Autumn Days are Here Again

Here is how our Seasonal Table looked at the end of summer. Besides Mother Nature and Summer, it had a jumbled collection of things on it, including: various sculptures made from both clay and Model Magic, special rocks, pine cones, shells and other beach-combing finds, a fishing lure, feathers, drawings, bones, a Mabon decoration, a variety of bark, flowers, leaves, seeds, fruit, twigs and grass, paper boats coated in beeswax, and the discarded skin of a small snake. It looked rather a mess, but it was a lovely reminder of some of the things we did over the summer, and we had great fun looking over each item as we cleared up ready to bring in Autumn.

Here is the Table when it was looking pristine again (since then it's already started building up a new collection of special things). The snowflakes made the two stripy Autumn candles by recycling odds and ends of old wax and moulding them in toilet rolls. 

Despite our parlous neglect of the garden, we have enjoyed a lovely harvest. It was quite exciting to get our first lot of hazelnuts (fresh raw nuts really are sooo different to the shop bought ones we were used to).

As we move from summer into autumn, the schooled children are presumably settling in to school, and the extracurricular activities are back in full swing. Snowflake #2 was overjoyed to go back to her Girl Guides group.

#3 was excited to start 'real' gymnastics (her previous classes were free play rather than anything formal). Here she is showing off her new (well, new to her) leotard.

Bush Tucker and Bush Medicine

As part of our efforts to learn more about Tasmania indigenous history and culture, we had an excursion to the Living History Museum of Aboriginal Cultural Heritage at Nicholls Rivulet.

The South East Tasmanian Aboriginal Corporation has converted Fanny Cochrane Smith's church into The Living History Museum of Aboriginal Cultural Heritage. On display in the former Methodist church are artefacts and stories from the Aboriginal people of southeast Tasmania. The Museum runs an Aboriginal artists-in-residence program, a wetlands area with interpretation of the significant flora - offered by Aboriginal people. The Museum was opened in December 2003.

Fanny Cochrane Smith was born at Wybalenna (the Flinders Island Aboriginal settlement set up by Rev. George Augustus Robinson) in 1834. She was the daughter of Tanganutura, which means 'to weep bitterly.' Tanganutura had been abducted by the sealer James Parish. At Wybalenna, Tanganutura took Nicermenic as her husband. When she was five years old Fanny was taken from her parents to live with the prison catechist, Robert Clark, and later she was sent to the Queens Orphan School, in Hobart, to be trained as a domestic servant. She was returned to Wybalenna to work for Clark until the settlement closed in 1847. The few Palawa who survived Wybalenna were sent to Oyster Cove (south of Hobart). 

In 1854, Fanny married William Smith, an Englishman, and the government granted her a pension for life. By 1889 she had been granted 600 acres and was formally recognised by Parliament. She settled in the area and raised her 11 children. The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery have recordings of her singing traditional Aboriginal songs - probably the first such recordings in Australia. She developed strong connections with the European community through functions held in the church. 

The snowflakes had actually heard the recording of Fanny Cochrane Smith singing a long time ago during one of their first visits to TMAG, and seen the amazing photo of her dressed in a staid Victorian style dress hung about with possum furs, but now they had the chance to learn a little more about her life and times. After a bit of a chat sitting around the traditional fire pit, we went inside to see the collection of pictures and artifacts. We were asked not to take photos in the building, however the children got to hold items like kelp carriers, spears and waddies and find out how these were made. We were all given a quick basket weaving tutorial and managed to make some flower decorations from native reeds.

Next came the children's favourite part of the morning: a stroll around the native gardens accompanied by a talk on bush tucker. It was interesting to see how many edible roots, leaves, nuts and flowers there were in quite a small area, and hear how they would have been prepared. We were all surprised to discover that the Tasmanians used to grind seeds into flour and bake a kind of bread.  The snowflakes sampled the pepperberry leaves and saggs.

Some of the plants, of course, also have medicinal properties. While we were wandering, talking and tasting, I was bitten by a jackjumper, which led to an impromptu trial of native pigface juice as a traditional remedy for bites and stings. It turned out to be very effective (in fact I found it to be better than the commercial preparation we have at home), so we took a small cutting to plant in our garden.

The 2012 School Year has Begun

We kicked off our non school year in style with the Not Back to School Picnic at Hastings Thermal Pool. The snowflakes love the thermal pool and beautiful picnic / barbeque facilities with woodfires, so we are scheduling in a full day visit later this term, when we'll tour the caves and do the short hot springs bushwalk as well as eating and swimming.

In consultation with Daddy Snow, I have been busy preparing our THEAC Family Report. As well as being a formality required for registration, compiling our report is a good opportunity to do some evaluation and planning in a structured way. Not only did we identify some areas where we could be offering more learning opportunities, but also the snowflakes themselves had plenty of ideas about what different things they'd like to do, and while we won't be able to accommodate all of their requests, some can easily be managed. One thing they have all asked for is more one-on-one time with us, and when we do fit this in, it is wonderful to see how eagerly they seem to soak up that undiluted parental attention.

Meanwhile, we have been easing into our non school year with lots of unschooly learning and a few structured-ish subjects. For example, we have had a bit of a focus on safety topics: we got, for the first time, a pool big enough for the snowflakes to swim in, so we talked about water safety and agreed on rules for use of the pool (kids must under no circumstances get into the pool without first asking an adult to supervise, while adults must agree to supervise unless there is a really good reason not to); a tiger snake has taken up residence in our garden, so we revised how to avoid getting bitten and practiced first aid for snake bites; we had a family meeting about our fire safety plan and practiced this; and so on. Snowflake #1 asked for another go at the Triple Zero Kids' Challenge game, which takes kids through various scenarios requiring emergency services. (Co-incidentally, we ended up needing to call 000 twice in one week, so they got to see the real life version as well.)

The interesting conversations continue to happen often, as per usual. I have especially noticed that snowflake #3 seems to be thinking about things in a lot more depth than she could previously. One example is the way she is currently wrestling with her dislike of killing animals versus her love of meat. Her latest idea is that we should only eat creatures that have died of old age; of course, this led to some great discussion with the others explaining their reasons why this plan might be problematic. We don't actually mind whether the snowflakes eat meat or not - if any of them eventually decide to go vegan / vegetarian, we are quite happy to facilitate that - but that's not the point: it's just really fascinating to watch how their reasoning processes and opinions are developing.

On the less weighty side of things, I think the award for silliest conversation of the week would have to go to the great "Is it possible to do half a fart?" debate (but somehow, I don't think that would qualify as a study of fractions for THEAC's purposes!).

Camping At Last

 Well, we finally did it: our official First Family Camping Trip!

This has been in the pipeline for several years and definitely on the agenda since our trip to Bruny Island last year (hmmm, sounds as though the agenda is inside the pipeline...), but we had never got around to organising our equipment, even though it was clearly not going to be practical for five of us to sleep in the pre-children tent. Faced with the challenge of actually deciding what we needed and acquiring it, the camping project just languished on the to do list, until we were inspired by the prospect of camping with friends.

 

The equipment buying excursion was a great source of excitement in itself, with the snowflakes all contributing to the planning and purchasing decisions (although we had to veto a few ideas due to budgetary constraints). Then, a couple of days later, we were off to Cockle Creek with our renewed Parks Pass, the car crammed full of as much as we could possibly squeeze in, and three extremely thrilled snowflakes.

It proved to be a lazy few days: the furthest afield we got was to the whale sculpture at the other end of the bay, and much of the time was spent relaxing on the beach, while the evenings were perfect for wildlife spotting. All in all, the snowflakes had heaps of fun and also quite an educational experience, especially for #1 who now knows how to pitch the tents and how to set up, light and cook on the portable gas barbeque.

The School Holidays

A few people have asked me whether we stop homeschooling for the school holidays. The answer is no; as far as formal school work goes, the snowflakes seem to thrive with an easy schedule all the time rather than working hard most of the time and then having time off. In the natural learning department, well, as any parent knows, it's impossible to stop this from happening even if we wanted to. So while school holidays are probably great for children who do school, giving them the chance to do all the things that there isn't time for during school term, they're not so relevant around here for the most part.

Having said that, though, the one thing that is different about school holidays is that there are all sorts of interesting classes and activities available. The snowflakes have attended a number of Double Helix Club science classes, various Bush Adventure environmental workshops, and a sessions at the Maritime Museum, as well as assorted other activities including a three day sports skills camp for the older two.

With all of this to keep us busy, plus finishing up our history program and some other bits of school work from last year, not to mention pursuing a plethora of tangents that the snowflakes embark on (for example #2, who has recently taken to drawing shields for her knights, just came rushing in to ask me whether King Richard Lionheart's lions were rampant or passant [how would I know? thank goddess for the internet!], and will now spend the next hour drawing and crusading to the incongruous sounds of her brother's Latino Party Box music) we have put off our planned few days away until after school goes back.

Library Stories, Songs and Crafts

This term we have been attending preschooler Story Time sessions at our local library. Because #3 spends a lot of time coming along to activities her siblings are involved in, it's been lovely to have something that's mainly for her.

Summer Is Icumen In

Finally, the warmer weather seems to have arrived! We've been swimming at the local outdoor pool, had a BBQ with friends, and started work again on the jungle that is our garden after the wet spring and too much neglect.  We've been picking strawberries out the front, this week we got our first handful of raspberries and it looks like we'll have a punnet or two of blueberries, provided we can keep the birds off them until they ripen. Here's our Seasonal Table, where we brought in Summer on the first really summery day.

Natural Learning Co-op

Over the last couple of months the snowflakes and I have been enjoying educational activites and the chance to socialise at our co-op. Last time we learned about wet felting by making felted soaps. We're looking forward to plenty more fun and variety over the coming months.

Beltane 2011

Our celebration was somewhat subdued this year as a few things have been happening and I just didn't have the energy to organise anything exciting. Instead of our usual dance around the maypole outside, the snowflakes made a mini maypole to put on the Seasonal Table (it's just a piece of foam trimmed from some of that excess packaging you often get, painted green, with a bit of dowling poked into it and the lengths of yarn pinned into place). Instead of cooking a feast, we had some colourful cupcakes (evil store-bought ones, but they were very pretty!). Snowflake #2 ended up dressing as a witch because she was celebrating Halloween with her Girl Guides group.

And here is the maypole base after we took it off the Table and snowflake #2 decided to repurpose it as a currach for her Lego sailor:

More Moebius Noodles

Here are the snowflakes with their moebius strips. We have made them before, but the kidlets seem to find them endlessly fascinating. I was vaguely wondering what the heck they were actually for, so I had a bit of a search and found that there are numerous applications, some very complex sounding but others very simple, such as the fact that making a conveyer belt in a moebius loop allows it to last longer due to getting equal wear and tear on both sides of the material.

 

The Mirroring game was lots of fun. We were supposed to be observing the scale of movement and thus discovering whether the snowflakes had a preference for small or large actions, however the only difference we noted was that they wanted to move faster than us grownups.

Moebius Noodles Improv Fun (finding multiplication outside)

3 x table

2 x 3 = 6

4 x 5 = 20

2 x 4 = 8, 8 x 13 = 104

7 x table

Vale Nanna

Unfortunately we were not able to take the snowflakes to Sydney to attend the funeral, so we held our own funeral at home at the same time as the official one. We turned our Seasonal Table into a temporary Nanna Table, and went outside to pick a big bouquet of flowers to go on it. We followed the funeral program using the same music and photo montage. The snowflakes lit candles, placed special memory items on the table and talked about Nanna. Afterwards we held a wake at the local bakery.

A couple more odds and ends

After reading Who Sank the Boat, the girls wanted to find out whether a tiny extra weight could really sink an overloaded boat. They set up an experiment with a plastic boat to find out...

#1 took it a little further by experimenting with density. He layered honey, water and oil in a glass and then discovered that some objects will sink through just one or two of the three layers.

Here he is with one of the bridge designs me built at the CSIRO Engineering workshop.

Ostara 2011

"It’s a time for things growing and time now for flowing
A time now for sowing the seeds of your dreams."

Bruny Island

We have been plotting all year to have a getaway, and it finally happened; we spent four nights on Bruny Island, and the holiday was thoroughly enjoyed by all.

I had planned the whole thing in secret, and with a little help from Daddy Snow, I managed to pack all our clothes, bedding, food supplies and other miscellaneous but essential items into the car without the snowflakes noticing. We'd told them that we were going geocaching and might have a BBQ lunch, so they only really got suspicious when after a quick find in Kettering, we drove down to the ferry terminal. The excitement when we pulled up at the caravan park and announced we were staying there had to be seen to be believed! I truly love the way children can bring some of the magic of childhood back to us jaded adults, and it was such fun to watch the snowflakes enthusiastically dashing about checking out every corner of their accommodation, just as I remember doing at their age.

The first night was a very late night because the kids were too thrilled to sleep and too loud for us to sleep, and this didn't stop them from waking up before 6am (but thankfully they settled down early on subsequent nights). We had a celebratory fruit salad breakfast, followed by a play on the beach that lasted all morning, with the somewhat bracing temperature not proving any impediment to the snowflakes' plans to swim. We finally dragged them away from the beach with the promise of a repeat visit, and sallied forth to the Bruny Island Cheese Company for a cheese tasting lunch, where we adults enjoyed the artisan cheese, while the highlight for the children was meeting Gulliver the dog, who sports the coolest dog jacket ever. We also, quite serendipidously, got to learn about stunt riding from this guy and his mates. In the afternoon, we checked out the lookout and the beach at the Neck, before calling in at Bruny Island Providore to stock up on fudge.

The next day we spent much of the morning playing chess, ludo and card games before heading out for some bushwalking. The wild flowers were gorgeous, and although we didn't meet many animals, we did spot an albino wallaby. That afternoon we looked for another couple of caches; we didn't find them (somehow we inadvertantly had the phone rounding the coordinates so that it thought GZ was 30 metres out into the water) but we had a beautiful walk along another beach where we practiced identifying the tracks from different birds, dogs and people. That night we went out fairy penguin spotting. We were incredibly lucky to be the only people there for most of the time, and we got to observe many penguins at close range, with some coming right up to us and walking under the ramp we were standing on. 

The following day we drove to Mount Mangana and stopped off at what has to be one of my favourite lookouts anywhere. We listened to the Trout Quintet on the car radio while we took our time breathing in the fresh air and the views. Then we continued our very leisurely drive down to the lighthouse, where we spent and hour or two walking, chatting to the lighthouse keeper, and looking around (and grabbed that cache with no problems). Next it was back to Adventure Bay for a BBQ lunch and a quick game of basketball, before returning to 'our' beach for an hour or two, where a beachball mishap forced me to swim in the icy cold water (thank goodness for hot showers).

On the last day we were lucky enough to have finer weather for the ferry crossing, so the snowflakes got out of the car and watched from the upper deck as we crossed back to Trowenna.

Here's snowflake #2 working on one of her notebooks in bed.
This was not only her first time inside a caravan, but also her first time in a top bunk.

Behind the court, you can just make out the awesome 'outdoor gym' playground.

The snowflakes loved this so much that we had to visit it again.

Admiring the view...

We counted eight different things growing on one patch of fallen log.

Snowflake #1 took this view of the tall trees.

It was probably the least cold and windy day ever at Cape Bruny

The view from the Chidlren's Grave site

Hanging out on 'our' beach

At the Neck