A day in our unusual week

It’s a bit of an unusual week this week, because it’s so wet.  

I have been spending the week reading a new homeschooling book. “A little way of Homeschooling.   It’s been quite inspirational for me to see like minded homeschoolers. The revelation that came to me, was we do have a homeschooling style. Yeah!!
Long gone are our work books and structured curriculum.  Brid still likes to have her desk organised for her work..
Our days still have routine because that’s the way we like it. 
Ok its 8am and the Christian radio news is just been turned on- or not.
Brid has fed the cats and is dressed.
We are opening blinds and waking up the house, putting washing on.
It’s close to 8.30 by the time we all have finished breakfast together, just in time for piano practice and my computer/ironing / cleaning time. Dermot is in the office and is beginning his work day.
We gather for prayer around 9am, as Dermot & I have our very important coffee date with  Our Lord.  Brid decides between, her religion reader or improving her handwriting with a verse from the Gospels.
Maths is Brids only fixed subject. We have always done this together, but of late I have tried to back off and just be around in case I am needed.
It’s now morning tea time, for Brid- although its really just break time- and around about this time Bailey, our cat, likes to come back inside, so we make a big fuss over him.
It’s cold, so we stop any pursuits and make a tee-pee in our fireplace and light it. Brid can now light the fire by herself. We usually gather up our wood for the day at this time as well.
We moved to this home close on 2 years ago, it is 40 mins out of the city, so we don’t go in to the ‘city’ very often. We have adjusted to being in our home and our little community now.  We have quite a big homeschool community, in our area, so we can tailor our outings to our needs.
Brid says what shall we do next, and at the moment we have a couple of topics we are looking at. So that’s where we go next.
This is the time of the day, we have a milo made on warmed milk.  Yummy.
Brid is reading a novel. The Yearling at the moment. Several discussions have flowed from this book. We look at the time 2 o’clock. Is it lunch time already? Left over homemade Pizza together.  
After lunch Brid retires to a project she is getting her teeth into. She is re creating a time in medieval history on  a program on the computer. This then led us to looking at Horrible histories DVDs and there website.  A print out of her work was necessary, for Brid, to show Dad when he came home.
Brid then decided she wanted to share her horrible histories discoveries on her blog.  
At the end of a busy day there is none better than sitting and watching a movie. I am knitting trying to inspire Brid to knit too. Somehow it’s just not her thing.  Our calm peaceful late afternoon was disturbed when I noticed we were out of milk. So we made a list and off to the local shop to purchase a few necessary goodies, including our milk..
Usually we would all eat together, but I told you it’s an unusual week. Dermot has an afterhour’s job in the city, so Brid & I eat dinner later. We pray for Gods Guidance and protection on this wild rainy night for Daddy.
So when did school start and finish, it’s sort of been a bit grey for some time now.

Pentecost craft

The last couple of weeks we have been working on a couple of liturgical crafts. We firstly worked on our Ascension craft. We made a very similar craft to Catholic Icing, but we have made it last the whole month of June.

 Pentecost is coming. We are doing a craft of our own.We made Beeswax candles with a friend last week. Seven candles in total.Not Quite enough for the Fruits of the Spirit, so we chose to focus on Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Humility, Self Control, Hope. We then hunted around and found some little glasses to place them in.
As we placed them in the glasses, we decided they looked a little plain. A red paper bag was found, cut up and wrapped  around the outside of the glass, secured with tape.

Next Brid and I brainstormed how we would highlight each fruit of the Spirit.
We decided on white hearts with Red letters.

 So here is the finished product and it looks really good.

what are you doing for Pentecost?

Louise

Louise is nearly completed her Teaching degree. It hasn't been an easy journey.
Louise was educated in the Catholic school system here in NSW. She was always a bright student, but something changed after her trip to the UK christmas,  2003/4. She became very quite and did not enjoy her last high school year at all. She still had one more year to complete her secondary studies. She asked to leave school, and we said yes, as long as she got an Apprenticeship. But where. She was very good at Food Technology and really enjoyed the work experience placement earlier in the year, so she applied for 2 positions and got both. Good on her.
It was extremely long hours, and a large amount of verbal abuse from staff members. Not the environment that I wanted my daughter. We were unaware of this type of behaviour before we signed her indentures.
In 2006, Louise took the large step into University. Dermot wanted her to finish it her Chef Certificate, I was delighted with her decision and couldn't wait to get her out of that environment.
She started  a program for students who had not achieved well or not attempted the last secondary exam, in NSW called Higher School Certificate. The course she was to take is New Step.
She undertook this course as a mature age student and a goal in mind. Therefore, she gained excellent results. Her end of year result was over and above what she needed to be accepted by the university for the teaching degree.
Louise moved out of home before this as well, which put enormous strain on her, we helped out where we could and always provided financial and any type of support she needed.
Louise excelled at every subject and if she didn't understand an area she made it her business to gain that knowledge.She will be completely fiished this degree this year, and is looking at furthering her studies in various areas she is being called too.
She will take 6 extra months to complete her degree due to various family and health issues. She has been quite driven and determined. But thats always been our Louise. So the girl we saw in 2004 was not the girl we knew, so we knew she was unhappy.  It did all come out years later and in a much more mature way.

Louise & Brid

We are so very proud of Louise  and know that she will be a great asset to any school that accepts her into there staff.    

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.

Term 4 Day 1

Today was our first day of term 4. It was a little hard to get back into School. We have been pretty laid back over the holidays.
Anyway with sleep in our eyes we got breakfast, and readied ourselves for the day.
Brid was ready before 9. yeah!!! very good.
I started this term with a whole program, and determined to complete it all. I break term 4 into finish of the years work and get ready for Advent.
This year I want to celebrate All Saints Day in a big way, so I have a few ideas for that.
I want to get several topics and books finished. I want to complete 'Blood and Guts', and I was surprised when I found we were very close to completing St Patricks' Summer- its been our faith reader. Its been a great read, one I have enjoyed. Brid is well able to read herself, so I do not do as many read alouds now.
So now we have 2 chapters to read on Blood and Guts and it is complete, but this term, I have taken the Human Body unit to a different level, as I will start talking about changes using Mothers Little Helper and taking brid on a mother daughter journey into her growing up.
We started last week by praying the Rosary and then reading the first chapter. It was a very beautiful moment for me as Brids' mother. God has entrusted Her to me and this job I have will be done prayfully and with Gods' guidance.
Maths is a whole area we are getting through, but it is a hard and big job. It sometimes seems tedious. I have the new 6/5 to go into, but it looks like it will be a lot later than I thought we would be. I just need to be patient with Brid and encourage her.

So today we started all our studies and we worked very late, but we had a little bit of fun doing it to. Brid rode her bike, Lunched together, Daddy was home all day and I got yje bas done.
So after school Brid relaxed and got ready for Girl Guides while I vacuumed up the leaves around the back paved area.

Daddy went off to work and I took Brid to Guides.
I went for a very fast walk around the circuit Dermot & I use. That was my day Brids day and it was a big first day, but lots of fun as well.

one year on

This is my Dad and Brid, he is very proud of her.

One year on and i have changed my approach to homeschooling yet again. I change it with Brid and our lifestyle in mind.

Brid has adapted and loves the new moves.

As we have moved in the last 9 weeks, we have of course had interruptions to our schooling. We found a good history unit study. history links. It has been our answer to headaches in getting all material I need for the next history program.

This last year we have addressed and enjoyed Astronomy, at the end of The Human Body and about to embark on Botany. I use readers as these topics will be covered as Brid gets older, in greater depth.

The human body will be used to bounce into Modesty and whats happening with your body now.

I have been recommended mothers little helper. its hard to find, but God will lead us to the right book for this discussion.

We are about to embark on 6/5 saxon maths. And wow has it been a journey of knowledge. Brid struggles with times tables, so we have built this drill into our day, at any time.

But what we have seen is an understanding andan interpretation of text beyond her years. Its been very obvious as we look back over the other children, at this time.

Her knowledge and understandinf and being able to defend her faith is amazing, so all in all its been a very good year academically.

We have had a huge year with family issues, and it has been very hard for Brid. I would love to have sheltered her from this, but it has been to hard, so Brid has had to be in the thick of it too.

I am actually very proud of how much she has grown and her maturity in dealing with this all. Its definitely been a God lifting her up. Praise you Lord.