English, Instruments and Floral Appreciation

Other than reflecting over today, I have sat down and wondered what we have been doing.  It's been an odd sort of week, but we have managed to get through a few interesting things.  Arden has been doing a mixture of pen and ink as well as grammar for his current new learning.  We are reading Charles Kovacs' "Norse Mythology" which I am not a huge fan of, but I like that it looks at some different versions of the myths from my preferred book by Padraic Colum, and Arden has been interested in hearing this version too.  Today was a bit interesting, as usually Irving will listen or do something nearby whilst we read these days, today however our reading was interspersed with playmobile games, of knights and pirates.

Charles Kovacs "Norse Myths".

Arden's sketch of miolnir.

My pen and ink of Frey's sword.

Sigurd's sword, Gram by Arden.

For Arden's English we've been looking at perfect tenses, continuous tenses, verbs and consistency (plural, singular, etc) and passive and active voice (including object and subject in this discussion obviously).  Arden had started asking some questions to Damien and I recently about this, so it was nice to explore it further.  We tend to do a little writing, and lots of talking out examples to let the idea really settle.  With Willow and Gabriel, when we did this, I mostly used websites that I found online, and my understanding of it, was pretty average ( we started doing this in yr 7, and then never did any more grammar in high school).  Last year we picked up a DK book on English, and generally I like DK books, so this year we used it as our guide.  To be honest I think if your child loves writing and reading, that is 3/4 of what it takes to be good at English, and of course reading quality books.  I'm happy for the kids to read almost whatever, from the library in their own time, but when we read together, I rarely read something to them post 1950,as the quality of language decays significantly the more modern the book.

DK English book

Arden's sketch and writing.  Arden has a tendency to turn *everything* into art, so sometimes the writing is interesting, as he explores an idea for how he can write.  (Sometimes I request regular writing, sometimes I ask what *on earth* he is doing....such as in one of the examples here where he was trying to write his sentence in the shape of a triangle!)

Arden's and my form drawing for the week.

Arden and I are messing about with a bit of embroidery on old clothing.

There is a plan for some sort of cactus embroidery, after we've experimented.  At the idea stage.

Some moments during the week.

 

Candlelight on a thundery morning.  Just because we can.

 

Arden has been busy cooking recipes from around the world recently for dinner (using Jamie Oliver's cook book Jamie Does...) and I've been trying out German baking, to re-experience my childhood of Australian German baking.  I picked up this book from the library and will have to buy a copy, there are so many things in here that I remember from my Nanna's house growing up.....plus it made me realise where my love of poppy seed cake is from.

Hazelnut macarons (haselnuss-himbeer makronen) before the addition of jam.

 

Gabriel received a kit from Pitbull Guitars this week, for him to put together his own guitar. Willow made her own harp via a workshop, at a similar age, and since Gabriel is interested in guitar we thought that this seemed like an interesting project, that gives some insight into instrument construction.

And some flowers because the bunch was made just for me!  Can't help but feel good about that!  As a customer it's lovely to shop local and get treated by the shopkeeper.

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2025

Sadly Arden doesn't remember his artistic writing, that used to drive me a little crazy!  

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.

Getting ready

Well since baby no 4 will be here in June, it's only a week til we start more organised schooling this time.  Fortunately I have most of our stuff sorted out, we just have to finalise details on our first block for the year.  Gabriel is starting off with Geometry and Willow is starting off with a block on Shakespeare- studying Romeo and Juliet. 

We've also arranged most of our classes for the year too, though we're yet to sort out Willow's music teacher.  Everything is more or less the same as last year, except Willow will be doing jujutsu instead of basketball.  There are a few interesting homeschool outings too, that I'm thinking about booking us into.

Gabriel received a surprise ticket yesterday, to a Fringe show, whilst busking in the City, so I went and bought a second ticket, and he and I headed of for a show.  It was a combined performance of Classical and Jazz harp, and was very entertaining.