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Jan
04
2024

September - December Homeschool Miscellany

I had bought The Art of War in very recent history (can't remember precisely when but I feel like it's been at least a year by now) as 14yo had expressed a desire to read it. He didn't get around to actually reading it until recently, when he suddenly went on a health kick (both physical and mental) and on advice of J and 18yo, started trying to get in at least a little bit of exercise, eat a healthy breakfast (the kids and I don't really eat breakfast as we never feel particualrly hungry for a while after waking up) and read a book every day.

Sep
05
2023

May June July August Homeschool Miscellany

May

14yo and one of his friends developed an interest in the series Breaking Bad and marathoned it, and then made some "crystal meth" (coloured toffee).

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Jun
15
2023

April Homeschool Miscellany

I tried to get J to organise this month's excursion to a cave in a national park that is not that far away from us in the grand scheme of things.  I had organised it mostly for 14yo but I had misunderstood, he had some vague interest in oldschool mines which was related to an interest in blacksmithing but didn't like caves, and neither did anyone else so that idea got nixed.

Late March saw some rehearsing for a performance for one of the local shows, and the show (and performance) itself happened in early April.  Both 18yo and 16yo were in it, and 16yo also got roped in to help with hair and makeup.

Apr
06
2023

March Homeschool Miscellany

We accidentally had two excursions this month. I'm not sure whether that makes us "caught up" due to not having one last month or able to chill next month given that the first and second months tend to be organisational and transitional.

The last time we went to the Gravity Discovery Centre was in 2010. Unfortunately stuff just didn't occur to J and I, for whatever reason I thought that we were only going for the night thing even though their night things always include entry into the rest of it, so I didn't cancel roleplaying, and J assumed we'd be roleplaying and didn't mention it. And it was unfortunate as the kids would have made the entire solar system walk now, before we only managed to get up to Uranus before we had to turn back.

Mar
05
2023

February Homeschool Miscellany

I had asked J to book the Aboriginal Astronomy thing at the Gravity Discovery Centre for this month's excursion but as he had a lot of work on he kept forgetting/not getting around to it and finally booked it for next month.

Feb
05
2023

January Homeschool Miscellany

The year started off great with 16yo and I getting our jobs back at the kids' gym (they're "just" volunteer jobs but won't be too much longer).  A lot of stuff has changed, a couple of things are really not great, some stuff is fantastic, and some stuff is kind of wait and see.  As well as being put on for an introduction class and a group of level 3s, she was allowed to help with the Kindergym classes seeing as she wants to get into childcare.  This is going to make up the bulk of her homeschooling program alongside the monthly assignments.  She's been registered for OLNA and we should hopefully work out where she's going to sit it as that's happening sometime in the next couple of months.  

Jan
12
2023

November-December Homeschool Miscellany

As is normal for us, November kind of slowly ground to a halt as there was a rather large thing to take care of and then we focused hard on/got roped into helping with end of year stuff, and December was pretty much a write-off.

15yo worked through a Netflix documentary series about F1 racing as her boyfriend is really into it so she was trying to learn a little more about it.  I watched a couple of episodes with her and she told me a bit about the boyfriend's favourite team and favourite driver and a few of the other drivers, saying that now she at least knew who he was talking about when he was excitedly babbling about them like they were friends she should know.  We also marvelled at the pit crews basically disassembling and reassembling a car in seconds.

Jan
04
2023

October Homeschool Miscellany

13yo continued on his dessert presentation experiments, jumping on the Halloween bandwagon with this "vampire" themed one (the bananas were meant to be fangs), and the goblet was a prop we'd bought some other Halloween).

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Towards the end of the week where we're running out of stuff and need to do more grocery shopping, there was this much simpler but still very delicious fare (can't go wrong with peanut butter as long as you're not allergic to peanuts).

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Nov
11
2022

September Homeschool Miscellany

This month was just as action packed as the previous one. There was one more excursion with the parents, extended family and Up Close and Local Tours but minus 17yo (who was feeling a bit run down and decided to play it paranoid) to Bunbury, where we stopped by a little cafe with its own little adorably put together food garden.

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After that it was off to the Dolphin Discovery Centre.

Oct
06
2022

August Homeschool Miscellany

August started off really slow and cruisy and them ramped right up into September.

It started with the death of one of 13yo's fish. He was devastated as it had gotten sick but had looked like it was starting to recover before succumbing. We had a little funeral in the side yard, burying it under the rosemary bush.

17yo had another quarter life crisis (he has had at least one in the last two years) where he decided he needed to "get his life together" and once again asked for organisational tips (he has asked me previously for things that I have already told him about in trying to get them to learn my organisational hacks and how to research and experiment with their own). He asked me for a corkboard (full corkboard as I'd bought them corkboard/whiteboard combos previously, apparently it wasn't big enough for what he wanted to do) so he could pin things he wanted to organise on it. 15yo overheard and said the same.