Living
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Indpendent Work and Accountability
This week I have re-introduced an idea we have used before, personal checklist sheets. We have long had our routine for the day pasted on the board so the children are supposed to know what is coming next but for some reason I am often the only one who looks at it. Therefore it is always me telling the children what they have to do next. I know what is required and what they have to do but the children don’t seem to despite the fact that I thought all was clear. In my attempt to address this problem I created an excel spreadsheet with the days of the week…
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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…
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Visual Presentation Becomes Keepsake
Every year for the last several years I have gathered the children’s work together at the end of the year and bound it together. These binders have become treasured keepsakes of the children, they hover around whilst I am compiling it all together, anxiously waiting to see their book. I have just finished doing last years, this is a job that takes a good day or so to do six binders. It is my way of validating to the children that their work is important, it is worth keeping and yet at the same time taming the paper tiger. They make a wonderful memory to look back on and from…
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Creating A Family Timeline Keepsake
For so long I have wanted our family to keep a timeline/book of centuries but wasn’t too sure how to go about it, then one day I was browsing at Suzanne’s site and was so excited by the timeline that her boys were using and how they were keeping it. Finally the ‘lightbulb clicked’ and I thought “I could do that”. Suzanne’s timeline was Amy Pak’s History Through the Ages. I just loved the layout but the cost was too prohibitive for an Australian due to postage and currency conversion. I started brainstorming other ideas, sourcing local realtors in my quest to make my own timeline. Contacting the local printers…
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‘Ask and Ye Shall Receive’
Just before Christmas I started dropping hints to Prince Charming that what I would like, really like would be display shelves for our ‘theme’ books. You know like the ones that they have in the children’s section of the library. I thought having the books displayed attractively would entice the dc to pick up the books and read of their own accord. At that time I was gathering the books together and placing them in baskets which was successful too, but you know, always thinking;) One Saturday Michaelangelo and I attended a garage sale and found my Christmas present! I walked in and saw display shelves! Well technically they were…
- Blog, Book Chat, Hearth & Health, Home Education, Home Education - Organisation, In the Library, Living
What I have been busy doing
I’ve been busy this last fortnight spending many hours entering our personal library into a database. Using Readerware I have been able to create a book database by scanning in the barcode(thank you Prince Charming for the scanner) or entering the ISBN of our books. In many cases I have typed in author and title manually if the book is pre ISBN (1960s). I now have our home library manageable due to this software. The neatest feature that I love is the ‘category’ option. Today I was able to enter in ‘Christmas’ and view our relevant books to aid in my planning for Advent. I first trialled the program for…
- Blog, Books - A Book and Activity, Home Education, Home Education - Art & Craft, Home Education - Reggio Emilia, Learning, Living
Redwall Abbey
For a number of years now the dc have been avid Redwall fans. Not only do we have the entire set of Brian Jacques’ books but they are collecting ‘extras’ as they each want their own set. A couple of years ago their friends also caught the Redwall bug. One holidays, friends decided to host a ‘Redwall Feast’. Excitement was high as we outfitted everybody in costumes. We included characters such as Rakkety Tam, Martin the Warrior, Tess the Churchmouse and Prince Charming made a lovely Log-a-Log. Bows were made and archery skills were sharpened. Many a visit was made to the Redwall Kitchen for recipes. We made a Hot…
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Nemo the Possum
Living in the bush has found me with a camera in hand often trying to capture the wildlife. Every morning I only need to look out my windows for fresh ‘subjects’. One day soon I am going to post some pictures. For now though I must share Nemo with you. Nemo lives in our shed, actually to be precise he lives in the roller door of the shed. When we pull down the door we can hear poor Nemo rolling around inside the roller, we suspect that his nest was previously in the gum that came down in the hailstorm the day we moved in. Last night Prince Charming was…
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A Brother’s Gift of Love
Since we have moved here we have a long list of ‘to do’s’ and a small amount of time. Sounds familiar I’m sure. One of the to do’s was to build a sandpit. The younger girls particularly miss items from our backyard in town. The pool and swings head the list. I thought a sandpit would be a great start to our ‘playground.’ Months had passed though and still no sandpit until… One day Carpenter decided it was a project he could undertake. First he selected a spot under the lone tree near the house that provided shade and wasn’t a gum. I was worried about those ‘widow makers’ dropping…
