Elements

Over the last portion of term 3 Arden and I worked on a block about the elements.  We did lots of activities out of Earth, Air, Fire and Water- some with better success than others but all of them were interesting and fun.

Here we are selecting cotton spools to try running on a slopey surface.

Trying our rolling the cotton spools and seeing if we can get any of them to rewind back up.

Here we are selecting crystals to float- seeing how many and what sort we can put in before our boat sinks.

We made a basic waterwheel.  This was lots of fun and we're thinking of doing a better quality one.  (This was done whilst Irving was napping- so we were aiming to be quick!)

This was the start of our shadow puppet theatre.

Trying out with the light

Adding some scenery.  Later in the evening we had a full puppet show- featuring a serious of sea creatures and other animals that Arden created.

Arden had been continuing to work on his crocheting skills. so he and I worked on creating pentagon dishcloths.  This is my dishcloth.

Here is Arden's.

Arden has found crocheting a bit trickier than knitting, so we have decided to take a break from it for now and we are doing some more knitting.  Presently he is follow a pattern to make a knitted monster, and I am looking at doing a vintage roll-neck top with beading.

Arden and I finished the term working on Aesop's fables; doing some written work and practising his cursive, as well as doing some modelling.  Irving really enjoyed getting into this too.

Gabriel has continued to work on his zebra out of zebra fabric!  It has progressed a bit since here and he is hoping to finish it soon, and work at making a hand-sewn tie.

Willow is getting ready to make herself a Halloween circle skirt.  She selected this creepy fabric :)

And this is the pattern she is following.

I'm in the process of trying to make myself a vintage bra out of one of Damien's old cotton shirts.  I'm following the pattern from VaVoomVintage, hopefully my first try will be a success, but I'm realistic that there are a few skills in this that are new to me.                                                                             

Here we have an interlude into some spontaneous science.  My smartrider broke- so we chopped it into pieces looking for the chip- which is in the right of the picture.

Willow spent the last term working on science- reading about natural fertility  in the first half, and learn about immunity and eugenics, genetics and Francis Galton in the second half. Gabriel has also been working on science and has been looking at carbohydrates, sugars and proteins.  He's finishing off a block on European geography right now.

 When we headed to Fremantle to pick up everyone's pottery, we made a day of it and visited their gallery and the Maritime museum.  The Arts centre had a lovely Indian exhibition of fabric.

A kit for Indigo dying and making Jeans.

 We stopped for a look at the Submarine, before heading in to see the Pearl exhibit which was both beautiful and interesting.

Currently we're on holdiays- and enjoying the pleasant spring weather as well as trying to get through a few things.  Willow applied to attend WAAPA last week- she is hoping to get into a Diploma in Classical Voice next year- and we've been rushing around madly getting things sorted for it.  Gabriel had some basketball classes last week.  This week we headed to the Awesome Festival and went to The Exhibit on Lynley Dodd. 

Books for science and other things

Picked up a couple of science books that will hopefully be helpful for this year.

The first one is a pictured guide to the elements.

Elements, Theodore Gray

I reckon it would've been great when I was learning about the periodic table, to get a better sense of some of it's items.

Then there's a general science book by DK.
Help Your kids with Science, DK

Plus we've picked up a copy of Antony and Cleopatra, as part of Gabriel's Ancient Rome studies.

Finally a book to help with Willow's grammar- The Art of Styling Sentences.

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2025

Probably the most useful out of these ended up being the DK book, and somewhat the Elements book. 

The elements  book has been great to take a look at and see what forms and various items are made from the elements, and so it has proven to be helpful in having a better understanding of these things.

DK books overall seem to cover topics in a very comprehensive manner, and this one is as good as any of their other books that we have used over the years.