Home Education - Planning
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Keeping it Simple
As I shared before I have spent a lot of time lately praying for guidance for the direction our learning is to take for 2009. Prince Charming and I were reading and discussing homeschool philosophy and approaches before even our first was conceived. John Holt and Raymond Moore had a huge influence in those years. When Koala was a toddler we added Maria Montessori to our library and read a little of Waldorf. As the children grew older we delved more into what Valerie Bendt, Gayle Graham and Charlotte Mason had to say. All had an influence. A major legacy from our ‘formative years’ is I have often strived for…
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I’m Pondering Simple
Over the last several weeks I have spent time during the holidays praying about the academic direction our family is to take for 2009. Our holidays have now concluded and with Term 1 beginning this week I now have to put theory to practice. I have lots of thoughts to share of my own but for now I’ll share some posts which I’m pondering. Ruth’s Homeschooling a Wide Age Range resonated deeply. Unit studies cover many subjects around one topic. This is a great way to learn, if you can do it; in our family we have enjoyed various unit studies over the years. You can buy unit studies ready-made,…
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Brainstorming with my Readers
Term 4 starts back next week for us here, and I’m batting around different ideas in my head and not making progress. So.. I’ve come here to brainstorm, I’d love some input. For the last week of last term I tried something a little different with my dc. I guess you could call it ‘block days’ for want of a better word. On the Monday we had ‘Math Buster Monday’ where we devoted ALL of Monday to Maths, on the Tuesday we had ‘Traveling Tuesday’ where we ‘flew’ to Japan. I had all these other catchy names thought out too, Wednesday was to be ‘Wordslueth Wednesday’ (but we had a…
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Planning for the Upcoming Term Part 3
As I shared previously I am organising our subjects for the term into blocks. For the five youngest that is. Block A will consist of History, Language Arts and Fine Arts A, Block B will consist of Science,Geography, Typing and Fine Arts B. Maths, Faith and Literature will be included in blocks A and B. Science for our highschoolers will require no planning as they are working their way through Exploring the World of Chemistry when they complete that they are going to start Exploring the World of Physics. Our primary/infants children have expressed a desire to do a unit on animals. To this end I have gathered all of…
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Planning for the Upcoming Term Part 2
When the children were all primary age literature and poetry reading happened constantly and easily, for some inexplicable reason it has been far more of an effort and only happened infrequently during the last couple of years:( To facilitate literature sharing I have started planning book and poetry lists. But just as importantly as what is to happen I needed to plan when. Last term I started Circle Time and broadened this to include poetry and picture books with my younger children. At the end of term I was determined to have a read aloud time with my older children, we started hosting this at 10am before our morning tea…
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Planning for the Upcoming Term Part 1
Planning looks different for every family, in this household planning even looks different every term, dependent on many factors. Factors to take into consideration include children’s learning styles, mum’s teaching style, children’s interests and mum’s strengths and weaknesses and simply the sheer logistics of a large family. Oh yeah and this term I have to factor in a new baby due in 10 weeks! and a First Confession, First Holy Communion, my Mum’s Wedding, my mil coming for an extended stay, soccer season continuing, Dh starting his CPA course, Dd’s birthday and, well you get the picture, life. I’m not a planner by nature, that is I’m not good at…
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Homeschool Time Management for Children
Desire to imbibe our children with a thirst for knowledge has long been part of our goals, ideas always abound in our thoughts but how to translate this into the practical, the reality of educating and nurturing seven children is the question. The simple reality is that in the not too distant past we had several children who for various reasons needed to learn to be more independent in their studies. As well, listening to older and wiser home educating mothers we realised that a vital skill we needed to impart to our children was time management. In the not too distant future we will be addressing the transition to…
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Rich Ideas for Our Little Ones
A wonderful new blog has appeared First Heralds dedicated to our young children’s Faith formation. I quote their mission statement:Through the grace of the sacrament of marriage, parents receive the responsibility and privilege of evangelizing their children. Parents should initiate their children at an early age into the mysteries of the faith of which they are the “first heralds” for their children. They should associate them from their tenderest years with the life of the Church. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2225-6) I really encourage you to drop in regularly, many wonderful treasure already. Another new blog is Play in Time by dedicated Marianne who is sharing her passion and…
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Circle Time
I’ve been recently inspired by Rebecca’s posts on circle time to finally get a little organised and re-introduce this activity to our family. Years ago;) with my older children we enjoyed ‘circle time’ although back then I called it ‘mat time’ because that is what we called it when I went to school. It is quite interesting to note that alot of the enthusiasms happening around the blogosphere I used to do with my older children, before I knew about the big wide world of blogs, and am now re-visitng with my younger ones, does this make me old??? Anyhow what exactly is circle time? Well it may vary a…
