Living
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Binding Work, Preserving Memories
At the conclusion of each year I bind all of our children’s academic work into a keepsake. The reason for this is twofold; firstly we wish to demonstrate to the children that their work is precious and worthwhile keeping, secondly in an effort to tame the paper tiger. Finding a workable system to keep track of loose papers over the years has been a challenge, finally we have hit upon a solution that works for us. Each of the children has a clip board which holds not only has their ‘expectation sheet’ of work needed to be done each week/term, but any loose sheets, handwriting, maps, colouring etc At the end of…
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Spreading His Wings and Flying
In only three short weeks our eldest son will be leaving home! Our second child to ‘leave the nest’ and only 12 short months after his sister, how quickly the ‘ranks’ are thinning! Carpenter’s departure date has been rather unexpected and has happened with a rapidity that is only just sinking in. He is excited and keen to begin the next part of his life journey. Twelve months ago Carpenter’s casual job became full time in many respects. For six months he juggled a full schedule until deciding his study was suffering and he needed to scale back, during the next six months he focused on his studies and his…
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Living History
“Imagination does not stir at the suggestion of the feeble, much diluted stuff that is too often put into children’s hands.” “The fatal mistake is in the notion that he must learn ‘outlines,’ of the whole history…of the world. Let him, on the contrary, linger pleasantly over the history of a single man, a short period, until he thinks the thoughts of that man, is at home in the ways of that period. Though he is reading and thinking of the life time of a single man, he is really getting intimately acquainted with the history of a whole nation for a whole age.” Charlotte Mason Charlotte Mason’s principles of…
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Calendar Countdown!!
Many families at this time of the year are marking down their Advent calendars. We however, aren’t focused on Advent calendars ’cause we’re busy marking down the days until Anna Maria arrives home. Three days till she is here!!!!!! It has been a long year without her, five long months since she was home. Safe travels to our darling girl, we can hardly wait:):){{{}}}
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Inspired by Our Koala Sighting
Inspired by our koala sighting this week our ‘A Book & Activity’ was all about koalas. Our readings included; Koala Lou by Mem Fox, Kolo the bush Koala(OOP) and Two-Thumbs the Koala by Leslie Rees.(OOP) The first day we made toilet paper roll Koalas. Next we enjoyed making origami koalas. On the third day we made movable koalas. Everybody enjoyed joining in once again and my enthusiasm continues to grow:) well it does about ‘a book & activity,’ I confess we didn’t manage all our more formal academics, so obviously I’m still a ‘work in progress’.
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Koala Sighting!
Huge excitement at our house this afternoon, Princess discovered a Koala in a gum tree!!! only 25 metres (82 feet) from the house. Investigating extremely loud grunting noises, she was rewarded with the rare sighting of one of our Australian mammals. Koalas are ‘vulnerable‘ in NSW, I certainly haven’t sighted one since a child over 30 years ago. Memorable moment!!
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12th Year of Faith, Fellowship and Fun
Every year, for the past 12 years we have been blessed to enjoy a week of camping with fellow Catholic home educating families. A week of fun and fellowship, sharing our faith, beginning our days with Mass and ending with the Rosary and Benediction. Each year we celebrate First Holy Communion and Confirmation. This year our god-daughter was Confirmed and it was a privilege to be her sponsor and for both of us to be there with her. Our young people are happy to gather together as a choir and support the Mass with their instrumental talents. We are profoundly grateful for their willingness and abilities. There is something rather special about young men singing for…
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Monthly Memories – July 2012
Sharing our Monthly Memories. A productive learning month, capturing a few of the highlights. Carpenter’s essay……Carpenter entered an essay competition, ‘The Greek term ‘polymath’ referred to a person who had expertise in a number of different subject areas. Is there a more contemporary figure that you believe deserves this term? What specific contributions has this figure made to his or her fields of research?’ This essay was the impetus for a huge growth area for him. Research, diligence, bibliographies are just some of the skills learnt. His essay writing skills grew enormously during this period. I have lots more to share about this, which I will in a later post, suffice it for now…
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Nature Walk (2)
Joining Elisa Loves in a Nature Walk Early one morning at dawn Through the lenses I finally capture a kookaburra, a shy bird my success was only due to shooting through the glass door, he flew away as soon as I ventured out.
