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 2

 I've been meaning to post this for a few weeks, but our term was hectic and our holidays have involved doing a bunch of catch up work at home! Normally I like to keep our at home life and our out of home life nicely balanced, and this year there is a lot more out of home activity than usual.

Waiting for "The Mousetrap" to begin.

The whole family in various groups made it out to see Agatha Christie's, Mouse Trap, at His Majesty's theatre. One of the best performances that we've been to in years!

Irving was doing local history this past term, and we did a bunch of local walks and excursions, including heading to the roundhouse in Fremantle. We also did some watercolour painting to create a map of WA.

Watching Bluegrass Parkway perform in the mall.

There's been a lot of gardening happening here, as Irving has taken an interest in plants, and in particular herbs. He's even taken up writing about them! Not something I expected, but a pleasant surprise. Arden got a new pot for his lemon tree, and Irving's herb collection continues to grow.

We spent a lovely day at Penguin Island with some homeschool friends- doing the Penguin tour, and the sealion cruise, and taking a walk around the Island. The rain had really settled in the walk before, and we were *very* lucky and got a perfect day! Everyone was so tired on the way home, that there was dozing on the public transport!

In the discover centre

On the sealion cruise

View on the island.

Irving and I also ended up at Araluen helping to plant for their Tulip festival. Arden was busy doing a two day TAFE taster course, learning about tiling and bricklaying.

Planting

Arluen

Irving got one of his t-shirt designs printed off Red Bubble.

Jumping Rabbit

Arden did some chemistry and we focused on salts. There was collecting river and ocean water to make sea salt, soap making, and electrolysis. Overall it was a very interesting block. The soap was made using ghee, as Arden was interested to see how that would come out- it very quickly changed from a rich yellowy colour to a creamy colour. We are yet to try this batch, as it finishes maturing- probably we will try it later this week. (For those that don't know- soap is a salt- the combination of lye and fat). In our first electrolysis experiment we separated hydrogen and oxygen, and in our second we used a copper cathode and anode, and displaced the copper.

Evaporating our sea water

Sea Salt collection

Making Soap from ghee

Displacing copper

We all did our first Joy of Wood class with Greg Miller again, after quite a few years. This time the focus was on whittling birds.

It was our turn to host book club, as Irving's book- "Nancy Drew" was chosen for the term. Since the focus was mysteries, we found some mazes of varying levels for the kids to try out. We also had a turn hosting a week of our steam group- this time we made nib pens. There was a little bit of chaos, when we couldn't get the council's oven to work, but once we got over that hurdle, it was a fun session, with the kids getting to try nib pens and feather pens, and then creating their own pen from a feather. We got a lot of inspiration for how to make the nib pen, from the How to Make Everything Youtube channel, which we love!

To finish the term we moved onto the human body, and we watched quite a few Operation Ouch episodes, but mostly we focused on reading Bill Bryson's "The Body". We haven't yet finished, though as usual he has all sorts of fascinating stories about the development of our understanding of the body.

This week we get back into term time, with classes on again. Other than having to be out and about more, we're still taking it slowly at home, as I find taking a longer mid-year break helps us to be motivated for the rest of the year.