2019 a Close

Well, again it seems for the past year I've been a bit slow.  I had a few health issues at the end of the year, and so this got a bit neglected, plus my computer was being a little odd.

We've made it a habit this year to have holiday catch ups with our home ed friends for some free form play with our general social group.  It has been quite pleasant to get out and about and explore some different areas of Perth with our friends.

Cottesloe civic centre had been on my list of places to get too, and we had a great time;it is just so beautiful!

Waiting for WA Ballet to perform "Peter and the Wolf".

Working on some maths.

Illustration of Briar Rose by Arden.

Irving's sketch of the Frog Prince- who's green skin one can see sticking to the door!  :D

I particularly liked the creativity in this sketch by Irving.  It could almost be mistaken for just being paper!

Some more sketches from Grimm's fairytales, this time "Godfather Death".
My sketch.

Irving's.

And Arden's.

Physics in action- creating a scale using bottles and water.

Patterns in percussion, and our reading for this block.  Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything."

Magnetism.

Some class 1 science, making a spinner, and looking at optical illusions.

Opening night for Mosaic exhibition- A day in the life of Western Australia.  We love this and have done it for about three years now.

Learning mandolin.

And joining the pickers' club for a jam.

Irving spent some time examining how to pull this guitar apart.

We happened across ABC Perth's open day, which was surprisingly interesting.  Arden and Irving had a good chat to a camerman, and we got to the sets of "The Heights".

Gabriel and Arden tried out dinghy sailing, and Arden is now enthused to try more.

A few of us  headed to Rooftop movies to see "Casablanca", as it is a favourite around here.

And we were excited to see this in Camelot's movie program, as Willow is an extra in it!

We also had our home ed review, and I must admit I'm always glad to get that done.  Ours is now at the beginning of term 4 and it makes life a bit easier to have it then, rather than having to rush around about it at the end of the term, near Arden's birthday and Christmas.

Christmas, Holidays and 2013

Well we've had a busy Christmas/ New Year season as expected, though not as busy as last year.  Arden turned five at the beginning of the holidays, and we had a lovely family dinner to celebrate.

The Perth Christmas pageant was on 15th December, and Willow managed to walk the whole way on stilts, which was quite a feat given that she'd only got the hang of them a couple of weeks before.  (The walk in the pageant was 6km!)  The pageant was at night this year, and I thought it was much nicer than being at a daytime pageant, where it frequently ends up being far too hot.

Damien had a couple of weeks off over Christmas, so we went on a few outings, that we'd been meaning to do for a while.  The first one was an outing to Hilarys to visit AQWA, and have a swim.  The underwater walkway, was liked by all, except the moving floor made Willow, Gabriel and Damien feel a bit ill. We also finally got to Perth Zoo (everyone loved the giraffes, zebras, and orangutans), and Damien took Willow and Gabriel out sailing on the Swan River again.

We also are celebrating Willow's 13th birthday today.  We've spent a fairly quiet day at home, but will be having an afternoon tea out at Koko Black later in the week.

I've got my homeschool stuff planned for the year, I did most of it before Christmas, and it was nice just to be able to set it aside and forget about it.  Our plan is to start in Feb this year, with some part time school, as we're expecting baby no. 4 in June.  I'm also going to do class 1 part time with Arden this year, to cover the govt requirements for pre-primary.  I'd prefer to wait til he's but given timing and how interested he is in learning to read, I feel quite ok about doing class 1 over this year and next.

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2025

Willow attended a friend's wedding on Saturday, who was one of the girls at her 13th birthday party and one of her first proper friends in Perth.  There can be so much anxiety around friendships and homeschooling, and it's really not necessary, as there is just as much possibility of finding people that you relate to as at school.  Many people come out of school without really creating lasting friendships, and sometimes even confused as to what a friend is, because they felt that they had to hang out with someone or they would have been alone.  

Title-less

Due to some issues with resources (I've been having difficulty finding lodestone/magnetite)- we've stepped away from physics from a few weeks- and Willow is doing a block on medieval history. The block has been very interesting so far- we've been using Charles Kovac's book 'The Age of Discovery' for the basis of the lesson. There's been a progression through the stories of Jesus based off the progression of Rome and monks creating beautiful works telling Jesus' story.

This is Willow's painting of Jesus' birth.


And her illuminated letter.


Gabriel thought he'd have a try too.


A castle design.


This week we progressed onto Islam and Judaism, and did some Islamic patterns.


Willow also did some writing- both creative and factual- she's currently working on a story about viking times, and she also wrote a page about Albert the Great.

Gabriel has just come to the end of a block on ratios and fractions, and will be doing his final block of the year, on the Norse myths. We are planning a play for our final week, which will be fun, as we haven't done a play in quite a while.

Gabriel has also progressed nicely through his cushion and should be finishing the lion soon.


We've been a bit disappointed to find this week that The Herdsman has closed it city shop, due to lack of popularity. It seems good quality food hasn't really taken off here quite that much. Seems like it's a good decade behind Adelaide- I've been quite surprised by how progressive Adelaide's food culture is by comparison. I will have to get out to Organic on Charles more often over the summer.

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2025

LOL Perth food has been a frustration for the whole time we've been here.  We find something that suits us, and it moves or closes down, or they change their philosophy (particularly after covid this happened!)  Although we do now go to Manning Market for most of our shopping, and we don't really have to use Coles or Woolworths anymore!  Which is very pleasing!  

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.

Class 6 Plan

Happily my class 6 plan is now more or less complete.

So far it looks like we'll be doing geometry, geology, Ancient Rome, the Australian govt, Business Maths, Medieval history, Physics- acoustics, light, optics and heat, english, Asian geography, and Astronomy as our main blocks.

Texts that I'm looking at using include- Beowulf, stories of King Arthur and Robin Hood, the Aeneid, Faerie Queen, Arabian Nights, Boy Apprenticed to An Enchanter and The Story of Rome.

Craft wise will be a project involving making a proportional stuffed animal- a year long project involving drawing and modelling and then creating a stuffed toy. Possibly there will also be an embroidery project, since Gabriel will be doing one for class 4.

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2025

For more on planning.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2011/01/grade-6.html

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