Planning and Term 1

When I make a plan for the year, I like to do it at the end of the year for the coming year, and then forget it for the Summer.  This  year, like some other years, I have totally failed to get my plan done when I prefer, so it looks like I'll be finishing it off in the next few days.  When planning I also like to cross over themes with my children as much as possible, and this year, this is the one area that I am still reviewing in my plan.  I also like to make a plan, as it gives me a sense of the areas, that I hope to cover in the year, and it is amazing how often I come across activities, or interesting books, or resources, just because of reviewing the ideas that we wish to look into for the coming year.

Willow is working an office job as an operations assistant and loving it.  Turns out all her volunteering on message boards as a moderator was useful for getting and succeeding at this sort of work.  Gabriel has started a cert 3 in Screen and media (digital) this is a 6month course, and he has plans to follow on with a second course later in the year.  It is feeling good after 13yrs to have two completed, and enjoying where they are.  The younger two are up to class 6 and class 1, and we have had a lovely gentle start to the year.

All the kids together on Gabriel's 17th birthday.

Lots of lovely moments at the beach and in our pool.  We are truly blessed with glorious beaches, beautiful water and perfect Summer weather in Perth, much of the time.  Especially when I remember beach life in Adelaide. (Usually the water is freezing in Adelaide, unless it has been *very* hot, and on the way home, one can't help but wonder if the trip, to feel pleasant for 1/2 hour of so, was worth the effort.)

Watching the water

Swim between the flags!

Painting with the younger two.

Doing some sewing.  I have done quite a lot this Summer.

We got to a couple of shows in this  years Fringe, and Willow was working flyering again at it.  We also spent some time in the Pleasure Gardens where we came across these "magic apples".  The youngest two *loved* them and the process of collecting the peel, making a wish, and watching them being coiled and covered in cinnamon sugar.  One of the lovely things about how we homeschool, is that the magic of life is kept alive for such beautiful simple joys.

We also got to a home ed excursion to see a Fringe show about culture, performed by young Korean and Vietnamese students who attend an American school in Vietnam.  It was quite insightful into a different way of learning.  The students of the school seemed to have the advantages of what American schools offered as topics long ago, but sadly lack the ability to study them at a higher level at home in Vietnam, as there is nowhere to study drama,etc.

Irving discovering what it's like to be a flyerer in Perth fringe, by assisting Willow on the job.

Collecting leaves, just because they were gigantic for London Plane trees.

Starting on some Shakespeare for Arden's yr 6 family reading.  We all sit around one evening a week (the first time someone in the family reads Shakespeare) and read together.....sometimes it can get confusing remembering who we are.  LOL.  Previously we have read Julius Casear and Antony and Cleopatra, this time Cymbeline that is about a British King in the Roman empire.

Onto the next book in the Little House series, plus Irving and Arden just finished listening to "The Wizard of Oz."  The book is quite lovely and it is the first older kids' book that Irving has really enjoyed.  Though it does still seem funny reading it and knowing that Dorothy has silver slippers and not red!

Irving was excited to get a smartrider finally and especially to get a changing colour sequin holder for it.

It looks like Autumn might be coming a bit earlier this year....noticing the season changes with the kids.

Off to see Kwongkan with Arden at Fremantle Arts centre.  It was a Perth Fringe Performance about taking care of our home this Earth.  Beautifully done as a cross cultural experience of Aboriginal and Indian performance, Arden and I enjoyed it very much and thought that it communicated the changes across time well. 

As a whole family we also got to see A O Lang Pho, the Vietnamese circus in the festival.  It was very interesting to see them after the Fringe show by the Vietnamese students and to learn that there are very few places offtering opportunities like this in Vietnam.  In fact the circus show's booklet stated that they were expanding there, but that the show we were to see, received a better response in France!

We started ice-skating lessons again this year, with Irving taking his first formal lesson.  He did very well on his first try, and seems to have gained the maturity at 5 1/2 to manage himself for his half hour lesson.  I did wonder if he was ready, so it was a nice surprise to see him do well, and not look to me much.

Again at Fremantle Arts centre, this time to see a Bluegrass band- Bluegrass Parkway.  We felt the gig was too large for their style, having seen them at other more intimate locations, particularly as they use old fashioned microphones for amplification, so we stopped in the cafe for coffee and enjoyed the music from the distance instead.

Finally this pic of youngest and oldest child is why we started to home educate 13years ago.  Family.  I feel blessed that we made this choice, as it has transformed our lives, and especially anyone (like us) who has a child close to the cut off date for starting pre-primary in WA (Irving is 6 days off it), and is finding that their child is already being labelled a "problem", contemplate the idea that the child is simply too immature for a system that has forgotten how children learn.  When I was 5, 40yrs ago, and 4yr olds were expected to start school, we often started with half days,  had afternoon naps! and there was so much play (my favourites were dress up, and water/sand play on hot days). Our culture that encourages adults to become parents later and later, has lost its ability to understand how children learn, and is causing immense emotional issues for many small people who simply have nothing wrong with them other than needing more time to grow, so that they can cope with skills in a flexible age appropriate manner.  

Scandinavian countries start school at an older age-7- knowing that this is the age that most children will succeed to learn to read easily.  If that is the case, starting 4 1/2 yr olds, we as a culture and schooling system are  sacrificing a lot of children to a school life of feeling like a failure and various forms of anxiety. 

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2025

In recent years, we have gone to very few Fringe and Festival performances, both because we somewhat feel the quality has declined since covid and because we no longer have a student interested in being a performer.  Our recent years in home ed have seen a much larger amount of time spent on fitness, woodwork and aviation.

Gradually Planning 2018

Our jar of happy notes from 2016, being read on Christmas Day.  Happy Memories...  :)

Somehow first term of the year always creeps up too quickly for my liking.  We never start any formal home learning til March (most of the heat has gone by then) but classes always start in Feb, and I'm always left feeling like they should also wait another month.  But not so.  This year I have three registered again- Gabriel for yr 11, Arden for yr 5 and Irving for pre-primary (which for us will mostly involve whatever everyone else is doing!)

Gabriel is in theory planning his year 11 largely himself...but at this instant I'm starting to feel like I might have to lock him to the computer to do his planning....there's lots of ideas about his areas of interest, but nothing put into even a vague structure as of yet.  Mostly he has spent the Summer reading.  Currently he is reading "Bulldog Drummond", since we have been watching a few film noirs this Summer also.  (Recently we have been watching the Bacall and Bogart set).

I made a plan for Arden at the end of the year, so I will review that in the week before we start our planned work at home.  I like the yr 5 Steiner themes, covering all the ancient world, and the stories that go with them.  We are hoping to head to the Maritime museum to see the Pompeii exhibit next week.  Gabriel and I have both seen it before, on a visit to Melbourne in 2009,  Willow found it creepy and doesn't want to come this time, but the rest of us are looking forward to it.

Musicianship classes will be back on in a week, and Willow and Gabriel are taking swing dancing classes (there's an excellent swing dancing scene here filled with young people from 20s through to 40ish).  Basketball will fortunately be starting when it cools down (Arden isn't keen to continue, but Gabriel loves it) but both of them are interested in doing some parkour classes, so we might try that this term.  We have been discussing tap dancing off and on over the years, as both Gabriel and Arden would like to learn broadway tap, but I haven't found anyone that offers quite what they would like.  Gabriel has decided to leave jujitsu this year, as he doesn't really love it, and for now he feels he's learnt as much self-defence as he would like.  Probably we'll be encouraging Arden to learn in a year or two.....seems pretty amazing that he's already heading towards high school years.

On that theme Willow recently turned 18, and is heading off to visit family in Adelaide for a couple of weeks.  Plus she is off to Womadelaide whilst there.  She is working on a mixture of projects this year, as she missed out on a place at WAAPA (she came home from her audition fairly certain that she would miss out).  She was a bit disappointed, but she was  pleased to get her Diploma in Classical Voice, and to have generally done well in that, and in some ways she is glad to be able to take the year out.

Fringe is upon us next week, as is the Perth Festival (which I have already purchased tickets to some shows.  We've made a list for the Fringe but have not yet sat down and discussed who will go to which shows and with whom.  Over the Summer so far, Irving, Arden and I have spent quite a bit of the Summer out and about, or hanging out at home with me doing some craft and them playing.

Playing at Fremantle

Flowers growning on a Moretan Bay Fig.  Photography by Arden.

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2025

LOL I just reread this post and I have no idea what I meant by "I might have to lock him to the computer to do his planning".....planning has not been one of his preferred activities.  And I wonder if he had told me that he would type up a plan.....

Summer is Creeping In

This post has been a little slow making it out in the world.  We have had a fairly busy term with outings and various things going on, and so I got this half here, and then life happened....

Games Workshop miniature by Gabriel.

Some early ideas and brainstorming for Gabriel's yr. 11 next year.

Beautiful evening in Fremantle enjoying the start of Summer, and getting some rock climbing in.

Taking a look about Perth's Heritage buildings.  We really enjoyed seeing the change in this building, which was once the Gas and Electric building, but which we remembered as an ugly (maybe 1980s) bank.

Inklette loom arrived in the post, didn't take long to assemble and get started.

A small cross stitch project by Arden.

Science experiment with ice.

My crafting...making some bags

Learning pattern drafting

And a guest....a red wattlebird come to visit our balcony.

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2025

This post has reminded me that I have set up the inklette loom for me to try (finally!) but the pattern is a little non-convenational.  Hopefully that doesn't cause me too much trouble.

Slowly starting

So this week saw the return of the heat and the official start of Willow's year 11.  She has been busy working on restoring her bike and doing lots of music.

Gabriel and Arden will start our organised section of the year in a couple of weeks.  With that in mind I sat down to plan our start to the year.  Since Arden is in year 3 and we are focusing on Aboriginal culture, local environment and the Old Testament. This year I thought that it would be a relaxing start to the year if we focused on some outings in these areas  Gabriel is also doing a bit of work on the local environment, so we are starting out doing very similar work.

My overviews for the year

When I sit down and plan the year, I always try to keep the similar blocks for each child at about the same time, so that we can do as much cross over work together as possible.  Also I'm trying to encourage interested learners in my home, so I like to have some differences in new topics and some cross overs- everyone is inspired by each other, and because we use a Steiner inspired philosophy the older students get to revisit areas of interest and explore them again, and possibly more deeply.  (As an example Willow's focus for essays this year is music and mythology.)

My plan for our first block.

When planning my blocks in our early days of home ed, I was quite restrictive, but always if we came across something that was of interest to anyone we would explore the new thing further.  These days when planning I start with a theme, how many days we're looking at it for, and then have a chat to the kids as to what would be of interest to them.  This time we came up with visiting Bold Park, Kings Park, and doing a walk along the river front from Canning Bridge to South Perth and then catching the ferry  (In the process of this, Gabriel said that he would like to visit some waterfalls this year).  In between we will be doing some writing, gardening, nature studies.  Arden will be listening to Aboriginal mythology, and Gabriel will be reading "Oaxaca Journal" by Oliver Sacks.  I try to make much vaguer plans for our blocks these days, so that we have more room for spontaneity and creativity on the spot, but I still like a plan, so that I have a sense of what we are aiming for.  That said if something else amazing comes along, the plan is totally able to be rearranged!

So that's how we are planning Willow's home ed this year.  We have a starting point and goals that are being aimed for, and weekly meetings to discuss progress and outcomes.  It will be interesting to see how it goes!

Some fun Irving has whilst I was planning today.

2014

We've had a reasonably laid back Summer- as well as one can when there is a baby in the house anyway!  We've mostly spent our time near home, and have been a bit poor at catching up with friends.  My mother-in-law came to visit, which was pleasant.  We had a few birthdays- Arden was 6 in December.  I made a lovely soaked grain mango cake with self lighting candles!

Willow turned 14 in Januarly- her cake was accidentally made out of oat flour, which I'd bought for oat cakes, and used in error; it was surprisingly tasty!  Damien and I are both now 40, and we had an interesting science experiment, by sharing our birthday cake with a friend, and attempting to light 125 candles for all our birthdays: this is what it looked like.

Sadly we were unable to light all 125, but some towards the middle melted quite impressively, was fun all the same!  We have one birthday left for the Summer- Gabriel will be turning 12 in a week, and after that we will have our first non summer baby birthday, but not until June.

I was rather slow with my homeschool planning for this year, due to Irving's presence.  Normally I do it right at the end of the year, but I didn't start til January this time.  Grade one was fairly straight forward to plan, as was grade seven (Gabriel will be doing a very similar selection of topics as Willow did in Grade 7, but is doing computing as his subject choice for the year.) and grade 9 was a little interesting in that it's a bit more open ended so that Willow can have more time for natural learning this year.  Plus I'm looking at her being a bit more that direction with maths this time, so that she can regain a bit of fun with it.  Asides for geometry, she hadn't really been keen on it last year.  She's also doing history from an artistic perspective.  Gabriel will be starting trumpet this year,  and also started jujutsu last week and Arden had his first circus lesson, where he felt happy and confident to be there,so that was great.  He says that he'd like to do jujutsu too, but I'd like to see how circus progresses first I think.

We're off to a few shows for Fringe and Festival season here.  Last night was the Festival opening, down near the Swan river, and the show was quite brilliant.  Tonight, Damien and Willow, have headed off to see "Not by Bread Alone" which is a deaf-bliind baking production.  They were also interested in the Blackout restaurant, but that had sadly sold out.  Arden and I are off to a mime performance, called Ilo.  We've also bought some tickets to see Adam Hall perform Beyonce at the Fringe, and Willow will be taking Gabriel to a Fringe circus show.

Anyway our homeschool work starts again in a week.  I'm looking forward to seeing how we go again this year.  Will be interesting to have two children doing most of their work independantly.

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2025

Gabriel didn't end up doing trumpet lessons, every time we tried to organise a teacher or a class something went wrong, and so it drifted away.  He still has his trumpet that we bought for him to learn on.  Willow and Gabriel both did jujutsu til 16, and Arden finished at 15, although he started younger.  Irving's done a couple of terms of jujutsu during covid, and we are considering starting him again soon.  We were still doing circus classes regularly at this stage, and these continued for a couple more years, until we had a falling out with the circus school.

2012

We have had a very busy month since finishing our homeschool stuff last year, and I think we're all glad to be able to relax and enjoy the rest of our holiday without quite as much business. We had family visit us, during the last two fortnights of December, both on my side and Damien's, so we were out and about doing quite a it of touristy stuff with various family members. Plus there were some homeschooling events to finish the year- we went to Spare Parts Puppet Theatre and saw 'The Arrival' and Willow sang in Christmas Carols at the Quarry Ampitheatre.

Life has returned to normal now, with Damien back at work and us spending lots of time doing interesting things during the holidays. The kids both started busking regularly at Christmas time, so we've been having lots of regular music practises. Gabriel is particularly pleased to be busking, as he has more money for the first time. Even Arden has been getting in and making some money- his first try was shaking a container of nuts- he made $1! Who would have thought shaking a container of food could be so profitable? Second time around he used an instrument and made $4, so he was even more excited! I must admit, I do like busking for children, for getting a sense of making money, and saving and donating, but never expected to have a 4yr old trying it out.

Next week we head to Cottesloe beach, for swimming lessons for the next fortnight. It will be interesting to see how vaccswim compares here. I notice that it still goes for a full fortnight here, unlike SA where it's been getting progressively shorter over the years. It will also be interesting to see how well the kids cope with swimming in the ocean, since it is rougher than St Vincent's Gulf.

We've also been very organised this year, and have done the planning for class 5 and class 7. It's nice to be so prepared, this early. Willow and I have worked out a timetable for her to follow independently, over three days, and we've put together a guide for main lessons, covering blocks in history, geography, music, physics, chemistry, horses, physiology, grammar, perspective and maths. Willow has always loved horses, so we're starting to integrate stuff that is of interest to her in our block planning too. She's planning to make an apron, a doll and slippers in craft.

I used Willow's plans for class 5 to help arrange Gabriel's blocks for the year. However I planning to use JUMP for most of our maths this year- excepting the geometry of course- as the form drawing and geometry is so beautiful in the Waldorf tradition. We are looking at focusing on knitting for this year in craft, starting with something simple to get back into it, then socks and possible a larger item of clothing.

So now I've just got to stock up on resources!

happy 2012!

Class 6 Plan

Happily my class 6 plan is now more or less complete.

So far it looks like we'll be doing geometry, geology, Ancient Rome, the Australian govt, Business Maths, Medieval history, Physics- acoustics, light, optics and heat, english, Asian geography, and Astronomy as our main blocks.

Texts that I'm looking at using include- Beowulf, stories of King Arthur and Robin Hood, the Aeneid, Faerie Queen, Arabian Nights, Boy Apprenticed to An Enchanter and The Story of Rome.

Craft wise will be a project involving making a proportional stuffed animal- a year long project involving drawing and modelling and then creating a stuffed toy. Possibly there will also be an embroidery project, since Gabriel will be doing one for class 4.

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2025

For more on planning.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2011/01/grade-6.html

Grade 6

Sitting down this evening I am focusing on putting some sense of order to my vague plans for class 6 this year. I have lots of incidental notes, and as seems to be usual with me, feeling a little overwhelmed with all that I would like us to get through.

I am also missing some of the extra advice that Mrs Marsha off the yahoo waldorf board has offered for the years 1-5, and am looking at all the amazing things to do, and just really attempting to start to bring order to some of it.

So far the order is coming through with the handiwork- making a 3d animal this year....but I am sure over the next day or so, there will be more clarification some sense of completion.

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2025

I used to find planning like working out an enormous jigsaw puzzle and wondering how to put everything- quite literally into it.  One day, when Willow and Gabriel, were older, I realised that we didn't have to do *all* the cool things, that we just had to do what the kids needed, and what I felt was important for them.  So I continued on the Steiner home ed theme the whole way through, but it became a bit lighter, because as we moved into the teenage years, the priority shifted more and more to the kids goals rather than my own.

The early years education using the Steiner model, was to give them a good foundation for functioning in the world.  They can cook, the can clean, they can create all manner of artistic things, they can make music, they can repair things (or work out how), they can garden, they understand science, they understand maths, they perceive history as a story of time.  All in a all I feel this being a priority in the early years has given them a holistic education.  

The high school time by contrast is encouraging them to step into their own power, their own interests, whilst still balancing their education with the structure to give them the freedom to choose where they would like to go next in their educational journey.  (A great read at this time is "The Teenage Liberation Handbook" by Grace Llewellyn Jones.)

Now that I have a full sense of this journey I don't take much time with the planning at all.  I quite often write a heading, with about how much time we have for it, and that's it.  When we start, I may find a few resources,  either online, at home, at the library, etc, etc and then I ask my child what it is they'd like to know about the topic, or I suggest somewhere to start.  As an example last year we did Ancient Greece, and I decided we should learn a little Ancient Greek, and Irving enjoyed it so much, that we have gone way beyond what my original idea was, which was to learn the alphabet.

Getting started on our Ancient Greek journey last year.
https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2024/12/closing-on-another-year.html

The Last Week

This week we've been doing allsorts of things. The main thing was our homeschool review, which fortunately was successful and is over and done with now til next year.

Otherwise we've tried a bit of wet felting with mixed results. We'd done beads before but we tried to do some felt sheets and although they felted the results were patchy. In the end, I think the multiple attempts on the same bit of wool didn't help for getting consistent results. It was fun though, especially when Arden decided to chase our soapy water around the room!

Crocheting wise I've just finished the scarf and hat for my brother, and I'm quite happy with them. So hopefully he is too. Now I need to get back to Damien's jumper, I did two more rows last night, so there's still a small chance he might get to wear it for this winter.

We went to The Bead Hive today for our homeschool outing and everyone made beautiful jewellery. The kids made some great pieces, and it was a relaxing way to spend the afternoon. I picked out a few beads to add to a hat I'm planning to crochet for myself (I already have the wool). And I think we might have to do it again...though it'll have to wait a little while, as I'm starting to gather a bit of a list of interesting homeschooling activities.

Finally we finished The Princess and the Goblin, it is one of the best kids books I've read. It's only a small book but everyone loved it, and I think we finished it in around 2 weeks. I've just order the next book, The Princess and Curdie off Amazon, so we're rather keen to get into it.

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2025

The Bead Hive was the first home school excursion that I organised.  I learnt a few things from it, and my further excursions over the years.  Get people to pay in advance.  Quite a number of people, half I seem to recall, decided not to turn up that day.  It was a beautiful sunny winter's day, and people decided it would be nice to be out in it.  The shop had put on extra staff to cater to our activity, and fortunately for me, they didn't ask me to pay for those that cancelled on the day.  

Over the years since then, I have discovered that this isn't unusual.  Whilst living in Perth I've organised quite a few excursions to performances, or classes, and there's always some people that just find other things to do, especially if something is free.  It seems at some point people stop valuing certain things, if they are free.