Holidays

 The term 3 holidays here were very busy this time.  My brother turned up on his way from Asia back to Adelaide, and stayed for a while.  I had my home education report to organise for my moderator, we went to the Royal Perth show, and Arden was off to an Airforce Cadets camp for the second week.

Particularly the camp made things a bit complicated, as I needed to discuss aspects of the report writing with Arden.  So week one was busy getting prepped, with lots of reviewing our year, both via my planning and my notes on our calendar and pulling all of that together.  I was feeling a bit stressed out about it this time, as I had a new moderator again, and I had lost last years calendar, and some of my notes.  I did *eventually* find them all!

We went to the Show with the whole family, Willow had come up from the South- West, and my brother was here, and we had a fairly full day out at the show.  We went to see the racing ducks, and the alpacas in particular (Willow, Arden and Irving had done an alpaca handling course, so they were very keen for this).  We visited the dairy pavillion, watched the woodchopping, went on some rides, and got some showbags, and watched some of the stadium performances, including the fireworks.  The finale for the night, was Arden and I  heading onto the slingshot.  I wasn't particularly keen, but it was quite magical being shot towards the sky with the moon as our target!  We were a bit lucky with that aspect.

We also headed North to visit some friends who live out of the city, and Arden got a second outing to the show with one of his homeschool friends.

Irving got into filming and photographing the showrides, after we dropped Arden off.

I managed to catch up with some crafts, and repairs, in the second  week of the holidays.  This time I did some fabric dying, and refreshed some faded clothing of both mine and Willow's.

Arden got back mid-afternoon from his Airforce cadets camp, and we had a bit of a quiet afternoon before heading out to the Fire Garden festival at Government house.  It was visually spectacular, but a little hot!  Especially since we hadn't had many hot days yet, when it was on.

Art, reading and life

This year we started the year with some painting.  Largely focusing on complimentary colours and how to mix them from after images.  We picked up some new Stockmar paints, as we were getting a bit low.  The book "Colour Dynamics" offered great inspiration and the idea for trialing mixing the colours we could see as after images.

Mixing after image colours.

Our stockmar paints.

Painting together

A selection of Irving's paintings.

A selection of Arden's paintings.

 Veil Painting- stages....

 

 

 

  

A selection of my paintings.

Veil painting - transforming

Paintings on display.

Complementary colours in nature.

We also took a look at Jenny Hocking's book "The Palace Letters" after coming across it at the library.  Arden and I heard about the letters regarding Gough Whitlam's dismissal last year, and decided it was worth reading about.  Some of it was a bit dry for his level, but a significant amount of it was filled with intrigue and so as a book for us to read together it worked very well.  For more pleasureable reading we all read "Wind in the Willows" together.

Creating a cork board gradually.

We did some first aid again this Summer.  Arden and Irving's turn this year.

Since we were in and out of lockdown during this time, we adjusted our usual start to the year, which is March, did painting took some time out again and "started" for the year.  Given that we do a lot of natural learning and interest led learning even during our structured time it didn't hugely impact the beginning of the year.  As we always start gently as the heat can oftentimes still be oppressive in March.

This year we hired a car and did some weekend driving around Western Australia.

The Pinnacles.

Two Rocks

Crystals in the Caves at Yanchep.

Cervantes

Mundaring Weir.  Quite a big deal in Western Australia, where a lot of the state is desert.

The coast.

 Arden and Irving really enjoyed getting out and seeing a lot of the places that they have heard about.  Gabriel came along for abit, unfortunately Willow was busy for a lot of the weekend- so we were mostly a family of four for the weekend.  Something that is more common these days as we transition into a family with adults.  Sometimes all of us, sometimes 4 and sometimes 5.  It is interesting being able to experience the family in different ways as we transition into new ways of experiencing family life as a multi-generational family.

Dragonflies were studied for a bit, when we came across this one.

Arden had an opportunity to be photographed as a schoool student for WA maritime museum.  First time in a school uniform.  :D

Irving was making mobius strips.  We seem to have phases with them!

Some interesting reading on the English language.  Everyone enjoyed this!

Arden's jeans being patched to get every last bit of life out of them, until they are too small!

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2025

Later we were reading Bill Bryson's book on American English, but Arden and I did rather poorly at finishing that once he started at TAFE.  I think it's still in our reading pile.....ATM the only thing I'm still reading to Arden and Irving is Harry Potter.  We're onto the Half Blood Prince, and will read the final book next year, when Irving is 13.

My cork board has progressed quite a bit since then, but still a bit slowly!  There just aren't enough corks around anymore.

We did quite a bit of politics and political history around this time, as it became apparent to our family that Western Democracies, weren't quite democracies anymore.  We had had suspicions about Australia becoming odd quite some time ago, but we weren't aware quite how ubiquitous it was until covid happened.  

Seeing The Palace Letters, has reminded me of all the historic political reading that we were doing then.  Tragedy and Hope was challenging for Arden, in the early stages, and although I think I will read it to Irving too, I think I will omit a lot of the numerical values of costs of spending on warfare, unless Irving is particularly interested, as Arden found that challenging. He also happens to remember things quite easily, and so he found it a bit overwhelming initially, til I suggested he consider it more like a story, and that he just take in what he can. We read it over the course of about 18months, and he did like having read and understanding about Openheimer, when the movie came out (and he went to see it) as there is quite a lot about him in the book.

We also did quite a bit on the Australian political system and the constitution, and we learnt about the legal system and the Ombudsman- we had an excursion to the Ombudsman's office.  There is a Constitution Centre in WA, but after having a few excursions there over the years, and seeing what happened during covid, it became apparent that they are just really offering lip service to Democracy- by explaining how wonderful our past was.  We did an excursion there recently.

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Our visit to Mundaring weir with our home school group can be found here.
https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2025/06/we-made-it.html

Connectivity

Recently I came across this interesting article about Danish families on the topic of "Hygge"  and fascinatingly in the process of reading I realised that the Danish essentially practise something that we have come to create as our core family values; something that we now refer to as connectivity.

Over the years as we became a family and grew in size and moved about the world, we saw different ways of being a family and interacting as a family.  On the whole we came to view the Australian way of family life as rather negative-children constantly competing, boys against girls, men against women.  Somewhere along the way (I think this started in Glasgow, when Damien and I only had each other for support) we started discussing co-operating, working together, supporting each other.    As Willow and Gabriel got bigger we discussed their roles in supporting, how able they were to help, and how we appreciated their help.  Initially this was simple things such as housework, and figuring out how to get along together, and eventually it progressed into looking out for the smaller people in the family, and offering support to them.

Day in day out we focus on co-operation.  How as a unit of 6 do we get along?  How do we share our space and still be ourselves? How can I be me whilst still being part of the "we" of our family? "I" am important and "we" are important. What things are non-negotiable for our unit? We focus on acceptance, understanding, co-operation, support. We also focus on individuals feelings and needs in relation to the family.

We like to live at hope in a space of safeness, everybody has the right at home to be themselves and comfortable with themselves at all times without ridicule or judgement.  Our home is our haven, a place where we can nurture and support ourselves, where we can be in pain and be joyous without judgement but with the knowledge that anyone here can help, from the smallest to the tallest, even if that help is just a hug.  The smallest people can always help in caring ways, and sometimes that's just a pat on the head, and sometimes that's enough to help return a smile to a sad person.

As a continuation we have the right to be interested and involved in what appeals to us without fear; without the possibility of ridicule or insult.  We have a wide variety of interests in our home, and we always work towards acceptance and understanding towards peoples different desires, motivations and goals. 

When one lives in a competitive community and family it seems to me that it becomes dangerous to express one's inner self, inner beauty and interests, so we aim to avoid competing at home unless the children are emotionally able to cope with the competing.  Many board games here have been turned into co-operative games until various children have had the emotional skills to cope with losing the game.  When everyone works together to win or lose, there is no emotional distress associated with failure for the child, and it is much easier for them to cope with the game.  It is of course useful to discuss playing competitively and encourage children like this to see that it could be fun to compete, but introducing competition before the child is ready creates fear of failing and can be very unhelpful for certain personality types.

Australian culture is generally competitive so by keeping competition out of our home we create a haven where one can be oneself, and where the challenge is to improve oneself, rather than to create hollow comparisons that leave a child and young person feeling emotionally vulnerable and inclined to hide their true nature and personality.  Home needs to be the place where the child can reveal all of themselves, and be safe from judgement.

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2025 

As we have had children emerge into adulthood (at this time Willow is 25, moved out of home, Gabriel is 23,  Arden 17 and Irving, 12)  the outside culture has seeped in somewhat and adjusted how we do things.  We had times of being too busy, and some of us being unwell- me in particular, as I discovered just how deficient Perth soils were.  We have had some ups and downs in continuing to be true to this philosophy, but on the whole it has retained its place in our family focus and we always look back to resolution, and forgiveness, and problem solving  situations so that people can enjoy living in a family environment where they are understood and appreciated.

I realised too, that with Arden's enthusiasm for know everything!  I was allowing him to fill all the space that the older two had filled in my home education sort of schedule, and I was gradually realising that although, I got time to myself regularly each week, I was not getting it daily, in the same way, as when I only started out with two children.  I have had to coax myself out of the serving role, and to remind myself that now that I have only Irving to home educate and that he is 12 ( although I started this habit last year when he was still 11) that I can take more down time for me, and that I need to step back from my managerial role somewhat, and let Arden and Gabriel step into that role.

I've also picked up a book on Socratic Dialogue, to get us all back into the habit of that style of discussion.  It really is a very helpful method of having conversations within a family, particularly when people have different styles of talking.  It also seems to me, to be somewhat natural for young people to discuss in a more rhetorical style and this can lead to regular bickering and opinionated debates.  By moving into a Socratic Dialogue for those sorts of conversations it can solve a lot of problems.  Only recently I intervened in a conversation between Gabriel and Arden, where I reminded them that part of the process is to define terms, and to do this.  ( The defining terms enables people to understand if they are meaning and thinking about the same thing).  In this case it turned out that they had different definitions of a word, and that that was part of the reason the conversation had become complicated!

This is the book that we are using.
https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B09M7BQS2N?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

Poetry

Willow has been getting into doing poetry recently, and has her own poetry blog now.

Here it is.
http://theblogofpoems.blogspot.com.au/

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2025

So it seems Willow has taken down her poetry blog.  Being into music as she is, poetry seemed a natural extension to explore.  Many people complain about it being pointless, but seem to lack comprehension that modern music lyrics, are poetry, accompanied by sound.

Some examples of Willow's poetry can be found here.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2011/09/holiday-time.html

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-face-of-fear-by-willow.html

Arden trialing poetic writing.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-collection.html

Poetry resources from when Arden was learning to write poetry.  The Stephen Fry book "The Ode Less Travelled" has been popular around here.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2019/09/term-2-part-2.html

Since living in Glasgow we celebrate Burn's night here, with a small bit of poetry reading, usually after we've been to the Australia day fireworks, since they are quite close together.  Since we have Scottish heritage- Damien is Scottish, and I have some Scottish ancestry, it's nice to keep some of the culture within the family.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2018/04/summer-holidays-finally-here.html

What I'm reading

"Hold on to Your Kids" by Neufield and Mate.

I borrowed this recently from my local library, after someone recommended it on a message board I use. I have found it very insightful and helpful, for understanding my kids, their peers and my journey through the schooling system. It seems to me to be a very important book for parents to read, to help them to understand why attachment to parents is more important that attachment to peers, and why we need to help our children stay connected so that they can feel our love for them.

I highly recommend it!

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2025

I still regularly recommend this book to people.  It really changed how I regarded socialising amongst age based peers for my kids, and why, even if they are home educated, it is necessary to be attentive to how the social times are playing out for my kids.

Baby Hugs

Plus! Yesterday it was so funny watching Arden, who is now 9 months, and his nearly12month old cousin, Correa, yesterday. They crawled up to each other, had a hug and a kiss! It was quite a sight, and they did it three times. We all laughed and laughed over how cute they looked.