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Lavender and Roses
Monday, December 10
Slowing Down for Christmas
Summer must be calling, since we seem to be slowing down heaps!
Today we pulled forward our first cards for the gospels readings - we still have about 10 Old testament cards to finish for bible, but well, it's Christmas. We spent the day looking up verses on Angels and talking about Zechariah and the angel who told him he would have a son.
We also decorated the Christmas tree. It was fun the kids remembered all the decorations and what they stood for and so it was a race to get their favorite memories on the tree. Next year I should try and be more organized and have something good to eat alongside the tradition. Today it was simply about finding time when Dad would be home to join us.
I'm looking forward to Summer. We aren't completely stopping school - we want a long drawn out half school / half holiday that stretches into March. But I also want to put the heart back into our home school. As we slow down I want to build up routines that make it nourishing not just productive.
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Sunday, December 9
Where to from here
I’ve spent most of the last year trying to find the balance between home and learning. With lots of rabbit trails in between.
In the last 2 years we have played with:
- The Classical Veritas / Memoria press basis that God has slowly put together in our home,
- Ambleside version of Charlotte Mason – complete,
- Unschooling or relaxed schooling with a classical bent, with leanings towards Thomas Jefferson but not quite getting their.
In each variation I have learnt things, but each has had its downfalls.
- The Classical model per-see is to pressured, to formal we seem to stress through the day trying to fit everything in, surely that isn’t what we are meant to be doing.
- Ambleside seemed to leave out to much of the writing that I have come to enjoy from my children. It was fun, but the richness of learning how to communicate was missing. It was too easy for my beloved kids to coast without doing anything much, or rushed as I tried to read and hear narrations from each of my children.
- The relaxed model saw us either getting lost in art which was too much of a culture shock for me. Or it found me trying to get the kids motivated, doing a few lessons of each subject and having the kids fade away because without the regular exposure to latin and maths these subjects became big black holes.
So where does this leave my trio.
Our next adventure is a combination of all three.
- We’re keeping the balance of curriculum that we have acquired. In each subject I find a depth of learning experience that I really enjoy. They feed each other and interrelate to a language rich, beautiful and solid Christian education and so I am happy.
- But I’m dropping the pressure and the schedule. We’ll work to a mix of daily subjects – i.e. avoiding the black holes and not getting stalled.
- For the other subjects, history, bible, art and science we’ll do blocks of afternoon study. In depth individual studies from 1-3 weeks long where we can dig in thing, reflect, play and create. The rest, music, and nature and artist studies are gong to fit around the edges, sometimes informal sometimes as a short block.
I’m hoping we have come home. Its been a long journey. It’s been tied up in doing the best for my kids, but also trying to justify my choices, keep a road map and try and prove to the critics that we are doing the right thing. I;m looking forward to relaxing a bit more and enjoying the journey. Then again I thought this at the start of last summer - and then one afternoon on the beach re-created everything.... have I finally learnt those lessons ...
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Sunday, December 9
I Missed St Nicholas's Day
I missed it!
Fortunately Dancing Butterfly didn't and after a quick Mummy isn't it the 6 th. Isn't it St Nicholas' day we managed to scramble together gold covered chocolate bars instead of the usual gold coins.
It was fun to see it become part of the tradition, fun to see how after only 3 years the children knew the story, fun to enjoy discussion afterwards on dowry's and family and togetherness.
It slotted in well with the thoughts of community and family I have been having as we have wound our way through the middle ages.
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Monday, December 3
A walk by the lake
I normally get so tied up in the things that we have to do for school that I forget to take time out to simply enjoy each other. My early New Year's resolutions at the moment have me working on that...
So since I had to cancel out on a promise to the kids last Friday, I worked out how to pack 3 bikes into the back of the van - yes they do fit, and I proved that I can do it, but last Friday the task, along with making muffins for a picnic lunch was just a little more than I could handle. Some days are like that...
So today we went down the hill and I walked while the kids rode along the lake. It's days like this that I really enjoy, I just don't always seem to keep up the effort.
I took the camera, and although the kids were enjoying biking not looking at nature, but found these on the way
I like to keep an eye out for interesting contrasts, and things in strange places. I still need to identify the purple flowers, they routinely appear in my flower gardens, and but sadly have to get pulled to make room for what is already established.
I liked the contrast of the scared trunk and the green leaves ..
Today was a little more relaxed, Happy Feet had a headache - so he wasn't his usual happy self. it became a light day, maths, Latin and a little writing and then when we got back from our ramble we enjoyed out current afternoon read-alouds Burgess Bird Book, and King Arthur by Howard Pyle. We finished with the kids starting an update of there time lines. I love these folders, the kids often managed to come up with wonderful descriptive drawings to slot in. Unfortunately they don't love the process as much as I do. so I keep letting it slip. Now at the end of the year it makes a lovely review.
;
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Monday, November 19
Blessings in a Bookstore
I found a new bookstore.
OK I did know of it before now, but I risked putting the email out that asked if they were able to supply international and what it would cost to ship my largish order down here. Normally thats a scary time, you're almost committed but shipping varies heaps from company to company - and now that all international shipping is priority - its a reasonable slice of my home-school budget.
Wow - dealing with a real and sympathetic person made such a huge difference to the experience.
It was neat to have a store that was almost custom made to 75% of what I use or will be using next year. Even better the first shipment arrives within 2 weeks of when I first put in the order Something very unusual in these parts.  I was just emailing to see if it had been shipped when it arrived on the back doorstep.
So I'm adding my favorite bookshop to the sidebar..
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Monday, November 19
A restful day
It's been a restful day,
We've had Dancing butterfly's end of year ballet production,
and realized that our girl is much happier without stage nerves.
Much happier.
I've dropped the stress levels as well- and as long as we are happily working I'm not gong to stress about how much we get finished...
And my boys are settling into a school routine and enjoying playtime at the end of the day...
So what did our day look like,
We started with a Latin hymn - Latina Christian's CD keeps disappearing into the CD holder and getting forgotten.
We prayed
We spent some time on math's - mainly fractions and realized that all the fractions we learnt last year have disappeared into a black hole somewhere ...
We moved onto Latin, and re-visited the work that my daughter didn't do while she was stressing about ballet. 
We tried unsuccessfully to juggle writing - Aesop and Poetry among the three kids - some days it works some days it doesn't . Today was one of the latter - but we did some of it.
I had a message to run in town so we took a break did the message, came home to eat lunch and remarkably managed to do our afternoon studies.
It might have helped that we were dong Stars and the Universe, and the kids love science - at least reading about science. OK they love the idea of doing science projects as well im just often less enthusiastic.
And even better I kept my resolution to enjoy the day and called or at least tried to call school to an end early enough to enjoy the sunshine outside.
And even better I remembered to water the garden while my children were playing outside - so they had a ball in the sprinklers.
So can I remember to relax again tomorrow ?
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Monday, November 12
Convictions and confusions
I'ts been an interesting weekend.
Tiring, unsettling, the winds of change are in the air, but right now I'm not ready for change - not big stuff, which is good. I spent enough of Friday considering how comfortable I am being planted and knowing I don't want more upheaval. Relieved, because at the end of the weekend it's a nudge toward trusting God and moving our school a little closer to where he wants it to be ....
I struggle with keeping us on schedule, keeping the lessons ticking over, doing what we're supposed to be doing... by the way my kids don't believe in schedules ...
And if the truth be known most of the time I simply want to be caught up in exploring and enjoying the discovery.
But I want to know that the journey is a safe one, one that honors God and helps my kids to grow. Each time I pray it through I come back to a picture of a patchwork quilt. Lots of separate bits and pieces woven together into a beautiful whole. To weave that quilt means I have to be prepared to walk an independent way. To follow a school path that isn't neatly out of the box, to trust when we aren't on schedule. Maybe its just me learning that homeschooling isn't about being finished the book in the year, keeping on schedule and following the school year. And yes some times I are slow in learning I think i revisit this concept every year.
I can handle it a bit, but to simply wander and learn that scares me. To let the prepackaged stuff be part of the journey but not what sets the pace. Their pace always seems rushed to us, we keep loosing the joy, and stopping and hunting for it again.
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Saturday, November 3
Our Homeschool Days - part two
Our afternoons are when we get to be a little more creative, sit back and read, narrate, and do activities around Bible, history, literature and Science. Its also our art time.
Bible
This year we have been working our way through the last Third of the Old Testament. - roughly Chronicles to Malachi.
For Bible I've been using the Veritas press cards and activities. Veritas has become more of a spine than a total program, but since i like the way the activities start the kids into solid bible reading and interpretation I like having it in the background. I also like the way I get challenged and discover new insights - and that's after a three year bible college degree.
We take turns around the table reading the passage 5-10 verses each and stopping to discuss as we need to. The discussions are fun and make our bible study times.
We normally turn the worksheet questions into a narration, but I am trying to move to a more creative - narration or similar based summary for their notebooks.
History
I've gotten lost in the Middle Ages - we were meant to cover the Reformation as well, but will be re-scheduling that to next year. There has been so much to explore - yes I love church history, the Vikings, the whole castles and English history thing that I may have gotten stuck, and we will leave the rest for next year.
Our history time is much like Bible, we use the cards as a jumping of place, add in literature, a narration, and the activities that fit. Normally we do one to two activities a lesson so we cover most of them. We don';' do the tests, and we don;t do chronological memorization. My aim is to get a glimpse of how other cultures have lived, and an overview of human (especially Western Christian) thought has developed.
Literature
Literature is the fun, crash on the couch read and discuss time that we aim to have every afternoon, an sneaks into the family read-aloud time that we have most evenings before we head to bed.
This year, Alice and Wonderland, Beowulf, and now King Arthur by Plye have made it into the official literature time. With Alice and Beowulf we used the Veritas press guides, the latter being included on the history CD. They were fun, but lot's of writing in Alice that has since made us more cautious in how much writing about a book we do.
In the evenings we read either Historical Fiction with Dad, or something fun and light. Currently it has been Augustine goes to Kent.
Science
Officially we use the Apologia Elementary books, this year Astronomy. We narrate them and any demonstration or activity that adds to what we are learning. But I don't do all or even most of them. Some we leave out because the same activities get used in other subjects.
Science though also pops up at our family discussions, which would be more than enough if my trio didn't want science in school time as well. Dad is a Science teacher, and Einstein breathes electronics, lego, engineering and physics. So a lot of science work just happens along the way.
Art
I love Artistic Pursuits as an all round drawing, art & craft, art history program. it has to be one of the favorite parts of our days, My boys are currently doing variations of sculpture in the third book of the K-3 series, and my daughter is working between the two books of the grade 4-6 program. Just doing drawing got a little heavy for her, but alternating every 2-3 units seems to be fine.
Nature Study
Nature study and our family reading -aloud and night must be the two main things that homeschooling has embedded in our family culture. I am sure no new bird species gets to wander through our garden without being noticed and watched. My husband and i always loved to walk in the New Zealand bush as a means of relaxing from our busy careers but no nature has a far greater role in our lives, and I love the opportunities if brings to reflect on our work, God and the beauty he has created.
Nature study also adds in read-aloud books to our afternoons - so many good books so little time. We're reading through Burgess Bird Book - because Happy Feet loves birds. We also squeezed in "Pagoo", and "My Side of the Mountain" this year .
That covers the main parts of our learning time. We also attempt to learn the keyboard, mum alongside the kids with only the books. It kinda works but very slowly. The Ambleside composer, artist and poetry rotations also make their mark on our days, so life is very probably way to full - but I wouldn't really want it any other way.
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Friday, November 2
Our Homeschool Days - part one
I spend yesterday ordering my main books for next year. We are finally I hope settled into a pleasant place.
After jumping through various forms of classical education, the Well Trained Mind, Ambleside, and brief time with the Thomas Jefferson ideas we are back where God originally planted a mixture of curriculum from recommendations of friends along the way in this journey, I will learn one day..I will...
My three children work well together and we combine History, Bible, Literature and Science at least for the next year..then i may have decisions.
My nearly 11 yr old is at 6th grade next year, my 9 and 7 yr olds are will both be at 4th grade level - although I am trying to sidetrack the younger, keeping him busy is difficult.
We tend to run a loose schedule, each Child has a tick-list on which they are meant to cover at least 10 of a possible 13 things - some are more flexible that others. It gives them a chance to choose what they are up to each day, but also gives me some control that we cover what we need to in a week.. A full complete tick-list though gains a mini chocolate bar at the end of the week.
Language Arts,
Classical Writing, Aesop for the younger two, Homer and Beginning poetry for Dancing Butterfly and myself.
Commonplace book as we find things outside of this.
Classical writing has been the one thing couldn't give up when we tried Ambleside.
I loved the idea when it was born, struggled to pace it for my daughter before the workbooks were written, and now love the package. We 've had to work at finding the balance between being overwhelmed and having it rule our lives but it is worth it. I love all the things it teaches in terms of reading, writiing and understanding a piece of prose or poetry.
Now we pace ourselves, enjoy the challenges and watch our writing improve each month.
Maths
We will be continuing with Singapore's off the shelf local edition of "My Pal's are Here". It's slightly lighter than the Primary maths, has 'real money' and metric measurements.
Beside this we use Miquon and Key's to both programs give me scope to move side wise when my children get overwhelmed, or bored. We get either depending on the children. Dancing Butterfly is at grade 5 going on 6 and Einstein and happy Feet are both on Grade 3.
Latin
Latin stays with Latina Christian, and our first venture into Henle. Us girls are taking the plunge to the big book - which would be scary except that the first lesson looks like review so I'm hoping we are fine. The boys are working on LC I with Einstein back at the beginning and Happy Feet going full steam ahead. Can i put him into LC II in the middle of next year?
Greek
Yes I now realize we shouldn't have started two languages together, but it's fun and my challenge for a stay at home mum. Were using Elementary Greek and heading for level 2. Well all except Einstein - who doesn't really like languages and is reviewing from the beginning. Hopefully this time without reading the answers first.
That's our morning subjects .. the ones where I'm slowly chilling into the idea of just do the next part each day and ignore how long it is or isn't taking us.. I'm getting there slowly, and the kids are dong well. Actually I'm a pretty happy mum when I look at how they are getting on.
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