Term 2, Lockdown and Winter Solstice.

Covid lockdown saw us enjoying the restfulness of the city and some of the littler things, such as quiet displays for Autumn.

As Irving was a little confused about our "home school" also turning into "home office" signs were placed on doors, so that he could work out if Dad and Willow (DD20) were free for a chat.  Eventually he worked out their daily flow, and the signs became unnecessary.

Lockdown cooking with Irving- potato scones.

And some German biscuits known as railway tracks.

Me having some fun with decorating my coffee.  :)

Robin Hood with the boys.  Reading together is still one of my favourite family activities.

Working my way gradually through modern history.

Learning about Saints with Irving.

And Arden's rabbit.

Arden has moved onto doing more complex geometry this year, and Irving loves joining in.

Irving working on woven stars.

Arden's star.

Me working with Arden and Irving.

Arden's floral pattern.

The underlying structure for the above design.

Irving having some fun.

Looking at various polyhedrons and the 12 division of the circle.

24 division of a circle.

Preparations for a spiral.

Making progress on perspective.

 Hexa-flexagon's thanks to Vi Hart.

And borromean rings also thanks to Vi Hart.  (Irving made heaps of these, and then later moved onto paper chains.)

Arden finally finished knitting his socks, and since I was required to knit at his pace for this project;so did I.  He was not a fan of knitting the whole way through (we kept having chats about he never needed to knit again if he dislike it, but this skill would enable him to fix his knitted clothes for the rest of his life) and finally after doing the whole thing quite slowly but very competently, he declared knitting was ok and knit a strawberry!

Arden's knitted and wet felted strawberry.

Socks finished for Irving.

Irving's knitting for bilby.

Arden and I started pattern grading these slippers for him- though progress has been a little slow.

Arden working on a bag for his harmonica- he did both machine and hand sewing for this projects.

And he was very pleased when I finally finished this blanket for him.  :)

Hard waste find being re-newed.

Working on string games.

Arden (and I) have been learning Latin using the Lingua Latina series.  (We've also picked up "The Gruffalo" in Latin and Harry Potter- though we're a way off reading them yet!  :D)

Celebrating winter solstice with a fire, sunrise and damper baked in the ashes.

Our Kodaly music teacher suggested this book- so with the help of Willow, who studied at WAAPA (Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts) Irving, Arden and I are working through this.  Both boys have been self-teaching piano with the help of youtube, and this is give some extra structure to their progress.

Finally just because in lockdown all these little moments in nature were so appreciated.  Walking past the bird sanctuary at Alfred Cove at sunset.

Tau

Hallo hallo!

How is everyone? Had a good week? :)

 On Saturday morning I made a lovely Tau - although most people would call it a Pie (or Pi). However, I call it tau because pi needs to be multiplied by two to make it a whole, while tau is just a whole. So that would mean a pie is actually half a Tau. Understand?

 I made some pastry on Friday (500 grams of flour, 250 grams of butter, and some salt and about a cup of water), and then on Saturday morning I put the oven to about 200 and then started browning the mince. I added some stock to the mince, then put in the carrot and potato that I'd diced into it.

 I halved the pastry and rolled out one to fit the tray. I rolled out the other half and cut a bit off to make the Tau sign.
 When the filling was ready I scooped it into the tray and ate what couldn't fit for breakfast. I put on the top of the Tau and added the Tau sign, then popped it in the oven whilst I got ready to leave for my circus class. When I had finished getting ready I turned off the heat and left the Tau in the oven.

 When I got home it was perfect, and I had a piece of it. It was so good cold, I don't want to have it warmed up!!

 Well, it was soon gone come Sunday evening. Here's the pictures of it:

Let me know if you make your own Tau! (or Pi!!)

Hexaflexagons

Hallo everyone!

 So today I decided as I math project to make a "How to make Hexaflexagons" thing.
 But what is a Hexaflexagon, you say? A Hexaflexagon is the coolest, awesomest, most amazing thing ever! It's a piece of paper in the shape of a Hexagon that you can flex! They are so much fun.
 I found out about them from the mathmusician Vi Hart. She has such a huge amount of cool maths stuff! I noticed, however, that if one wanted to make a Hexaflexagon from her videos, it is a little difficult. So I've tried to make easy-to-follow instructions for people.

 Vi Hart's pages: (2025- sadly no longer available, but if you google her there are some remnants around).

 Vi Hartl's Youtube
 Vi Hart's website
Vi Hart's Soundcloud



                   How to make a Hexaflexagon


  Tools:

• Paper 
• Sicissors
• Stickytape
• pencil
• felt tip pens
• Ruler

Take the ruler and measure two centimeters from the longest side of the paper.  Cut it out, so that you are left with a long strip of paper. 

 

 Fold the paper on an angle to make an Equilateral triangle. You can then use it as a guide, and continue until all the paper is a nice happy fold of bouncy triangles. :)

 When you have done that, you are now up to making it into the Hexagon shape!



Unfold the triangles. They should look like the ones to the right. Once you've
done that you can fold them into the Hexagon shape. See the images below:

Once you have your ten nice equilateral triangles in the shape of a hexagon,you can cut off the others and glue/stickytape the paper together. 

 It is now officially a Hexaflexagon! All you need to do is colour it and get flexing!

So in the images above you can see that I've coloured one side, "flexed" it, coloured the second side, "flexed" it again and then coloured the third side. When it was flexed the third time we came back to colour one again - side one.

The Hexaflexagon Safety guide:   Safety Guide

If you really love Hexaflexagons, consider holding a party! Click here.

 I hope this is clear, and that many people enjoy the use of Hexaflexagons!!