Home Education - Link Ups

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    Meet Our Students – Aussie NBTS

    Kylie and Chareen are co-hosting the Aussie Not Back To School Blog Hop! Three years ago we joined in the fun, and it’s time again:)  Calling out to all Aussie homeschoolers to join in. Be sure to pop on over and meet everyone. We are kicking off the blog hop by introducing our ‘students’. Whilst this year we have only five ‘official students’, obviously all of our children have an impact on every aspect of our lives including our learning. Our baby, our pre-schooler and our three graduates whether living at home or far away in Sydney all play a part. If they need us, whether directly or long distance, learning is…

  • Blog,  Home Education - Link Ups,  Learning

    If I Had An Ipad

    We currently don’t own an ipad, mostly because I haven’t been able to justify the expense ($380-$570 in Australia).  Also I wonder will this be yet another area of battling the screen?  I’m not totally opposed to owning one, and in the hope of doing so I’ve entered many contests hoping to win.  I suspect there are many wonderful educational opportunities we have yet to discover, but for now I just read posts such as the ladies below share and absorb. Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses – My Favourite Apps and Websites for Learning   Hwee @ The Tiger Chronicle – Technology: A Few Considerations A few things to consider with…

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    Kindling & Fanning Scientific Minds

    The well known quote “education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire”, encapsulates our educational philosophy, a less erudite phrase that also sums up our approach is, “there is more than one way to skin a cat.” These two phrases shine forth quite strongly in our approach to understanding and learning about scientific matters. Our science journey begins in the early years by encouraging exploration of the world around us.  Living in the bush our lifestyle naturally lends itself to plenty of nature study opportunities,  we combine this with the reading of many living books as well as books from our DK collection.  A well written living book is…

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    It Takes a Community

    Twenty five years ago my mother began home educating my younger siblings, this was a pivotal time to be home educating in NSW, Australia.  Home education was little known and illegal, my mum fought for rights that her children and in turn her grandchildren have enjoyed.  A couple of years after mum made this brave decision, the political climate in NSW changed and we won the right to home educate.  Our freedom to home educate is not something I ever take for granted having been right there on the front of the trenches, seeing ‘the good fight fought.’ Shortly after these changes the home education movement saw a boom and obviously my…

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    Plating Up

    In our early years as a family, many an afternoon I would ring my husband at 4.30pm at work and ask him, “What will we have for tea!?” Not planning properly and frozen in decision making, we consequently bought pizza on far too many nights! I came to realise that the key to success for us in our cooking juggle was organisation.  On the days that I thought about tea immediately after breakfast and removed meat from the freezer accordingly, were the days all went well (at least in the meal arena;)    It became apparent that I functioned far better with a plan, I was not good at making…

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    Monthly Memories – July 2012

    Sharing our Monthly Memories. A productive learning month, capturing a few of the highlights. Carpenter’s essay……Carpenter entered an essay competition,  ‘The Greek term ‘polymath’ referred to a person who had expertise in a number of different subject areas. Is there a more contemporary figure that you believe deserves this term? What specific contributions has this figure made to his or her fields of research?’ This essay was the impetus for a huge growth area for him.  Research, diligence, bibliographies are just some of the skills learnt.  His essay writing skills grew enormously during this period.  I have lots more to share about this, which I will in a later post, suffice it for now…

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    Monthly Memories – June 2012

      Sharing our Monthly Memories. As always, sharing a month at a time means that only a snippet is recorded. Our logic classes with Father N:)  Before Father N left we were blessed that he was able to present a series of logic classes to the children.  We (both children and mums) thoroughly enjoyed his presentations and learnt so much.  Father designed the lessons himself, and presented them on the flat screen.  These lessons were such a blessing and we are still talking and implementing the skills learnt:):) Maintaining steady progress in the 4Rs, Science and the Humanities. Highlights Carpenter making fantastic progress on his essay for competition!  Exceptionally well written, researched and…

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    Monthly Memories – April & May 2012

    Joining in with Kylie to record our Monthly Memories. Attempting a summation of the past two months, as I didn’t diligently record, the following is only a sample of learning undertaken and books read. The introduction of a daily Language Arts period (@1.5hrs) with our teen boys. This time is divided weekly between the study of spelling, poetry, note taking, literature analysis and Shakespeare.  I’m really excited that our daily Language Arts block is faithfully occurring, I’m enjoying the interaction with the boys and am thrilled with the depth of learning occurring. We are still endeavouring to maintain steady progress in the 4Rs, Science and the Humanities, although a few changes have occurred to allow…

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    Monthly Memories – March 2012

      Inspired by my enjoyment of Angela’s Choice Time and Learning in Review posts, I’m joining in Kylie‘s Monthly Memories, a great way to commit our memories to ‘paper’ each month. Endeavouring to capture the learning highlights of the past three weeks. Our greatest achievement was our Mega Mapping.  The evident enthusiasm with which this project was received was heartening.  Truly, to see our children focus for six hours straight, mapping and creating flags for every African nation was impressive!  Best of all they now know and can locate each African nation.   We endeavoured to make consistent, steady progress in Maths, Science, Language Arts and the Humanities, and for the most part have, however the past month consisted of…