It's an end of an era. Home education is finally over. Today L joins R at TAFE. She will be studying Horticulture and Conservation and Ecosystem Management. R is continuing on with his engineering and robotics along with a university preparation course. R is 17 now so I consider we have been educating for 17 years. Even the moderators would say we have been going for 12 years officially. I have spent a few days looking back over the blog and thinking about our most memorable activities. Just looking at the sheer volume of things we did explains why I'm now exhausted and burnt out and considering spending the next 17 years drinking wine. I asked the kids what they enjoyed most. My darling son said "stopping home education and going to TAFE". No wonder I feel unappreciated sometimes!
Below are some of the things we most enjoyed and the links to the original posts.
Many of our favourite homeschool group activities were with Home Education Penrith. I remember well the day Cassie let off her homemade fireworks but I have no picture of that! Tipi day in 2011 was one of the best, the culmination of 10 weeks study on Native American Indians. We had many camping trips to Umina beach, man did us mums drink a lot of wine in those days!
We did trapeze (2012) and Homeschooling Olympics (2012) which was memorable for the mums scooter race which ended with a trip to A&E.
Our road trip to Dubbo (2012) was the coldest camping trip anyone had ever experienced. Aboriginal camp in the same year was also a freezing experience where the mums ended up burning the kids spears just to keep warm!
Homeschool groups just haven't been the same in WA. Largely I think this is because everyone is so obsessed with meeting the ridiculous requirements of moderators in WA that they don't have any time for anything fun. Joondalup lantern parade in 2018 was an exception though.
Also in 2011 we did a project on bridges. We made different types and smashed them down in various ways. Including a particularly robust one which needed the application of house bricks.
In 2012 we mummified a fish which, as far as I know, is still buried in the garden of our old house.
A more recent memory from 2019, 2020 and 2021 is First Lego League. Now the children claimed to have hated every moment of this, although I feel it was a project that contained tons of learning. I think their problem was the frustration involved in robots that often didn't do what we told them to do. Unfortunately R did not use the opportunity so show some grit and determination, but instead made my life hell and everyone else sick to death of his moaning. You can see that I did not write a single blog post in 2020 and only 1 in 2021. This project kept me way too busy for writing blogs. So here is a previously unseen video of what we got up to.
The building of a wine rack project in 2020 was most memorable for the bill for the electrician who came to fix the wires the boys drilled through whilst hanging it on the wall.
We've been on hundreds of educational visits, field trips and excursions. Questacon in Canberra has always been a favourite along with Melbourne Gaol.
We remember the WOW Festival for taking part in a milk crate workshop and the Blacktown Medieval Fayre because a knight got impaled in the nuts with a jousting lance.
We've taken many camping trips over the years which is a great way to cover lots of geography and history in particular. Joey Scout camps were fun, especially the zip lines. 2014 and 2012
Coalseam Conservation Park had spectacular wildflowers, whilst we all remember hiking underwater wearing a wet suit and boots in Karijini.
We remember swimming lessons especially our strict teacher Kylie "BREATHE!" and Margaret who was even stricter and louder if that's possible.
We've done many science experiments over the years, one of the best being the cloud (and the look on L's face).
Dropping an egg man with his parachute from the balcony was one they remembered too.
And last, but not least, cat fostering (and foster failing) was another of our home education adventures.
So it's goodbye from me. I'm off for a very, very long lie down!
