I've been busy learning how to create web pages, and now have my own website! I am moving my blog to a new blog I have created within my website. Visit my new blog at www.cynthiahancox.com/blog, or my website at www.cynthiahancox.com. Be sure to visit the pages linked from there under Our Story, and read our amazing testimony!

See you there!

Love

Cynthia

I haven't written here much lately due to sickness in the family, but had to tell you about one school day last week.....

I came out of my bedroom/office with a pile of printouts all ready for our school work that day. When I got to the living room, I found all the kids busily engaged in an activity of their own. Rebekah (7)  was making turtles out of card and paper (the mummy ones had a secret compartment underneath full of babies!). Sarah (9) had joined her and was trying to make some too. Sam (13) was curled up with her notebook and math. Ben (11) was building and experimenting with various materials, and Chris (15) was reading a historical book.

As I walked through the door, Sam asked me a complicated math question, so I put down the printouts, picked up a whiteboard marker and worked it out. She told me I was right  and promptly asked me another. After the third, I said, so what am I doing, checking your math?? She said, no, I'm trying to work out how big to make a scale model/drawing of Noah's Ark. Ah-hah!  A "teachable moment!"

So, we spend some time together talking about scale, and doing various calculations on the board. Finally we concluded that if she wanted to draw it to scale so it fit on a page (which is 30 cm/12 inches long), it would be 1/450th of the original, and 30cm long and 3 cm high. Then I suggested that she go outside and find out how big Noah's Ark really was. We talked about how she could measure that distance with a tape measure, and concluded it was easier with two people. So she and Sarah went out to our field, stood at one end of the property, marked it with a flag, then measured down the field until they got to the 450 feet specified in the Bible. It turned out to be almost the exact length of our property! They were so excited - one of them came running in to tell me they'd done it and come look. Then we measured the width and height of the ark down a side fence. And took lots of photos. We also calculated that the floor area of the ark would have been .77 of an acre - good thing we have over an acre of land! Then Samantha and Sarah spent most of the rest of the morning working on writing up their findings. Here they are in their own words:

The Size of the Ark

I started out the first week with lots of plans and ideas! Some of them got done, some did not, and most got modified as we went along!

I had told the children we would be doing a unit study on Foxton, including exploring some of the local sites and attractions. And they were really excited about that! They couldn't wait to GO somewhere FUN! LOL

But, we started out the week, staying at home and talking about Foxton, working on copywork and doing Math. On Tuesday afternoon (NZ time), Cindy Rushton's new Back to the Heart of Homeschooling series began, and I was able to drop into the study for just a few minutes near the end of Cindy's presentation. I'm looking forward to hearing the full audio - but one thing she said in those few minutes that stuck was "go and have some fun with your children!"

So, next morning, we loaded everyone up and went to explore the Water Tower in Foxton, and the park around it. We found a garden where the word Foxton is outlined in brick, with the letters being garden beds (unplanted as yet this year). The kids enjoyed posing on the lettering for a photo.

Then we headed down the main street, and seeing as I had a camera with me, I decided to take some photos of this incredible mural that is on a wall opposite the supermarket. The younger children got the idea to pose in the picture as if they were the characters painted on the wall, and I snapped some pics. They LOVED it!

A moment later, my 9yo wrapped her arms around me and said "I'm having so much fun! I'm glad you're our mum, and that I don't have another mother to send me to school!"

What did we learn that day? A little more about our town - we also got an invitation to visit the radio station when they're broadcasting live one weekend. We got a close-up look at the water tower that we will be studying in more depth soon. Did we do any written work? No, apart from some notes the two older girls took at the water tower.

Was it worth it? YES! Be encouraged that some days, departing from the routine is a GOOD thing - it breathes life into your homeschool and your family relationships!

Later in the week, we had a field trip to the local windmill - this is an exact replica of a 17th Centuary Dutch Windmill. It was built by the local community, and is open every day. They grind grains, and supply flour and other products. We got to go up inside the tower, see the grainmill in action, and go out on the balcony and watch the sails of the mill swinging past - and they are FAST! We'll be writing up an article on the windmill - I've been suprised to find how little info is actually out there, so we will be doing some serious research!

During the week we also worked on making a keyword outline and writing our own narrative of the creation of Adam and Eve, and the children have been working well in their Math U See books.

Overall, it was a good week - though I felt like we didn't do as much as I had hoped. Funny thing about the first day back at school - you find out how many things you DIDN'T have as ready as you thought - what you're missing or need more of!

Oh, and we had our first official guest this weekend - my Dad - who was supposed to come Saturday night, but I found a message waiting for me when I finished our chat on Friday, to say he was on his way down then - so we spent the rest of the day rushing to finish the "spare room" - a caravan we were outfitting for that purpose. Over the last few days, we have recarpeted it, made curtains, modified a Queen size bed to fit, and got it all ready. I finished making the last curtain shortly after Dad arrived! We also got the whole house straightened up - the younger kids rooms had been a disaster since they got all their boxes of stuff from storage and just pulled things out willy-nilly, with nowhere to put anything! Nothing like an impending deadline to make me spring into action on things I've been procrastinating over!

Now to plan for this week.

 Do leave a comment before you go -  I love to hear from you!

I decided we would start with doing a unit study on Foxton, the town we have just moved to. A great way to get to know your local area, and a great excuse to explore some of the local attractions!

A number of times over the years, I've heard about lapbooking, but always decided it was something I just couldn't be bothered with - especially as I couldn't think of a good way to store all those things! Since starting reading Cindy Rushton's material, though, I've gotten real excited about Notebooking, and then doing the Homeschool Summer Series, suddenly I'm all fired up about Lapbooking!! It really IS a fun and easy idea - we downloaded some free lapbook kits, which were TERRIFIC, as my kids could do their own whole unit study and lapbook with minimal input from me (great when I was packing to move!) and they loved them.

I spent Sunday evening putting together "Lappacks" for the children to use for our study on Foxton - these are a bit more involved than a simple lapbook, but are going to be great! Mine are made from two manilla folders and a manilla envelope. The envelope is placed face down on the table, one manilla folder is folded shutter book fashion and glued to the back of it, and the second manilla folder is glued to the side of the first one, so you have a double lapbook. I got a bit more complicated - I cut out the middle of the first folder, and glued the sides onto the manilla envelope, then the middle is taped at the top so it become a lift-up flap in the first shutter folder, and the back of the envelope becomes the back of the manilla folder - this is to allow extra room for putting in booklets and other material. The envelope is great for full-size worksheets and other extras. The person I got this idea from, their family use one of these every four weeks, and keep ALL their main school work together - the envelope on the back holds math worksheets, writing drafts etc, and the folder part has booklets and display articles from their theme work. I also solved the storage problem - these lapbooks and lappacks fit perfectly in a simple storage box from the local books shop - $1.95. Fits on the shelf, no bigger than a large binder, and holds lots of lapbooks! Here's some photos of the made up but unused lappacks for you visual types

Knowledge Box Central have a wonderful lapbook kit that you can use for a study of ANY country (click here) - it's one that you will use over and over again. I have downloaded it, and decided to use parts of it for our local unit. So, that has given us a number of booklets we can use, and I have a list of the other topics I want to cover/create booklets for.

I've raided the local library for books on local history, and have picked up some brochures of local places of interest.

Now, to start!

Welcome to my blog! Let me start by recording something of where we are at, where we have come from, and where we hope to be going!

When my eldest child was 8 months old, I heard a Focus on the Family program on the radio, talking about homeschooling. I knew nothing about it, no-one who did it, or even if it was legal in New Zealand, but as I listened to that program something in my heart said "Yes! That's what I'm going to do!"

Children in NZ start school usually at the age of 5. When Chris (the eldest) was 4, the Lord brought us together with an experienced homeschool family, who guided me through the process of getting started. When we started, I had children of 5, 3, 1 and was expecting number 4. We mostly used the A.C.E program - I didn't particularly love it, but it was nice to have something all written out for me.

I diligently taught Chris all the phonics sounds, and how to blend 3 and 4 letter words, all of which he grasped well. BUT, he couldn't read! Oh, he could sound out words, but not read fluently. He would sound out every-single-word, slowly and painfully, no matter how often we had read the same word. He quickly became very frustrated with the very reading -based A.C.E program, and in the end we put it aside for a time and did other things. About the time he turned 9, a light bulb came on in his head, and he just started to read. When he was 11, he started reading because he wanted to, and by 13 was reading at near adult level. Now, at 15, he devours books and is constantly reading! He struggles with spelling, and hates to write, but loves computers and is gifted in drawing.

Meanwhile, I had begun teaching Samantha to read - thinking she would be much easier. She was more interested, determined and she was a girl! Yet, she struggled with reading, but in different ways to Chris. She never could grasp phonics very well, despite HOURS of instruction. Finally she learned to read mostly by sight, and she was also 9 before she really began to read. At 13 she reads a lot, and loves to read, but is still behind in "reading age" - but I don't mind, as I can see she is making constant progress. This year she decided to keep a log of all the chapter books she read, her goal being 100, and now in mid Sept she is up to 107 already! Sam is very diligent and determined - she works very hard and always looks for extra work to do. She is particularly interested in First Aid and the human body - she is a member of St John Ambulance Cadets, and hopes to be a nurse one day. Spelling is a struggle for her, but she loves to do school work of any kind! She is a very caring, compassionate and capable young lady.

Benjamin is a very visual, creative, dramatic, energetic lad. I could see a lot of the same traits in him as a youngster as in Chris in terms of reading (besides which his attention span at 5 yo was 20 seconds!), so I decided not to beat my head against a brick wall, but delay teaching him to read (apart from gently teaching basic phonics) until he was 7 or 8. When he was 9, the children were in public school for a year, and Ben was given private tutition for 1.5 hours a day all year to help his reading and writing. At the end of the year he knew (remembered) only a handful more words than he had known at the beginning of the year. Now, at 11, he is beginning to get the hang of reading, but it is still something that needs a lot of work. He gets very interested in topics and will study them in depth. At the moment it is Steve Irwin (the Crocodile Hunter). He has a stamp collection, and also loves to spend time observing wild animals and birds. He is very good at copying handwriting, and loves to act out stories. He is a wonderful story-teller, and can always make the rest of the family laugh!

Sarah is my determined little bright spark! She is the only one with the same learning style as me - a "field independant" learner. This means that she doesn't need or want any creative "extras" in learning something - she just wants the facts! When she was 4, I put a 1-100 number chart up on the wall of our dining room, as I wanted to use it with the older ones to show them some concepts. EVERY time we sat down for a meal for the next 2 weeks, Sarah wouldn't take a single bite until she had carefully counted 1, 2, 3, 4......100 from the chart. By the end of that time, she knew all the numbers, could read and write them in any context, could count in 1s, 2,s 5s and 10s, and do basic addition and subtraction - all without a word of input from me! She learned to read at 4 too - after just a few basic lessons in sounding out, off she went! At 3, she decided she wanted to learn to knit. After much frustration with needles that were too big and hands too small, I tried to gently suggest maybe it would be easier if she waited until she was a bit bigger - but Sarah wasn't having a bar of it! She practiced with great determination every day until she could do it! Sarah loves to read and write, is a natural speller, and learns easily. She has no academic struggles (other than an insatiable appetite for learning!), but struggles in other areas - perfectionism, impatience, and a low frustration threshold. She is a very kind and generous little girl, but something of a loner.

Rebekah is the youngest - and is equally as determined as her sister! She is 7, learning to read well - loves to carry the Bible around and read passages to anyone who will listen! Enjoys schoolwork, loves animals, and is very people oriented! She has a very tender heart and grieves deeply when an animal dies (we've had rather a lot of that lately!). She has never been very interested in toys - much prefers the company of people of any age, or of animals she can "mother". As a baby/toddler, my husband used to call her "Duracell" (because she keeps going and going and going). If there was a moment of quiet as I was schooling the children, I would immediately wonder "Uh-oh, where's Becky??", and I might find her in the middle of the kitchen floor with Milo (chocolate drink powder) from one end of the floor to the other and her happily eating it. I would dust her off and set her aside while I cleaned up, and  invariably a moment later one of the others would be calling "Mum, Becky's flushing my lego down the toilet" or "Mum, Becky's trying to fly off the balcony"!! I was sooooo relieved when she finally got old enough to begin to really understand what was ok to do, and what wasn't! But even so, she has always been very precocious! When she was 2, we lived in a semi-rural street, and a neighbour down the road had a young, boisterous large dog that regularly escaped and came to play with our dog - problem was it didn't know it's own size and strength and would knock the kids flying with it's tail. One day I glanced out the kitchen window to see the dog's owner at our gate, to retrieve his dog, and all the kids were talking to him. I suddenly realised Miss Two was on the OUTSIDE of the fence - and went to see what was going on. Well, turned out, she was annoyed with the dog, so climbed our fence, marched 1/2 a mile down the road, banged on his door and announced "Your dog is being annoying - come and get it!"

Well, I guess I'll tell you something of my vision for our homeschool!:

I have always had a desire and dream that learning would be something we all did together, that it would be fun, and that we would do lots of creative and interesting things. Of course, some things require WORK, and I'm fine with that, but I didn't want simply a "school-at-home". However, not really knowing how to make this a reality, I opted for a prepared curriculum for many years. At times I (and the children) would become extremely frustrated with it, and attempt to do something on our own - but I am such a perfectionist and would get so bogged down in the planning, that we never got much to the DOING, so would end up back on the curriculum, just so SOMETHING was getting done!

Late last year, as I was praying over what we were doing again - I came across some writings about Charlotte Mason. A friend pointed me at Cindy Rushton's wonderful website, and I also found a bunch of other books that really helped! Wow, what a breath of fresh air!! It all made SO much sense! And I could see how to make it a practical reality without tearing my hair out in the planning stages!!

So, we put aside our prepared curriculum, and launched into a more Charlotte Mason style homeschool. Now, this year has been fairly disrupted with selling our house and moving, and a bunch of other things, so that so far it has been a little higgledy-piggledy - but we have learned heaps and tried out many new ideas. I have also been blessed with lots of wonderful teaching that I have just been soaking up like a sponge, and slowly God has been revealing to me just how OUR homeschool picture should look.

SO, beginning on Monday, I (and the kids) are going to be launching into our first week of school in our new home. And I'm going to record on this blog what we're planning to do, what actually gets done, and how it's all going.

I hope and pray that as I open this window into a REAL-LIVE (and very imperfect!) Charlotte Mason homeschool family, that you will be blessed and encouraged by what we share!

With love

Cynthia