Term 1

Our first term was very full, and filled with lots of interesting outings and activities- this term is looking to be similar so far!

Irving's pottery class has been going well, and we even started watching "The Great Pottery Throw Down" to compliment all the learning in the class that he's been attending in Guildford. It's also become a bit of a thing, to stop and look at interesting pottery shops.

Picking up a cute pot after pottery class.

And cute fish.

We continued on with Norse myths learning to write in Runes, drawing and painting some of the Gods and characters and reading Padraic Colum's version, and also reciting "The Poetic Edda- Voluspo", as well as reading some of "The Viking Tales" (we're big fans of Norse Mythology here!)

Irving's and my paintings.

Norse Reading.

Arden has been reading "The Greek Treasure" by Irving Stone, because we really enjoyed his book on Michaelangelo, this one took us awhile to get into, and Arden is still finishing it. It became much more interesting to read when Henry Schliemann discovered Troy. It's possible to virtually view some of the Schliemann's discoveries on this Russian Museum's site.


Arden finished the term looking at the way different aspects of the world are integrated together, doing some reading,writing and watching "Brian Cox's Forces of Nature" series. We finished off with looking at the Gaia theory, and the idea that the Earth is a living complete organism.

Irving looked at local Aboriginal culture, and we learnt about how the Aboriginal people cultivated the land, and how that knowledge had been suppressed in our culture, We listened to Bruce Pascoe's tedtalk on this topic. We also read February Dragon, by Colin Thiele. A fabulous book the illustrates so well, the ever present danger of bushfires in Australia.

Hard waste collection happened again, and this time we found a vintage coffee table- it appears to be one of a set of nesting coffee tables originally. Irving and I are hoping to spend some time on it, repairing it.

Irving enjoyed our steam group this term and there were lots of interesting lessons on anatomy, and was complemented at home with watching "Operation Ouch" on some of the topics we covered- including the hand and it's joints, the brain, the heart, the bladder, the kidneys.

One of the completed activities from our Steam group.

Towards the end of term, we attended our first home school sport's day for the family. Arden was too old to participate, but acted as assistant coach with the Team captain, and joined the parent's races for some of the activities. Though the kids were keen to have him join in the parents versus kids, tug of war. Irving had a great time doing all the activities- three legged races, egg and spoon, relays. The only down side was it was the last very hot day of Summer and the first very hot day, we'd had for a week or so, so we were all struggling in the heat a little. Much fun was had at the end, with water fights, to cool off!

Damien, Arden and I headed to ECU Joondalup to find out about their aviation course, and to see their open day generally. We had a good chat with a couple of the lecturers there, and saw the flight simulators in action. Arden used one, and very nicely took off, flew and landed. It was interesting for me to see, because I had only ever seen his first home education session on a simulator, some years ago, where he needed a lot of help. After his years in the flying club at Bull Creek, he really knows what he's doing.

Arden's lemon tree is doing very well.

Okonomiyaki by Arden.

New shorts for Irving.

Black and white sesame balls.

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2025

We still haven't gotten to fixing that coffee table, but hopefully it won't be too far away, as we continue to develop our woodwork skills at Joy of Wood's classes.  We've been doing a few repair jobs this  year, so it would be nice to think that we may get onto this soon.

January Follow Up

The last portion of last year seemed to be one step forward and two steps back!  December was filled with some interesting events, and some of them just ended upside down.

Our "Class Dismissed" screening never happened due to a mix up-looking into rescheduling that.  Arden's birthday was on a weekend that was cold and wet, which is unusual for here, and so resulted in all our plans being rearranged.  On the whole he took it well- as he was very much looking forward to his first Christmas pageant that day.  Instead we had a late night movie run with "Back to the Future part 2 and 3".

Willow and Gabriel performed in "Clowns vs Ninjas" with their circus school, and that was fabulous!  All the people involved pulled the show together into a really amusing and entertaining performance.  Willow had hurt her foot the night before, and still managed some of her parts, which I imagine was a great relief to all involved. 

We also had our home ed review and received our exemption for another 12months, and Willow auditioned for WAAPA, and was told that she had missed out this time around.  She's feeling philosophical about the whole thing, and is looking at it as a learning opportunity for applying this year.

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2025

We didn't continue with circus after the next year, I seem to recall, so Arden didn't get to perform in the Christmas pageant.

When we visited WAAPA on their open day, Willow was told that it was unlikely she would get offered a place at 16, as the voice continues to develop as people mature.  We decided that it was worth going through the process anyway as it would help her to understand what to expect.

She was also lucky enough to be going there monthly to listen to lectures, as she was offered the opportunity on the Open Day.  So from about mid year 10, she would go down once a month and listen to some of the lectures.