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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.

Aug
17
2014

New Norcia excursion

I keep forgetting to write about our day trip to New Norcia.

It was one of those things that had been suggested ages ago by mother in law as she had gone to school there and was interested in showing it to the kids (and us, though both JJ and I have been in the area previously, me on a Yr11/12 art camp and him...well he was not quite sober for most of it apparently).  This seemed like a nice little local history and anthropology/society and environment type thing (New Norcia is the only monastic town in Australia) and we finally got around to it, in the in-laws massive shiny new Toyota something or other that they'd bought as part of their retirement plans.

We parked outside the museum but decided to stretch our legs after the 2hr drive (with one pit stop past Bullsbrook for 7yo who gets motion sick after an hour or so) by looking at mother in law's old boarding school.

Jun
29
2014

History overload, and vague career plans

We binged out on history recently.  I can't remember if I mentioned instating a docos-only-before-bookwork rule to stop the kids from gluing themselves to screens and routinely refusing to come do the bookwork, but it's been working reasonably well.  Horrible Histories was the recent favourite, I think they've watched every dvd we have now as well as anything on iView at the time, and favourite dvds have been repeated with them singing along.  As well as watching Horrible Histories, 9yo has also decided to have me read him the books for bedtime story.  We're also still very slowly working our way through the very thick Ned Kelly book.

Apr
23
2014

1900s

me: We're going to find out how people lived in the 1900s!
7yo: how long ago was that?
me: so long ago not even Great Nanny was born then.
7yo: the Stone Age?
me: ...[trying not to laugh]...not that long ago.
7yo: Romans?
me: not that long ago either.
7yo: [thinking]...Tudors?
me: that's probably closer.

Mar
24
2014

Aviation Heritage Museum of WA and Army Museum of WA photo post

On two different weekends, we hit up the Aviation Heritage Museum of WA in Bull Creek and the Army Museum of WA in Fremantle.  I think the boys got more out of those trips than the girl did so next stop might have to be the Perth Museum (she has a special liking for the butterfly corridor) or Art Gallery and I suppose SciTech or the Zoo can also be considerations, somewhere she enjoys at any rate.  Both these places are great, the guides are extremely helpful and are often floating not far away and are happy to answer everything about everything.

Aviation Heritage Museum of WA - Mar 03

Jul
31
2013

Christmas Island: Tai Jin House exploration

My suspected real life Crazy Dog House on the Cliff allegedly contains a museum these days.  For various reasons we've never quite manged to get to it.  Apparently neither have my parents, but as it turns out the opening hours are really awkward and you need to either be a tourist or taking time off work to go to it within the very short opening hours (Thursday and Friday 10-3).

Mum, the kids and I rocked up yesterday (Tuesday) and it was nice to see the place had been cleaned up a LOT.  Last time Josh and I were here we had wanted to explore the outbuildings, but they had been horribly overgrown and potentially hazardous so we'd mostly refrained.

Tai Jin House from the carpark

Mar
17
2012

Fun with static electricity and other things

Just randomly (and because they asked nicely), we decided to go down to the park at the end of the road on bladei (okay, fine, Thursday, to be followed up by a trip to City Farmers to stock up on roo meat and mutton, and more flea meds).

The day was lovely, and of course I hadn't brought the camera, missed out on some awesome shots.  I really need to buy something that will cart just the camera with my favourite lens attached, don't really need the monstrosity that is Josh's camera bag (I have enough crap to haul as is).

While Cub slid down the slide, I heard that distinctive crackle as his clothes charged up with static electricity.  Then he ran back up the slide and grabbed onto the metal frame up the top to assist his ascent.

CRACK! "OW!" The surprise on his face was adorable.

Jul
09
2011

Not quiet on the !schooling front

I just haven't been writing about it.

Last week, Tao drew a picture of Venom from Spiderman with black whiteboard marker on paper, including sounding out the name and checking with Josh after writing it out.

Venom drawn with black whiteboard marker on paper

This week just gone has been crazy.

Oct
02
2007

Unschooly crap

[imported from livejournal and backdated]

You can learn a lot from doing not much. As most people know, I do 3d. I seem to know bits of geometry, crap I never would have picked up at school, mainly coz it was in the higher level maths class and I suck at maths.

Currently I'm learning a little bit about Russian history (there's a doco on sometime in the next fortnight that might be helpful) and researching titanium alloys. Why? Roleplaying :P

Who says you need to go to school to get an education.