Skip to main content
May
28
2015

Ferrets, fishing, horsing around, one awesome quarry, and stuff like that

Photos from the last couple of weeks.  After 10yo had sent off an enquiry email to WAFFS, they put is in contact with a lovely lady in the area who let us play with her ferrets and answered all the questions we had and then said we should head up to the AGM the following day if we didn't have any plans as people brought their ferrets to these things.  We didn't have anything on that morning (unfortunately parents in law were off travelling so we couldn't visit them while we were in the area) so we trotted along to go have a look.

10yo patting ferret at WAFFS AGM

8yo cuddling ferret at WAFFS AGM

Mar
26
2015

Liddelow Homestead, John Oakey Davis Park and some miscellany

The City of Gosnells recently had its Homegrown Festival, but due to many clashes of things the only thing we ended up making was the Liddelow Homestead Open Day.  It has a really cool corridor.

Corridor in Liddelow Homestead, Gosnells, Western Australia

There was also a stove which the kids didn't initially recognise as such, we spent a few minutes talking about what it might be before I told them what it was, and we then discussed how one might control the temperature of the stove when cooking.

Old woodfired stove in Liddelow Homestead, Gosnells, Western Australia

Mar
16
2015

Homeschool catchup post

The day before we flew out to Christmas Island, we went on an excursion to the Art Gallery of Western Australia.  They accommodate homeschool groups easily and the programs the kids did were great and seem to have been enjoyed by all.  To make running things easier for the staff, the kids had been divided into pre-primary to Year 3 (5-8yos) and year 4+ (9 and older).  The older group went for their activity first while the younger one went on the tour.  The younger group got split into two and 8yo, then 5yo and I ended up in a tiny little group consisting of ourselves and 8yo's then-6yo friend.  The tour guide got peppered with a billion questions as both girls are very interested in art and did a great job fielding them and the additional and often random questions from then-5yo.

Feb
06
2015

Massive Christmas Island Photopost 2014-15

Minimal text, many photos, some videos.  Mishmash of scenic, happysnaps and homeschooling stuff coz that's how we roll.  Grab a drink and a snack before commencing.

First couple of weeks...

Waiting for plane at Perth International Airport, Western Australia

The airport wait wasn't terribly exciting but at least there were planes to watch being loaded, taking off and landing.

View from my bedroom window

Big asam tree across the road as seen from my bed.  It's always good to be home.

Dec
06
2014

Homeschooling stuff

We're reaching the end of the year so it's been a bit slack on the socially accepted learning front as everyone is a bit tired and over it.  There's been a lot of playing going on and in our usual fashion the 2015 program has already been modified before we could even think about starting it.  Instead of doing bookwork every day, we're alternating with cooking where the kids will choose a recipe, check we have all of the ingredients before commencing (and write out shopping list to be able to do something next session if they really want a thing we don't have all the ingredients for) and do it themselves from start to finish. I will help with/supervise dangerous things (such as putting things in and out of ovens and anything that requires cooking on stove top) but they are otherwise on their own.

Oct
11
2014

Home Ed Program and Booklist 2015

It's that time of year again and I'm doing it all in one post this time round.

10yo (Year 5) next year

9yo has been finding his yr5-6 maths book generally easy but some parts are challenging enough that I am going to keep one year ahead and see how he goes. He's been pretty much on track with English, most of his challenge seems to be the tedium of writing full sentence answers and a continued reluctance to practise writing though his writing can be neat when he wants it to be. If he starts finding the 5-6 books too easy I'll bump up to yr7 to see how he goes and back down again if that's too hard.

As he's older he can do a bit more bookwork now and will be doing 2 pages of English, 2 pages of Science and 2 pages of Maths per day (or just 1 if he does the Yr6 books) for $5/week.  Once a week he can count doing quests in School of Dragons as science bookwork and the maths mission in Khan Academy as maths.

Oct
10
2014

More little things

9yo displayed that he does have some organisational skills while we were playing Minecraft and he wandered off and said he had found some mines, then told me the coordinates so I could join him.  He had made a book and quill to use as a journal (and would be less likely to misplace seeing as it's in-game) in which he was writing down the coordinates of our bases and any mines he encountered (which would then be deleted once we'd finished exploring and digging them out).

7yo wrote me a poem:

Poem written rather messily in red texta by 7yo

Sep
29
2014

Unexpected family history and a keyboard

Recently we were at a nephew's 3rd birthday party.  Seeing as we were in the area we followed JJ's parents back to their place as his dad had said he had a straight razor belonging to his grandfather that JJ might be interested in (seeing as he's recently gotten into shaving with straight razors).

Examining the edge on a straight razor with a jeweller's glass

JJ showing 9yo how to examine razor's edges.  Or something.

JJ was intending to take the straight razor and clean it up and return it, but FIL said he could keep it and use it but he would be upset if JJ lost it.  The razor had lived inside a briefcase of JJ's great grandfather's stuff.

Sep
15
2014

Homeschool snippets

The mosaic thing got some good use while it was rainy, with 9yo and 7yo both copying patterns from the book and inventing their own:

Playing with the mosaic thing

7yo's English workbook:

7yo English workbook - doesn't go to school every day

Sep
10
2014

Doo-wop

I told 7yo and 5yo they would have to wait a couple of hours for a box of frozen raspberries to defrost.

5yo: How much is a couple?
me: Two.  Dua.  re.
7yo and 5yo: Doo-wop! Doo-wop! Doo-wop!
me: [laughing too hard to correct them]