Willow

Willow has been working on geometry for her second block. Normally we start the year with form drawing/ geometry but she wanted to wait for it to be cooler before doing geometry. 

Her doll is also progressing nicely, and is starting to have a lovely crown of black hair.

Geometry








Doll making

Gabriel

We finished off Gabriel's geometry block, and are now onto ancient Rome.  Story wise we are reading Padraic Colum's, "Adventure's of Odysseus and Tales of Troy".  We're using this as a connecting book between learning about Ancient Greece last year, and progressing onto Rome this year.  We are also using Charles Kovacs book on Ancient Rome.

Gabriel has also almost finished his first sock!  And has started his main craft project for this year.  He's decided that he would like to make a zebra, so he's onto the early stages of the project; lots of drawing.


Geometry

 Some book work on Ancient Rome.

Drawing a zebra

We also headed out to the Museum last week, for a class on Ancient Egypt.  Gabriel really enjoyed it, the focus was on burials and mummification.  Plus I think he was pleased to be one of the only people that knew about the Rosetta stone.

Arden

I decided to do grade 1 part time with Arden this year, to cover our requirements for homeschooling in WA.  It's been brilliant so far, he thrives on the focused activities, and is generally more content.

Here's some of his work.

His picture of the Golden Key.  This story was great to start with as we just painted our imaginings, and focused on what might be inside the chest.  A great Grimm's story for wondering.

The next week we moved onto the Three Billy Goats Gruff, and introduced some letters.

 

  

This week's story has been 'the Spindle, the Shuttle and the Needle'.

Just for fun, there was some building out of jenga blocks.  Arden came up with this ship.

We've been settling back into our usual routine this week, after a weekend away in Adelaide last week.  It was a little disruptive- our flight home was 6.30am Adelaide time, but 4am Perth time!  So we were up at 2.30am on Tuesday, I came straight home to bed, for a nap.

Birthday week no. 5 for the Season

We had a madly busy week, last week, and I'm glad to say that this week is quieter and cooler!  Doing school work last week, was a bit of a challenge, with us all popping down to the pool at lunch time each day to cool off. 

Here's some geometry from last week.

Gabriel's six pointed star.



Gabriel's and my six circles around a circle.





Willow's cube folding exercise.


Gabriel, Arden and I headed to the museum last week for a couple of homeschool classes.  Gabriel's was on fossils, and he really enjoyed it.  Arden's class was about dinosaurs.  It was Arden's first class to attend without Willow or Gabriel, so I was a bit curious how he'd find it.  Initially he wanted me next to him, but he quickly got the idea of sitting with the other kids, and looking out for me as needed.  He'll be starting circus class this weekend, and will be going to another museum class in March.

Willow has been making progress on her doll- starting to work on embroidering her face.


We ended the week with Gabriel's 11th birthday- he was very excited about it as we said that he could watch the first part of Lord of the Rings.  Everyone really enjoyed it.  Gabriel also got a hobbit lego set for his birthday and a skateboard, so he was pretty happy all round!

Week 1 2013

So we started our schooling this first week of Feb- so unusual for us- but necessary this year, and have had a good start so far.

Willow has only done one day of stuff at home, so she has two more days to do this week.  She's working on English at the moment, studying Romeo and Juliet.  She's also working on a small business project, as a project for class 8.  Currently she's doing lots of knitting for it.

Gabriel and I are reading 'String, Straightedge and Shadow' for his geometry block.  It's a nicely put together  historical story of how people learnt about geometry.  This is the second time that we've read it; last time was for Willow's geometry block.

Here is some of Gabriel's work.




Arden was also getting involved quite a bit this week- so I helped him by doing the shapes for his picture, and he did the decorating.  He says that it is a flower opening up.


A lot of our classes have also restarted for the year- musicianship is back on, as is basketball.  Plus we've found a new flute teacher for Willow, who she will start with next week.

We've not done school Mon- Wed for awhile, so it will be interesting to see how it works for us. (In recent years, we've done Tues- Thurs).  Though since Willow is largely working independantly, she intends after this week, to have Tuesdays and Fridays off.

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2025

The last few years, we just kinda move the days about during the week however suits us, as we've had fewer regular daytime home ed classes.  At one point Wednesday was our day out and about as we had iceskating and music happening then.  Our usual routine ATM is Mon- Wed learning at home (with woodwork on Tuesdays too), Thursday for home loving/housework, and Friday chill.  This also works really well because Arden's at TAFE on Mon- Wed, and this means we can do things with him Thursday and Fridays.

Pictures- knitting and Cake

Just finished Arden's doll!  He has named her Honey, and she's now happily tucked into bed with him.



Plus I just finished my first hand-knitted dish cloth.  Tried it out this evening, feels so much nicer than using a sponge!




Also I made my self a soaked grain lamington cake with 'body' cream for my  birthday cake.  It's the first time in many years that I've had a lamington cake, and the raw cream in it was delicious.

Books for science and other things

Picked up a couple of science books that will hopefully be helpful for this year.

The first one is a pictured guide to the elements.

Elements, Theodore Gray

I reckon it would've been great when I was learning about the periodic table, to get a better sense of some of it's items.

Then there's a general science book by DK.
Help Your kids with Science, DK

Plus we've picked up a copy of Antony and Cleopatra, as part of Gabriel's Ancient Rome studies.

Finally a book to help with Willow's grammar- The Art of Styling Sentences.

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2025

Probably the most useful out of these ended up being the DK book, and somewhat the Elements book. 

The elements  book has been great to take a look at and see what forms and various items are made from the elements, and so it has proven to be helpful in having a better understanding of these things.

DK books overall seem to cover topics in a very comprehensive manner, and this one is as good as any of their other books that we have used over the years.