Mar. 26, 2007 - The Annunciation
Instituted by the Apostles. The oldest Marian festival.The day marked the beginning of the New Year in old style calendars.
One of those features of the Christian story which is repulsive to the modern mind. To be quite frank, we do not at all like the idea of a "chosen people". Democrats by birth and education, we should prefer to think that all nations and individuals start level in the search for God, or even that all religions are equally true. It must be admitted at once that Christianity makes no concessions to this point of view. It does not tell of a human search for God at all, but of something done by God for, to, and about 
The "great things" are nothing less than that she became the Mother of God, in which work so many and such great good things are bestowed upon her as pass man's understanding. For on this there follows all honor, all blessedness, and her unique place in the whole of mankind, among whom she has no equal, namely, that she had a child by the Father in Heaven, and such a child.
She herself is unable to find a name for this work, it is too exceedingly great; all she can do is break out in the fervent cry: "They are great things," impossible to describe or define. Hence men have crowded all her glory into a single word, calling her the Mother of God.
No one can say anything greater of her or to her, though he had as many tongues as there are leaves on the trees, or grass in the fields, or stars in the sky, or sand by the sea. It needs to be pondered in the heart, what it means to be the Mother of God
from Martin Luther's sermon "On the MAGNIFICAT"
Mar. 23, 2007 - Rain Rain glorious rain!
Rain, rain glorious rain!
Rain on me
Rain on you
Rain all over the windowpanes
Rain running all over the leaves, shining the flowers all clean again
Oh I am SO glad its raining again
by T. Cromb (9 years)
Mar. 19, 2007 - The Feast of Saint Joseph
Here is our altar decorated for the Feast of Saint Joseph. We chose “the song of the swallows” to read and made swallow pictures
and decorated images of the saint.
We didn’t think we had a statue of
Mar. 18, 2007 - The feast of Saint Patrick
“Right,” said St. Patrick beaming.” And now Michael, when you say God is three persons in One Nature, what do you mean?”
“Three persons,” said Michael slowly.” Three Who…”
“Three Who-They-Ares,” said Cecilia.
“And one Nature, one What-God-Is,” said Michael” Is that right, St Patrick?”
“It is,” said St Patrick
“But then,”said Cecilia,” It isn’t a mystery after all; there’s really no one-and-three trouble about it.”
“No,” said St Patrick” The mystery isn’t how three can be one or how one can be three at all: you can’t even get near the mystery until you understand that much.
The mystery is how it can be that if you asked God,’ what are You?’ the answer would be simply ‘God’, but if you asked ‘Who are You?’ the answer would be threefold. That’s the mystery, and I could tell you a lot about that too, and perhaps I will tomorrow, but just now you had better finish off that milk and be off home.”(from St Patrick’s Summer by Marigold Hunt)
Mar. 12, 2007 -
each night in Lent in our family we try to pray like this: We have large posters of each station on black card with pictures which we have placed on the living room walls. We pray just one station each night. Then we move to near our family altar and pray one decade of a sorrowful mystery. We use a scriptural rosary to aid our prayers and we have pictures of the mystery for the week on a bulletin board near the altar. We change these each week and put the "used" ones in a folder. By the end of the year(!) we should have our own art of the rosary book
Mar. 10, 2007 - Our Rosary in Lent
For Lent we are praying the Sorrowful mysteries. We add art of the Mystery for the week on a bulletin board.
"By His wound of rejection may Jesus heal us all of prideso that we, like Him,may become perfectly docile to the Father's will. Jesus' struggle in the garden between His humanity and divinity teaches us the importance of doing God's will and not taking the easy way out, because
by His Holy Cross He has redeemed the world."(from "Rosary Mditations of Mother Teresa of Calcutta")
Mar. 9, 2007 - Recent nature "finds"
Nature is all around us!
The first picture shows some lorikeets in our apple tree. The apples are tiny and very sour but they bring the birds which we love. The other nature finds are taken in our local shopping centre parking area!
I love these flowering gums, they attract the little New
Mar. 7, 2007 - One small thing
During lent we put up a bare grapevine. 
Each day as the children see someone doing some good deed they put up a leaf. The idea is to look outside themselves and focus on the good in others; the small things that people do that really do make a difference. The last two weeks of lent are for adding grapes (big sacrifices we make). Then on Holy Thursday we add all kinds of insects, butterflies and caterpillars are great favorites. Finally after the Easter Vigil the children come home to find the centre of the mural torn to reveal a picture of the Risen Christ with usually a family gift to us all to share(eg big block of chocolate) This is last years mural
Mar. 3, 2007 - Our Lenten Cross
During Lent we are trying to add to what we do. We want the children to focus on what they are doing rather than thinking about what is not happening. I like what my friend Anna’s mother says in her beautiful Italian accent” It’s not what goes into the mouth that we should worry about but what comes out of it!”
One thing that we can bring out of our mouth while we are laying them up in our hearts is prayer. Every evening since Ash Wednesday we have lit our purple tea-light cross. Each night we light one candle less.
There are forty candles in all. By Good Friday we are hoping this will be a very visual memory for us all of a world without the Christ light in it. When we have lit all the candles for that night we pray one station and one sorrowful mystery of the rosary. Then we snuff out all the candles and leave our prayer space quietly.
Mar. 2, 2007 - Beware if you read others blogs!
I was doing a little blog reading amongst my friends and came on a post by CarpeBanana on TS Eliott's poem Macavity. (http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/CarpeBanana/288900/Macavity.html). Reading Sybil Marshall's book "An Experiment in Education", I decided to "experiment" with the poem. I read it without any comment to ds5+ds9. Ds9 then decided to draw Macavity.(though he claimed he couldn't get an exact match because "that darn cat" didn't like to be recognised)The next day and all this week they have asked me to read the poem. In fact I hesitate to admit that it appears to them we haven't "done school" unless the poem is read! Should I be worried, do I have future "cat burglars in training" in our home?! Master9 presented me with the following this morning:
A Cat adventure
along the wall
a twig snapped,
two soft thumps,
A button clicked, the lights turned off. All was silent……..
Ring! Ring! Mr X yawned and with one hand switched off the alarm clock, with the other rubbed his eyes.
The door BANGED open! Y, the detective rushed in and said”Your diamond its GONE!”
“My diamond ! my diamond! How?!”
“I don’t know, but I found a bit of fur.”
“You mean that a cat robbed my diamond?”
Yes, but I’m sure it wasn’t Martin-bone or Jack Half-paw. It can’t have been Mark Stub-tale”
……….”No not Macavity!”
….”Well go and investigate”
“But its useless”
“Go and do it, I WANT MY DIAMOND!”
“Yes Mr X” and he ran out of the room.
to be continued
Feb. 28, 2007 - Our Lenten Notebooks
The children and I are reading the book"The Story of Easter" by Eileen Fisher. I really like this book because as well as being beautifully written its illustrations remind me of something we kind of go crazy about in our house: Babushka dolls! I had thoughts about telling the story of Easter in a Babushka doll format but that was looking way too complicated. Then my good friend Anna found some paper doillies whose border is very similar to babushka dolls. So we have ended up with egg shaped notebooks.And a project that is a lot less mum-intensive than the previous idea!
Feb. 22, 2007 - OUR NATURE CORNER
Nature study takes place all over our house and yard.In the living room is a collage noticeboard of Australian birds.In ds5 + ds 9's room are countless rocks,sticks etc.
Recently we have developed a nature corner in our schoolroom that has a focus/theme related to the season: 
Feb. 10, 2007 - ABOVE THE TABLE
Above is an image of the notice board above our dining room table. It is all set up with some of our studies for February. At the very top is our liturgical wheel. Beneath this are pictures of saints we are focusing on this month. Further down is a copy of the scripture we are memorizing this term “the Beatitudes” and beside that our prayer we are learning together. Below the saints images are pictures downloaded from the internet of the art of Clementine Hunter. To the side of this is a list of the poems we are reading together: The Pied Piper of Hamelin/ the Tale of Custard the Dragon/The Highwayman
Lastly at the bottom are some images related to L’s duck/Ping study.
I will post a picture of the notice board opposite our family altar and our nature focus table + notice board later.
Feb. 9, 2007 - FRIDAY
Friday:
February faith notebook:: yet again we stepped into our time-machines. This time we stopped at the Feast of Candlemass. We read a beautiful poem:
Tis not the robin I hear today,
The robin with breast of red;
Ah, long the day since he fled away
From the fields now lying dead!
Tis not the thrush nor the nightingale,
Nor the lark that soars above;
But under the eaves in the wintry gale
I list to the cooing dove.
O dove at rest on the rooftree high,
O dove on the earth below,
Tis little ye know what ye tell to me
Of doves of the long ago!
For I close my ears to the city's roar,
And dream I am far away,
To stand at the mighty
On the Presentation Day.
And I see the Mother with tender Child-
A mother, yet maiden, too-
Who stands in the ranks of the sin-defiled,
As Jehovah bade her do.-
A penny dove for a holocaust,
And a penny dove for sin,
Ah, cooing doves from the cages tossed,
What blessedness ye win!
For I see the blood of each gentle bird
Poured out the stones upon,
While the wondrous prophecies are heard
From Anna and Simeon.
Ah, Mother of God, in the
Who seest each bleeding dove,
I know thou art seeing the blood of Him,
Thine own little Bird of love!
O dove at rest on the rooftree high,
O dove in the city street,
I hark to the sound of your cooing cry,
And I find it wondrous sweet.
Ah; spring may come with the robin's trill
And the thrush's roundelay,
But never a bird my soul to thrill
As the doves of Candlemas Day.
Robert, Cyril. Mary Immaculate: God's Mother and Mine.
+ coloured icon style pictures. Next we made a shutter/window with collared doves which opened up to reveal a beautiful print of the Presentation and the words.
H. commented on the actual Feast of Candlemass two collared doves had appeared in our yard(I had noticed this last week also) and that while we used to get many; it was now unusual to see a two together.
Nature study: I read from Wonderland of Nature by Nuri Mass + the boys added univalve+ bivalve drawings to their nature journals. T. commented on the similarity with the word univalve and the Italian word for one which then extended into a discussion on the two Latin roots. We are taking a sabbatical from Latin this year. We will examine Latin and Greek roots when they occur amidst our studies but that will do for the time being. All things in their seasons.
T. read Heroes by Charles Kingsley and completed a copybook exercise while L. read Peter and Jane. L. decided to complete the Jack + Jill exercise began on Wed. He then successfully spelled all the “ill” words orally.
We reviewed the gospel reading for Sat. night. + the boys completed a sheet about the ‘Bee Goods”!
Both boys completed Maths.
T. practiced piano + completed a theory exercise.
T. completed an exercise from Stories with a view and here it is:
He is a cavalier. His name is Billy. His ears hang down on his happy looking face. He has a longer face than most. He is nine years old. He is a tri-cavalier.
I am satisfied with this as a first written narration.(He wrote it without asking for any help and didn’t complain about his hand feeling sore. For a boy with major sensory integration issues we need to go very gently!)
I read to both boys from Angel Food For Boys and Girls Vol 1.chap 8
Evening: we prayed the 4th joyful mystery of the rosary. We looked at art that depicts this mystery. We will pray this mystery each evening.
Our family readaloud “The Saturdays” by Elizabeth Enright.
Footnote: just as an aside I think its fascinating how L’s Ping/duck study, our Swallows+Amazons reading, our science experiments on water and our Catechesis of the Good Shepherd time “Baptism” all kind of inter-related and I wasn’t even intending this!
Feb. 8, 2007 - THURSDAY
Thursday
February faith notebook: we hopped into our phone booth again! The boys really participating with noisy enthusiasm!! Today we stopped at the Feast of St Brigid. We read St Brigid’s Cloak and the children all made beautiful cloak pages for their notebooks; each uniquely special. Next the boys made St Brigid spoon puppets. They did this very independently today.
Swallows+Amazons: continued listening to our tape. We focused on land and water forms and made pages to illustrate this.
Violin practice next
T. read the 1st chap of Seabird by + copy booked:
‘Chapter 1
Through all this happy tumult a snow-white bird flew silently. Smaller than other seagulls , it had their yellowish beak, but its feat were black. It’s body and outstretched wings had no dark markings. The Ivory Gull looked like its name a piece of carved ivory soaring in magic flight.’
+ illustrated his copywork (boy can this boy draw!)
At the same time L.+ I continued with our duck study. We looked at Mary Cassatt’s picture of ducks. We discussed the sacrament of confession and how God’s love and strengthening comes to us through this sacrament..
Weekly Science experiments time: using the Usborne science Activities Volume 1 we looked at some of the properties of water. The boys had a lot of fun floating a pencil just under the surface of a glass of water, blowing the water out of a full can and seeing it “pop” to the surface and making a multitude of boats that floated(mostly!)
Australian studies: We began reading The Way of the Whirlwind by Mary + Elizabeth Durack.
T. continued with piano practice. He has much of Minuet 1 sight-read!
Both T+ L completed Maths assignments
Evening: we prayed the 4th joyful mystery of the rosary.
