Home Education
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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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Writing Elsewhere Today
Today I’m honoured to be featured at Learning Alongside in April’s running ‘Interview with a Home Educator series.’ April posed some real reflective questions such as; Why did you choose to home educate your children? Do you follow a particular learning style/philosophy? Has there been any major obstacle you have had to overcome to pursue homeschooling? and What is one piece of advice that you would give to a new homeschooling parent? If you haven’t already discovered my answers to these do pop on over, and be sure to read the previous interviews with other Aussie bloggers. A great way to find more Aussie home ed bloggers, best of all April…
- Blog, Home Education, Home Education - Charlotte Mason, Home Education - Nature Study, Home Education - Our Journey, Living
Nature Study Failure? – The Adventurous Years
One day we invited another ‘town’ friend to join us at the natural ponding on the edge of the hockey fields. In amongst ensuring my toddler didn’t fall in, sketching the ducks on the pond, finding a bird’s nest and discussing the pond’s flora an idea was born. An idea that was to change our nature experience, one that was to introduce our children to a whole new dimension, to throw two intrepid mothers into a series of wild nature adventures….. (Part 1) Part 2 – The Adventurous Years Inspired to expose our children to God’s natural world yet limited by the constraints of town living, my friend Margaret and I decided…
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Our Spelling Dilemma
Our older/middle children are all strong readers, for the most part they have learnt to read with relative ease. Our approach has been to immerse in literature and poetry, then introduce phonetic sounds via Spalding phonics, with the aid of games and our chart. We follow with lots of encouragement as they begin with basic readers. Although we use Spalding’s phonic cards we abandoned their spelling program very early on as the children hated their markings with a passion. Nor did I find the teacher book friendly despite the fact that I have actually undertaken week long courses in both Spalding and LEM Phonics. Spalding proponents would contend this was not a wise…
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Nature Study Failure? – The Earliest Years
Upon introduction to Charlotte Mason her wisdom resonated with me in most subjects, however there were a few that were ‘stumbling blocks’ and we have ‘tackled them’ with varying degrees of success. When Pam was so bold as to publicly admit she was a Nature Study Drop Out I immediately ‘yelled’, “me too”, but over time I began to ponder, was I really? We haven’t excelled at formal studies and have abysmally flopped at nature journalling, however we have succeeded in imparting to our children a respect for, and an interest in nature itself simply by much exposure. Reflecting upon our nature journey that covers more than a decade I began to see a pattern and decided to share…
- Blog, Home Education, Home Education - Charlotte Mason, Home Education - Language Arts, Learning, Living
Quality Literature
“For the children? They must grow up upon the best… There is never a time when they are unequal to worthy thoughts, well put; inspiring tales, well told. Let Blake’s ‘Songs of Innocence’ represent their standard in poetry, DeFoe and Stevenson, in prose; and we shall train a race of readers who will demand literature– that is, the fit and beautiful expression of inspiring ideas and pictures of life.”(Vol 2 pg 263)When I first discovered Charlotte Mason and read her thoughts on living books, I knew I had found a kindred spirit! Some of her other teachings were harder to implement, some we have never succeeded in introducing consistently, but her insistence on quality literature was…
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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…
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Map Fever
Map Fever has struck! We, well I;) began this term with high hopes for our geography studies. After all Africa is a fascinating continent, alas Trail Guide to World Geography was not a good fit for us. We pottered with enjoying some African picture and chapter books, read Children Just Like Me and completed a couple of fact sheets. Still I was failing to capture any enthusiasm, when I remembered what fun we had creating Mega Maps a couple of years back. We printed out a nine page mega map, taped to the window and then taped a local architecture’s ‘cast off’ plans over the top. Michelangelo meticulously traced out…
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Education is A Discipline
Good Habits the best Schoolmasters.––Not mere spurts of occasional punishment, but the incessant watchfulness and endeavour which go to the forming and preserving of the habits of the good life, is what we mean by discipline; and, from this point of view, never were there such disciplinarians as the parents who labour on the lines we would indicate. Every habit of courtesy, consideration, order, neatness, punctuality, truthfulness, is itself a schoolmaster, and orders life with the most unfailing diligence. A habit is so easily formed, so strong to compel.(Vol 2 pg 174) Education is A Discipline. Charlotte Mason has much to share in regards to “Education is a Discipline.” When reading…
