My reading..........

For some strange reason in recent years, it has become a habit of mine to read two books at once, alternating chapters from time to time as it suits me. So presently these are the two books I'm reading.

Cure Tooth Decay
So far this goes into things I'm aware of but also refers to a few other dentist's work that I was not aware of. Seems to be a nice addition to the books we have on healthful eating.

Sugar Blues
I'd been wanting to read this for ages! And so far it is really interesting, he writes in quite an illustrative manner which makes for very easy reading IMO.

And just because I also liked this one, from a while ago, here's a third book.

Eat Fat, Lose Fat
There's some lovely recipes in this one, we've been making the coconut ice-cream. The kids have been making it mostly by themselves, with my aerating it with my fork LOL!

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2025

Lol, I know the answer to this now!  Homeschooling with lots of kids-I'm trying to train myself back into one book at a time!  I find it so easy to get through the reading that I'm doing with the kids, but by contrast my own reading has slid to the side.  A lot of this is to do with the kids having so many different activities once they got older, and having less quiet time in the evenings, as they started to stay up later and later!  This started for most of them at about 12 and impacted Damien's and my quiet time to get things done, much more than having babies (eventually that is- once we got the hang of doing the baby thing!).

At the moment I am reading  "Portal" by Yolande Norris-Clarke.  It's on freebirthing and blissful birth.  So far it is interesting, and she is more extreme in her views on medicalised birth than I am, and she very much reminds me of the wonderful midwife that I had for Arden's homebirth, in her passion about how damaging the medicalisation of birth can be.  Other than that I very much have agreed with what I've been reading so far, and it seems to be looking at offering an interesting insight to birth as a transcendental experience.

Recent Work and Events

I visited the anthroposophical shop last week to stock up on work books, get a gift for someone and get modelling wax (largely this was due to Arden being co-operative whilst we were there). We are heading to Perth to live in a few weeks, and I have no idea if they have an anthroposophical shop there, so stocking up on basics before leaving seemed like a good move, plus I really like the lady the manages the shop at present, so it was nice to have a chat to her about our plans and homeschooling.

Gabriel has started on his next cross-stitch project. He designed his first one based around animals and crystals, and his second design was on knights and dragons. He'd like to sew both of them by the end of the year- at this stage it seems like a lot of work, but he's getting much more consistent with his sewing. He has started on the first part of his animal cushion, which consists of four panels with different images.

Willow is still working at her stuffed toy project, and at this stage is drawing lots of horses, her drawing has improved immensely over the last few weeks, and I think after a few more weeks of drawing it may be time for her to move onto planning how she will make her toy horse.

Willow had her final singing lesson tonight with her choir before we move, and has one final flute lesson and a flute concert this weekend. Her singing concert was a couple of weekends ago, and as usual was a success. This time Willow had a shared 'solo' part which was exciting for her. She loves singing on stage, and was really pleased to get the shared part in singing 'Maria' from 'The Sound of Music'.

Both kids have been doing a block on maths- Willow business maths and Gabriel fractions. But our usual bookwork, has fallen to the side this week, as the kids had a visit to Mt Gambier to see their cousins there. They had a fabulous time and have been talking non-stop about wrestling, basketball, frogs, computer games, and goats amongst other highlights of their stay.

There's quite a bit to do round here, with getting ready for the move, but gradually things are getting done. We've got a couple more things to sell, or throw out, and boxes are getting packed - so that's good, we need to find a home there and catch up with friends before we go. I've already contacted their homeschool community and on first impression they seem very friendly, but my plan at this stage is to have a rather low key term so that we can get to know Perth at a more relaxed pace.

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2025

So there was no anthroposophical shop here, but there was a nice shop associated with one of the schools at one point.  Eventually I accepted to get the resources here that I needed to order them online.  So many of these things that I like are difficult to get or do in Perth.  And whilst that door is closed off here- unless we travel to the South of WA, there are other interesting things that I enjoy here.  Perth IMO is a much more extroverted place, than Adelaide, and I have found it interesting that so many of the things that I miss from home, are quite easily found by visiting the small towns of the South.

Heading to  Southern Aurora Steiner shop.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2011/10/southern-aurora.html

Before vanishing, the shop became "The Honeyclock".

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2012/02/last-fortnight.html

We took a while to settle into friendships here, which I somewhat expected, I had a similar experience when we moved to Glasgow, but I found it much more challenging then, as Willow and Gabriel were so small and I didn't have a sense of how long that process could take.  With the move to Perth, I was quite patient about it, but Willow found it a bit tricky, and it was only when we started music classes at Cottage institute, do we start to find our sort of people.

Settling in to Perth, and starting at Cottage Institute with Willow.

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2011/09/over-last-few-weeks-weve-been-out-and.html

Reading

We've just started reading the Aeneid.


I wondered if the kids might find it a bit complex, but so far, it's fine and they're really enjoying it. I think after reading about Ulysees and the Trojan war, they're finding the Trojan perspective quite interesting.

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2025

We read the full adult version of the Aenid at this time.  I wondered if it was too dense for them, but everyone seemed to enjoy it and find it interesting.  With Arden I cam across a kids version of the Aenid- called Aeneas (by Emily Frenkel), and I preferred that for this age.  

https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2019/09/term-2-part-2.html

Leonardo da Vinci

This past weekend we attended the Da Vinci's Machines Exhibit. Overall I found it interesting, and the kids enjoyed it, although it was a little overpriced, compared to similar exhibitions I've been to. That said the machines were great, and it was nice that some of them were able to be used- Arden certainly enjoyed trying them out. He was rather taken with the leverage model- he kept pulling the rope and letting it go, so that the weighted bag would drop rather heavily.

We've had a rather busy past week, with the da vinci outing, and also a visit to the zoo again- spent a while watching the pandas eat this time, and a performance at the Grainger studios of Peter and the Wolf. Plus Damien has been offered a job in Perth, so plans are ahead to move in about 5weeks. Quite a lot to do, but we're all looking forward to the move.

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2025

Our move to Perth.
https://unicorn-pegasus.blogspot.com/2011/08/at-home-in-perth.html

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

Chilly Autumn Rain

We are having some lovely Autumn weather at the moment, and all of us are enjoying the change of seasons. There are many lovely leaves lining the streets, and it is a lovely time to be out walking about.

We've had some interesting outing in recent weeks, and some lovely work has been done. We visited Urrbrae house and did a tour of the Urrbrae wetlands. Willow and Gabriel were given names to match the era of Urrbrae house, for their visit there. Willow was called Harriet and Gabriel was called Clifton. (The year for their vist was meant to be 1892). They both enjoyed the morning, pretending to be school students back in that era. It would be interesting to visit again, as the kids were divided into different groups, and each group had different activities. There were also a group of ladies and gentlemen and a group of servants.

Gabriel has now finished his first piece of embroidery for the year, and since the weather has been busy changing and we're also getting out and about a bit for his local history block, we made pinwheels as an interim craft activity. Here is Gabriel's pincushion.


Willow has finished her first block on Ancient Rome, also had a small block on the Australian Govt- examining the different levels of it and will be onto studying geology this week. We bought some sculpey and made our own mini aquaduct, using it. I had been hoping to do a tour of the town hall, but they are not happening at present. Anyway here is our mini aquaduct.


Gabriel has just started learning about the local area and doing local history, and fortunately it's history month here, so there are lots of interesting things happening. We've done a tour of the local train station, are going to tour St Peter's Cathedral, and attend a reopening of a building in the Victorian era (everyone is really looking forward to this, as they will be getting dressed up). We've also picked up some of the local council's guides and have been following these too.

Finally just because I really liked these. Here's a couple of photos from Gabriel's animal block- a beeswax giraffe and sculpey zebra.

Craft Projects

Our main craft projects are currently underway, and we have all been very busy. Gabriel has started his first cross stitch project for the year- a pin cushion. He was bursting to go straight into a larger project (as Usual) but after this smaller one, we will look at designing a cushion cover for him to cross-stitch.

First stage of designing

Second stage designs- and the one outlined in red, is the cross-stitch pattern

Gabriel's project in progress

My design for a pin cushion.

Meanwhile Willow is into the early stages of her planning for making a stuffed toy. She's busy modelling wax horses, working on getting a good sense of shape for the horses she's making and developing her skills of observation. It's also interesting for her (and me) in that I'm largely leaving the project to her. I've discussed the goal (making a realistic 3d soft toy animal), and given guidance as required, but I'm leaving her to direct the project and what she does during her craft session.

Here is some of her work so far- all of these have been made in one afternoon.

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2025

The modelling wax strengthens the fingers and requires a lot more strength than regular play-doh, and IMO it can be really nice to alternate them for different purposes, in the early years.  Originally we had play-doh and Willow would use modelling wax at Steiner kindy.  With home schooling I found somewhere I could buy a few modelling wax colours at a time and build our collection slowly.  

There is a bit of a trick to using it when the weather is cold- using hands and breath to warm it, warm water or a candle if it is very cold.  In warm weather/hot weather it is very malleable, and so there is a lovely natural relationship to it as a material as the weather changes, and the seasons shift.