menzies viewpoint of being a submarine Captain.  As part of our geography studies we headed to Cottesloe and  checked out the sundial again.

The Cottesloe Sundial

Instructions for reading the Cottesloe sundial.

We managed to get to sailing a few weeks this term, despite the fact that sailing collided with Nippers.  After a chat with nippers, a decision was made to go sailing whenever a comp was happening with nippers, as Irving was happy to miss them.

Boats waiting for competition time.

My sketch of a catamaran.

With this new found love of boats, Irving got into building a boat from lego, machine sewing the sail and working out the ballast to get it floating.

Pirate ship with sails.

In the sink working out the ballast.

After nippers one day I made may way up the coast to our fishmonger, and had oysters.  Such a beautiful spot to stop.

At the beach for our nippers session.

Irving loves all sorts of old things, and he loves the idea of repairing them, and he had become captivated by the quill set below in a local shop in the city, so with some birthday money and some savings he saved up and bought himself this set.  He's been working on his handwriting with it fairly regularly.

Irving's homeschool market stall this year  included a few things left from last year- pottery items, a treasure bag, the plants he was preparing, and after a visit to the gem exhibition, and some handiwork with my old jewelry tools, some pendants.  We also had a very busy kitchen the day before, as he was busy making brownies.  The brownies were definitely the most popular product.

An example of one of Irving's pendants.

Practising his stall set up.

Our last main topic for the term, was Ancient Greece.  Irving had recently gotten into reading Percy Jackson and Rick Riordan had written the intro to the Greek Myth's book we had so I figured he'd find that a bit interesting too.  We read Roger Llancelyn Green's Greek Myth's first this time (we're going to read Padraic Colum in the beginning of next year.)  Since it was coming to the end of year, I took it as an opportunity to watch a couple of old movies- Jason and the Argonauts, and Clash of the Titans.  We also watched the Channel 4 series, "Home Greek Home", so he could see a bit more of what Greece is like.  Plus because he's interested in languages we did a short youtube course in Ancient Greek, where we focused on learning the alphabet.

Irving's Ancient Greek

My Ancient Greek Alphabet

Our woodwork term  had a delayed beginning and so we only ended up  with four classes this term.  We were  working on making bread boards and butter knives.  I just finished my board before the end of term, and Irving was still progressing on his.  He is doing an interesting design of a little mouse popping out of the board, that he came across in a woodwork book, that was bought for his birthday one year.

My rustic cheeseboard.

We had some excitement last week at sailing with our first experience of a lithium battery fire.  A rentable scooter was pulled out of the river, and the water caused the battery to catch alight.  Given that this is a hazard of lithium batteries, I was glad to have the experience during the day, with lots of helpful people about.  It was interesting to see how the powder extinguisher only partly quelled it.  Eventually it was taken onto the sand where it waited for the fire brigade.

Scooter on the sand.

We had a bunch of fun one off outings this term too.  One of our friends organised an end of year movie session- so we headed off to see "Wicked".  I wasn't expecting much, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.  The cinema had been upgraded too, so we all had excellent comfy reclining seats.  Then another friend arranged two educational sessions- one at the Perth Mint, and a Zookeeper 101 day, at the Perth zoo.  We had done the mint tour a bunch of times before, but Irving really enjoys the melting and setting gold session, so it was worth it.  The zookeeper 101 had a bunch of interesting behind the scenes activities- including cleaning out the kangaroo enclosure, feeding the lizards, and getting to see the storage areas for some of the animals meals.

Arden finished his tafe course this term, and also turned 17.  We headed out to ifly to do indoor skydiving for his birthday.  Just the five of us, as Willow had things to do in Manjimup, and couldn't get up here for the day.  I was a bit nervous about trying, but I was prepared to have a go.  Irving was also nervous.  Arden did a high flyer, but the rest of us stayed low- unsurprisingly he loved it, everyone else enjoyed it, and I was amazed to discover that I really enjoyed it too.  It has got to be one of my favourite aspects of home ed-trying things that I'm not usually interested in, and then being surprised at how my expectations vary from the reality of doing them.

Icecream cake and icecream for Arden.

I've been plodding away on my redbubble store, aiming to get a significant amount of designs on, after doing some research into how to get my site profitable and self sustaining.  So I achieved that goal after a very busy few months, and for now I've given myself a bit of a break from it.  It certainly has helped with how many views my shop is now getting.

I have bought my range of Irish Myth's myth mugs now.

My Irish Myth's Mug set

I bought a few of Irving's design's as gifts for family members for Christmas, after buying this one for our family, and really loving the simplicity of the design and how lovely the love heart looks at the end of the mug.  Irving's mug is here on his red bubble shop.

Irving's love heart mug

Since I've spent a lot of this year at Something French, in the city here, having a coffee and painting their patisseries, I decided to let them pick a picture and frame it as a gift.  They picked this one. I was so happy with how it looked in the black frame.  I also have it on my red bubble store.

My strawberry tart painting framed.

Last of the Year and a Graduate

Well we have been quite pleased that Gabriel has been offered a place in tafe next year, studying cert 3 in screen and media, for the first 6months of the year.  He's not done any formal schooling, so we thought starting with a cert 3 for the first half of his year 12 would give him an intro into classroom study, and we could look at the follow on cert 4 class for the second half of the year.

This year he has had quite a few interesting experiences including volunteering at making hot dogs, at Supernova and Heritage Perth recently.  I think the Supernova experience might have set him up for expecting better organising skills from organisations....apparently Heritage Perth were a bit slow in certain areas, but they did provide a much nicer lunch! :)

Recently all the older kids-Willow, Gabriel and Arden did a chocolate making class at Sue Lewis' chocolate shop.

Irving has been working alongside Arden on patterning.  Arden has been doing mental calculations, whilst Irving has been building the patterns.

We went out exploring the Columns in Perth recently as part of our Greek studies.  We have been reading "The Adventures of Odysseus and the Tales of Troy" by Padraic Colum.  We love his writing style and re-telling of the myths, and even Irving is starting to listen for longer stretches.  We also watched a few videos on the Greek alphabet, which Irving, Arden and I can now recite fairly well.  Next week there are plans for Arden to make a Greek meal for dinner.

Corinthian style columns.

Mini-columns on the Treasury building.

The only example of Doric columns that we found- on the old court house.

As part of Perth Heritage days we visited the Bon Marche building.  Strangely it has a mini-prison gate on the top floor.  We're hoping someone will spend some time and money restoring it to it's former beauty.

My pile of paper-work for writing up my notes for our home education review.  Our moderator visited last week, and we are all done for another year.

Finally my sewing.  The dragon in my last post, made it onto this vintage pattern dressing gown.

Which has some left-over star fabric for its lining.

Term 2 in Pictures (mostly)

Irving worked out how to draw stars! This was a pleasant surprise, and he had a little burst of drawing five pointed ones.

A bit of maths. (we like to get these blocks out for our pattern making section of Arden's JUMP maths book, and Irving always enjoys joining in).

Working together.  Pre-primary and grade 5.

Labyrinth puzzle....art and maths....crazy family project!

Chocolate making.  We learnt a little about tempering with a second chocolate bar at a free workshop by Sue Lewis, and we made dark chocolate with thyme oil creatures.

Reading one of my favourite children's authors, Padraic Colum, "The Golden Fleece".

After reading about the minotaur we looked at labyrinths and mazes.

More patterning.  Working on rose windows.  These are a lot of fun to make, but can get a little complicated. (Some other examples by Willow when she was 12).

And a variation, using the kite paper to make layered pictures by tearing/cutting shapes and layers.

Reading related to our Australian history studies.  We actually took longer to read this than intended  (we just finished it recently) and it is wonderful for showing the older and slower Australian lifestyle prior to the arrival of the car. 

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During this time we did a tour of Karakatta Cemetry.

We also did a tour of the Perth mint (again)! And the Perth Bell Tower.  View from the Bell Tower.

  These are the beautiful flame trees along the river, on our walk from the Bell Tower to the Mint.

The impressive 1 tonne gold coin.  (Though I missed seeing all the beautiful collectors pieces that they used to keep in the secure vault, and which this coin has replaced).

Some of Gabriel's reading.  Gabriel is very interested in military history, and increasingly interested in working and rendering 3D objects on the computer using blendr.

Working on improving crochet, by making some dishcloths.

A blanket that I was making that is still not finished unfortunately, as I haven't found the sort of blanket binding that I would like yet.

Some new books.  Latin dictionary to help Gabriel's study.  Plus the Long Winter because we are still getting through this Little House Series.

Finally two of my favourite things about home education; Pleasurable family outings and slow breakfasts.

Gabriel, Arden and I went to see WASO performing "The Goblet of Fire", to the film.

And enjoying a family breakfast.

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2025

Link to the rose window book can be found here.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2011/10/southern-aurora.html

Some of our rose windows over the years.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/search?q=rose+windows

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2012/10/recent-work.html