Home Education
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November – Month of All Souls
In the spirit of fellowship a friend and I have undertaken to meet once a month.  Each month our gatherings will have a different focus, we chose to begin with the Church’s Monthly Dedications.  As we began in November our first focus was The Holy Souls. The children gathered together and we read parts of Father Philip Tells a Ghost Story (not a favourite as the writing style is long winded).  We discussed what The Church Triumphant, Militant and Suffering means and discussed Purgatory and prayer; “It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.”Mach 2:46 We then created notebook pages using a…
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The Feast of Christ the King – Celebration and a Notebook
Yesterday we celebrated the Feast of Christ the King. Part of our celebrations included enjoying our simple Crown cake using Elana’s Chocolate Chip Banana Cake recipe. We had been preparing for the Feast in a variety of ways throughout the week preceding.  A simple and fun activity was to sew felt crowns.  I cut, Princess and Michelangelo sewed, easy:) We also created another notebook, including a simple colouring for the younger children. and a more detailed picture for the older children. We filled in a worksheet (not so popular;) and frustratingly some  questions and answers didn’t match the readings in our missals. Jenn’s centrepiece is now a yearly tradition. To further explain the…
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Creating a Rosary Notebook
Towards the end of October after a discussion with our tweens and younger children, we’ve been enjoying a different approach to our Faith lessons, notebooking.  Some ideas are quickly pulled together, some take a little more searching.  I thought I’d share here in the desire to help anyone who may be searching for ideas for Faith notebooks too. As it was October, the Month of the Holy Rosary,  we decided that would be our focus.  The majority of our notebooking came from That Resource Site, Celebrate the Month of the Holy Rosary, there were many links here we didn’t have time to use including beautiful notebooking pages. The first two notebooking…
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Re-Discovering our Creativity
This week and last, creativity has flourished in our home.  We have set up two centres, art and craft.  As we have not focused on the creative arts for a long time we are rather excited that the centres have been greeted with so much enthusiasm. The craft centre has all craft materials at hand, stored in shelving under the long bench-top, with a hot glue gun ready.  Every day the children have been constantly and independently creating:) The art centre receives more direction. Each day I facilitate a different focus laying out supplies of the better quality materials with a stack of blank paper. One day the focus was soft pastels, the next two…
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Homeschooling Meme
Imagine my surprise and delight when Jeanne tagged me for a meme. I was so honoured to read she was interested to hear from me! So… 1. One homeschooling book you have enjoyed Over the years I have read a number of homeschooling books, particularly back when Anna Maria was a baby and we were cementing our decision to home educate our children. I’ve previously shared many titles in My Top ‘How To’ Homeschool Picks and Our Friendship Quilt. All our previous reading has influenced us our home education journey, resulting in an eclectic style including; Charlotte Mason and child directed education. As a veteran home educator, and a mum…
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Children and Motivation
How do you motivate your children? I was recently asked this by a mother of children aged 5-12. As I struggled and groped to sound coherent I realised there isn’t a simple answer, as our self-discovery lies in years of parenting and the finding of each child’s unique ‘key’. Whilst short term motivation can be easier to obtain, the development of self-motivation is our aspiration and, I suspect my friend’s also. When new parents, PC and I read Punished by Rewards: The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise and Other Bribes – Alfie Kohn. Kohn maintains that the common strategy of managing people, children and adults alike, by dangling rewards, “do this and you’ll get that”…
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Stepping Forth
Well the day has finally arrived, mentally we knew it would but can you ever really be prepared? Our first-born is ready to move forth, to begin the next stage in her life’s journey. A new beginning for us that will impact across many areas of our family dynamics. Designing your own home education curriculum makes it is a little harder to pre-plan a clear concluding date. Do you finish with a ‘grade’ level, when all assigned work is done, or use age as your guide? As Koala draws closer to her 18th, age seems a good definitive, but mostly we have been guided by her needs. We were expecting to have…
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Literacy and Beginner Readers
Educational experts are enthusiastic in promoting exposure to literature, and exposure from a young age, as the key to reading success. Language, thinking and literacy development are fostered by regular reading. Enjoying and sharing books has been played a huge role in our family culture over the years, however at times it has ebbed rather than flowed. I was recently discussing these tides with a friend and reflecting on how this may have affected the ages our children began reading. My friend had noted a similar pattern in her own home. When our older children were young we enjoyed a huge amount of literature together. We read many picture books…
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Our Friendship Quilt
Who have been your friends along your homeschooling journey? Sue has shared about friends who have influenced her as she has travelled along her Home Education journey and invites us to share about our friends. So to continue my story. When my mum began homeschooling it was the early 80s, home education then was perceived by many to be illegal in NSW, and mum was part of a spearhead movement of pioneering home educators. Home educators who not only led the way in education but fought for legitimacy, for the rights of their children and future generations. From my mother and other intrepid families I learnt much. I learnt about standing by your convictions,…
