Gradually getting into the swing of things.....

 So we began some structure learning at home in mid February, when the weather cooled off a bit.  I have been quite slack about making a full plan, but given we're part way through our "year 6" plan and I've been doing this so long, I  knew what I wanted to start with this year, and that was Greek Mythology.  So so far that has been Irving's and my main focus.  We started with a review of the Ancient Greek we were learning at the end of last year, and Irving has progressed onto lower case, and we've also been writing up some names of the Gods and Goddesses.  Last week we moved onto a bit of copper work, making some square shaped bowls (next time I'm hoping to do round ones) and this week I'm thinking we'll do some watercolour painting.  We've also been reading Padraic Colum's books on Greek Myth. (The Golden Fleece and The Adventures of Odyseus)

Gabriel turned 23 at the beginning of this year!

Funny to think that I started this blog back when he was 6!

Working on some watercolour painting inspired by reading Greek Mythology

Padraic Colum's "The Golden Fleece"

Copper work- Irving's on the left, mine on the right.

Irving working on his bowl.

We have also started onto some geometric drawing, which Irving is finding quite easy.  TBH I was not at all surprised by this, as he was always keen to get involved with compass and protractor when Arden was doing geometric drawing, and every now and then since he was about 5, he would go and get the tools out to draw up some circles.

After Ancient Greek studies we moved onto some physics, using Roberto Trostli's Physics is fun.  I still really like this book- the experiments are easily achievable at home, and we get good results from most of them.  The one below involved currents being created by different pigments so that it was possible to see how they flowed through the water.



We also started up some maths and grammar, but not a lot, as with it still being Summer time, I prefer to ease into that sort of work.  We have however been doing a lot of swimming, and enjoying spending plenty of time in our pool.

Arden has been at TAFE now since the beginning of Feb- studying a Diploma in Aviation Management, which he is enjoying.  Technically this is his year 12 year and thus he is at the end of his home education journey.  And so unless something very odd happens, I feel I am definitely down to just home educating one child.  Arden disagrees, on some version of this, and claims that he is not finished til the end of the year!

Irving and I have also been out and about for some excursions.  Last week was the maritime museum, and this week was Samson house in Fremantle.  We're onto a set of history excursions with the national trust- last time we did these as family weekend outings, so I'm looking forward to doing more in this manner.

Samson House in Freo

Pirates of Penzance is a family favourite around here- especially post Willow, Damien and Gabriel performing in it with the Gilbert and Sullivan society.(https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2015/05/pirates-of-penzance.html)  At the time Arden was quite small- maybe 7, and Irving was about 18months old.  We've listened to the music regularly over the years, but Irving certainly didn't remember the performance, so most of the family headed off to see the Western Australia Opera perform it, with our homeschooling group.  Overall it was excellent.

Now that I'm a little less time poor, I've gotten back into the habit of making fermented foods regularly.  Mostly beet kvass and sauerkraut, but a few others too from time to time.  This one was combined with paprika, and the current one is with apple.  So delicious!

Hard waste time was in March again this year, and we came across a few interesting things along the way.  We did bring home the two coffee machines- apparently there's often not a lot wrong with them, and since Irving is interested in repairs they're on our list of things to do.  I'm hoping we might get to them in the next few weeks, as well as cleaning out a coffee grinder and dismantling some scanners.  Irving has already become our printer technician, when Damien's out at work.

Arden has taken quite an interest in Formula one racing over the past year or so, so we had to get out to grill'd for an Oscar Piastri burger.

Thornton's eggs took me back to living in Glasgow, and particularly reminded my of a little Willow, who loved all things unicorn, and who is part of the reason that our blog is Unicorn Education.  :)

A few of Willow's unicorn crafts can be found at these links.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2011/08/at-home-in-perth.html

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2013/08/change.html

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.

Grade 6

Sitting down this evening I am focusing on putting some sense of order to my vague plans for class 6 this year. I have lots of incidental notes, and as seems to be usual with me, feeling a little overwhelmed with all that I would like us to get through.

I am also missing some of the extra advice that Mrs Marsha off the yahoo waldorf board has offered for the years 1-5, and am looking at all the amazing things to do, and just really attempting to start to bring order to some of it.

So far the order is coming through with the handiwork- making a 3d animal this year....but I am sure over the next day or so, there will be more clarification some sense of completion.

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2025

I used to find planning like working out an enormous jigsaw puzzle and wondering how to put everything- quite literally into it.  One day, when Willow and Gabriel, were older, I realised that we didn't have to do *all* the cool things, that we just had to do what the kids needed, and what I felt was important for them.  So I continued on the Steiner home ed theme the whole way through, but it became a bit lighter, because as we moved into the teenage years, the priority shifted more and more to the kids goals rather than my own.

The early years education using the Steiner model, was to give them a good foundation for functioning in the world.  They can cook, the can clean, they can create all manner of artistic things, they can make music, they can repair things (or work out how), they can garden, they understand science, they understand maths, they perceive history as a story of time.  All in a all I feel this being a priority in the early years has given them a holistic education.  

The high school time by contrast is encouraging them to step into their own power, their own interests, whilst still balancing their education with the structure to give them the freedom to choose where they would like to go next in their educational journey.  (A great read at this time is "The Teenage Liberation Handbook" by Grace Llewellyn Jones.)

Now that I have a full sense of this journey I don't take much time with the planning at all.  I quite often write a heading, with about how much time we have for it, and that's it.  When we start, I may find a few resources,  either online, at home, at the library, etc, etc and then I ask my child what it is they'd like to know about the topic, or I suggest somewhere to start.  As an example last year we did Ancient Greece, and I decided we should learn a little Ancient Greek, and Irving enjoyed it so much, that we have gone way beyond what my original idea was, which was to learn the alphabet.

Getting started on our Ancient Greek journey last year.
https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2024/12/closing-on-another-year.html