Blog
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2016 The Year That Was: 2017 The Year That Will Be
Every blogger is motivated to write for differing reasons. When I began blogging twelve years ago my initial impetus was to record glimpses of our family life and whilst that vision has shifted to encompass a bigger picture, much of the ‘family diary’ flavour remains. After spending the first couple of days of this year unable to recall what we actually did in 2016, half convinced we mush have just drifted through an entire year, I am rather grateful that I blog. Scrolling back through posts I was pleased to discover we didn’t drift, we did achieve, there was lots of living. Although it wasn’t a strong blogging year as I was in a…
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2017: Happy New Year!
Happy New Year ! May 2017 bring you many blessings. It’s the New Year already with plenty of fresh possibilities and like many I’ve been considering My Word for the New Year. My Word for 2017 is Intentional. Intentional, particularly about my use of time which then flows on to so many other areas; relationships, parenting, prayer life, health, home management and all sorts of achievements. Yep intentional sums it up. To be honest I find myself rather bewildered to already be in a New Year when it feels as if the last year hasn’t drawn to a close. I can’t convince myself I’m in 2017 until my brain ‘wraps…
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My Daybook: 12th December, 2016
Outside my window… it’s a quiet summer morning, I’m up early before my family arises as it’s the only time I can concentrate when writing 🙂 Temperature is predicated to rise to 35C/95F today so enjoying the cool of the morning I am thankful… for my husband, this man, this life, so blessed to be married to my soulmate. We celebrated our Wedding Anniversary this week, twenty four years of married life, we’ve packed so much living into these years, it’s been an adventure. Giving thanks to Our Heavenly Father I am thinking… Christmas shopping; shopping for eleven children, my husband, a couple of sibs and grandmothers takes time. I’ve done…
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How Artventure Nurtures Talent
*Disclosure: We received a subscription for this program in exchange for our honest review. This post contains affiliate links. All opinions expressed in this post are our own based on our family’s experience regards the program and service. Nurturing creativity is valued in our home, various resources are always accessible and when the desire to create is present, time to do so is made available. Formal lessons with an art teacher are an experience in our distant past. Since then any teaching has come from our many ‘how to’ books. So when references to Artventure began surfacing on social media we were intrigued. Our thoughts were that undertaking art lessons online might bring…
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7 Catholic Fiction Books For 7 – 12 Year Olds
Our home bulges with literally thousands of books, many of which have been gifted from my homeschooling mother’s collection and many from local book sales in which children’s books are free! We are extremely blessed to own many treasures but the one genre we’ve had to consciously seek out and purchase books for is, Catholic Fiction. Whilst we’ve plenty of saints and spiritual books, novels written by Catholic authors in which our Catholic Faith is seamlessly interwoven are few. Filling this gap has been a challenge as the prices are high and finding Catholic authors is difficult. Over several years we have slowly built our collection, gifting our children with Catholic…
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How To Create Your Own Multiplication Chart
It has been our experience that when a child hits a ‘road block’ with maths the reason can often be traced back to not knowing their multiplication tables thoroughly enough. To this end, chanting multiplication tables has been added to the daily memorisation list this year. However I’ve been frustrated by the fact we haven’t had a wall chart, we’ve had wall charts from time to time in the past but they tend to fall down and become damaged. Reflecting that our phonics chart is still in good condition nine years later I determined to make a similar multiplication chart. Providentially we already had a blank canvas, measuring and dividing the…
- Blog, Book Reviews, Home Education, Home Education - Language Arts, Home Education - Leaping into Literature, Learning
Diving Deep: Leaping into Literature
We started strong this week with our Leaping into Literature, only to take a deeper dive when a beloved family ritual, The Bookworm made a reappearance. Instantly an intense book reading marathon engulfing the entire family ‘sprang up,’ therefore the time I’d normally devote to reading picture books was derailed into librarian tasks. I’ll explain our Bookworm ritual in further detail later this week so stay tuned. All the picture books in our family library are grouped into theme boxes; animals, Australian, history, geography etc, this week and last we have predominately focused on animals, hence why all the books in the following list are centered around this one topic. Recall the…
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My Daybook: 10th November, 2016
Outside my window… it’s a cooler evening, the hot ‘bushfire winds’ from earlier in the week have been broken by fierce thunderstorms I am thankful… to have been able to enjoy the gift of motherhood, I’m most conscious that many women/couples suffer from fertility issues and so I never, ever take this gift for granted I am thinking… about the American election results, so stunned and yet not. Reading around, ‘listening’ to the average American it appears the votes weren’t necessarily a vote for Trump but more a vote against Clinton, a groundswell reaction against corruption. Fascinating Learning all the time… we began our annual bookfeast last week with Leaping into Literature,…
- Blog, Book Reviews, Home Education, Home Education - Language Arts, Home Education - Leaping into Literature, Learning
A Firm Tradition, Our Fourth Year: Leaping into Literature
Hard to believe it’s Term 4 already! For the past three years Term 4 for us has included our annual tradition; Leaping into Literature where we immerse ourselves in reading through a huge slew of picture books and the older children have time to dive into towering piles of novels. This year however I’d made the decision we would miss Leaping into Literature to continue ‘slogging away’ at Language Arts as I felt ‘pressured’ because my goals for Language Arts haven’t been meet. However it appears that once a tradition is set, it just can’t be unbroken, so we’re Leaping into Literature after all 🙂 We’re a few weeks late beginning the bookfest, but…
