Term 3

 During the break Arden had an opportunity to do a barista course and a half day of work experience.  He headed to the course with one of his home schooling friends and they both enjoyed the day.  

Irving having hot chocolate at the cafe.

When the term came around again it was my turn to host our STEAM group and this time we were hand-sewing treasure bags.  I practised a few versions at home, and tried to approximate time, but my doubling time for the kids was woefully inadequate, though at the end everyone did get the bag finished.

Variation 1

Variation 2

Last term was very busy as we took up a term of iceskating with some home school friends.  There was a lesson followed by social time, and just like before covid times, when we did iceskating, this quickly became one of my favourite activities for the week.  Pre-covid we went to a rink north of the river, and we spent the afternoon there before heading to music lessons.  This time we were at a rink south of the river, and the classes were much more focused on getting all the kids skating well, rather than doing the individual levels.  Both Arden and Irving could already skate well, so really it was a chance to have a review, and hang out with  old friends, and make some new ones too!

After iceskating one wee, we  headed out to Jandakot TAFE and had a chat with one of the lecturers there, who was very generous with his time, and gave lots of interesting advice and ideas regarding Arden's first steps into tertiary education, and his goal of being a pilot.

At Jandakot

Aeroplanes at Jandakot

Arden headed off to King's Park for an orienteering session, and Irving spent quite a bit of time sitting in a tree reading. 

Irving's steam group, were also lucky enough to do a tour of Browne's dairy, including getting to milk a cow!  The dairy was very interesting, and the farmer who spoke to us was very informative on the processes of the plant, and the care of the animals.

Milking time

Irving started to hand sew his pyjamas.

And got most of the way through his top.

Irving started to make snails at pottery class.

Arden did one pottery class and made a very cute duck. (Although its eyes ran, and it came out a little horror movieish in the end!)

I started knitting a "Weasley jumper" for Irving, and finished it by the end of term!

    

We had a few movie sessions.  Willow, Arden and I went to see "Barbie",  Damien, Gabriel and Arden went to see "Oppenheimer",  Damien and I went to see "Sound of Freedom", and Damien, Arden and Irving went  to see "Across the Spiderverse".  We hadn't been to the movies so often in years! 

We took up swimming again to make sure that Irving would qualify for nippers, since it was winter-time our pool was closed, so we went to a few different pools around the city and practised doing laps.  Just when we thought we had everything prepped, Damien took Irving and registered him, and we discovered that he might have to do 100m freestyle, and so we went in did more practise! Freestyle was not his preferred stroke, he loves to breaststroke!

We also went to the Ancient Egyptian exhibition that came to Western Australia.

We finally got to Araluen's tulip festival, where we could appreciate our volunteering and everyone else's too, that helped to contribute to the festival.

We grew a few potatoes.

Irving also did some work on gardening, and got a few more plants for our balcony.  He learnt a little about monocots and dicots, and planting according to the moon and astrology.  Arden's main focus for the term was physics and history.  He decided to review "Life of Fred physics", and also to do Khan academy's physics course.  History involved us doing a lot of reading of "Tragedy and Hope" and we are not far from the end now.  There was quite a bit on the development of nuclear weapons, so the timing of "Oppenheimer" at the movies was quite nice, as we had been reading about him quite a lot.

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.

Film and Books

We received a few books in the post today, from some recently placed orders. Willow is about to read "Farenheit 451" as part of her history and English work on Human Rights.  Gabriel is studying revolutions, and will be reading "Gone with the Wind".

We also received our next couple of books for "Life of Fred"; the pre-algeabra books on physics and economics.  This time I ordered them from Adnil press, which I think worked out much better for postage than previously.

Willow finished up her work on WW1 leading into WW2 recently, and since Gabriel's coming block will be focusing on that too, we recently watched the film "Joyeux Noel".  It was enjoyed by Willow and Gabriel, and to me is such a lovely film in that it shows the humanity of everyone involved in the war.

A Wicked Week

So Willow has come to the end of another block, and Gabriel and I are getting through his local history work. I was hoping to have picked up a copy of Kovac's Geology book before Willow's block, but it didn't arrive in time, so we made our way through the block without it. Fortunately it didn't matter, we stocked up on books from the library and visited the crystal collection at the SA Museum. There's quite a good selection there, and it was great for getting a feel for the way crystals grow, and the fact that each has it's own very distinct shape.

Since it's been history month, and Gabriel has been looking at local history we've been trying to get out to lots of activities. Last weekend there was a re-enactment of the opening of the Institute building on North Tce, so Willow, Damien and Gabriel went along. It sounded very interesting. Apparently originally the opening went for 5hrs with thousands of people there wanting to come in, and there were bits of modern technology(for the era)being demonstrated, and not working very well. We've also been continuing doing the Engineering tour of Adelaide via a guide from the Adelaide city council- this week we were looking at the water system.

Willow and Gabriel also headed to Wicked this week. Apparently it was fabulous, and Willow keeps telling me that I need to go and see it.

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2025

I never did buy the Kovac's geology book.  Given that it was combined with astrology and he was in the Northern hemisphere, I think I decided that it would likely not be a very useful resource for us.  TBH I don't love his books, but they do give a nice starting point for research, discussing accuracy, and discussing changing knowledge over time.  It's so important, to never trust one resource, especially in this era, and I like to start that conversation fairly early when we study history.

Well I have seen Wicked the movie now- we went to see it with a bunch of our home schooling friends as an end of year outing last Christmas.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2024/12/closing-on-another-year.html