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