Living
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Our Annual Home Educators Sports Day
About ten years ago our local home educators group hosted its first ‘Picnic Race Day’ way back when Koala was not yet school age. We had races, novelty events and treasure hunts; as the children grew older and the group bigger we evolved into a more traditional sports day , still retaining the novelty events. Yesterday saw us once again gathered together. It was a lovely winter’s day, the sun was shinning and the skies were a clear blue. Thirty-eight children gathered together to enjoy a day of sports and companionship. We started with sprint races for the various age races. Michelangelo gives it all he’s got here. After the…
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Learning Rooms in Small Houses
One of my favourite posts in blogosphere are pictures and descriptions of learning rooms. I enjoy seeing different families’ environments and can well understand how these beautiful rooms would foster creativity both for the children and for mum. But what happens when your learning area isn’t too thrilling ascetically, when you are very limited for space? Well for one you get very creative in maximizing what available area you do have. We live in a very small house, with ten people. It literally is ten steps by eight steps in this room. This is our learning/computer/dining/lounge room all rolled in one. The dining table you see in the foreground is…
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The Good, The Bad, The Ugly – Term 1 Review
**The following is rather long, this post is an honest look at homeschooling in a large family. Looking back over my plans I’m rather surprised to discover that we generally stuck to task this term. This is indeed no small matter!! Diligence and self-discipline were learnt for a starter. Progress was made:) Highlights include : Poetry- We will definitely continue with poem memorisation next term. The children learnt a number of pieces, their own and often their siblings. They enjoyed this and I believe it is a wonderful part of their education. A formal poetry morning didn’t happen as often as I intended, I believe I need to change our…
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Little Girls and Twirly Skirts
Princess is really keen to learn to sew. We decided to start with a circle skirt. They are very quick to make and require no pattern, Princess’ speed on the sewing machine ‘accelerator’ is ‘flat out’. Carpenter kept remarking that he won’t be in the car when Princess starts to drive. Within a couple of hours the skirt was complete. Princess’ first creation with only a little bit of help. She is radiantly happy and is planning on making more. More than enough twirl to keep a little girl happy.
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Building Medieval Weapons
The children are continuing with their project work some more diligently than others. For some, individual projects have given way to jointly working together, which creates a wonderful flow of energy. Michelangelo is researching Medieval Weaponry. This is very reminiscent for us as quite a few years back Carpenter was into making all sorts of weapons, although I do think time has honed skills. Michelangelo is planning on making miniature replicas of various weapons. His first item is the catapult. The spring mechanism of rubber bands produced a surprising spring. Carpenter made a slightly different model of the catapult.
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Following Interests
I have briefly shared that we are trialling a little of project based learning. We have most intrigued by the areas of interest the children have each chosen, they are rather varied and some choices have surprised us. Princess’ choice however wasn’t a surprise in that she expressed an interest to learn more about Native Americans, in particular the Plains People. This was an area of interest she had last year and it had got pushed aside. Hopefully we can encourage her this year. Princess was rather keen to make a teepee. A small scale teepee was suggested but when she saw a picture of a large one she wanted…
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Encouraging Budding Writers
As I shared Carpenter and Koala have been busy writing novelettes. Carpenter has always been interested in writing although his spelling has not always been easy to follow, recently though he has made great improvement. Writing for an audience is a valuable experience as he not only has to take care with his mechanics but has to be certain that his writing reads well. For years I have despaired over the lack of writing done by Koala, she has always read prolifically but never wrote. Amazingly as she has started putting pen to paper in the last year we have been astounded at just how well she can write, so…
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Creating Peace from Chaos
We have been working on minimising the chaos that can occur here. This week we have implemented my ideas (No.3) regarding no interruptions, ironing out the rules and strategies. I thought I’d share, as talking to my homeschooling friends this week I realise we are not alone. The interruptions that occur are all related to missing material and uncertainty regards what is required. To combat this, after prayers we spend time making sure everyone has their material at hand and that all are clear in regards to the entries on their expectations sheets. To help this we make certain that books are put back into the same spot daily. Having…
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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…
