Science, Arts, Craft

Arden and I have still been working on a Bible block, looking at Hebrew and learning about seasonality.  We've been doing a bit of art and craft and science.  We started reading about the tower of Babel, followed by Moses, and next week we will read about Noah.  We've been looking at the Hebrew alphabet, and had a connective learning moment, last week, when we came across some written Hebrew on a sculpture in the Supreme Court Gardens in remembrance of all the Jews that suffered during WWII.  Since we've been learning about Moses, we've also been looking at different sorts of rafts, and this has combines nicely with some of the physics that Gabriel was doing earlier in the  year on steam engines.

Arden's painting of the tower of Babel.

My painting of the tower of Babel.

Making our steam boats, using a cigar tube.  Gabriel's model.

Arden and Gabriel's boats in action.  They moved slowly and steadily, and required some patience on our part waiting for the boats to get moving.

Basic boat design, flat piece of wood, with soap inserted in the back v-shape.  The soap causes changes the surface tension of the water to change, and sails the boat along.  This version sailed better than our steam boats!

Working on toothpick framed, wax covered boats.

Out to the Old Supreme Courthouse.  Fascinating day out looking at the history of the Aboriginal Rule of Land, and the later rule of modern Australians. 

I have just finished reading "The Test of Courage", and was planning on Gabriel reading it for English, but after reading it, decided it was probably more suitable in a couple of years time.  (Instead I'm encouraging Willow to read it).  Gabriel has just finished reading "The Great Escape"  instead.

Arden and I have been doing paper basket weaving.  Mine is now finished, we should be completing Arden's tomorrow.

We decided it was best for me to work out the cross weave before doing it together, so that I'd have a better idea of how it works, in case Arden needs help.

Finished, with a coating of beeswax.

Willow has been working on making her first home made bra.  (This was her practice run.)

I received some vintage seersucker in the post recently, and started off with a skirt out of this fabric.  I made it from a vintage '80s pattern, so it has an elasticised waist (which I'm not keen on), so needs to be worn with a belt, and with the way it sits, it looks better with a petticoat.

Willow has been experimenting with hairstyles.

Found this on our hard-waste trek around East Perth.  Was missing some mirror on the side, so I sawed off the extra bits of wood and sanded it back, moved a few clips to hold the remaining mirror, and now it's back in use!  Has moved into Arden's room.

Arden doing some woodwork, working on waterwheels and boats.

Arden working on sewing his pyjamas.

Irving playing with his paper butterfly.

Willow has sold a few more copies of her first book, the short story Ruby.  She still has it reduced for anyone who might like to read it at a reduced price.

Time Flying

Somehow  with all the things that have been happening recently, I've totally managed to neglect blogging.  Our holidays flew by, and saw us doing lots of different activities and catching up with friends, as well as lodging Willow's application for WAAPA, and me being a bit unwell;totally lost my voice for a bit.

In the lead up to our holidays,  Irving, Damien and I managed to have a little adventure in the lift at Perth Train Station.  The lift went down, and the doors did not open.  For a few months Irving, had been wondering about the telephone button in the lift.  He now knows what it does, and every time we go past the lift, he comments, "I don't like stuck in lift".

Waiting to be freed from the lift.

Arden making sandwiches for dinner, with Damien's help.

We headed out to see ballet WA, just before the break; Damien took everyone bar Irving to see Radio and Juliet, and I took everyone (again bar Irving) to see Romeo and Juliet.  Radio and Juliet received mixed reviews (Damien loved it) whilst everyone loved Romeo and Juliet.  Willow in particular said that she's a fan of classical ballet.  Whilst everyone was out seeing Radio, Irving and I made chocolate coated pretzels, to have with icecream and peanut butter; was delicious!  I'm never eating shop choc coated pretzels again, they're much nicer freshly made and crispy!

Gabriel and I came across this cute little cafe on the way home from basketball, just before break time.  We loved their sign, and that they offer polite conversation (we both had one).

We headed to the Royal Perth show, for the second time.  We spent the first part of the day, wandering through the animals, machinery and looking at the crafts.  The second part of the day, we bought show bags, went on the rides, and watched the fireworks.  (After all the yelling I did near the sideshow, with my cold, I lost my voice.

We loved this vintage motor bike.

Goats!

We pulled out everyone's bikes to fix them up, and discovered that our selection of tyres was very unhelpful.  Need to visit the bike shop!  Hasn't happened yet.  :/  Though Irving has totally gotten into riding his balance bike.

Arden and Irving and myself, stopping for a swing.

Halloween Decorations

 Halloween might be a little while off, but my brothers and I sat down this morning to make some early Halloween decorations using paints and paper. It was great fun, we made a huge mess and I ended up with cat whiskers painted on my face.

 I actually were just making snowflakes to entertain the littlest whilst Mum and the others practised their music. Well I had the idea to paint the snowflakes, and then they became black, red, and orange.

My personal favourite

Pretty colours!

The black didn't come out as vividly as I had hoped.

 Well at some point Gabriel decided that he'd challenge me to make a Skulduggery Pleasant head cutout, so I decided to give it a go and see what happened.

Skulduggery Pleasant's head.

All of my decorations... plus a leaf.

Some of the glorious mess we made.

 We'll probably be stickytaping them to the window later today. Hopefully they'll look nice!

 Willow

Events and Outings

Arden and Willow attended a creative session at PICA with some other home ed families and had a great time experimenting with filming and creating artistic presentations.  The guy running it was involved in the HOME project we participated in for PIAF earlier in the year, so that was a nice connection.

Arden, Irving and I went for a bit of an adventure around East Perth, looking for treasure in the hard waste and enjoying the beautiful spring day, earlier this week.

Golf Club discovery!

Finally made it to the park, and found this beautiful sorrel flower.

Grumpy with myself for putting the sling on, with my new stockings!  Velcro and stockings do not mix.  :/

More treasure from our walk.  Scrubbed up as good as new.  Irving and I had a busy morning de-rusting this with bicarb.

Our local ravens have been bringing us gifts!  Doughnuts and popcorn yesterday.

Irving had a tropical dinosaur cinnamon and peanut butter milkshake feast. 

Seasons, food, fun and Technology

We finished Arden's block on seasonality and food last week and have now moved onto shelters. Today we focused on Aboriginal shelters, and the seasons. We had a lot of fun, with our last block, and Arden is certainly an enthusiastic cook; he is always discussing future plans for cooking and running his own cafe.

We've been following the moon, and watching it move through it's phases.  Irving is our most enthusiastic moon watcher!

Arden preparing parsley (for our gremolata- Italian green sauce) to have with our osso bucco

All served!

 Arden's form drawing, working on mandala style pictures.

Gabriel working on biology- sketching bones

Our Halloween Jack-o-Lantern ( we had a fun night out rockabilly dancing,  and then coming home to eat pumpkin pie and drink mulled wine)

Some more cheese- we had a few goes at mozzarella- started to get it, by our third try

Folding the curd

Arden working on making some pyjamas for himself

We just finished reading "Little House in the Big Wood", we've been quite inspired to try a few of the foods from it.  We had hasty pudding last week, made using masa flour and topped with cream and maple syrup and dried fruit and chocolate peanut butter!

With our constant "Harry Potter" obsession, Arden and I went out and collected him a very nice solid piece of wood to carve a wand.

,

At work creating

We headed out to Wireless Hill last weekend to look at radio technology in Western Australia.  We have discovered that they do some interesting talks on radio technologies.  Gabriel is currently doing a science block, and this week we are looking at the development of the telegraph and telephone.  Today we started off with a series of videos on youtube.  This is my playlist that we've been watching; though not in the order I have them saved.

Willow and Damien have been very busy with rehearsal for "Iolanthe" and Gabriel and Arden both have small acting rolls in it.  Willow has also been working through her mythology essays, and looking into auditions and doing a lot of writing.