New Inspiration-

After reading sue’s blog, it inspired me and started me thinking. Dangerous. Who have been my inspirations and how does it work in our home?

Well we are in a fortunate position, in only homeschooling our youngest Brid. We homeschooled her older brother and sister for a couple of years during their teens, but Brid & I have a bit of a groove happening.
When we first begun, our journey into the idea of homeschooling, I read nothing. I am a bit of a just go for it type of person. I learnt as we went along. It directly is in comparison to the type of Nursing training I did. Hands on, learn on the job, Hospital trained.
The first person on our journey was Mrs Seton- Kay to be exact. I liked that journey, the bookwork was a similar to what we knew, as we had taken Brid from a local Catholic school. Remember I had done zero research, just knew it was for us.
I liked how Mrs Seton, integrated Catholic faith into books. We quickly tired of them though. By this time I had stumbled across Mrs Charlotte MA, using a catholic approach, and Mrs Laura and a whole bunch of other people, like Susan and Mrs Elizabeth.
Boy had we taken a huge learning curve- hang on here, I had taken the learning curve. I happily fumbled my way through curricula and dreamed. Did this fit us. Or, was this better.
I quickly returned to why were we homeschooling every time we were faced with a hard decision. I would use only Catholic curricula.
Many friends shared what they were using and it took us on rabbit trails and every time I got confused, I would come back to the reason why.... This helped me be frugal in not purchasing too many resources. I loved the sound of Diana and Mr Wile, although they are wonderful they didn’t meet my criteria.
So I mused over Mrs Seton, Mrs Charlotte MA, and Mrs Elizabeth and picked out what worked for us. Recently we met Brenda and she is a good fit for Brid.
We are still friends and I enjoy keeping company with them. We have moved through various resources with these ladies and occasionally we do our own thing. But, I have the structure to come back to each time.
We love to follow the liturgical year and at times we follow it more closely than at other times. This year has not been our best year, I must say. We tried new ideas and they haven’t gelled.
I have observed Brid throughout the years and she does enjoy the structure, but also likes to do her own thing. So we are both on the same page. We may not be as academic as others. I have always supplied her a timetable for each week, and I wonder if I took it away what would happen.

We may not fit into one curricula and we may not be the best Latin scholars but we are doing it our way. I know God has his hand on our schooling, because when it’s not right I have a distinct bad feeling. I have learnt to trust these feeling. It hold me accountable to God and what he wants for us.
I have often mused over unschooling and being child centred, and we have seasons like this. It’s not our way, but the older Brid gets the more she makes the decisions in her daily work. I can see as some trusted curricula is drying up with its booklists we may flow to a more unschooling approach. I suppose I feel comfortable with my own idea on schooling that we can take a different tack.

A Topic a week- posted May 2010

This week, we are looking at Music Composers. We spend many years using Classic for Kids, but she has moved past it. I was recommended a Book, called The Gift of Music..-Jane Stuart Smith.., and U tube, to study each individual composer. So far, she has looked at Bach, Handel, and Haydn. She has plans to move onto Mozart today.

After Morning Tea, she begins reading or being read too, summarising, and writing notable information to make up a report each day, with Music playing in the background. She has plans to use these in her newspaper column, that she is writing.
She also has plans of highlighting her work, with a powerpoint presentation. All in the pipeline, but I am sure she will make it happen.
Next week, we focus on Geography, particularly Rivers of the World. I was reading a thread on here and someone suggested using rivers as a framework. I didn't have a book or curriculum to go by, I just wrote a plan for Brid to follow.
We will see how this approach goes and we will review it mid term. Although, Brid is already saying she feels much more relaxed. She isn't chopping and changing between work.

JUNE -Ballet Notebook
I noticed a couple of weeks ago how tired Brid was looking. This worried me of course, So I started thinking- dangerous, about cutting right back on School work.

Its week 9 why not, so....( we have 4 Terms of roughly 10 weeks in each term, here in Australia).
This week, we have kept up Maths and her History reader.
I thought, how about something fun, that she can embellish. So I found a lap/note book on Ballet.
All week, Brid has thoroughly enjoyed creating her project.
It has gone changed format several times, from a lap book, to a poster, to a book, now she has settled on a newspaper.
She spend hours looking through various books, pictures and choosing what she wanted to put in her newspaper.
So has it cured her tiredness, no not really, but it has been rather a relaxed week, and amazingly, the day has been finishing later, with "Brid you need to save that, its time to set the table...".
So am I surprised how it worked out, a little, as Brid was quite apprehensive about this project in the beginning.
Now she wants to do another one on Composers, next term.