Beach weather

Our first few weeks of planned work have been busy and interesting.  Since the weather has been up and down and all over the place this Summer, we ended up with a cool start to our term time, and then a burst of heat.  So we took it easy again for a bit and spent a bit of time around the river and down the beach.

South Cottesloe beach

Swan River

Outside the WA Maritime museum, after visiting the Travellers and Traders exhibit.  (We were watching a container ship leave the port).

We have an old flute, that is not worth spending money on to repair, so Arden and Irving and I been doing some online study to clean and repair it ourselves.  I

Gabriel, Arden and Irving and I headed to the aviation museum for a tour last week.

I finished making Irving a bag (mostly out of scraps)...Arden is still working on his cushion.

Arden and I have been working on drawing some celtic knots.

Modelling on our balcony.

Our current reading and reciting.  Arden is learning he first section of Sigurd and Gudrun.  Willow and Gabriel learnt the epic Voluspo, but Arden was keen to do Tolkien's version.

Arden and my modelling.  I did Odin as Vegtam the wanderer, before he gave his right eye to Mimir.   Arden modelled Thor, with Miolnir, his hammer.

Arden's and my sketches of Odin, and Arden's rune work.

My picture of Frigga.

Arden's sketch of Frigga as a Falcon.

Gabriel has been working on creative writing, and is looking at planning a time line for his history studies this term before moving onto writing an essay on WW2. He's also reading "Lord of the Rings" as his English text for this term.  We're gradually working on some holes in his spelling, and he seems to be improving nicely, we're complimenting the spelling sessions, with some kinesiology,  using "Switch on your Brain." He's planning all his time for study this year, so it's challenging now that it's quieter around here to remember to leave him to it!  Since Willow's off at WAAPA and Irving is a bit more grown up, I'm noticing when he's not working (and tending to think that he should be!) and am reminding myself that he's got to work out how to manage his own schedule.  It was much easier to let Willow just get on with it, as I was also busy with the younger three, and Irving was much smaller.

Otherwise I've been getting a little sewing done, and of course cooking.  Arden in particular has taken to having his own cooking night, and is planning his night, in advance with Damien.  He made us pasties this week.  Arden and Gabriel are also very keen to eat chillis.  So I've made them some chilli butter this week.

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2025

LOL, Gabriel has really only gotten the hang of time management and organisation in the last couple of years, as he's been doing Open uni subjects.  We've had lots of conversations about how he can organise himself and his time over the years.

His first course at TAFE, he struggled with this, and didn't pass a couple of the subjects, so he didn't get the Cert 3.  He was nervous about the transition to TAFE, and so this is why he was doing a Cert 3, and not a Cert 4 (neither course had a pre-requisite).  After failing the Cert 3, he felt that he understood how to manage the workload better and he passed the Cert 4 fine.  He got a Cert 4 in Digital Screen and Media.  

The following year he hoped to get work in a Cafe, as he decided that he was more interested in actual art than digital art.  Unfortunately Covid happened and that seemed to disrupt Gabriel's momentum.  During that time he worked at a juicing stall, and until fairly recently at a coffee stall.  He's been working on Open uni for the last couple of years, focusing largely on Japanese studies, and Art related topics.

New Year, Mild Summer, High School Graduate

We've had a busy Summer so far, and have been enjoying the time off, and the unusually mild weather.  (It has been nice to do some indoor activities this Summer-usually we spend most of it out and about!)  We have still been getting out to some Fringe shows, and on the weekend we made it to Opera in the Park.  We're probably midway through Fringe by now, and we're looking forward to getting to see some shows at PIAF also.

Willow discovered that she passed her aural and theory test for WAAPA, at the end of last year, when she was offered a place in their course, and her ECU portion of the application was formalised at the beginning of this year, so she's all set to start a diploma in Classical voice this year.  (We're all just a bit excited about this!)  It feels really interesting to have come full circle with one child now, and to have some idea where we are going with the others.  (Our first full year, was 2006 we were travelling, then we were back in school for half of 2007, and mid '07 we started home ed permanently, with me starting this blog, in an evolving form in 2008.)

Self portrait by Willow.

This last Christmas, Arden helped Damien make a Christmas pannetone bomb, using our favourite Perth icecream, ChiChos.

I've been doing a bit of sewing over the Summer, and have received a few sewing gifts.

I made this vintage pattern skirt out of green sateen.

And later I made a matching halter top with green ricrac.

The inside is purple floral, and I can reverse it if I like!

New sewing book and vintage pattern.

New Cushion cover.(and Irving's feet!)

Willow and I both had our birthday's over January.  She had treacle tart as her "birthday" cake and she's now 17.

And we got cute number star candles for my cherry cake.  (I felt a bit lucky that cherries were still nice, usually my birthday is late for good cherries!)

Gabriel and I have been using "Switch on your brain" again, to support him with improving his spelling.  It is one of my favourite books, and works along the same lines as many brain gym activities.  We first used it when he was about eight, and had a lot of success with improving his focus.  Recently I realised, that whilst he reads quite well, he hasn't worked out the spelling patterns of many words, so we've been spending some time working on this, and we've been supporting it with the exercises from this book.

Gabriel finally made a successful batch of bokashi, out of coffee grinds.  We're looking forward to using it in our composting bin!

Waiting for the bus to musicianship last week.  Classes are back!  And a bit of balancing fun.

 A bit of beach weather.  And a sandcastle moat.  (working on our physics.)

 

 And unusually cool rainy weather.

 Making match box cars.

First model with tacks.

Second model with wire axles, and modelling wax tyres.

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2025

I have such pleasant memories of Willow being accepted in to WAAPA, we were both super excited.  She had a fabulous year studying there and getting her Diploma, and she was sorry to miss out on a place in the Bachelor the following year, but she accepted that maybe it was better to do something else for a while, and return to music later.

That next year she worked in a cafe, and she felt unappreciated for much of it, and found that difficult.  The following year, she got the opportunity to do a short stint in admin( it was meant to be three months), where Damien, her Dad works, and because she did such a great job, they kept her on and kept giving her more and more work.  So now she works as a team leader in online payment fraud management.

Timetables part 1

In 2006 when I first started homeschooling I thought our homeschooling experience would be a year out of school whilst travelling back to Australia- something convenient and useful to make our transition back into school easier.  We started the year in Glasgow, Scotland (our home at the time), spent some time in London, and approx 2 months in Paris before arriving back in Adelaide in June.  It was a fabulous 6months of travelling, and over that time I came to love learning as a family.  (This process had really begun when we left Adelaide in 2004).  Not really knowing anything about home education; other than my sister-in-law had started educating her kids, I felt that I needed a curriculum on how to do it.  My SIL recommended a Steiner curriculum (that she was using) and we followed that 5 days a week for grade 1.  ( Willow had been attending the Glasgow steiner school's kinde class the previous year).  We spent that first year home educating in Glasgow, Paris and Adelaide.  We were all enjoying it, and I was finding it was bringing our family closer together.

Learning in Paris

At musee d'orsay

Off to see Monet

When we settled back into living in Adelaide, for various reasons, although we'd come to love home educating at the end of year 1, we found a school to send Willow to.  Sadly after a brief stint in one school (Willow normally ridiculously talkative was saying almost nothing after school), we tried a second school where even Gabriel was commenting at pick-up time that he didn't want to go there!  (There was issues with bullying).  During our six months in school-  I connected into the home education community in Adelaide and by the time the second term was coming to an end we decided that school was not worth the trouble, and that we had a much more pleasant time home educating.

Initially I felt that I would buy a grade 2 pack to help me with home education, but as I settled back into the idea of it, I realised that I mostly knew where Willow was up to with her work, and that maybe with some guidance I could figure it out myself.  In my hunting around I came across Shining Star school in Portland, and discovered the wonderful Mrs M. who shared knowledge and files on how to create one's own plan for home education.  In the early days we still stuck to doing 5 days- but gradually we transitioned to 4 days (as we went out once a fortnight on home education outings) and finally we settled on 3 as we found it best to have a home loving day and a catch up with other home educators.

For years now, we have more or less stuck with that arrangement, though presently due to being busy with Irving, we also do a half day of craft, as we have been struggling to fit it in during our other three days.  The biggest adjustment to our weekly rhythms has always been the time when a new baby has arrived, and this has involved adjusting how we work, and due to the ages of the children some great lessons on how to take care of babies!

As people have gotten older we've also added in extra classes here and there for things that we haven't personally got the skills to teach.  Initially when we arrived back from Europe, we did some French lessons (as Willow in particular had been picking up a bit of French whilst we were there), eventually we added in music lessons and sport lessons.  Otherwise we've done some one off classes such as woodwork, science, gardening.  We also attend a lot of arts events as Willow is interested in a career in classical music, and to cater to our desire to live learning as well as do some structured rhythms - we tend to have quite extended holidays (we used to take 3months over summer, and follow the general Australian holidays, now we take 3months over Summer, 2 weeks at Autumn, 6weeks over Winter and 2 weeks in Spring.)  This gives lots of down time for people to be unstructured.

That said we are now at the stage where Willow has been managing her own time and work, and Gabriel is heading that direction.  Willow, Damien and I have discussions and regular catch ups to discuss where Willow's work is at, and anything that requires review from us (such as essays, or written pieces is looked over together, discussed and reviewed until it is at a satisfactory level).  We've found many benefits in this scenario and lots of learning happening for all of us- but ultimately Willow is learning how to manage when and where and what she is doing all week.