Joyfulmum

Hello 2012

2012-02-01T15:54:00.009+11:00

I've been on holidays with Ron and Rebekah visiting Ron's family down in Victoria (a neighbouring state - for my non-Aussie readers). We had a wonderful holiday. It was a very 'social' holiday for us, a bit different to most others we normally have as we spent all our holidays with in-laws and friends. Normally we spend at least a week a two of our holidays just by ourselves but this time it didn't work out that way. Nevertheless it was still lovely and nice to have a break from our normal daily routines and spend Christmas with my in-laws. They are truly a great bunch of people!
Rebekah got to have loads of fun with her cousins on Ron's side and spent lots of time with her grandparents. I'm sure these memories will hold a special place in her heart as she grows up.

I didn't really know my grandparents at all as they all passed away when I was a baby / very young child. After having Rebekah I've come to realise what a special relationship it truly is and she is so blessed to have wonderful grandparents on both sides of the family.

We started back 'school' the week after we got back which was about three weeks ago as we don't follow the school terms.

I have also been busy de-cluttering since we got back. I find coming back from holidays a great time to de-clutter, clean and re-organise in general.
While on holidays, we (Ron and I) usually spend time assessing the past year and talking about the year ahead and what we would like to see change / happen over the coming year. This time was no exception, so we've come back with some good thoughts and ideas which we'll try to implement by the grace of God.

One thing I've already implemented is doing our laundry and some general house cleaning at night. This has helped me be more relaxed in the mornings while we have been doing school work. I felt like I needed to focus more on Rebekah and her work in the mornings without being distracted. It's amazing how this small and simple adjustment has already improved the quality of our school time.

During December our church did a series of teaching on finances and we've been working on some of those things we learned that we need to put in place one of them being saving 10% of our income. We worked out that we only save about 5% of our income but we are endeavouring to change that this year and so we spent some time reviewing the family budget and have come up with some good plans to increase our savings!

Over the last year or so I've gotten to make a lovely friend who homeschools and who lives very close to us. We have decided to do monthly nature walks together this year which I'm really looking forward to. Nature walks and study are fun times for us and I think Rebekah would enjoy it even more with other kids around. We didn't get to do it as much last year and I'm hoping that 2012 will see an improvement here!

I've been also busy catching up with my mum who also got back from her trip to India just before we got back to Sydney. She was away for about 8 months so we've had a lot to catch up on and it's been lovely for both of us and also lovely for Rebekah to spend time with her maternal grandparents.

I'll be visiting your blogs very soon, if I haven't already. In the meantime, here's some pictures from our trip:

Rebekah insisted on taking her three favourite stuffed toys this trip:

Tuppy (puppy) on the far left, Cordie (Corduroy named after that famous picture book character) and last but definitely not the least and the one she is holding is Jakie (named Jacob though I always insisted it was a girl, Rebekah thought it was a boy, maybe secret inner desire to have a little baby brother?). Taken at a motel in Albury:

She has a sense of humour! This was taken outside a historic courthouse at Seymour near Melbourne:

Panning for gold at Sovereign Hill, Ballarat:

Rebekah got to sail for the first time which was very exciting and she absolutely fell in love with it:

Fishing, Rebekah got her first fishing rod and I can see lots of fishing time with daddy up ahead:

Werribee Mansion (near Melbourne), a historic old house with amazing gardens. They had a few fun things for the kids to get involved in as you'll see below:

Rebekah having a try at how they did the laundry in the old homestead:

Playing 'croquet'

and hopscotch with 'Aunt Sally' in the background ( a game where you try to knock the heads off the poles and apparently they were all political figures, some things haven't changed in Australia, we still like knocking our pollies don't we!)

and lastly, on the Monet bridge at Jugiong a few hours south of Sydney on our way back home. My blog header currently has her at the same spot last time we went down that way about a year ago:

p.s: Confession time - I've had this in draft format for about two weeks! :) I'll be around to yours soon, I'm sorry I've not been a good blog follower for the past couple of weeks!

So long 2011

2011-12-16T21:02:00.001+11:00

This may well be my last post for this year, so I thought I'd have a look back at our 2011 (well atleast some aspects of it that I can share online).

Homeschool:

We changed curriculums end of last year so this was our first year with Ambleside Online. I must say it definitely is a rigorous curriculum and reading the weekly schedule online does not give you that sense at all! I didn't even attempt to do everything, probably only 80% of what is set out and I still found it a lot busier than last year for us. It was definitely enjoyable though and I am so enjoying reading all the great books it lists along with Rebekah. ~~She~~ I am learning a lot. Rebekah has not baulked at any of the books that I thought might be too challenging proving what Charlotte Mason believed about children: we don't need to water down information and drip feed children, their minds are capable of a lot more than we think!

I'm happy to report that we will continue homeschooling her next year as the plan was to take it a year at at time! She is thriving and developing beautifully and we are happy with the progress she is making.

Motherhood and family:

Rebekah and I continue to share a very close relationship, a by product I'm sure that's a result of not just being an only child but an only child that is being homeschooled. We continue to have some amazing times spent together during the week, snuggled up on the couch reading, being out in nature, shopping together, riding our bikes together, etc. We have such great conversations about life, God, etc that happen at the most unpredictable times. I will always cherish these wonderful moments we have together.
Rebekah is the sweetest little girl and I'm blessed to not only be her mum but to be able to homeschool her, but of course I'm biased!

Family:

What can I say about my husband, he is amazing! He continues to be a great support to me, my closest friend, a great provider, a hard worker, the list goes on....Thanks honey, I love you!
We've enjoyed some fun times together this year including a holiday down in Victoria to celebrate Ron's big birthday with his family. While there we caught up with Jeanne and her lovely family. This was the second time we got to catch up with her and it was just lovely to meet her husband this time. Jemimah kept Rebekah amused and the girls had fun together! I'd been meaning to tell you all about this since we got back in April but seeing I didn't get around to it then, here's a wonderful excuse now to show you these pictures:

Ron's and Rebekah's birthdays (combined celebration)

Rebekah and Jemimah:

A koala out in the wild:

A rainbow in the Ocean. I've never seen anything like this before, it was amazing!

Church life: We continue to be very active in our church and life has been extra busy this year for us. Our church hosted a regional conference for the first time and I must say our little church did extremely well and we were all so proud of our achievements. We also celebrated 10 years as a local church in Sydney. This was a big milestone for us and we had a weekend of celebrating with old pastors visiting etc.

Friends: I've been super blessed in this area. God has blessed us with such great friends and speaking for myself personally, I've met some amazing and wonderful mums since I became one. They continue to enrich my life and bless me with their time, friendship, wisdom and generosity. Rebekah also has been blessed with some great friends. Homeschooling an only child is challenging in the sense that we have to be proactive about meeting Rebekah's 'social' needs. We have been blessed with friends that understand this and are so generous in inviting Rebekah to play dates with their kids etc.
In fact, towards the end of last year, even though Rebekah had lots of friends, she really wanted a girl friend who lived on our street, someone she could play with more often. Our street is filled with boys! So, we decided to pray about this and wouldn't you know a couple of months later, a little girl a year older than Rebekah moved in and they've become really good friends, God is good!
Besides 'mum' friends, I am also blessed to have other non-mum friends who continue to enrich my life in many ways!

Family: My mum and step dad continue their work in India that they began several years ago, in the orphanage they run and doing other work there as well. We miss them and are looking forward to their return in under a month's time!

Health: I've had a major breakthrough this year after finding a wonderful holistic doctor who specialises in women's health. Yes, reaching my forties has been challenging in this area, well, it started in my mid thirties really but as with most things, I don't rush into things, hence it took me this long! I can't begin to tell you what a difference the treatment I am receiving has made to my overall health which in turn has been great for my emotional well being! All I can say is GO bio-identical hormones! If you'd like to find out more feel free to email me:)

And last of all, I started this blog to keep an online journal of some aspects of our life that I wanted to pass onto Rebekah one day. It's not the most interesting of blogs in blog land so I'm honoured that the lovely friends I've mad online keep coming back to read and comment and encourage me. To all of you, I wish you a merry Christmas (if you do celebrate it) and a great 2012!

Christmas Stories to read - for free, truly!

2011-12-07T16:57:00.003+11:00

I've always wanted to have a collection of Christmas stories to read to Rebekah leading up to Christmas (like I've seen so many other mums do in their families) but have never gotten around to it. Well actually I did try to collect a few over the last couple of years but I wouldn't even dare show you my collection as it's quite measly!

Anyway, you all know I use Ambleside Online, that wonderful free Charlotte Mason curriculum. Well, what do you know, it only took me a few years to realise they had a page with loads of free Christmas stories and poems to read. The AO website is truly a treasure trove!

I was so elated to find this out the other day, I just had to share it with you all.

Now that we have an ipad and I'm trying to cut down on buying physical books that are free online, this is just perfect for us.

So now if you've been like me you no longer have an excuse to not read these wonderful stories to your children:)
They'll thank you for it in years to come I'm sure.

Here's the page link: http://www.amblesideonline.org/HolidayStoriesPoems.shtml

The stories listed there are carefully selected by the AO advisory (a group of mums who so generously volunteer their time and efforts to put together and maintain this wonderful curriculum, a group of women I've come to appreciate, admire and respect very much for all their hard work) so I am quite sure you'll love this list of stories.

Enjoy! I know we will.

Homeschool Meme

2011-11-30T14:29:00.002+11:00

While some of you have been posting some deep and meaningful posts, here's a light, make that super light one from me:)

My dear bloggy friend Jo in Queensland tagged me, oh, let's see, more than a month ago with this meme! Sorry Jo, it's a bit late, better late than never though eh!

The idea of this meme is to answer the questions and then to tag some bloggers to pass it on, so they can do the same. However, some of my blog friends are not homeschoolers and so this wouldn't apply to them; the rest who are my homeschool bloggy friends have already had their turn most likely so I'll just fill in the details with my answers and leave it untagged at the end:)

Here goes:

1. One homeschooling book you have enjoyed:

'A Charlotte Mason Companion' by Karen Andreola.

2. One resource you wouldn’t be without:

The internet!

3. One resource you wish you had never bought:

hmmm, I'd have to say "Before Five in a row". I briefly tried this with Rebekah when she was 3 to 4 and she didn't like having the same book read every day! Sorry all you 'rowers' out there but this just wasn't going to work for us!

4. One resource you enjoyed last year:

Living Books curriculum teachers manual for year 1.

5. One resource you will be using next year

Our ipad, yay!

6. One resource you would like to buy:

I think I'm ok for now.

7. One resource you wish existed:

A time extender, need more hours in my day:)

8. One homeschool catalogue you enjoy reading

Don't read catalogues, does that make me a 'weird' weird homeschooler? (wink) :)

9. One homeschooling website you use regularly

Ambleside online

10. Tag other homeschoolers:

See my note at the top:)

Keeping up with the Jones' Technology

2011-11-05T17:10:00.000+11:00

If you know us in real life, you'd know that we are not a keeping up with the Jones' type of family.
We are simple people, happy to live a simple and uncomplicated life. We put certain things in life ahead of keeping up with the latest gadgets, tv, phones etc.
We drove an old car until it died a couple of years ago and we were forced to replace it!
We live in a small villa and drive a smallish car.
Recently we had our small group (Bible study) from church over at our place and we had to watch a dvd as part of it. In typical Aussie humour, someone made a comment about our latest flat screen tv :) (NOT) :)
I hope that gives you some indication of the type of people we are.
We are also laggards apparently (a word I recently learned) over at this blog I've just started following: Fountainside. So, there you have it, we are a couple of laggards who live a simple life:)

We live in a city that is obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses!
We feel we swim against the flow with our lifestyle and hope others can be encouraged to live the same way. In fact, we live mostly on one (average) income in an expensive city where mostly everyone thinks it's impossible to do!
We make many sacrifices to live this way but that is another topic for another time.

So, in recent times, I got an android phone, not because I wanted to because I had no other choice. A couple of months ago my old phone started dying and when we started looking into a new phone for me, the only one I found comfortable to handle on the plan I wanted to get was an android phone. (I am not on a big mobile plan in fact it's the second cheapest) It has millions of apps I can download for free (so I am told) but I don't think I'd bother. I use my phone mainly to text and call and to take photos and videos. It even comes with some internet data which I was not interested in:) In fact I would go so far as to say this android phone is truly wasting all it's capabilities on me!

Fast forward a couple of weeks and guess what we get.....voila:

- an Ipad2! Yes indeed! Yes even our friends' jaws dropped when they found out:)

Now, even this was driven out of necessity. You see we have one desktop and often when Ron's at home at night I am working (on it ) and there have been times when Rebekah wants to watch something on iview (remember her allotted daily 60 minutes I blogged about here) is often when I need the computer! We really needed another pc. We ummed and ahhed for several months on whether to get a laptop (we've never owned a laptop ever, now even that is saying something) or to get an ipad.
Ron researched it a lot and we decided we'd get an ipad.

This has purely been out of necessity and after owning it for a month I can tell you it's been a huge blessing for us.

It has changed how we homeschool and how we do our family read alouds.
Ambleside Online is a free curriculum with most of the books available for free online, so guess what Rebekah and I do each morning for school - yes, we pull out the ipad to do most of our readings!
We've already downloaded quite a few ebooks.
We use it's notes function as a daily checklist that Rebekah can tick off as we do our school work. (Great for transitioning to more independent study as she gets older wink wink )

We use it for our family read alouds each Saturday night as we are currently reading Peter Pan which is available for free.
I'd read that it's just not the same as reading from a book but honestly once you get engrossed in the story you forget you're reading it from a screen.

We use it at our ~~dining table~~ book work area to listen to our composer on youtube, quickly look up something we need to find out about online, etc etc.

It even gets used in the kitchen to look up recipes to cook.

We're only scratching the surface as we've only had it for a month or so. But already it's been put to heavy use.
Yes there are some great games on it but not wanting Rebekah to become addicted she is allowed to use some of her daily allotment of one hour of screen time on the ipad if she so desires.
I'm told there are many educational applications, we're yet to look into that. We are laggards after all:)

I just love it because of it's slim design, weight and portability.
We are loving it so much so I just had to tell you of our latest addition:)
It has been a huge blessing for our homeschool and our family. We are finally having to keep up with technology! How about you, do you have an ipad, are you thinking of getting one, tempted to get one? If you do have one, I'd love to hear of some of your favourite educational or other apps.

Fitting in nature study and all those 'extras'

2011-10-29T15:53:00.021+11:00

I noticed this year as we got into a more rigorous curriculum (Ambleside Online), with more books to read, more work than last year, nature study had slipped a little around here. Sure, we still do a bit of nature study but it hasn't been as much as I would have liked nor as much as Charlotte Mason's students truly did.

Also, some of the so called 'extras' too like handicrafts, art etc were taking a nose dive! Because I am not an arty person, they would get left to the last and then when we ran out of time they wouldn't get done:(

So, I tried to rectify that by adjusting our schedule this term.

I've alloted certain 'days' to certain 'subjects' so they don't get left out.
So my schedule goes like this. Besides our daily subjects like Bible, Maths, penmanship and poetry, we allot the other subjects as follows:

Mondays and Tuesdays we cover Literature, History and Geography (the readings are spread out over two days as I don't want to overload her with one subject on each day)

Wednesdays is our 'science and nature study' day.

Thursdays we call our 'artsy' day in which we do all the extras (which are not really 'extras' because they are a key differentiator between a Charlotte Mason education and other methods): composer study, picture study (art), drawing, hymns, handicrafts (knitting) and the all important 'craft' for my craft loving daughter:)

Fridays we have off for park days, etc.

We are almost at the end of second 12 week term and I can say we've had better success with this than term 1.

By having a set day to do certain subjects that I don't necessarily like, I ensure it gets done and that Rebekah is getting that liberal education that Charlotte Mason talked about.

With Nature study however (where we actually go to a specific place to observe nature, do nature journalling etc) I have allowed myself to schedule it in once a fortnight (for my non-Aussie readers that's once every two weeks) (smile) instead of once a week as it involves much more time and preparation on my part! I figured that this way instead of constantly feeling like we never do it, if I allow myself some leeway and set a more realistic goal, it will actually get done!

So, having said all that, as we had no park day this week and also because of poor weather, we had our nature study day yesterday - a Friday.

We had a lovely picnic lunch along with Rebekah's new Sylvanian family bike and picnic set,

fed the ducks at leisure,

took time to relax and breathe, observed and discussed at length about the birds, trees and flowers, have fun,

did some nature journalling,

did some reading in a shady spot, and just marvelled at God's creation!

I brought to Rebekah's attention the design on the petals of the above flower. Nature has some invaluable lessons for us in that they display the beauty and wonder of God and teach us so much about Him. Prior to homeschooling Rebekah I would never have noticed the intricate designs on the inside of a flower!
Isn't this flower just amazing! It's a dietes and is a very common flower. I'm sorry that these shots are just from my mobile phone and don't do the beauty of the flower any justice but when Rebekah took a closer look, she was amazed and said, it's like God drew it with a texta! That's exactly what it looked like! A texta drawing / or as if someone had personally hand painted that brown design on the inside of the petal! To think that God put so much detail into a flower that is here today and gone tomorrow.....

We had an awesome day! It actually turned out to be a lovely ~~nature study day~~ mummy/daughter date actually:)

Fringe benefits of blogging

2011-10-18T18:07:00.001+11:00

I started this blog in February 2009 mainly to keep an online journal of some aspects of our life here which I am keeping so Rebekah can read one day.
Along the way I have made some wonderful blogging friends one of them being Joluise at 'Stop have a chat'.
Well, Jo recently had a giveaway on her blog (some tissue holders she had made) and I won one, hurray!

It arrived in the mail today, along with a lovely surprise for Rebekah - some very pretty craft stickers (top half of the picture).

Here is the tissue holder after I unwrapped the little parcel along with a refill and a handy 2012 magnetic calendar:

Isn't it beautiful!

Rebekah jumped up and down when she realised part of it was for her. Jo, I wish I could capture her thank you for you, instead she decided to pose for this photo for you as a 'thank you'! You blessed my little girl so much today, thankyou!

If you don't follow Jo's blog, I'd encourage you to take a look.

Jo is a statician, so always has some very interesting posts to read. Besides that she is very creative with her garden, her crafts, her home...I could go on and on! More importantly I believe she is a very gracious and kind person (I think you get to know people a bit if you follow them over time) and I love reading her blog as it's very uplifting.

I am very blessed my bloggy friends, all of you! and this today was a fringe benefit which I didn't mind at all:) Thanks again Jo!

Rosemary's Easy Sushi Recipe

2011-10-07T23:00:00.003+11:00

I thought I'd put my blog to good use and tell you all how I make really really easy sushi, the one I mentioned here!

This recipe is for Arky a dear friend of mine who is no longer in Australia, all my real life friends that often ask me how I make sushi and anyone else out there wanting to know:)

Years ago I read a recipe in a women's magazine for sushi and I only ever made it a couple of times! Though it was well liked, the recipe was filed never to resurface due to it not being that easy to make. These days 'easy' is my middle name when it comes to cooking! I'm sure I'll get back into more elaborate cooking in another season and time of my life though.

Sushi can be unduly intimidating (at least it was for me), so here I'm going to try and dispel any doubts you have that you can make it!
If you're a more experienced sushi cook and you're still reading, please forgive me for elaborating too much:)

Ingredients:

Sushi Rice 2 cups
Seaweed sheets

O'bento Sushi seasoning: 12 to 18 tbsp - the bottle indicates 18 but I find 12 is adequate, you can use 18 if you want a stronger flavour to the rice.

If you don't have this brand of sushi seasoning you will have to subsitute with japanese rice vinegar (though I'm not sure if that has added sugar to give it a sweet flavour). If it doesn't it won't give you that store bought sushi taste and you may have to add some sugar to it, or else look for another recipe lol!

Fillings as you desire. I used smoked salmon and avocado(cut into strips) (for the adults here) and cucumber(also in strips) and avocado for Rebekah. On a side note, Rebekah prefers raw salmon to smoked but I'm not game enough to try it with raw salmon:)

Method:
Cook sushi rice according to instructions on packet.
(An easy way I cook it in the microwave is to use two parts water to one part rice and cook it on high for a few minutes first until quite a bit of the water is absorbed. So in this recipe for 2 cups rice I would cook it for about 7 to 9 minutes for on high, let it sit for 10 minutes, then cook it for another 5 minutes on medium heat)

Add the sushi seasoning to the rice mixture and stir through and let it cool down to room temp. I normally cook this in the morning and leave it aside to cool down till later in the day when I make the rolls.

Cut all your vegetables, gather your fillings and have them ready on hand along with a bowl of water to rinse your hands between rolls.

Place the seaweed sheet shiny side down on a chopping board / tray.

Layer rice all over the sheet leaving a gap of an inch or so at one end which I will call the finishing end (this will be the flap that closes over at the finish to hold everything in place). The layer of rice needs to be evenly spread out and not too thick as otherwise you will end up with a very chunky sushi roll:)
I am sorry about this picture and some of the ones following, which kept getting rotated around every time I tried uploading them. I tried some workarounds I found on the internet but nothing has helped and I've already spent way too much time on this post lol so I am giving up!

Layer your fillings on the rice at the starting end.

Begin rolling over the seaweed sheet with fillings firmly in place.

I don't use a bamboo mat but you can use one to help with this process.
The trick is to ensure it's all tight when you roll it up.
Keep rolling it over until you get to the end of the rice and then fold the end side of the sheet over and using some water stick it down to hold everything in place.

Once you've done these and finished the rolls, place it in the fridge for about 20 minutes. This helps everything set and makes it easier to cut into pieces for serving.

I do not store left over cooked sushi rice as I believe it doesn't do well in rolls the next day due to a change in the texture resulting from refrigeration. Instead I make additional rolls with it and store them in the fridge overnight. I have often made rolls for two dinners (as I did today) and they taste just as good the next night!

Lastly, enjoy with a dash of soy sauce on the side and/ or wasabi!

Disclaimer: This recipe was adapted from the back of the seasoning bottle and other places I've read sushi recipes so I'm not claiming it's my own. Also, I am not getting paid for any of this by any company, neither do I own shares in any of the companies I recommend in this post, though I am open to it lol!

When I grow up......

2011-09-17T17:02:00.012+10:00

"I want to be a ballerina" Rebekah says and has said for the past couple of years! This has been the deepest desire of her heart. She just loves her ballet! Time has not caused her to grow out of this one. In fact she becomes more and more determined about it as time passes!

So....today was her end of year concert (a little early I know but this is how it's done at her new school and I quite liked the idea) and the theme of the concert was the same as my post's title:)

An update on our dance school decision:
I mentioned here that we made the decision to change schools for certain reasons. Well, to put it more bluntly we had issues with the last dance school and it was not an environment we wanted Rebekah to grow up learning to dance in; the songs and dance moves were too sexualised!
There! I've said it! I've used the 's' word on my blog for the first time!

Anyway, today our decision to move her to this new school proved SO right! The whole concert was not only a lot shorter, but it was a whole lot sweeter too (and they teach classical ballet!) The dances were more wholesome yet good. Who said you had to be sexual to dance well! I've used the s word again, oh dear!
It amazes me that I hear of so many parents who pull their kids out of dance schools for the same reasons as we did yet the dance schools don't seem to get the message!

Anyway, we are happy, Rebekah is happy and she still wants to grow up to be a ballerina......to be continued........at some point in the future:)

In the meantime, she will get all the support she needs from us:

Ambleside Online - year 1 we're half done!

2011-09-12T16:00:00.015+10:00

I've had a busy busy few weeks, and came back to my blog to discover a few new followers, woohoo! I'm an introvert and my blog reflects that - so 31 followers was good; I'm actually amazed to see the number go up suddenly and so I'll be coming your way to check you all out soon my new followers:)

In the meantime I want to let you know we've been busy celebrating a certain someone's birthday, nursing a sick guinea pig with a few visits to the vet thrown in, organising play dates and attending homeschool park days with two different groups for extra measure :) - an essential when one homeschools an only child, working two part time jobs, volunteering at church and celebrating 10 years as a local church! So, please excuse my absence from your bloggy worlds but I will catch up with you all soon.

I told you some time ago we switched curriculums this year, so I thought I'd post an update with how it's all going with Ambleside Online seeing that we're in week 18 of the 36 week curriculum!

Well, the ladies over on those discussion boards are not wrong, it surely is a rigorous curriculum; don't let first glances deceive you:)

The books are quite challenging but not overwhelming for Rebekah which is right where she needs to be.
We follow the curriculum pretty closely but do our own thing for art study and hymns; we also added in and substituted some Australian material. And oh, we haven't gotten around to folksongs yet!

I started off adding in Australian material but quickly found out that this was just going to overload us so I have decided to substitute instead (where possible).
We now use "Old Bob's birds" by C K Thompson instead of the "Burgess Bird Book". This book was filled with American birds and while Rebekah enjoyed the stories I felt reading an Australian Bird Book would be far more fruitful in bringing natural history to life for her.
We still add in "My place" by Nadia Wheatley to the history selections but since this is a fairly easy book to follow we are managing.
Also, we don't do narrations for every reading; we just read and discuss "Tales from Shakespeare" and "Just so Stories". I felt narrating every reading was overkill for Rebekah and I didn't want reading for school to become a drudgery.

One thing that has happened ths year (due to the increase in work load for school work) is that our nature walks and craft activities were falling by the wayside, the latter to my dear craft-loving daughters chagrin:(
So, a rethink was done and now we have decided to make one day of our four day week an 'arts' day.
We do all our academic subjects from Monday to Wednesday and leave Thursdays for the arty subjects like picture study, composer, hymns, handicrafts (knitting) and craft. Those of you familiar with Charlotte Mason would know she didn't place too much emphasis on what we would call 'craft' activities, but one of my daughter's love languages would be doing craft together (if there was such a love language) :)
So, to fill her love tank in this area I schedule them in on Thursdays.

I've also decided to aim for one nature walk per fortnight at least. This way I don't beat myself up over not doing one every week. This is not to say that she hasn't been on nature walks this year! My husband is a nature lover so he does take Rebekah on bush walks regularly and while this covers that subject a little, I still want to do 'focused' nature walks with her and hence my new goals. Our backyard and informal nature study still continues due to her being exposed to it since she was much younger, so we have managed a few nature journal entries too.

I'll be heading over to yours soon.....

The Book that changed the world

2011-08-13T19:03:00.011+10:00

This year marks 400 years since the first KJV (King James Version) of the Bible was published and today we got to see one of those very first editions:

The picture above doesn't do it any justice at all, it was probably one foot long and about 10 cm wide, that's my guesstimate:) It was massive!

We also got to see some other historical bibles including one of the very first English Bibles put out by William Tyndale, this one dates back to 1551:

(William Tyndale became a martyr for his work in translating the Bible into English! We owe a lot to him!)

and would you believe one owned by Shakespeare:

This is an exhibition being held by the Bible Society of Australia at the moment and it was well worth the hours drive for us! It was truly amazing to see these historical Bibles amongst others. They've named the exhibition: The Book that Changed the World. I can certainly attest to it having changed my life!

Deholidaying!

2011-07-24T15:05:00.010+10:00

If you're a homeschooler you would have heard of the word deschooling, well, I've come up with a word called "deholidaying' lol!
Let me explain.....
I'm finding more and more that our school holidays are much much more busier than school terms and I'm sure I'm not alone!

We don't usually follow the school terms but this year coincidentally our term ended at the same time as the schools. We spent the first couple of days of the first week of holidays on our end of term exams. After that it was a whirlwind of social activities! So much so that at the end of the school holidays I needed a holiday lol!

So......we spent this past week deholidaying:) Just getting back to our routine of just the two of us while Daddy's at work. Mummy catching up on all the domestic chores that got put on the back burner (due to being out almost every day for the past couple of weeks), homeschool record keeping and admin work and Rebekah just chilling and getting back to being at home with mum apart from her usual weekly classes (park days have been out the window this week due to the rain).

Now Rebekah generally has lots of contact with other kids during the school terms what with her dancing, swimming, weekly and fortnightly park days (we belong to two different home school groups), play dates etc. But somehow during school holidays this seems magnified, maybe it's just that it's more concentrated with longer times out of the house that makes it more busy.
Anyway, so this past week, we've just stayed home and baked and done art and craft.

Here are some photos from our school holidays (all three weeks of them):)

Craft activities put on by our local shopping centre (mall):

Another activity put on by same place:

Rebekah also had her good friend over for a sleep over for the first time (it was a first for both of them) and this is Ron reading them a bed time story:

Rebekah also got her first Sylvanian family dolls:
I'm sure they are the just the first of many many many....more to come:)

And now that holidays are over it's back to next term for us. Have a great week!

Exams (the Charlotte Mason way)

2011-07-06T22:00:00.000+10:00

We've just finished term 1 of Year 2 and had our exams yesterday. Rebekah LOVES exams! Why? I think in large part it's because we do them the Charlotte Mason way. For those not familiar with this let me explain:

When I was at school I memorised facts to produce at exams. It was all about how much I could cram into my little brain to reproduce accurately come exam time.

Charlotte Mason's exams though are the opposite. They are not to test on what one doesn't know but on what one knows. So, our exam questions are often open ended as in "Tell me the story of ........" or "Tell me all about......." This leaves Rebekah to tell me what she remembers and not what I want her to remember.
How freeing for her! No wonder she loves exams. She gets to tell me things that she knows from what she's learned during the term.

Winston Churchill said “I would like to have been examined in history, poetry and writing essays. The examiners, on the other hand, were partial to Latin and mathematics. And their will prevailed ... I should have liked to be asked to say what I knew. They always tried to ask what I did not know.” :)

I agree! (Though I'd reverse the subjects in the quote. I would have liked to be examined in maths and geography not history, poetry and writing essays lol!)

So, all in all, how did Rebekah do I hear you ask:)
She did very well. She told me all about stories from the living books I've only read to her once (yes just once) from the last 12 weeks. For some of them she remembered more details than others but this is ok with me because Charlotte Mason did say "The question is not how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him?"

Right now Rebekah cares a great deal about a lot! :)

So Rebekah has passed her exams with flying colours! Good job Rebekah!

Rosemary's Easy Thai vegie curry

2011-07-04T15:40:00.002+10:00

This is the next one in my list of recipes I'm posting. We've been eating this very regularly (except Rebekah) who doesn't like the pumpkin!

I do cook two mains for times like these when she won't eat what Ron and I eat:)

Ingredients:

1/2 butternut pumpkin, peeled and chopped into medium size pieces (3cm square pieces)
1 can lentils / chick peas drained and rinsed.
1 cup frozen peas (or any other vegies you like)
250 ml coconut milk
1 to 2 tbsp brown sugar (depending on how much curry paste you use)
1 tsp massels chicken stock powder mixed in 1/2 cup warm water
few basil leaves
1 to 2 tsp red curry paste
1/2 onion diced

Method:

Fry onion in a tsp or so of cooking oil.
When it begins to soften, add the pumpkin and stir fry for one to two minutes.
Then add the red curry paste along with the stock liquid and stir gently.
Place lid on pan and cook on low heat for a few minutes until pumpkin begins to soften.
Then add the coconut milk, brown sugar, basil and peas and cook for another couple of minutes. When the peas are almost cooked add the drained lentils / chick peas and basil, turn heat off and let it simmer on the stove for a couple more minutes.

Serve with steamed basmati rice.

This is a healthy vegetarian curry and the lentils / chick peas provide protein.
Also, I'll let you in on my secret: if you are using commercially made Thai curry pastes, I've found the "Mae Ploy" brand to be the best and closest to the restaurant quality Thai curries you can make at home:)
Disclaimer: I don't own shares in that company and I don't know much about the company either but I've tried several brands over the years and I've found them to be the best so have stopped buying other brands:)

Rosemary's Easy Roast Beef

2011-06-23T11:55:00.004+10:00

I go through phases in my cooking much like lots of others I know so I thought I'd tell you what we've been eating regularly of late. I'll do separate posts on my recipes so it gets filed more neatly in the archives, is that ok? :)

I am a bit of a jack of all trades as I cook a lot of different foods and adapt and change recipes to suit intolerances and allergies in our home. One thing that I always make sure is that it's an EASY recipe:) I am the 'queen of easy' in the kitchen, especially in the past few years as I've started wearing 'many hats' so to speak, both with being a mum, homeschooling, working part time, ministry involvement etc. So....this is a yummy and super easy recipe that I tried out recently and everyone (including me ! ) loved it so here it is:

Ingredients:

1 kg or thereabouts of a piece of topside roast
1 packet French onion soup
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 to 1 tsp chilli powder (depending on how spicy you want it).

2 large sweet potatoes peeled and cut into 2 cm thick slices.
Other vegetables to serve steamed alongside and gravy if you desire.

Method:

Turn oven on to warm up while you do the following:

Peel and chop the sweet potatoes.

Mix the soup packet ingredients, the chilli and garlic in about 1/2 cup of warm water and pour over the meat in a baking dish. (I used a corning ware casserole dish with a lid).

Cook the meat in pre-heated oven (180 degrees C / 350 degrees F) for around two hours (for well done). I use a meat thermometer and it usually takes less than two hours.

Towards the last hour or 45 minutes of cooking I add the sweet potato (sprayed with cooking oil and a dusting of black pepper) to the baking dish.

When it comes out of the oven the sweet potato would have soaked up some of the juices from the cooking process which makes it absolutely delish!

To this you can add steamed vegies, peas, corn, whatever you want really!

Ron and Rebekah like this served with some gravy but I prefer it without and just the juices from the baking dish.

Unfortunately I don't have a picture for you but I can tell you the flavours of the soup mix along with the chilli, garlic and pepper make it very tasty indeed and complement the beef very well. Great for the cold winter nights we've been having of late! I should also mention that with the price of lamb these days this is a much more economical meal!

I'd be interested if you do try it out to let me know how you go, otherwise this will just remain filed away in my archives for me to refer to some time down the road:)

Year 2 - Leaving Living Books Curriculum to do Ambleside Online

2011-06-09T22:20:00.002+10:00

I'm finally getting around to posting what we do for year 2 which we began early April!

I had been looking into Ambleside Online for many years but had been too overwhelmed or too intimidated by it all to really take the plunge and start it:)

I think two years of Living Books Curriculum has given me the confidence I needed to step out and do Charlotte Mason on my own without the need for a teachers manual.
So, even though I like LBC, I found that after a while I was tweaking it so much that I thought I would be better off to just do it on my own.
Not that you have to do it on your own with AO! There is a very active discussion group where mums discuss the curriculum and it is a great support network for those who decide to use it. This was actually one of the things that kept attracting me to AO and not to mention the great books used as well! I must also add that most of the books AO use are free online, a great bonus for those on a tight budget!

So, even if you don't home school or use another curriculum, may I recommend you look at their booklists? You're sure to get some great ideas from there!

Anyway, back to our year 2! I had heard that AO was quite an advanced curriculum and that one is better off waiting till the child is close to 7 to begin year 1. (hanging around that afore mentioned discussion group for years was great for me!)
So, Rebekah turning 7 this year I decided to take the plunge and do their year 1.
Now, for the purposes of extra curricular activities and for the Board of Studies I need to 'grade' Rebekah so we are calling it Year 2 and also I believe that this curriculum is quite advanced so calling it year 2 is quite appropriate in my opinion!

We are using the curriculum pretty closely to how its laid out with some small adjustments. I am adding some Aussie poetry, literature, art and history in this year by either substituting or adding it in as an extra.

Here is our take on it:

Bible:

We are following Charlotte Mason's PNEU curriculum along with the leftover pages of the Early Reader Wonder Devotional Book from last year and Leading Little Ones to God which we've been doing very slowly for the last couple of years!

Language Arts:

Penmanship:

Continuing with Italics Beautiful Handwriting for Children by Penny Gardner.

Reading:

Rebekah is a very fluent reader so we will continue buddy reading.

Poetry:

A Child's Garden of Verses by R.L. Stevenson
Now we are six by A.A. Milne
The Animals Noah Forgot by A.B. Paterson (Australian poetry)

Literature:

Aesop for Children by Milo Winter
Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit
The Blue Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
Parables from Nature by Margaret Gatty
The Way of the Whirlwind by Mary Durack (Aussie literature) (We intended to use this book last year but didn'nt as I felt Rebekah would get more out of it this year)

Maths:

We are continuing with Singapore Maths, doing the 1B and 2A books this year.

Science:

Charlotte Mason emphasised nature study as a foundation for higher level sciences so we will be continuing our focus on nature study using The Handbook of Nature Study as outlined in AO along with our own field guides and other nature books we've accumulated.

In addition to this we will be using (as outlined in AO):
James Herriot's Treasury for Children by James Herriot and
The Burgess Bird Book for Children by Thornton Burgess

We will also be completing 'Growing Strong and Healthy' from LBC Year 1. This is a great book on the human body and nutrition and if you are looking for something free which is also good, it is available online!

History:

Early history, focusing on people rather than events-
Trial and Triumph by Richard Hannula (we are omitting this book)

An Island Story by H.E. Marshall
Fifty Famous Stories Retold by James Baldwin
Viking Tales by Jennie Hall

To this we are adding My Place by Nadia Wheatley for Aussie history.

Geography:

Paddle to the Sea by Holling C Holling (This is a book covering the great lakes in America but it is such a lovely book that we just had to use it!)

Foreign language:

We are continuing Spanish with Play and learn Spanish by Ana Lombarda.

Drawing:

Drawing with Children by Mona Brooks

Craft:

We will use the many craft books we have in our home library!

Picture Study:

Here we are not following AO, instead we will be using:
Come look with me, exploring Landscape art with Children by Gladys Blizzard
Roy and Matilda: The Golden Locket by Susan Venn (Aussie art)

Composer:

We will be following AO for this and listening to the music of Beethoven, Vivaldi and Chopin.

Hymns and Folksongs:

AO have scheduled these but I am not doing them for now but will add them in later in the year after we are more used to this new curriculum!

P.S. I am deeply indebted to many that have gone on before me in this homeschooling adventure that I have learned from over the years. I especially wanted to mention Jeanne (ohpeacefulday) for her mentoring me in Charlotte Mason and Ambleside Online in particular! I also want to mention that I glean from various resources for my Aussie stuff, in particular I want to make mention of Ruth (From Wonder to Wisdom) and Michelle (Homeschooling Downunder) whose websites / blogs have also helped me immensely. You will find many many wonderful Aussie resources on each of these ladies websites.

Year 2 weekly schedule

2011-06-09T22:00:00.003+10:00

As I am having trouble editing my post on year 2 plans, this is just an update for our weekly schedule! Here's the link.

She doesn't like colouring in but she does have confidence!

2011-05-28T13:31:00.002+10:00

Rebekah has NEVER liked colouring in (or coloring if you are from the US) sheets or books! She actually doesn't like it, she loathes it!
So, last week for our art study I printed off a free colouring page for "The starry night" by Van Gogh so we could attempt to copy his painting. I suggested painting as I know she doesn't like colouring in. She didn't like the sound of painting and I could understand her difficulty as I could see it would end up with colours all over the page:) So SHE suggested we colour it in! Miracle!
I've never encouraged her to try colouring in and just gone along with her dislike because I don't really see much point to it other than it keeping her busy for sometime. I know there are some views out there for and against colouring sheets and I chose to go with the against idea (in our home) because I know it doesn't lend itself to too much creativity. Am I getting controversial? :) I would hate to become controversial on my blog:) Anyway....back to last week, she did actually colour in her sheet, it took her two days to complete but I thought it didn't turn out too bad for someone that doesnt' like it:

Last Sunday at church, she was given some activity sheets to fill out, some colouring in sheets and one to fill out some details about herself. No guess for which ones she went for! :) Now, I have to preface this by saying that I have never taught her spelling in a formal way as I am following Charlotte Mason's philosophy of copywork for now and dictation and spelling will come later over the next couple of years. So, she asked me for help with spelling a couple of the bigger words she wanted to fill in about herself but other than those she spelled the rest by herself. Not bad spelling I thought! That night after she went to bed, I got it out to show Ron and we both chuckled! Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks right! Well, all I could see was 'confidence' as I read it with Ron. I don't really remember being so confident of myself when I was her age. Needless to say I am thankful to God for what He is doing in her life! Here it is below, what do you all think? I won't mind if you chuckle:)

It reads:

My name is Rebekah. I have mummy, daddy hair and brown eyes. My nose is cool and nice. My skin is light and it feels soft. My ears are sensitive and nice.
I like to wear pertty clothes. Today I am wearing top, pants. My black pants are cool. My shoes are blue and sparkly. My socks are black and white and they smell like perfume. I on the other hand smell like me. If you listen my voice sounds happy and funny. My favourite thing about myself is my generosity. It is nice and fun.
Thanks for getting to know me. Here is a picture I drew of myself. I am fantastic.

Belated Happy Mothers day!

2011-05-11T10:48:00.002+10:00

I hope all my mum friends out there had a special day on Sunday. Happy belated Mothers day!

I was talking to Ron last night about our parenting and some of the choices we've made as a family so I can stay home and home school Rebekah. It's easy when one is in the midst of difficult and trying times whether that be financial, physical, or just the monotony of the daily routines especially when kids are young, to not keep one's focus on the future and long term goals isn't it!

We were talking about all the overseas holidays we had before we had Rebekah, etc etc. Yet, I wouldn't trade what I do now for that life! I know that each and every day the choices and decisions we make in parenting Rebekah are having an eternal consequence.

So....this morning, I read this poem on one of the forums I belong to and thought I'd pass it on to all you mums out there. Hope it encourages you as much as it did me!

The legacy

She could not give her children gold,
So she gave them faith to have and hold.
She could not give them royal birth .
A name renowned throughout the earth,
But she gave them seeds and a garden spot
And shade trees when the sun was hot.

She could not give a silver spoon
Or servants waiting night and noon.
She gave them love and a listening ear
And told them God was always near.

She could not give them ocean trips
Aboard majestic sailing ships,
But she gave them books and a quiet time,
Adventures found in prose and rhyme.

She could not give them worldly things
But what she gave was fit for kings,
For with her faith and books and sod
She made each child aware of God.

Alice Leedy Mason

Meet our newest and not so new family members

2011-05-06T10:13:00.012+10:00

Rebekah has been wanting gold fish for some time now. The fact that her good friends Ava and Nate have them might have had something to do with it:)
So, always wanting to use situations to teach her the value of money we told her to use her own pocket money to get a little tank for them. She wisely shopped around and found one that was good value. The next step was the actual fish! She didn't have quite enough money for it so she decided to get some 'free' fish from a local pond. (She didn't care that they were not actually 'gold fish' at that stage. You can't beat free, can you!)
So Easter Saturday she spent 'fishing' with Daddy at a local pond and managed to get six small little fish.
Unfortunately that night we had a little accident which ended up in me killing the fish(I knocked them accidentally and the jar fell out of her hand with fish on the ground, oops!) We tried to salvage them to no effect.
So, mummy decided to buy her some gold fish and here they are. Meet Goldie and Sunshine:

They are an addition to two guinea pigs we have named Peekface (and NOT 'Pigface' as some have thought:)) (daughter of Claire) whom we have had since birth (about 18 months ago) and Emily who we got last year. (They were both named by Rebekah as were her gold fish).

Rebekah has been faithfully feeding her fish each morning and night and is hoping they live for 20 years (as she read that apparently!)

Emily our guinea pig turned one in the last few weeks and we celebrated her birthday recently with a 'salad' cake made of grass, lettuce, broccoli, carrots and dandelions, yum!

This special day was celebrated recently with her afore mentioned friends when they came over for a play date and they all sang "Feliz Cumplianos" (happy birthday in Spanish) including Ava who had to learn the words that morning. Nate who is a bit younger just sang along with 'squeak squeak' to the tune of happy birthday, it was all very cute as you can imagine!

A goodbye, A reunion and Honouring others

2011-04-18T15:38:00.009+10:00

Our weekend was a very busy and social one.

On Friday night we had dinner with my mum and step dad who are heading back to India this week.
They are missionaries there, run an orphanage and do other missionary work.
They spend three quarters of the year there and the rest back here in Sydney resting and recuperating but that's another story to tell!
It's always a sad time for me when they have to go back. I have become so much closer to my mum in the last few years (we've always been close) but I think becoming a mother has strenghtened our bonds as we now have motherhood in common!
I also feel sad for Rebekah as she misses them and her paternal grandparents don't live in Sydney either!

On Saturday we attended a birthday party of some friends' one year old daughter. We were asked to be God-parents (as were about 15 others), very cute!
In this couple's culture the first birthday is a big one and this definitely was a BIG one, it seemed more like some weddings I've been to in Australia!

Also this weekend, I had a trip down memory lane which was fun and revelatory at the same time (for me)!

I studied in a catholic school in India run by nuns (some of whom were Irish). Well our school principal was one of them and a good friend of my family's too.
She served in India for 25 years and has been back in the UK for the past 25.
An old school teacher (who is also a distant relative of mine) organised a golden jubilee mass and get together for her (as she was visiting Australia a month after this event). I had not seen her in about 25 years and I was eagerly looking forward to this weekend. When I left India, we had no emails, no internet etc and the only way I could keep in touch with friends was via snail mail. So, I had thought I would never see any of my friends or teachers again let alone a school principal who was herself not from India! Boy was I wrong! Who knew about internet and facebook and the wonders of modern technology and what it could do back then!
Anyway to cut a long story short, we spent Sunday afternoon with her and a dozen or so old school students who now call Sydney / Australia home.
Some of them I remembered quite well, some of them I vaguely remembered and others not at all or were at school at a different time to me.
What was revelatory to me was that the ones who were the extroverts were still the same and the ones who were the quiet types (yours truly for instance!) were also still the same! Time had not changed our personalities!

As this nun walked into the room, some of us felt like it was a dream and that this wasn't really happening!
You see we all loved and respected her so much and never thought we'd see her again.

It was strange also in a way as we (30 and 40 something year olds) took a trip down memory lane, singing some of the old songs we used to sing at school including our school song!

The most interesting and moving part for me was when we all shared some memories of our old school principal.

I came from a broken home and I remember during that traumatic time for us(me and my sibling sisters who also went to the same school), this nun was so compassionate and helpful to my mum and us. She was very generous towards us to say the least.
I always felt she 'knew' our family quite well because of that.
Little did I know that there were many others in similar situations that she had been extremely generous with as well.
There were tears and emotional speeches of thanks for the part she played in some of these girls lives.
It was a powerful time as we honoured her! Ron said it was pretty boring until that point:) Though prior to that he did manage to capture some of my singing and 'dancing' on video to embarass me with later!

So last night, it got us(Ron and I) talking about the subject of honour and how one of our pastors says that God places people in our lives for us to honour because they are training grounds for us to learn to honour Him. How true!
In fact I think we are honouring God when we honour those people He places in our lives and that's what made this Sunday afternoon so special and powerful!

I came home exhilarated and exhausted at the same time (as I've mentioned a zillion times before how I am an introvert and these social things seem to wring me out a bit):)

Hope you all had a great weekend too!

A time to rest and a time to work!

2011-04-06T11:30:00.005+10:00

We've just come back from a three week holiday in Victoria and to tell you I've hit the ground running is an understatement!
My autumn memories post that I scheduled to post while I was away was very ill timed I believe as I heard it was raining all that week (embarassed grin).

We're back from cold Victoria to warmer pastures, yes believe me, NSW is a lot warmer than it's Southern neighbours!
I've packed away our winter clothes I took down with us on our trip to be brought out in a month or two.

We had a lovely time away - sleeping in, going for leisurely strolls along the beach, catching up with relatives and Jeanne (one of my home school mentors and friends) spending time together as a family, celebrating birthdays, eating too much cake, sight seeing, breathing in the fresh country and seaside air and generally resting.

I opened my emails on Monday to find I had hundreds (yes hundreds) all up, in my various email inboxes!
I've also come back to a three day prayer and fast at our church (which I'm heavily involved in), preparing for a conference that our church and our sister churches in Sydney are hosting at the end of the month (which I am moderately involved in), getting ready to begin year 2 with Rebekah next week (when all the other kids are breathing sighs of relief on Monday morning as they don't need to go to school), yes cruel mummy that I am :), not to mention catching up on my emails, the mounds of washing, cleaning etc!

Then, too top it all off, last night I got a phone call from an old school teacher (who is also a very distant relative of mine and who also moved to Sydney many years ago) to say there is a bit of a school re-union planned for next Sunday with my old school headmistress (a lovely Irish nun who is now retired back to Ireland and is visiting Australia) and any ex-students who now live in Sydney! I am terribly excited about this! I do however have to get the word out which involves work on my part, but hey, I think I'll use Fakebook (oops Facebook) to do that:) So, to say I've hit the ground running is definitely an understatement:)

BUT I am SO rested though that I've already done a weeks work in three days - side benefits of holidays! :)

So, I promise to make my way over to your blogs and catch up and also post some holiday pictures in due time...

Autumn memories

2011-03-19T15:55:00.002+11:00

Autumn (Fall) has to be my most favourite time of year!
I love the cool after the stifling heat and humidity of late summer in Sydney.
Actually if you are not from Sydney and are ever thinking of visiting, may I recommend you visit in Autumn? It's the best time in Sydney in my opinion. (That's some free advice for you, no charge):)

But more than the cool change in the temperatures,the bright sunny days, the change in the colour of the leaves etc the things that make autumn more special for me these days is the memories it brings back.

You see it was on a beautiful sunny autumn day 7 years ago that Ron and I welcomed Rebekah Faith into this world. She arrived a month early to our surprise but who would complain after having waited for so many years for her!

(apologies for the picture, it's a picture of a picture as we didn't have a digital camera then, this was one of the very first pictures taken of Rebekah)

We had to leave in her in the hospital for a week after I checked out as she was having feeding problems. So after a painful and tiring week, we brought her home on another gorgeous sunny autumn day. (I remember walking out the hospital doors and wondering if we were actually allowed to do this? Didn't we need some sort of permission to take her home? How could they just let us walk off with her? I think Ron was feeling the same way and in that nervous but excited and euhporic state, we didn't buckle her into her baby capsule properly! It wasn't until we'd driven down the road a kilometre or so that I turned back to check on her and realised our mistake, oops! But anyway I've digressed!)

So, autumn and these beautiful days take me right back to that time in 2004.

Also it was in autumn 24 years ago that I migrated to Australia with my mum, step-dad and my younger sister.
I remember the excitement of arriving in this new land that we had heard so much about from our relatives living here.
The cool sunny weather that greeted us, the new experiences of living here, new discoveries, new accents, new ways of doing things, new people etc. Those memories are etched in my mind.

So, each autumn brings back nostalgic memories of these two important events of my life.
The anticipation and excitement of moving here along with those first initial impressions of this beautiful land and the lovely people, and the joy and exhilaration of giving birth to our precious daughter along with those first euphoric days and weeks in my life as a new mum. I just love autumn!

What is your favourite season of the year and is it because of special memories or is it because of the weather?

Nature Study in our (tiny) back yard

2011-03-09T15:30:00.002+11:00

One of the biggest components of a Charlotte Mason education and one that sets her apart from many others is the importance of nature study!

I was really blessed to find out about and read her philosophies on education when Rebekah was two.

One thing that I immediately incorporated into our life style was getting out into nature, exploring and observing. I found that to my surprise, I actually liked being out there. I was a city girl, grew up in a concrete jungle in one of the biggest cities in India and didn't like the out doors too much. Then I moved to Australia and a few years later married my dearest husband who just loves nature, bush walking, being out there in nature etc! Opposites do attract!

Anyway I've digressed. I gradually started to 'tolerate' the outdoors with my hubby.

However it was not until I started getting outdoors with Rebekah and truly 'observing' nature, taking note of the flowers, the trees, the birds etc that I actually started to like nature.

Nature has so much to teach us. "The heavens display the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands" is so true!
There is also so much joy in truly taking in nature. I now find it very relaxing being outdoors.

So.... we were living in small unit(apartment) when we began our venture into nature study.
I remember one of the very first experiences with Rebekah and nature study: it was observing a bird on our balcony and identifying it as a common myna (sorry guys, I did not even know what a myna was before that! I know, I know, how bad was I, I told you I grew up in a concrete jungle:) ). That experience is etched in my memory because it was so exciting for both of us to observe a bird and then identify it for the first time from a book!

Fast forward about four years and it has become second nature to us! Rebekah can identify and name least fifteen to twenty birds now.

Late last year we had a long period of rain and we had to stay indoors a lot. I remember one rainy day we saw a black bird in our back yard. School being done for the day, we stood near our glass sliding door and looked out over our rainy back yard, spending considerable time just watching this little blackbird, observing it to see what it was up to. It was actually one that was nesting between our fence and our neighbours fence! After observing it for some time Rebekah yelled out " I just LOVE nature". Any Charlotte Mason mum would tell you what joy that brings to her heart! I was thrilled to say the least!

So, when I was working on our end of term reports last year, as I was collating all the work we had done for 'nature study' to include in my reports, I found that there was SO much we had done in our tiny back yard, which actually is a court yard to be more accurate!

Below are just some of the things we've observed and studied from our suburban court yard :

- A baby blackbird (that fell out of it's nest - mentioned above)

- A centipede

- A tadpole that we kept to watch it grow and develop but which unfortunately escaped when we were on holidays last year after it's legs grew:)

A flower from one of our plants:

We still don't know it's name but it's from this plant below, a very common one around here but I can't seem to find it in our flower book! Can anyone help me out here? :)

All of these we read about and / or drew in our nature journals.

Besides the above, we observed ants, kept an ant farm, observed the sky, clouds, stars, moon, the trees change with the seasons, birds, flowers, spiders, slaters etc.

I would say that because our eyes have been opened to observe nature, we find / found there was so much to observe and learn about just from our tiny court yard!

Charlotte Mason said the following about nature study:

"We are all meant to be naturalists, each in his own degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things."

“There is no part of a child's education more important than that he should lay - by his own observation - a wide basis of facts towards scientific knowledge in the future."

"Let them once get in touch with nature and a habit is formed which will be a source of delight and habit through life."

Nature study is meant to form a foundation for the higher years of science study besides being a source of delight!
It truly is a source of delight to us at the moment and I am trusting that it's also laying a strong foundation in Rebekah that will help her as she learns more science in the years to come!

p.s I am in the process of submitting this post to the CM Blog carnival (who? lil ol' me? I know, who would have guessed!):)
If you are wanting to read more, click on the Fisher Academy blog on my blog list (on the right) and you'll find many more blog posts by others on Charlotte Mason!

We're done, yay!

2011-03-03T21:57:00.006+11:00

Hooray, this week Rebekah finished year 1!

I used the 'better late than early' approach and began formal studies using our Year 1 curriculum with Rebekah very gently when she was about to turn 6 which was a year ago.
It was a year of trial and error, chopping and changing books and methods, routines etc. Can I say we're in a 'groove' yet? Not sure! Sometimes it felt like we were in our 'groove' only for things to change, but hey, it's all part of the journey and we are still loving it!

At the end of each term we did our 'exams' Charlotte Mason style mostly and I was amazed at the amount that Rebekah retained from her books.
For instance, during these latest exams, she narrated back so beautifully an Aesop's Fable that I read to her just once more than one month ago!
Charlotte Mason was right about using 'narration' as opposed to 'fill in the blanks'.
We used mostly living books barring one text book for this last term. We had trouble with some of the more 'textbook' type of books with this curriculum and I found that she was not able to narrate back much nor recall much at the end of term exams for term 2. The one textbook we used this term was for science (Growing strong and healthy), and from this she did remember quite a bit and did well with her exam questions which I was pleased about.
We also did a combined term 3 and 4 as we were lagging behind in the schedule put out by "Living Books Curriculum". I adapted it and made our own schedule for this last term and finished it on time!

All in all, I am pleased with Rebekah and how well she has done this year. Great job Rebekah!

And oh, just to make it more 'official' I bought these certificates from ebay which I awarded to her at the end of each term. Well, I am her teacher after all, so I can do this right? :)

So, we will have a bit of a break before we begin Year 2 so Rebekah will have more time to do this (not that she doesn't already, but there will be more!):

this:

and this:

Family read alouds

2011-02-19T18:43:00.009+11:00

Charlotte Mason used "living books" instead of textbooks in her schools which is what we also try to use in our home school. Hence read alouds are something we do as part of 'school' a la Charlotte Mason.

However, when I first started looking into home schooling, I remember reading Susan Schaeffer Macaulay talking about a 'family read aloud' time in "For the Children's sake".

So, last year, Ron and I began that tradition on a Saturday night (when we are at home). We began with "Winnie the Pooh", a great book for the young and the young at heart:) We enjoyed reading this book, all three of us snuggled up on our couch at home, laughing at this silly old bear and his 'expotitions' . We usually read just a chapter at a time so this took us quite a while to get through.

Next we undertook "Little House in the Big Woods" by Laura Ingalls Wilder. This book was just lovely, it transported us to a very different time and place with Ma and Pa, Laura and Mary and their house which was indeed oh so little, poles apart from our day and lifestyle. A lot of it was way over Rebekah's understanding and life experience just as any other six year old's living in the 21st century, not something she could relate to, e.g., hunting bears and lighting fires, but despite this she really enjoyed it as did we. This charming book we finished last Saturday.

Today, we begin "The Magician's Nephew" by C.S.Lewis. Rebekah has been patiently waiting for this book since mid last year when Ron started telling her stories from the Narnia books as part of her bed time stories.

We hope that this tradition carries on for many years to come, even into the teenage years (as Susan.S.Macaulay talked about in the afore mentioned book).

It is such a great bonding time, very special and if you have not done this with your kids I would encourage you to try this out too! You will be making memories for them, not to mention encouraging them to really enjoy good books and also educating them at the same time(wink)! So, I'm off to begin our Narnia series! Enjoy your weekend!

Homeschool park (fun) days

2011-02-11T17:12:00.007+11:00

With all the kids back at school, our fortnightly home school park days have commenced again.
It was a humid hot typical February day in Sydney today in the very high 30's (approximately 104 degrees Farenheit) and so I was expecting it to be a small turnout.
I was wrong! I think most people must have missed these fun get togethers (like me) and like me must have been wanting to get back into them. It was like a great big family reunion!
Rebekah was hot,red, sweaty and thirsty but it was still hard to drag her away from her friends at the end!

For those of you who don't home school, they are get togethers at a park with other home schooling families - kind of like a massive play date with several families, oh what fun (for the kids and the mums/dads )! :) The kids always have such a ball, just running and playing and being kids outdoors (which is so good for them) for many hours at a stretch!

(this was taken at another time)

As a home schooler you're in a minority group and this makes it all the more necessary to meet up with other like minded mums. I always come away feeling so encouraged! We get to share our experiences, learn from more experienced mums, encourage the younger mums just starting out etc.

Also, I have been finding that Rebekah is increasingly wanting to be around other kids more. I'm not sure if it was being on holidays that caused her to miss her friends or if she is needing to be around kids more overall. I suspect it is the former as we've had a long break at home (usually we go away on holidays during the Christmas break) Anyway, whatever the reason, I've decided to spend more time out and about with her, and to get her a bit more involved with things going on in the home school community that we were not involved with last year. I know this is going to be a stretch for "li'l ol" introverted me but I'm just going to have to bite the bullet and do it for my daughter's sake.
I know that this is unique to us as she doesn't have other siblings but that is part of the challenge of home schooling an only child. I'm sure I'll know in a few months time if we need to scale back or not but until then I'll be out and about more!

New ballet school

2011-02-02T21:45:00.004+11:00

Rebekah has been loving her 'dance' lessons she's done for the past two years. She started off with jazz, ballet and tap in 2009.In 2010 we dropped the jazz and did ballet and tap.
In 2011 we've dropped the tap and she will be doing ballet only and that at a different school.

I have spoken to quite a few mums who feel the same way as me and are not happy with most of the dance schools - from the choice of music, the dance moves and even to some of the costumes - just way too inappropriate for young kids. That was the reason we dropped jazz and tap gradually and continued with the ballet last year.
Well, Rebekah just LOVES dance and music! So quitting altogether is not an option.
Besides we feel she needs the extra curricular activities in her life especially as she has no other siblings. Also she seems quite musical and just loves loves loves music! She loves listening to most types of music but I just love the fact that she LOVES classical music.

In fact when she was a baby - around 8 months of age, I remember there used to be a car commercial on TV with not many words and a background of beautiful classical music. She would come crawling as fast as she could from wherever she was in our house to watch the TV whenever that ad came on!

Fast forward six years and she still loves music and dancing ballet to her collection of classical music is one of her favourite things to do in her free time.

So, anyway, when we found out about another dance school which is run by a large church about 20 minutes drive from our home we decided to check them out. Their website states that they are commited to protecting the innnocence of children. So, we enrolled Rebekah there and I will have to tell you some time later in the year how it's all working out!

I will just have to put up with the driving in Sydney's peak hour traffic (oh how sheltered and protected I've been from that for the past few years) and I don't have the luxury of dropping her off and coming home as it won't be worth the time with only an hours lesson. So, I guess it will be either walking or reading for me for an hour, which is all good!

I'll keep you posted on how it all works out no doubt!
Here she is dancing after we got her her new outfit for 2011:

Easy - peasy Sushi

2011-01-27T21:59:00.005+11:00

Rebekah loves getting into the kitchen with me and cooking. And to get out of a rut that I've been in with our meals around here I decided to get out some of my kids cookbooks and make atleast one new meal every couple of weeks with her - good on the job training don't you think?

So, we made Sushi today. Now in years gone by when I had a lot more time I used to get out my recipe books and cook new things frequently. Back then I had a great recipe for Sushi which was much more involved, so when I saw this simple recipe I had to try it. And guess what - it tasted pretty good - as per my two home grown food critics!

Here's some pictures I took earlier today (we had it for lunch) :

We saved some for Ron and his comment was "oh this looks just like the Sushi you get in the shops" :) I'm not sure what he expected my Sushi to look like or what that says about me as a cook!!! I know I'm not a master chef but c'mon I can cook cook a little (just teasing honey) (he does read my blog but never comments!).

So, the basic recipe is to cook some sushi rice, add some japanese/ sushi vinegar to it, place it onto your sea weed sheets with whatever filling you desire, roll them up and cut it to whatever length you desire. (All of these are available at the local supermarket these days). Ours was cucumber with avocado and tuna with avocado, yum!

Something tells me we'll be making this for a long time around here because not only was it healthy and yummy but it was also very easy and as I always tell my friends - in the kitchen I am "Queen of Easy"!

Bon appetit!

Fun Play Date with my daughter

2011-01-14T17:48:00.013+11:00

It was back to school for us this week and Rebekah was given the day off today as she had worked so well all week and finished everything she needed to do. I instituted this 'natural' reward (of having Fridays off) late last year to encourage her to keep focussed during the week and it has been working!

It still being school holidays, the local shopping centres (malls) have lots of fun activities going on to lure all the mums out of their homes to go spend some money there (tongue in cheek) but also providing some much needed activities for the parents to keep their kids occupied!

One of them at ours was a wildlife show with a touch table to boot.
I had contacted some of my mum-friends with young kids and two of them were supposed to join us but cancelled at the last minute due to unforeseen circumstances. Rebekah was understandably very disappointed.

Yesterday (not having fore knowledge of what would happen today) I was talking to her about her friends (as she has a million best friends she said) and I said to her that if I were 6 years old I would love her to be my BFF (Best Friend Forever - something I've only just learned!) I truly meant what I said! Anyway today, reminded of what we talked about yesterday, I told her that we could have a 'fun play date' by ourselves instead! I must admit this idea was semi-inspired by my friend Jo who homeschools three boys and goes out for dates with them individually.

So, we headed off to the shops where she played in the play area with me cheering on from the sidelines, I wasn't about to climb up the poles:)

Before this we visited the wildlife show where she got to observe many creatures including pythons, various types of lizards, goannas, turtles, tree frogs and even a baby crocodile.

Rebekah was very tentative at first about touching the bearded dragon but she gradually overcame this and was then showing off for me to take pictures touching it!

Rebekah was not game enough (as I was I might add) to hold or even touch the python! eeek! I dislike any type of snake! I just cannot bring myself to touch them!

Sushi for lunch and a visit to K Mart to get some stuff and then a cuppa and a cinnamon donut(yes that's one of my weaknesses) but Rebekah was willing too!

All in all we had a real fun play date at the shops with some nature study thrown in:)

We are going to watch the second half hour of "Horton hears a who" tonight for movie night and then it will be off to bed for Miss R. Enjoy your weekend!

Praying for Queensland

2011-01-11T19:31:00.005+11:00

I was going to do a Happy New Year post and fill you in on our holidays but I must pause my plans to tell you all that I felt I needed to do this....

I have never personally been in a flood of any type but I have been so moved by the horrendous flooding in Queensland and have begun praying earnestly for the people affected by it.
I hear there are many people missing including young families, quite a few dead and countless people have lost their homes.
I only have two blog-gy friends Ganeida and Amanda (who is on a break from blogging) who live up in Queensland and I am not sure if they live in the flood affected area but I just wanted you and any other Queenslanders that read this to know that as a family we are praying for you all.
Our prayer team in our church is praying for you all as well.

We prayed after dinner tonight as a family and when Ron and I finished praying I felt that Rebekah also wanted to pray so I asked her if she did, to which she simply said "God I pray that the people in the floods in Queensland are all okay", simple but to the point, Amen Rebekah!

We love you guys up in Queensland and even though I cannot imagine what you must be going through I just wanted you to know we are thinking of and praying for you.....

p.s. edited on 12/01/2011 to add Jo to my list of friends who live in Qld, sorry Jo, how could I forget such a lovely bloggy friend! I forgot you lived up there when I did this post yesterday!

A Wonderful Life

2010-12-22T15:57:00.010+11:00

Three more sleeps to Christmas, yay!

I was watching the old black and white classic movie "It's a Wonderful Life" on Saturday night with Ron. If ever there was an encouraging movie this would have to be IT don't you think?

I don't want to spoil it for you if you haven't seen it. It's a little on the corny side but it was just what the doctor ordered for me last weekend! I highly recommend you watch it if you haven't already and you'll see why I love it so much.

You see, I was in much need of some encouragement. The last couple of weeks have been a little tough, just sorting out some issues of the soul:)
Leading up to Saturday I had been talking with a friend who was going through similar things and it helped me realise I was not alone. In fact, are we ever alone? NEVER but it seems like it when we're going through something!

Anyway I had recently connected up with an old friend on Fakebook, oh sorry I meant Facebook ( I have a love-hate relationship with that thing!) :)
I had met this girl some 18 years ago in very different circumstances to what she is today. God used me quite a bit in her life to encourage her and stand with her through some difficult circumstances. And today she is happily married with a child and her husband is in a very prominent position in the city they live in. I was so blessed to find this out. To think that I had some part to play in her journey was so encouraging. I was thinking of all of this last Saturday and then it turned out this movie I mentioned was on TV that night. It's one of our favourites so we just HAD to watch it.

It's amazing how perspective can change everything in life. That to me was what I got out of the movie last Saturday. Once George Bailey's perspective changed it didn't matter what he had to face, it changed everything for him.
I was in much need of some "perspective adjustment" and I got it last weekend through this movie.

My life is SO blessed. Sure I've had my ups and downs like everyone else and things are not always the way I would like them to be or wanted them to be at this stage of my life but when seen with the right perspective I wouldn't trade my life for anyone else's EVER! I have a very blessed life indeed! It's a wonderful life that I have!
With that note, I want to wish you my dear friends who read my blog (and have been a great blessing to me) a very blessed Christmas and I pray that God will encourage you and bless you very much in 2011!
And leave you with a recent picture of my two greatest blessings with me:

Christmas Wreath, Independent play and Patience

2010-12-14T22:04:00.005+11:00

What's with the 'patience' you wonder?

First, I've got to tell you that Rebekah has not been doing much school (well not the book work-ish type of school) as she's been a bit under the weather with a bad cold, cough etc; she is on the mend now though and we MAY open up some books tomorrow and finish off school for 2010 this week, yay!

In the meantime, she's been reading poetry, listening to Christmas carols, doing some craft, listening to her story cd's I burnt from librivox, playing with our guinea pigs, watching ants, blackbirds, our palm trees flower and we even made this wreath inspired by Rebecca (not my Rebekah):)

Rebekah's didn't quite turn out as pretty as Rebecca's but still, it was pretty good for our first attempt I thought!

Homeschooling an only child has it's challenges though I still take my hat off to homeschooling mums of many kids, I just don't know how you do it, honestly!

One of the biggest challenges for me has been Rebekah not playing independently much and me having to teach her. Yes, I said "teaching" because it had to be taught!
Rebekah was glued to me for the first three or so years of her life and around the age of 4 she very slowly started to play by herself. It was a very very slow process! I started by finding something for her to play with, putting the kitchen timer on for five minutes and telling her to go play by herself. Sounds cruel but I had to. I knew I had to teach her to play independently (with the security of having me around) or it wasn't going to happen.
I'd heard and read about all theories relating to why she wasn't, including too much tv (no didn't do that one) or that she needed to go to pre-school as it would help (no I didn't think that was the best option) etc.
I gradually increased the time with the kitchen timer to probably about 15 minutes. I believe this definitely helped (a bit).

Then somehow just this year, after she turned six, something changed in her and she has become so much more better at independent play. She will now spend two or so hours at a stretch just playing and keeping herself entertained.
I think learning to read may have contributed or may be it was just that at the time that reading clicked in her mind she might have reached some developmental stage where independent play also clicked in her brain and became easier as well. I am no expert but my feeling is that it was partly a developmental thing, partly that she had no other siblings, partly her just needing the security of her mum and partly her personality - she is not a very strong willed or independent child, quite the opposite in fact.

Now that you've read this far so patiently and indulged me by reading more stories about me and my daughter, here's the part about "patience":) I taught Rebekah how to play Solitaire yesterday and she is SO excited!
Being an only child, she has to play either with me or her imaginary friends. Yesterday while playing "go fish" with her imaginary friend she said it was so easy to cheat if she wanted to but she wasn't going to:)
After secretly smiling at her comment I remembered the card game Solitaire that I used to play when I was young except we called it "Patience". Did you ever play that under the same name or did you call it Solitaire?
I was amazed that something so simple as this card game could bring so much joy to my little one. Her face was beaming, her eyes lit up and she said she just LOVED it (once she got the hang of it!). I think the prospect of being able to play a game designed to be played alone is what excites her. I'm sure she must tire of putting on many hats and taking her imaginary friends turns when she plays her games with them.
So, here's to more independent play for my daughter.
Are there any other games you can suggest for an only child involving cards?

Most productive day???

2010-12-08T10:49:00.014+11:00

I'd heard some years ago that a study on working people concluded that Tuesdays and Wednesdays were the most productive days in a week.
It makes sense - Mondays we are just getting into the working week and by Tuesday we've settled in, so Tuesdays and Wednesdays brings out the most productivity from us. By Thursday we're a bit more tired and then Friday everyone's too relaxed looking forward to the weekend so not as much work gets done:)
What do you all think?

Anyway, yesterday being Tuesday and me having such a productive day and feeling so satisfied and proud of ourselves, I thought I'll tell you all about it, but hesitated because some of you are already on holidays and probably don't want to hear about it!

You see we started off with play at the park for an hour or so (before the heat set in). (We've been doing that for the last couple of weeks, because have I mentioned before I almost live in a desert? yes it's HOT in summer and COLD in winter!) I can't believe I'm still living in Sydney. We moved to this suburb just over two years ago. It is SO different to the other suburbs I've lived in! Anyway back to what I was saying...

We then did all our school work (well Rebekah did and I taught and supervised), we did domestic chores - all the EXCITING vacuuming, cleaning, tending to our guinea pigs, washing etc.

We then had lunch and some more reading and singing. Yes, singing! Rebekah is just now learning the Christmas Carols, so we sat on the couch together and read from a book on Christmas and sang some of the carols together. It was such a precious time together! I will remember it for a long time as we've not done anything like this before!

Rebekah had her mandatory (!) two hours rest time while I did some reading, praying, emailing, working (my paid work that I do at home) etc. (while she only came out of her room a couple of times)!

Rebekah and I then had afternoon tea together - yes we've been getting into it here. Charlotte Mason had some wise words to say about having "tea time" with our kids!
And thanks Amy for that teacup from Ava's birthday last year, you'll be pleased to know Rebekah is putting it to full use!
I've been enjoying these afternoon teas together, lovely time to chat etc.

p.s. that tea in her cup is "rooibos" tea, lest you think I'm a terrible mum and give her caffeine at such a young age:) Mind you I DID drink real tea at her age but then again I grew up in a different country and different culture:)

Then we played a game of cards together (yes I'm her sole play mate so I have to do these things daily):) I'm not complaining, just saying...:) Then came bath time for Rebekah. After this I started preparing dinner while she watched her rationed 30 minutes of TV.

Then off to pick up Ron from the station, dinner, bed time for Rebekah around 7 and Ron rushed off to meet one of the guys he's mentoring from our church, while I did some home school admin work.
Ron got back a bit after 8 pm and we had a conference call via skype with our pastor and some of our church leaders (which we do regularly).

Cup of tea and chat with Ron and bed time!

You see, that's why I was feeling so satisfied. Our days don't always flow so smoothly and I don't always 'feel' like we've had a productive day (though they may be productive in different ways but I don't always 'feel' like it). Take today for example: you see, sometime overnight, Rebekah's sneezing from yesterday became much more than that and she (and I because of her waking me up) had a dreadful night's sleep:(

So, today we cancelled school, much to Rebekah's delight (she is not well) and I have been listening to the "Sound of Music" in the background which she's watching, while I catch up on some more home schooling administrative work and (tell you about it of course)! The 30 minute twice a day rule of TV goes out the window when she's sick!

All this record keeping of what she does for school takes up quite a bit of time and I'd been postponing it for some time, so I had to catch up!
Productive day today? Maybe? Actually YES, if you consider being a stay at home, home schooling mum's life productive, which I do!

Getting ready for Christmas

2010-11-30T17:30:00.003+11:00

Like some of you ,we've been busy this past week getting into the Christmas season and it's been a very exciting time for us.
You see, we only celebrate Christmas once every two years in Sydney as we spend the alternate Christmas with Ron's family who live in Victoria.
And even when we are home for Christmas we miss out on the whole build up to Christmas because we've often been visiting Ron's family / been on holidays and get back just a few days before Christmas. Our Christmas tree only comes out of storage once every two years:(

It's been different this year as we took a much shorter break to visit them as I mentioned in my last post and we are postponing our annual holiday till early next year. The last Christmas we had in Sydney Rebekah was 4 and 1/2 and a couple of years makes a big difference when you are a child doesn't it? That explains our great excitement here!

We started off early last week, collecting some pine cones and painting them in Christmas colours (don't ask me where I got this idea from:)) I must have read it somewhere because it popped into my head when we were out on a nature walk early last week!
They are pretty small pine cones but it was fun painting them with Rebekah. (sorry this picture is not great quality)

Then we got out our box of Christmas decorations as Rebekah was eager to look at them. She couldn't wait till the weekend (when Ron promised he would set up the tree with her).

I've even been thinking of baking some shortbread for Christmas, never done this before, so I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope they turn out ok and edible!
In India, the traditional Christmas baking was called "kul kuls"

and "rose cookies",

both of them involving flour, sugar, eggs and lots of oil for deep frying!

I have a lot of fond memories of cooking them each Christmas with my mum.
So, you see we did have some family traditions that I'd forgotten about when I did my post on family traditions some time ago. Sorry about that!
In fact after I did that post I remembered that we did have a couple of family traditions (besides the afore mentioned one) which I will need to tell you about another time as it's a digression! I just had to get this off my chest as it had been bothering me since then, lol.

Anyway, I may even make a few rose cookies besides shortbread. I've got to nurture and cultivate Rebekah's Indian heritage (wink) :)
So, here's our Chritmas tree, unfortunately they set it up on Saturday night while I was out so I couldn't take pictures of them setting it up.

It's a small one as we live in a small place and it's not real either! But we like it!

Rebekah has been loving seeing the Christmas tree light up every night and I've even been turning it on in the mornings as it's such a novelty at the moment:)

Where have we been?

2010-11-23T17:30:00.006+11:00

I wish I could say I've been to London to visit the Queen (as in the nursery rhyme!) but nope, we've just been plain busy, busy with Rebekah's extra curricular activities and busy visiting relatives inter state.
Ron's dad had a BIG birthday so we went over to their town to celebrate. We squeezed our trip in between Rebekah's rehearsal and end of year concert!
Once again, my heart swelled with pride and emotion as I watched her perform on stage. (We didn't go down the path of Irish dancing but we cut out jazz and she only did ballet and tap this year)

Was she shy? Was she nervous? Nope! She said she loved being on stage and dancing with everyone watching her! Why - because she felt 'famous'! :) My shy daughter loves being the centre of attention! Are the two compatible? I wouldn't have thought so but she has proved me wrong!
To top it off she got a trophy for being the "tap" student of the year in her class and also she got a high distinction for her tap exam she had earlier in the year. We are so proud of our little girl!

I'll be over at your place soon to catch up on all your blogs:)

Year 1 Term 3

2010-11-10T15:06:00.001+11:00

Ok, so I know that some of you that read my blog are not homeschoolers, so if that's you and you are not interested just skip this one:)

We started this year behind the NSW schools and we have been going at a slow...pace, so this week we started term 3!

I am finding that I am becoming less and less "tied" down to the curriculum I am using, so we are changing things a little this term.
I am still using Living Books Curriculum Year 1 but am changing the schedule to use their science book at a much slower pace than is recommended.
I love this curriculum but I am finding some books are a bit too fast paced for my liking so am even considering changing things around to another curriculum next year...watch this space:)

Also, I have revamped our schedule and taken out some of the things that are not part of LBC but ones that I added (like hymn study and folksongs, not that we ever did much of it, it was just there on my schedule to remind me:)). This is to allow one day a week to be a lighter day which will also serve as a catch up for anything we've not been able to do during the week.
I want to keep this term and next term more focused on the important essentials as we try to catch up a bit. Some might argue that hymn study and folksongs are essential of course:) Anyway, here is the link to my schedule:

Year 1 term 3

By the way, the science book I mentioned above is called "Growing Strong and healthy" and is in the public domain under a slightly different name. It is an older book of course but some of the information is updated by LBC in the ecopy I got. It is a charming little book to teach younger kids about health and nutrition. It has already won Rebekah's interest:) If you are interested, check it out here.

Seven ( + seven) questions

2010-11-05T11:11:00.001+11:00

Well it's been a hectic couple of weeks here and lest you forget me, I quickly did this post the other day for you all:)

Amanda tagged me a few weeks ago and asked me if I could answer seven questions. So, here goes it....

1. Where did you meet your husband?

At church.

2. What is one of your most favourite movies?

Sound of Music

3. If you could have any career you'd like, what would it be?
(besides wife/mum lol)

I'd love to work for my church (though I already do that part time:))

4. What character in the Bible do you really relate too the most?

David - because he was far from perfect but God called him a man after his own heart.

5. Where did you get married? ie what city/town?

Sydney, Australia

6. What makes you laugh easily?

The embarassing things I do sometimes!

7. If you could live in another country, which one would it be?

I love living in Australia!

And in case you didn't get enough of me, Val tagged me also with another seven questions:

1. If you could wear any dress from one era for one day, what would it look like?

The pretty long dresses from Jane Austen's era, not sure what that's called, lol.

2. If you could go on an all expense paid vacation for 2 weeks, where would you go?

I'd love to go to Canada.

3. If you could live in a book, which one would it be?

I'd have to say the Bible around the time of Jesus, wouldn't it be amazing to see first hand all those things He did like multiplying the loaves and fishes and raising some one from the dead!!

4. Do you play any instruments? If yes, which ones?

None, zippo, zilch!

5. Where were you married?

Sydney, Australia

6. If you could own one museum quality piece of antique furniture, what would it be?

A lounge suite / sofa set (not sure what they call that in the U.S Val)

7. Do you speak any languages besides English? If yes, which?

I can speak a little Tamil (an Indian language), though I'm very rusty for lack of practice.

Hope you enjoyed this trivia from me!
Enjoy your weekend!

p.s. edited to add: this is one embarassing thing I need to laugh at : I seemed to have posted this twice while I was "editing it":) which will explain the older post behind this one:)))

Seven questions

2010-11-02T17:01:00.007+11:00

House bound

2010-10-19T10:15:00.006+11:00

Rebekah started off with a cold last week which progressed to a cough and since whooping cough is going around at the moment we decided to have her tested for it and have quarantined her at home (till we find out one way or another) so it doesn't spread!

So, what have we been up to at home for the past few days? I've indulged her with lots of "craft":)

I know Charlotte Mason says and I'm paraphrasing here, that kids would be better off learning a 'handicraft' (something useful that they could use later in life). But, I think there's a place for some good old craft that's messy and gets glue and sparkles and paint all over you:)

So, this is a sample of what we've been doing:

"bake a frame" - picture frame made out of dough and baked in the oven:

"clay porcupine"

that's the baby porcupine on the left, lol,

besides other painting etc.

Also, inspired by Richele and that's something Charlotte Mason would definitely approve of (wink), we started out with "brush drawing / painting" in our nature journals and here's Rebekah's painting of a bottle brush, I need to find out it's proper name, lol:)

and we even did our second lesson from "Drawing with children" by Mona Brooks! "woohoo" says this artistically challenged mum! Mona Brooks says everyone can draw, so I'll let you know how Rebekah, I mean, "I" go with drawing lessons later!

We're off to the doctor this morning to get the results of her swab done over the weekend.

We're back to school, yay!

2010-10-12T16:13:00.002+11:00

If you had told me a year ago that school holidays can be busier than school days (even with home schooling) I never would have believed you! But there you go, that's been one of my biggest things I've learned this year (well, not really, but you know what I mean!)

Our school term here in NSW has officially begun this week and so Rebekah is back to school - home school that is:)

One thing I've learned about myself this year is that I love routine and I don't function well when my routine is thrown out or when there is no routine. So, the school holidays are a time of adjusting to this no routine time! I find it difficult to manage my time without a set routine. Anyone else like me?

Well, anyhow, these past school holidays as with the past couple this year have been one great big time of socialising for Rebekah and me. It's been great to catch up with her friends and their mums (who are some of my dear friends too) as some of them go to school and don't get to see Rebekah much at other times.

Oh, another big milestone was also achieved during these holidays. Rebekah had her first full day away from me ever (or at least since she was a baby but not sure if that counts):). Anyway, for the past couple of years she has been attending a "kidsfest" at one of the big churches around here. They use that day in the school holidays to record a worship cd/ dvd for the kids and combine it with fun rides, fun shows etc.
In the past as she was not officially a 'school' age kid, we were able to stay with her the whole day there. But this year we couldn't do that. Rebekah was quite tentative at first at the thought of being away from us for a whole seven hours and she kept changing her mind about it right until the week before it was on when she decided to go. I am so pleased she did because it was truly a fun day for her. I think I was more nervous about it all than she was and it got me thinking that this is what it must be like for parents dropping off their kids on the first day of school.
I mean, I woke up a couple of times during the night and kept worrying about things like, "I hope she remembers to go to the toilet" (we've had some incidents when she gets carried away and forgets:)), how will she know when to eat her "morning tea" and "lunch", I hope she remembers to put her hat on when they are outdoors etc etc:)

Well, it all went smoothly and she was fine! I was so proud of her!

Anyway, we are back to school this week and I am so glad to have my routine back! Also, I love the one on one time with Rebekah that I get during the week.
Play dates and outings are not conducive to that one on one quality time that we usually have and I miss that when it's too busy! So, I'm glad to have that and my routine back! (and Rebekah doesn't mind having to do school work either, well, not much!)

She finally gives up her afternoon nap:)

2010-09-28T16:02:00.000+10:00

Ok, I can hear you say "what, did I read this title right?" yes, you did:)

My 6 and half year old Rebekah finally gave up her afternoon nap a couple weeks ago!

You see, she kept sleeping and I kept encouraging it and she kept sleeping and I kept encouraging it and then she started resisting but I still kept encouraging it, so she kept sleeping....until recently one day she didn't sleep and started crying and telling me it's boring to sleep! Point taken! I gave in and now she no longer naps, boo hoo! No not really, I'm really ok with it:)

It's amazing how a couple months ago I noticed a real change in her and others started commenting too that she was starting to "look" more grown up. Well, I think she reached some sort of developmental milestone and so the nap going out the window was part of it I think. I also noticed along with this that she has become much more independent in her free time, being able to keep herself entertained much more etc.
Children do indeed come with their own time tables don't they! I mean I only have one but when I compare her to other kids, it's easy for me to see how they are all so different to each other!

On the upside, with all this "growing up" that's happened, I feel I have so much more energy now. It's taken me this long to figure out that a lot of my tiredness was emotional - you see as I've told you before, I'm the classic introvert. Add to this a highly dependent child (in terms of companionship, being her playmate and being very clingy when she was younger etc) and it all makes for one tired mum here!
I have a lot more energy now at the end of the day, hallelujah! (That explains my frequent blogging and commenting at your place!)

So, we've transitioned now to the "quiet time" or "rest time" in the afternoon as some mums call it:) And I now need to go google and find out when they give up their "rest times" :(

Blessed to be a blessing!

2010-09-25T14:15:00.006+10:00

Ron is out this afternoon and will be home a bit later this evening. So, I thought I'd let you all know a bit more about my hubby and about something he's involved in right now:)

He is actually out right now spending time with a young teenage boy that he is "mentoring" through a charitable organisation - a very well known one!

This organisation runs a program where they get kids referred to them from DOCS (Department of Community Services) and as an early intervention type program, they started up a "mentoring" program to help these kids out. I believe this program has only been running for a couple of years but they have already seen tremendous results with the kids.

Ron had to do a six week training program , a police check and provide a few referees who could vouch for his character before they would let him become a mentor.
The mentors are people from the general community and once trained etc they are "paired" with kids that this organisation feels they would be best suited to, having similar interests etc. Also, they are in constant contact with the mentors and mentees and this program is very closely supervised.

Basically what he does now is spend time with this kid every couple of weeks, doing stuff that interests him. Today, they are at a skate park and apparently this is one of his favourite things they've done so far, so he asked Ron if they could go back there.
They've done bush walking, going to the movies etc in the past.
Ron tells me that whenever he goes to pick him up, even if it's at 7am on a Saturday(which he's had to do sometimes) this kid is dressed and ready to go! It makes me emotional just writing this because it tells me that this child just loves to get out and spend this time with Ron and that it's something he looks forward to!

When Ron signed up for it, we knew it would be a sacrifice for all of us but hey, we have been so blessed with the life we have that this doesn't seem like a lot to sacrifice for another child!

And oh, the program runs for twelve months, in case you were wondering:)
Ron says that there are mentors he has met that have loved it so much, they have come back a second and third time to do it all over again with new kids!

I hear the term "blessed to be a blessing" so much and I was pondering it the other day, how often, this is used in the context of financial giving.

But I don't believe that it's the only way we have been blessed to be a blessing.
Often I think about the fact that I have been so blessed with a wonderful husband and married life, a beautiful daughter who is a gift from God. I have received so much from God in terms of emotional healing etc. All of these are blessings in my life and I can now out of that be a blessing to others! So....Ron is out there today being a blessing to some one that is in need....making a difference hopefully in another person's life!

Friday night is movie night!

2010-09-17T15:38:00.003+10:00

I thought I'd start blogging about some of our family traditions as I think of them.
Being Friday today, I thought I'd let you all know what you would find us (mostly) doing on a Friday night:)
I say "mostly" because sometimes we have our small group on Friday nights and occasionally we have the odd social event!

I reckon it's good to establish these traditions, I'm told it helps build in our kids a sense of security, belonging etc, connection within the family etc, not to mention great memories they can take with them in to their adult lives.
The only tradition I had growing up was church on Sundays (a good one I might add), because mostly my childhood was unpredictable - but that's another story that I won't bore you with tonight!

Anyway, a couple of years ago we started a "Friday night is movie night" tradition with Rebekah. We actually got the idea from a couple that used to be our pastors in the past and they did it with their kids.

When I say "movie" it's not necessarily always a "movie" but just something that we can watch together that's wholesome and entertaining as well.

We started off with seasons of "The Brady Bunch" that Ron had got as a Christmas gift one year. We carefully select which episodes we will watch together as the show changed as the kids got older (so I'm told - because I was not alive when this show was around - no just kidding - I was but I was in India and we didn't even own a TV at that stage let alone be watching "English" shows!)

Anyway, from "The Brady Bunch" we then watched some episodes of "Skippy" and now we are onto family movies, once again carefully selected. We usually only watch for 30 minutes, occasionally longer - if we've been able to get going earlier in the evening - and continue the next week where we left off previously.

We have watched "The sound of music", "Mary Poppins" etc to name a few.

I told you all sometime ago about that Lifeline book sale I went to - well, they had all these videos for $1 each! So I bought a whole bunch of them!

Tonight, we will be watching one of them - the movie "Babe". Do you guys remember that one? I watched it at the movies when it came out and loved it. I am hoping Rebekah does too! I remember there was a sequel that wasn't as good though, they usually aren't are they? :)

So around 7pm tonight if you were at our place, you'll find us snuggled up on the couch, popcorn in hand, maybe a lolly or two, watching "Babe".

Enjoy your weekend!

p.s. (we've also been known to pass on this tradition to other young families we know:))

Ten years on.....

2010-09-14T19:11:00.004+10:00

It was ten years ago tomorrow that we had the Sydney 2000 Olympics. I know it's a cliche but really, how fast has this time gone!

To commemorate it, Ron and Rebekah are over the next few nights going to watch some of our home videos that we recorded of it (from the TV). No dvds back in THOSE days :)

Right now they are watching the opening ceremony. Boy does this bring back some memories....memories of life bc (before child/ren), etc etc.:)

We were blessed to be able to go to a few things (more Ron than me). In fact, my claim to fame, be it known - Tony Abbott was seated a couple of rows behind us at one of the sessions we attended! :)

Ron got to go to some basketball events and we went to the heats of the athletic events including Cathy Freeman's heats. Now that famous race was a race that stopped this nation if ever! I remember standing up off our couch at home as the race got going, it was just too "off the edge of your seat" to be sitting down, lol!

Anyway, what a glorious time in the life of this city and nation. The whole city was buzzing wasn't it! I think during events like these we get tiny glimpses of what heaven will be like...people so happy and loving:)
Pray tell, what are your memories and did you attend any of the events?

I wonder if Australia will host anything like that again....

She's part Indian, part Aussie and speaks with an American accent!

2010-09-08T20:00:00.005+10:00

Just so you all know a little bit more about us!

Someone asked me recently if we get "second" looks when we (Ron and I) are out and about because we are of different races.
I remember in the early 90's (we've been married a while you know!) we used to get second looks. But these days it's become more common to see people of different races being married that we don't so much anymore. However, it's our daughter Rebekah who gets "second" looks now! When the three of us are together I have noticed this and it's probably human nature to be curious about how Rebekah looks being the offspring of two different races!

Anyway, so, besides being a mixture of two races, which I'm sure will have people guessing as she grows up and goes out on her own, just to confuse everyone, she speaks with a bit of an American accent:)

The only explanation I can offer is that she has a few close friends that are American (from church and our home school group) and she watches Sesame Street occasionally! I have been asked on numerous occasions if she grew up in the U.S or if one of us was from there! :)
On the other hand, she has a very good ear for sound, she was a very early 'talker' saying her first word at eight months of age, so it might just be that she hears words pronounced differently by others and picks it up. I guess it will be some what of a mystery to me for now!

So, there's a bit of trivia from our household to yours on this cold September night!

Never say "NEVER"

2010-09-04T15:59:00.006+10:00

One thing that getting "older" has taught me is that I should never say never (as the saying goes)!

Looking back on the last couple of decades of my life, there have been some situations and circumstances I've found myself in that I would have previously said I'd never do!

One great big thing that springs to mind is living in an apartment.
I remember when we were newly married we lived in an aparment for a few years and then moved to a house way out in the outskirts of this city. Oh how liberated I felt after living in cramped quarters. I remember when we would drive past other apartments I would say to Ron that I could never live in an apartment / unit again! You can guess what happened:) A few years later, yep, we moved back into an apartment! And you know what, the grace of God was on us for that season!

So, you see, I've learnt to never say never!

Ah the wisdom of getting older!

Anyway, as a homeschooling mum (and those of you who read this who are homeschoolers will know this one:)) the first question one gets asked by others who want to know more is "socialisation". Well, they don't always come out and directly ask that question but more in a round about sort of way of course! The very next question I've found myself hearing is "so when are you going to send her to school?". Now, that implies that perhaps they think I'm only doing it for a year or two (I don't know what gives them that notion) or maybe they think homeschooling is only for "little" kids - who knows! Anyway, my standard response has been "we're taking it one year at a time".

For you see, I have been researching homeschooling since Rebekah was 2 (she is now 6) and I remember reading a book by a homeschooling mum (who had a few kids and quite a few years of homeschooling under her belt) say that they still take it one year at a time!

This stuck with me and so even though Ron and I feel called to homeschool Rebekah and have since she was 2, I know that we are not "locked in" to homeschool her till she finishes year 12. You see, I've learnt to never say never!

We decided to homeschool Rebekah not because we had bad school experiences or because we think school is bad. It's because we feel called to do this. The more I read about homeschooling and it's benefits, the more I felt we needed to!
So, we're taking it one year at a time (as I read that wise older mum say).
If we feel at some point in the future that God would want us to send her to school, we will (though I don't want to think about that now as we are absolutely loving and enjoying the homeschool life):)

So, I'm off to go finish cooking dinner. I wish all your husbands a wonderful Fathers day for tomorrow and remember to never say "NEVER":)

Keeping my heart warm this winter....

2010-08-28T15:30:00.006+10:00

Winter has almost come to a close so I thought I would look back and share with you some of the things that have been keeping this mum's heart warm this winter:

1. When we visit bookstores now, within a couple of minutes of entering it, we find Rebekah doing this:

2. Rebekah has taken to "saving" up out of her pocket money to regularly buy her friends presents. She still gets $2 per week pocket money and I'll have to share with you another time on the "system" she has in place for this:)

3. She absolutely loves listening to classical music now and even asks for it to be played when she's having breakfast!

4. She loves getting out her nature study book: "The wonderland of nature" and looking up things out of interest! Just yesterday, she got it out to look up ants, as she saw a different looking ant in our yard and while doing this she found a section on "plants that eat animals" which she found very "fascinating" as she put it:)

5. Last but not least in any way, she is learning to sleep in!!! (by sleep in, I mean not waking up before 6.30/6.45am). This started a few months ago but then along with this, she of her own volition, a few weeks ago, started having a "reading time" when she wakes up. It all happened one morning when she came out of her room close to 8 am. I thought she must have been having a long sleep in so asked her when she came out. No, she was not sleeping but reading she said. What was she reading I asked. Well, "my devotional!"
She got out her Bible Story book that we read to her from last year and started reading it along with the scripture references. Yes, she's reading the Bible we got her for her 6th birthday, all by herself now!
Anyway, this "reading time" (as she calls it) came as a surprise to me and I didn't make much of it. And I can tell you that now a month or so later, she has kept this up, with not much / very minimal encouragement on our part. (We still do a devotional together each morning - as before - which is now in addition to this). It's something she "wants" to do each morning and will not come out until she reads the story for the day along with the scripture references...well for one exception like a couple of days ago when she came out before she finished because the reference was three chapters and it was taking too long and she was hungry:)

Care to share some things that have "warmed" your heart this winter? :)

Our daily / weekly schedule

2010-08-25T20:06:00.008+10:00

In one of my previous posts on our year 1 curriculum, I mentioned I would post about our weekly schedule.
So, here's the link (as I'm not too tech savvy, it's a link to my google document) and hopefully this will work for you:

Year 1 term 2 schedule and plan

In reality, the time's I've allocated are a general guideline only! Sometimes we are done much earlier and sometimes later than I've noted on my schedule! It's purely a "guide" for me!

We follow the Charlotte Mason philosophy of 1.short lessons(reflected in the schedule) 2. a liberal education (she likened it to spreading a feast before a child) so Rebekah is exposed to art, music, foreign language etc from a young age, 3. our language arts component is also different to more traditional curriculums; for instance at this age, we don't do "spelling" as such, nor grammar, etc, among other things:) (they begin at a later age with her method)4. I placed "habits" in the schedule to remind me to work on them as I need to be in the habit of working on developing good habits in Rebekah:)

For a good introduction and explanation of her method (if you're interested) you can check it out here: http://www.charlottemasoneducation.com/overview.html

Back to us: in term 1 we did 1 week of our curriculum over 1 and 1/2 to 2 weeks but as Rebekah has grown a bit over the last couple of months I'm finding I'm speeding things up a bit and we probably cover it in 1 and 1/2 weeks now. I know this will speed up even more as she gets closer to 7. (That's the beauty of homeschooling isn't it:)) That's why we are currently still in term 2!
Also, on some days, we throw out the schedule altogether and go to the park / for a nature walk / a play date! :) (Learning doesn't only happen with books or at a desk but that's a topic of it's own!)

Resources for Aussie book lists

2010-08-19T17:02:00.002+10:00

We were at our home school park day the other day and a lot of our discussion (doesn't happen that often) was about the curriculums we are using etc. I guess having a few newer home schoolers brought about this discussion. So, this post is for them(Vicki in particular) and anyone else that is interested.
I (as you would have figured out from either meeting me in person or from the pictures on my blog) am not originally from Australia though I am an Aussie now!
Not having grown up here, I've had to do a lot of on the job learning to teach Rebekah some of this country's history, literature, art, poetry etc. So, where do I turn to for my information. I'll let you in on our secrets: I get them from blogs and websites mainly:)

Here in no particular order are my well referred to sites for my information:

Jeanne - her blog was one of the first blogs I started following - is a wealth of information for me as she is an Aussie mum using Charlotte Mason's methods to homeschool her daughter.
Her blog is: http://ohpeacefulday.blogspot.com/

Michelle - another Aussie homeschool mum who has a blog and a website for her business, both of which I refer to. In fact she has some amazing resources on her website at: http://www.homeschoolingdownunder.com/
She also has some great posts on the Charlotte Mason method at her blog:
http://www.enduringprize.com/

This yahoo group for Aussies and New Zealanders:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CMandFriends-ANZ/
This group has great lists for Aussie living books as well as history in chronological order etc.

This website of an Aussie mum with many kids which is a wealth of information:
http://wonder.riverwillow.com.au/

I've listed other general book lists on my blog and you'll find it on the right side under the title: Curriculum and helpful sites for a Charlotte Mason education.

Our curriculum for Year 1

2010-08-11T11:21:00.002+10:00

Well, it's about time I actually posted about our home school curriculum! This may or may not interest you but thought I'd post it just in case:)

We are following Living Books Curriculum which we also used last year as a "kindy" year for Rebekah and I posted about that briefly here.

We decided to stick with LBC again for Year 1 as I liked what I saw for year 1 and I love all the "help" they give you in the Teachers Manual. I am not a very "creative" person when it comes to thinking up some of the hands on type activities etc (that they include in the Teachers manual)that most other mothers find easy to do. The more I use this curriculum the more I find how close to Charlotte Mason in a package it truly is and also it is definitely in my opinion Charlotte Mason for the 21st century (as they say on their website). The only bits I changed was their Geography (I will be using an Australian book to focus on Australian geography), also I decided to substitute Australian history for American history and add some Aussie books for read alouds and poetry.

You can read all about it at their website under year 1 but to make it simpler I'll break it down into subjects as follows:

Language Arts:

This is broken down as follows:

READ ALOUD:
Adventures of Bobby Raccoon, Thornton W. Burgess
Adventures of Grandfather Frog, Thornton W. Burgess
Adventures of Poor Mrs. Quack, Thornton W. Burgess
Adventures of Prickly Porky, Thornton W. Burgess
Hey, Listen to This: Stories to read aloud, Jim Trelease
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
Treasure of the Snow, Patricia St. John
Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C. S. Lewis

We will be adding many more books to read aloud to Rebekah this year from our personal library!

STORYTELLING:
Aesop's Fables, Sheila Carroll, ed.

POETRY:
A Child’s Garden of Verses, Robert Louis Stevenson

PENMANSHIP:
Italics: Beautiful handwriting for children, Penny Gardner

For Aussie read alouds and poetry, I added for this year:

Snugglepot and Cuddlepie by May Gibbs,
Dot and the Kangaroo by Ethel Padley,
The animals Noah Forgot by A B PAterson,
Stories of Henry Lawson and
The way of the whirlwind by Mary Durack.

Science: There are a list of living books and activity books here:

A House Is a House for Me, Mary Ann Hoberman
First Guide to the Universe, Usborne
Christian Liberty Nature Reader, Volume 1, Florence Bass
Usborne Book of Science Activities: Volume 1, Various
The Reason for a Flower, Ruth Heller
A Picture Book of Thomas Alva Edison: Young Inventor, Louis Sabin
Wild Places: Mountains, jungles & deserts, A. Wilkes
What’s Alive?, Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld

Nature Study:
Handbook of Nature Study, Anna Botsford Comstock
We also use: The wonderland of nature by Nuri Mass and various field guides for Aussie birds, flowers and trees.

Art:
Little Hands Art Book, Judy Press

Picture Study:
Come Look with Me: Animals in art, Gladys Blizzard
Come Look with Me: World of play, Gladys Blizzard

Music:
Stories of Great Composers (Book and CD),
June Montgomery

Geography:

Are we there yet by Alison Lester

World History:
The Story of the Ancient World, Christine Miller

Australian history:

My place by Nadia Wheatley
You and Me Murrawee by Kerri Hashimi and Felicity Marshall
Greatest events in Australia's history - Boardman and Harvey

We also are doing Spanish as Rebekah has taken an interest in Spanish from watching "Dora"!
For this we are using: Play and learn Spanish, A Lomba

Next I will try to post our weekly schedule and how we do "school" here:)

p.s. How embarassing - just goes to show, I shouldn't be trying to do any blogging late at night (which is when I was working on this - late last night!)
Anyway, I forgot to include our "Bible" component and "maths".

For our Bible study we use the one that came with this curriculum - "Early Reader Wonder Devotional Book" by Lynda Pongracz but we also use "Leading Little Ones to God" by Marian M Schoolland which is a much better one in my opinion!

Maths does not come with LBC, so we are using (and absolutely loving) Singapore Maths!

While everyone rushed home to watch the finale of Master Chef....

2010-07-26T16:05:00.003+10:00

Our church meets on a Sunday afternoon, so last night, while everyone was rushing off home to watch the finals of Master Chef (:)) we rushed off home to watch the debate between Julia Gillard and Tony Abbott!

Boring some might say, but this excites us around here:)

Ron and his family are so into politics that on his frequent phone calls to them (they live interstate) politics is sure to rear it's head into their conversations!
Being married almost 16 years to him, I've become quite interested in it too!
In fact being able to understand and follow politics has enabled me to better obey the scriptures about praying for our leaders and those in government.

Rebekah also watched the debate with us, as did she watch the world soccer cup with Ron, even waking up early some mornings with him:) I was wondering how much of it (the debate) she truly understood but it's funny, she was pretty attentive almost the whole time!
We then got her to bed and watched some of the finals of the Master Chef show....but boy I was glad she was in bed because I don't think I would have liked her seeing some of those commercials they aired in the breaks!
I know some of my friends and family watch it with their kids, I need to ask them what they do when the commercials come on.
With us usually when we say "close your eyes" Rebekah knows it's because we don't want her to watch / see something inappropriate either on a billboard or tv etc. Not that we watch commercial television much around here, it's usually the ABC.

Talking about the ABC, Rebekah watches an hour of TV each day - that is her allotted time, and she usually watches half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the evening. She only watches the kids programs on the ABC, in fact she doesn't even know that there are other kids shows on other channels, shhh...it's a secret:) She has no idea that hi-five is on channel nine! I've kept that a secret from her for two reasons, one is I don't personally like that show and secondly I don't want her influenced by the commercials that come on!

I have read about the damages of TV to young ones etc and while I agree that too much TV is not good for their little brains or bodies, I find that I need this break from her during the day.

A lot of people would think that having an only child is easy and yes, while they are right in some aspects, I find that our relationship is also more intense as we are usually home by ourselves for about 12 hours in the day while Ron is at work! Just the two of us:) I wouldn't have it any other way but I've had to come to peace about this situation of letting her watch TV so I can have a break during the day.

I know some families have no TV at all and while ideally I would like Rebekah to not watch TV this is what we've come to do in our home:)
What do you all do?

Our "school holidays"

2010-07-17T16:59:00.007+10:00

I put school holidays in quote because even though we never planned to have holidays when the schools did, we've definitely been on holidays, especially this past week!
I started year 1 in March so our breaks have not lined up with the school terms. I am now rethinking how we will go from here. You see, Rebekah has many friends that go to school and so she's been doing a lot of this:

as well as going to a great bookfair! Yes, we went there two days in a row because it's just so "awesome" in Rebekah's new lingo!
We still have more playdates planned for early next week so it will be a few days before we get back into "school" again! Not that we mind too much:)

Here's a picture of some great bargains we scooped up recently:

Hopefully my next post will be about what we do around here for "school", it's been a long time coming I know:)

Spreading the love of a fruit....

2010-07-11T19:00:00.002+10:00

My lovely blog-y Amanda just posted on her blog about a type of bean she has recently tried and loves. It spurred me on to post about this fruit that I fell in love with a few years ago and been meaning to tell you all about for a while!

One of my friends from church introduced me to them a few years ago and I just love it! I have even been known to pay upto $1.50 for a single one at times! (I wouldn't even pay that for a mango and I absolutely love mangoes - like most other people!)

I can't tell you that it tastes something like a cross between a mango and an apple or anything like that, I'm just not that "tuned" in to tell you that nor articulate enough to explain the taste to you so you'll just have to go out and buy one for yourself if you want to taste it to see what you think! All I can say is that it is absolutely yummy, and that it is quite sweet. I love it both when it is just ripe and also when it is over ripe and very soft and mushy!

It only comes out in autumn (though I have seen it at my local Coles even recently albeit at a very expensive price which I am not willing to pay!)

So, what is it? Have you heard or seen of this fruit before:

It's a Persimmon!

So, have you had one of these before? Let me know, if you did and if you like it?

You can read more here about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persimmon

One word of caution: do buy them from a fruit shop or supermarket as I did buy them once at a fair from a farmer (a whole bagful) and had to throw them all out when I got home and tried them, as they were just terrible - very stringy or something and not sweet at all.

Look forward to hearing all your thoughts on this!

Do you love this piece of music or is it just me?:)

2010-07-02T15:02:00.004+10:00

In the last few few weeks, I've been listening to a cd of Rebekah's called "Ballet music" (another $1 bargain at a used book sale:)).
It has some great selections of music that my aspiring ballerina loves to dance to (all day if she can!) including this one that was love at first sight/ sound for me:

"Saint-Saens Carnival of the animals - Swan"

You can listen it to it here on you tube:

My dad was a cellist and so was his dad....this maybe why I love it!
I love hearing the cello. It is one of my favourite instruments to listen to!
In our previous church we had a girl who sometimes played the "cello" in the worship band. It often brought tears to my eyes when she played....I think it brings back memories of my dad....My hope is I will see him again one day (he died when I was 18).
Sadly, I did not inherit the "music" gene! But I have a strong sense that Rebekah has, as she loves, just LOVES, all things musical and is actually a quick learner on her recorder (that Ron's teaching her to play, not me:))

What do you think of this piece, do you like it? if not, what's your favourite music / musical instrument?

Slim pickings and other things...

2010-06-30T16:21:00.015+10:00

How are you all doing in this chilly weather? I've got three layers of clothes, two pairs of socks and slippers on at the moment but I still need the heating on! It's absolutely freezing at our place!

This morning Rebekah was looking for a phone that she plays with, my old mobile phone to be precise! Who wants a toy phone when you can have the real thing! I had to help as she couldn't find it among her myriad of toy boxes and shelves! I being ever so opportunistic thought I'd try to "cull" some of her toys. My serious attempts in the past haven't gone very far as she unfortunately seems to be a hoarder! Well, after I successfully talked her into parting with some of her toys, this is what we came up with:

4 measly items!

I suppose it's better than nothing:)

Yesterday we saw "Toy story 3" at the movies in 3D, woohoo! I've told you before I've had a deprived childhood, well, I've not told you that I think I've also had a a deprived adulthood because this is my first ever 3D movie in my whole life! :) It was GREAT. I was a bit apprehensive of the 3D factor at first as I've heard people say it gives them a headache, makes them nauseous etc but thankfully I didn't experience any of that. Now..... I've heard that they're making 3D tv's, hmmm, not sure about that though, I think I'd rather have the novelty factor at the movies than in my home everyday. What do you think?

And in other news, we've successfully finished term 1 of year 1 with Rebekah doing very well with her end of term exams. I should really post about our curriculum shouldn't I, I'll try to soon....

In the subject of "handicrafts" though, I must say, we are not doing too well:( Charlotte Mason will definitely not be proud of me in this subject! Just take a look at our project below. I thought we'd start off with something small, well, it's still very small:).....the picture of what it should like is on the right and our attempts on the left (which we've been working on for more than a year) (insert embarassed grin here)! Is there any hope?

Well, I'm not one to give up too quickly, so we persevere.....I'll definitely show it to you when it's completed. I promise!

The best toys came cheap!

2010-06-19T14:46:00.012+10:00

Rebekah asked me the other day to get out her set of mega blocks that I bought when she was much littler and had packed away because she had grown out of it! Or so I thought! Anyway, while she was having so much fun playing with them the other day it occurred to me how a lot of the toys she loves to play with didn't cost much at all! She has toys ranging in price from $1 or to $100 and yet who would have known that these things I picked up for next to nothing give her the most fun!

Aforementioned mega blocks set cost me $1 on ebay:

This toy piano cost me $2 at a garage sale:

And this keyboard set me back by a whole $5 at an op shop!!!

The above two provide Rebekah with endless music making fun!

Who would have thought.....

Spontaneous nature study and education

2010-06-08T15:48:00.010+10:00

I was feeling like a hen in a coop waiting to be let out after all the rain we've had and also being under the weather a bit (both Rebekah and I) of late!
So at the first glimpse of sunshine yesterday morning we seized the opportunity to head out to one of our nearby nature reserves.

It turned out to be a very educational morning (though I didn't plan for it to be that way!)

For instance on the drive there, we were listening to the classical radio station and a piece of music we recognised came on, so we spent some time trying to guess the composer. I don't actually think that either Rebekah or I got it right but we tried never the less:)

(On a side note, we recently flew down to Melbourne for a wedding and guess what Rebekah listened to on the plane - the classical channel - she went through a few of the channels they had and chose that herself - she actually loves classical music, hallelujah!)

Anyway, back to my day yesterday:

This nature reserve has a lake with ducks and up until a couple of years ago, a duck was a duck to me.
I did not realise that there were so many "types" of ducks with their own separate names...I know, I'm a city born and bred, nature ignorant person.
My favourite I think is a "chestnut teal".

Anyway, Rebekah was having so much fun feeding the ducks when I decided to get out our field guide for birds (which I always carry in our outdoors bag) and try to identify some of the ducks we saw in the pond.
I didn't manage to get pictures of them all but here's some pics I took.

We then collected some feathers and thanks to Anna Botsford Comstock, I am now learning that ducks have different types of feathers on their body that serve different functions. We collected some to take home and study.

We then did some tree climbing after lunch and yes with Rebekah being an only child, I have to "join in" on Rebekah's play many times, so don't laugh:

We then observed some of the fallen leaves and as we headed back to the car after a couple of hours, Rebekah said to me that we should have "drawn" something in our nature journals!

Then later at home, Rebekah called me to our back yard to check out some "cute little creatures" that were swimming in a unused pot of water.
I told her they were some type of worms!

This morning she went out to our back yard again to check out the worms and I decided to use the opportunity to actually find out what they were.

Turns out that these little "worms" that I would have previously called them and even referred to them as late as this morning are actually young mosquitoes...once again Anna and her "Handbook of Nature Study" came to the rescue and we spent some time observing and learning about Mosquitoes. The wonders of nature are truly amazing if we just have our eyes opened to observe them.

Rebekah then proceeded to get out her "Christian liberty nature reader" and found a chapter on "mosquitoes" which she read herself. She then proceeded to tell me why the little wigglers or larvae stick their tails up at the surface of the water...it's because they have little hairs at the end of their tails that they breathe with.

So, there you go....all of this education happened spontaneously with Rebekah and this city girl is enjoying and learning alongside her daughter:)

The Miracle of Reading

2010-05-25T16:35:00.002+10:00

I'm sure all mothers ahead of me would relate to this but it is such a "miracle" I had to blog about it!
Last year I began some gentle reading lessons with Rebekah(when I thought she was ready for it) using two letter words like "at" and then adding consonants to make other words a la Charlotte Mason!
We did them as and when she was in the mood for them!
I blogged about that here when it seemed like the penny dropped and she "got it".
Well, after these gentle, informal, "when in the mood" lessons which were few and far between last year, we went on holidays over Christmas and New Year and didn't do much then. Well, a couple of months ago, it seems like another penny dropped and she started picking up books and just reading them. I mean books with much longer and more complex words like "believe", "special", "garden", etc....anyway, you get the picture:)
It was like watching a miracle unfold.
It was much like witnessing a child's first smile, first steps etc.
I could not / cannot believe my eyes!
Is this a miracle or what! Kids just do things when they are developmentally ready don't they!
She has really taken off in her reading and has become an incessant "reader" of books. As my husband Ron said to me the other day, "all our years of reading to her is paying off" and I can truly say that maybe this was the secret ingredient to all of this because I certainly can't take credit for her reading skills other than teaching her a few three letter cvc words!

Happy Mummy's day!

2010-05-09T11:51:00.004+10:00

Hi my online bloggy friends who are mums - just wanted to wish you all a Happy Mummy's Day!
My darling daughter Rebekah wrote out a card for me for the first time, all by herself and as she didn't know the spelling of mother's day, she wrote "mummy's day"! How cute!
So, I hope you all have a wonderful Mummy's day:)
Enjoy all the pampering and blessings on your special day!

Now we are six....

2010-04-03T15:06:00.051+11:00

Rebekah turned 6 recently. It was a great week leading up to her birthday with presents and cards arriving in the mail from friends and family.
The highlight for her and one that she had been waiting for for almost eight months or so was this:

She got her very own Bible - full length, unabridged etc:)

We had told her about it not long after she turned 5 (or maybe she saw it at Koorong) and fell in love with it. So, we promised it to her for her 6th birthday, along with this:

The night before her birthday we had a family dinner with my side of the family and then on her actual birthday she had a ball at a local wildlife park with three of her closest friends where you could pet the koalas, feed the kangaroos and even pet the kookaburras, can you believe that!

I am so glad that the NSW Board of Studies doesn't need you to register your child for homeschooling until 6 because that lines up with CM's philosophy of no formal academics until that age. So, you can guess what I've been busy with...these past few weeks!
We officially started Grade 1 the week before she turned 6.
We had our interview with the Board of Studies officer today and guess what, guess what! We've been approved for two years! Praise God! We are so excited!
He was impressed with the records I kept for our trial year last year and also our program of learning! In fact if I can brag some more - he said on his report that the approach I was taking to documenting Rebekah's program could well serve as an example for other home schooling families! (Please don't hold that against me my home schooling friends:)) In fact a special thank you to Michelle and Helen my fellow homeschooling friends without whom I couldn't have done it!

Now for nostalgia, here are some photos of Rebekah on her birthdays aged 1 to 6.

Clean Up Australia Day

2010-03-18T16:37:00.001+11:00

I know this is a bit late....still! I got to tell you, I've lived in Australia for longer than "Clean Up Australia" day has been running and I'm ashamed to say that this year was the first time I took part in it.
Our church is wanting to be more involved in serving our community in a practical sort of way, so we thought this would be a good way to do that!

Mind you, the place we chose, didn't need much cleaning up. All we found were a few cigarette butts and a few popped balloons and lolly wrappers. But, the kids were all excited, not sure why? maybe it was because for the first time they were not being told off for touching rubbish? :) or maybe it was the gloves? :)

The whole thing was very well organised and there was even a lunch bbq put on by Clean Up Australia day for all the volunteers which we unfortunately couldn't attend.
It was a fun day out! I think we'll be doing it again next year for sure!

Post impressionist's impressions

2010-03-13T15:46:00.028+11:00

We headed down the highway to our nation's capital on Thursday to see the exhibition on that's on now at the National Art Gallery - Masterpieces from Paris, Van gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and beyond. Post impressionism from the Musee D'orsay.
Rebekah was sort of excited because she knows a bit about Monet,Van Gogh and Cezanne, thanks to Charlotte Mason (as do I too actually, thanks Charlotte!)
In fact she brought along her Picnic with Monet board book and a Van Gogh art calendar that we got last year.
I just love how homeschooling Charlotte Mason style has enriched my life - yes, MY life!
How else would I have enjoyed this wonderful exhibition.
We chose to go during the week as the crowds thronging there from all around the country is pretty amazing apparently, none like this gallery has ever seen before!
Thankfully we only had to wait twenty minutes in the queue!
Was the long trip there and back in a day worth it? Absolutely! There's nothing quite like seeing all those amazing paintings in real life. I mean, there they were on the wall a foot away from us, we could easily reach out and touch them. They looked like they had been painted just yesterday not a hundred or so years ago! Stunning, amazing, beautiful, fantastic, those are some of the words that came out of our mouths that day!
The highlight for me was "Starry night over the Rhone" by Van Gogh.

To stand there and see the amazing detail up close in the painting and how he used his paint brush to capture the effects of the night sky and the reflection in the water below was just amazing!
The man was a genius!

Ron's favourite was Monet's Water Lily Pond:

And to keep the kids happy they had a family activity room and one section of it set up like Van Gogh's "Bedroom at Arles".
Rebekah like most kids has always loved this one.

And here's Rebekah in the painting! :)

Pretty cool, don't you think?

Got any plans to go visit? You won't be disappointed!

Do they get any cuter?

2010-03-02T17:42:00.004+11:00

Well, it happened Sunday week ago....Rebekah lost her first tooth.
It so happened that we were at church and so she had a lot of friends to share the exciting event with her (and us) :)
It's been more than a week now and I've just been amazed at how cute my daughter is with the gap in her mouth and the way she talks now due to the gap...it's all so... cute!
Seriously....do they get any cuter than this? !!!

The tooth fairy came too....though she had been told by a friend just recently that the tooth fairy isn't real and it's really your mum and dad that put the money there!
So, Rebekah told us NOT to put any money UNDER HER PILLOW because she wanted to see if the tooth fairy was real.
We put the money NEXT TO HER BED instead.
This has now led to a whole new situation....she thought it came from the tooth fairy and her friend told her there is no tooth fairy, she told us NOT to put money under her pillow, so we put it next to her bed. A few days later, she told her friend that the tooth fairy did come and she knows for sure because she knows her mummy and daddy WOULD NOT lie because lying is bad...oh dear, we dug a hole for ourselves didn't we!
So, we had to fess up and tell her it was us and that we put the money NEXT TO HER BED and NOT UNDER HER PILLOW because we didn't want her disappointed. We were not (technically)lying!
She WAS disappointed, very disappointed that the tooth fairy was not real.
The next day, she told us that when her next tooth falls out she wants to see if the tooth fairy is real. We don't know what happened to our conversation about the tooth fairy not being real when we fessed up! Oh dear!
Where's that parenting manual again? :)

Oh no! She's growing up!!!

2010-02-11T15:54:00.008+11:00

My lovely beautiful precious daughter has of today got her first "wobbly" tooth!
She was in tears with the pain this morning (after biting into some apple) until I explained that it was all part of growing up and reminded her of what Ron would say if he was home "that will toughen you up":) This brought some momentary relief and back came the tears. So....quick thinking mum said we'd better call daddy at work to tell him the "exciting" news coz she's growing up into a "big" girl and this is what happens as you grow up. A bit of the tooth fairy might have been thrown in there for good measure to:) Well, those two things seemed to fortunately end her tears and we got to share it with daddy at work. Ron asked her how she first realised her tooth was wobbly and she said "well, I was wobbling my tongue in my mouth and then my tongue felt my tooth and the tooth felt all wobbly"...so that's how she discovered it!
As far as co-incidences go, she actually picked out her "tooth fairy" book for me to read to her this morning (before the discovery)!!
Also, she had planned on writing a letter to her best friend Ava. So, we incorporated our experience of the day into her letter to Ava and here it is:

Amy, if you are reading this, Ava should receive her first snail mail from Rebekah tomorrow.
I love snail mail, don't you all? I want Rebekah to experience the pleasure of writing and receiving a "proper" letter and hopefully by introducing this early on in her life, she won't get too "high tech" to write a "proper" letter when she grows up:) or am I hoping in vain? :)

Washing machines and weevils!

2010-02-02T10:50:00.003+11:00

As you may or may not know, we had a very long.....holiday and got back a couple of weeks ago.
We usually find a few not so nice surprises when we come back from a loooong holiday!
I recall that one year, we remembered that we had read earlier to turn off all power points before you embark on a holiday, which we dutifully did! We are such sticklers for safety etc! we switched off all the power points in the house before we left feeling so good about ourselves! Well, on our return we were greeted by a nasty surprise when we opened our fridge! Yes, in our zeal, we even turned off the switch for the fridge:) We have never done that one ever again!

Well, this time, besides being welcomed by a musty smell in the house, I found our washing maching didn't want to wash our clothes anymore after the first load and we found some heebie jeebies in the pantry a few days later when I went to get some flour out! We found some weevils....aaaaahhhh!
As my beautiful dd would say, "I've never ever come across that in my WHOLE life before"!! (and she is just 5, well almost 6:))

Needles to say, I had a busy weekend, cleaning out our pantry! It now greets us with the aroma of tea tree oil when you open it...you see thanks to almighty google, tea tree oil and bay leaf are deterrents apparently...I'll have to see if that works and if you're interested I'll get back to you on it:)
As for the washing machine, google came in handy again and I worked out it's the cold water valve thing-y that's not working! So, while we wait for it to get fixed, I'm back to the old days, manually filling up my washing machine with water for each fill cycle! I guess it's better than washing by hand or as one of my friends said : hitting them on a stone like my native country women have done for centuries! Well, my friend, you will not find me doing that!

While I am on the topic of google, I am so guilty of turning to google first for answers that I recall about a year ago, when Rebekah was only five or even before that, she asked me a question to which I said I didn't know the answer and her reply was "why don't you google it?":) I still chuckle when I remember that!

Any of you had any funny / nasty surprises after your holidays?

Happy New Year

2010-01-25T20:53:00.004+11:00

We are back from holidays and what a splendid time we had too!

I highly recommend a five week holiday - heaps of time to unwind and totally relax! :)
Since we got married (15 years ago) Ron and I have made it a point to have a holiday at the end of the year. We started out with two weeks for the first few years, then it became three and gradually four but this last holiday, we set a new record - five whole weeks! What a luxury!
If you've never had a holiday that long, I highly recommend it!
We had ample time to truly unwind and relax and recharge the batteries.
We always find that we come back so refreshed mentally, physically and spiritually.

We visited Ron's family in Victoria and spent some time in peaceful Apollo Bay on the Great Ocean Rd.
We also up with Jeanne, my dear blog friend. It was great to meet her in real life and her delightful daughter Jemimah!
We got to house mind for a relative who was away on holidays and got to enjoy their lovely rural home along with the chooks, dog and get this - a tennis court! This was a holiday within a holiday for us, a huge blessing!
Rebekah got to do a few firsts over this holiday - she got to swim for the first time without her arm floaties, hooray for Rebekah and she also had her very first sleep over at her cousins' place!

It's nothing quite like being away from the busy-ness of city living to refocus for the new year.

One of my scriptures for this year that I have been meditating upon and keeping at the forefront of my mind is Proverbs 14:1

¹ The wise woman builds her house,
but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down.

As women/ wives / mothers, we hold so much in our hands as far as directing and creating the atmosphere of the home and what happens in a family's life.
My prayer has been that God would give me the wisdom I need to be the best wife, best mother etc in our home so that I would seek to "build" up our home and not "tear" it down.

So, happy new year and hope you all have a GREAT 2010!

Have a blessed Christmas

2009-12-09T10:02:00.004+11:00

We are winding down here getting ready for Christmas, the holidays etc, so I'll be on holidays from blogging for a while.
I wish all my bloggy friends a blessed and happy Christmas and I look forward to spending more time with you in blogosphere in 2010!
Here's a picture taken of us as a family a couple of weeks ago at our church Christmas party by one of our friends who is a professional photographer. I think we scrubbed up alright, or maybe it was photoshop:)
See you all later!

Time to encourage myself:)

2009-12-04T16:12:00.004+11:00

Two days ago, as we got in the car to head out, Rebekah said to me, "can we listen to some nice classical music mummy?".
Well, this was truly music to my ears:)

It got me pondering on the past year - as one tends to do at the end of a year - and I was really encouraged about all we've done this year with Rebekah.

For instance, I thought of the fact that she started writing her letters in cornmeal early this year

and now she knows pretty much all her lower and uppercase letters and can write them quite neatly. She knows approximately fifty words that she can read, she has progressed a lot in maths without a whole lot of formal teaching (apart from some lessons in the Singapore Math books that we started a few weeks ago), she has learnt to play "twinkle twinkle little star" by herself on her toy keyboard, and she would say her favourite books are her "art" books - we have quite a few of those:) One of our recent additions is a book called "100 Masterpieces of Australian painting" that we picked up for $5 at a recent second hand book sale (can you believe that!). She loves this book so much and it has become a recent favourite to take with her for her car rides.

When all of this dawned on me the day before yesterday, I couldn't believe that I actually had a part to play in this! Did I actually help her with all of that! It's amazing when you add up all the little bits and take a look at the big picture! I was truly encouraged at my efforts to "home school" her!

She has progressed to listening to read alouds from the Beatrix Potter books to ones like "The Magic Pudding" and "Stuart Little".

As for spiritual things, they are a bit hard to measure but judging by what she said the same night, I am encouraged. She said that she is going to start a "group" in her bedroom where she goes and prays by herself regularly..hmm not sure about the "group" thing but I think she's trying to emulate some of our prayer meetings:)

She loves her science experiments book and maps! In fact she has a child's atlas that she is truly in love with and loves looking up countries and places. She often takes out her history book from next years lot of books and loves looking at it!

Also, she loves nature and we have helped nurture that sense of wonder with things in nature and helped her develop her powers of observation. In fact, she loves drawing in her nature journal and has made quite a few entries, this being her most recent one: (sorry no scanner at the moment so had to resort to taking a picture)

These are just some of the bits and pieces from our past year of homeschooling.

So, time to pat myself on the back:) and thank God for His grace this past year with a successful year of homeschooling!

Rite of passage?

2009-11-28T13:44:00.015+11:00

I thought I'd better tell you about our recent exciting events around here.
Rebekah has just finished her end of year dance concert. She had been looking forward to it all year long. At the start of this year, I wanted to enrol her in ballet but the most convenient place for us taught not only ballet but also jazz and tap. Rebekah has really enjoyed it all and she says jazz is her favourite though she loves tapping about in her tap shoes and has been known to wear it to church on Sundays too many a time:) Go figure! I guess jazz shoes aren't as glamourous!
Anyway, the big day arrived after and here she is:

Ballet:

Jazz: (They did a song from Lion King)

Tap:

I was so proud of my little girl when she was up on stage in front of hundreds of people doing her thing! I had one of those moments when I couldn't believe how fast the years have gone - I thought about the day she was born and how she has grown from this little baby so quickly to be doing this. You know, it was just one of those emotional moments.....universally parents say that kids grow up fast and how true is that! Some days can seem to go slow but from a longer term perspective, it all seems to go just too fast:( I want her to stay little but I know I have no control over that! Anyway, I digress....while I was having this emotional moment I mentioned earlier, I somehow felt like a real mum...as if doing this sort of thing made me feel normal....I am not sure if it's the fact that Rebekah hasn't been to school or not that made me feel that way (you know, not having the normal school experience, first day of kindy etc, knowing all the other local kids in the community etc) I suspect it is...or just the fact that she is growing up....I felt like it was rite of passage into real motherhood...I know it's probably silly to think so but that's how I felt.

And oh, to top off all the excitement of dancing on stage etc, she even got a medal and trophy, now what can top that? It's her first ever medal and trophy and she is so proud of it!

On a different note, Ron and I have not liked the direction that Rebekah will head in if she continues in this dance school, so next year it might be a different dance school where she can learn ballet alone or maybe even Irish dancing....:)

Some Magic Pudding magic

2009-11-24T15:47:00.014+11:00

After days of stifling heat, we had a cool change and so Rebekah and I decided to take off to the park yesterday morning to celebrate! So, while all the kids were heading off to school, we heaeded off to the park!

It's been a long time since we've been out to the park I'm sad to say.

Rebekah has named this new park recently opened up at our place as "The Snugglepot and Cuddlepie Magic Pudding Park". She doesn't mind that it takes her 10 seconds to say it's name (yes we counted the seconds as I thought it was too long!) and won't let me call it just "The Magic Pudding park".
It does have some of May Gibbs' characters as well painted along the park - I just forgot to take some pics of them:)

Isn't it amazing how life is filled with some amazing co-incidences. I have noticed this so much more since we decided to homeschool Rebekah. I think it's God's way of confirming and affirming me that we are on the right track.
This park is one of those amazing co-incidences. We started reading "The Maggic Pudding" (well Ron did, not me) to Rebekah a few weeks ago and then we discover this newly opened park about ten minutes from our home. howzat!

Rebekah assures me that Albert is not always grouchy as he seems here:)

We had a magical time hanging out here before work called us home:(

Rebekah doing her "ballet" pose on a tree stump....will have to post on that soon.....

Give me this day my daily blog!!!! Please!!!!

2009-11-18T15:43:00.003+11:00

I have just realised that three out of my seven bloggy friends are now taking a vacation of sorts (from blogging atleast) for three very different reasons.

Sarah has her in-laws for a visit.
Mrs Adept is busy packing for her trip and
Jeanne is have a well earned rest for a couple of days

so what is this girl meant to do? Where am I to find my daily blog?

Hooray for Amy, at least she is blogging every day (you go girl!) due to joining some type of blog a day carnival or something:)
I would be lost if it wasn't for her blog:)

Missing you all........

"I know the names of the three Gods" and some neologisms

2009-11-11T10:47:00.002+11:00

Here's what Rebekah has been talking about of late:

"I know the names of the three Gods". I look bewildered, wondering what on earth has she been hearing and learning other than what I've been teaching her....turns out she meant: Father, Son and Holy Spirit! Oh, I was so relieved to hear that! I then proceeded to explain that they were not three Gods but three in One - you know - the Trinity! How does one explain the Trinity to a 5 year old other than to just say it as it is, no they are not three separate God's but three in One, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. I wanted to explain about ice, steam and water all being the same yet one but I thought I might leave that one for another time:)

"I like my food hot"
For the last fifteen years of our married life I've had to deal with this difference between Ron and I. He loves his food hot, no make that piping hot and as for me, I don't really care - well, as long as it's warm and edible and tastes good, that's all that matters:)
So, almost every time we have a hot meal for dinner, you can bet your bottom dollar that Ron will walk over to the microwave within a few seconds of commencing his meal.
Now, you think I would have learnt after fifteen years to make it piping hot - well, I know that, buuuut, it's all relative isn't it, sometimes I think it's hot enough but it's not to him!
So, anyway, the other day, we all sit down to eat and Rebekah is having her lamb curry with rice and she says, "I think I would like my food hot mummy" Thinking I didn't hear her right, I ask her what she means - and yes - you guessed it, it wasn't hot enough for her - like father, like daughter:)
Can you believe this 5 year old!!!!

Now for some neologisms: (thanks Jeanne, I learnt that word from you)

When we play birthday parties with dolls and play-doh and we sing happy birthday followed by "she's a jolly good fellow" it's "for she's a jolly good feather".

ABC "For the juniors" is "Forth the pejunias" (yes, I admit we do watch it sometimes besides I think she's learning lots from it - all in the name of education right!)

"Ridiculous" is "ridiclius"

"Piano" is "plano"

And do you think I actually bother to correct her - no way! I let her say them as she wishes coz it makes me chuckle and I love it!

Why does she like being called a "good girl" and what do you all think of rewards?

2009-11-06T10:02:00.005+11:00

I have read a few parenting books over the last few years. I remember one book saying not to call your child "good girl/boy" for doing whatever it is they did, instead to praise the "act" and their "effort" by saying "good job for doing...." or something else to that effect. Well, I have tried to follow that to the best of my ability.

However a year or so ago, I noticed that when her both her nanas say "good girl" after she does something, she gets a gleam in her eye and you can see her spirit just lifts and she loves it!
So, since I noticed that, I started occassionally saying it myself and I can see she LOVES it! I've even heard her talking to her imaginary friends later to tell them I said she was a good girl!

Now, this is my dilemma....
I don't want her to grow up with an unsaid / undue outward pressure on her to "be good" (as that is definitely not what God wants) as that is what that parenting book talked about, I don't want her self worth to be determined by how good she is but by what God thinks of her and I want her to be praised for her efforts and for doing the right thing .
So, why does she love being called a good girl?
Is it really all that bad to say it sometimes?
I am still pondering.....

The other parenting matter I am grappling with at the moment is "doing something because it's right, rather than for a reward".
I grew up in a world with no rewards for doing what I was meant to do, chores, obedience, good habits, etc etc.
Rather, it was respect for authority that motivated me and an attitude of I need to do it coz it's the right thing to do (sorry this isn't meant to be a brag:)) and hopefully it still is with me these days:)
Wind the clock forward a few years and I read about Charlotte Mason's motto for her students:
"I am, I can, I ought and I will".

My paraphrase:
I am a child of God etc...
I can do that which I need to do (because of His grace and power)
I ought to do the right thing.... and
I will do the right thing.

She also recommended no rewards other than natural consequences being the reward...eg, if I finish my lessons early I get more play time etc.
I also tend to think that other "rewards" can bring with it a sense of entitlement as one grows up..."I did this therefore I deserve this" (and how much do we see that in this generation)...which I don't want to see in her.

What CM says truly resonates with me but it's a job and a half to implement that at times !
I have taught her good habits (using Charlotte Mason's approach). But there are other habits that just don't seem to want to take root!
So, I've been pondering of late about rewards (atleast temporarily) to help get some good habits (that I am finding difficulty with) instilled in her.
Also, the Bible says God is a Rewarder so therefore He is into rewards, so are external rewards all that bad?

Or is it me that needs to have the habit of working on "instilling habits" including the habit of teaching her "I am, I can, I ought and I will". I haven't used those exact words with her (but used the method to train her) but I am thinking she's getting to the age now where she will truly be able to understand these concepts, so maybe I just need to start it?

Still pondering....and mulling things over and hope all of this is clear....what do you all think?

I've never even won a meat tray....

2009-10-27T20:10:00.005+11:00

Well, actually I did win one once, many moons ago, so that title wasn't totally accurate...:)

But....I was so....excited to win a book over at Jeanne's blog last month.
To celebrate her blog's first birthday, she was giving away a book a week all of September and you just had to comment on her post or make a mention of it on your blog to get an entry into the competition.

It arrived yesterday in the mail, all wrapped up and with another book as well, wow, thanks Jeanne!

While I was excited to win it, I felt terrible to "take" it off her as it was one of her favourite books:(
This is it:

Jeanne, I can promise you that I will be taking good care of this book and that I will start reading it very soon.
I hope to learn more about this wonderful country and it's past from it. Thanks again and thanks for your great blog!

7 new things about me

2009-10-23T09:33:00.004+11:00

My dear blogger friend Jeanne at http://ohpeacefulday.blogspot.com bestowed me with this award:

As I said to her, while I humbly accept this award, I must say that I believe my "Kreativity" does not lie in blogging but elsewhere! Still, I need to tell you 7 new things about me (as opposed to the ten I've already told you before), so here goes it:

1. I was unable to have children due to fertility issues. It was taking a while to get pregnant and we kept praying and standing on God's promises believing He could do a miracle.
We decided after a few years of this to do some tests to find out what was going on.
After my gyn/ob gave me the bad news, we decided that we would continue to stand on God's word before we made any further medical decisions. During this time, I miraculously fell pregnant after one of our dear friends who is a pastor and missionary prayed for me. I miscarried that child at 10 weeks and while it was a really sad time for us, we knew that God had done something in my body to enable me to fall pregnant in the first place. So, encouraged by this, we continued to pray and I fell pregnant 8 months later. "Rebekah Faith" was a name that we had picked out years ago for a daughter we would have one day and little did we know how prophetic her middle name would turn out to be. She was truly a miracle borne out of faith in Jesus and His healing power.

2. If you're still reading:), here goes my second thing:
I grew up in one of the biggest cities in India and Ron grew up in a little country town in Victoria but we both came to know Jesus in the same year while we were countries and continents apart!

3. I have come to know that whatever God calls one to do requires faith and is not always easy, in fact sometimes it is downright difficult! Yet, if we remain close to Him and continue to trust, His grace is always sufficient. As someone said once, God is not interested in my comfort but in my heart (or something to that effect)!

4. Woh, I feel like I've bared my soul to you all, so now for something not so deep:)
I enjoy doing family budgets, crunching numbers etc:)

5. I am an introvert (though I have mentioned that before). My personality type means I tend to make friends very slowly and generally only have just a few close friends.

6. I am the third born of four siblings but I am sometimes told I have the personality of an "oldest" child, whatever that means:)

7. Related to 4, I was actually studying to become an accountant before I left India to come to Oz. God had a different plan for my life and I never became one, though Ron would say I'm the family accountant:)

Here are my friends I'm going to pass this onto in no particular order:

Sarah at http://eternityinyourheart.blogspot.com/ though I believe she's changed hers to Eternally grateful now:)
Amy at http://www.matrondownunder.blogspot.com/ - She is one witty creative writer and you always get lots of laughs at her blog, pop over and read some of them if you like. Btw, she and her husband are the pastors of our church.
Mrs adept at http://adepts.blogspot.com/ - someone I have just been getting to know via her blogging. I love her small and varied posts:)
Susan at http://kerugma.net/. I don't "know" her but do follow her blog. She is a true pioneer in the homeschooling movement in Australia. She has blessed my life in more ways than she would know!
and of course, if I could, but I know I can't, I would have given this to Jeanne as she is the first true "blogger friend" I have made though I've read many blogs prior to hers.
My list runs out here unfortunately, see point 5 above for further explanation:)

Or maybe I could copy what Jeanne did and just give it to YOU who are still reading but who's blog I've not listed:)

Now, it's your turn and this is what you need to do:
These are the rules:

1. Thank the person who gave this to you.
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog.
3. Link the person who nominated you.
4. Name 7 things about yourself that no one would really know.
5. Nominate 7 other bloggers & let them know they are nominated.

Homeschooling an only child

2009-10-20T14:50:00.004+11:00

I have been thinking of doing such a post for a while because really, homeschoolers of only children are as rare as hen's teeth:)

There ain't much around that I can see - most books I've read on homeschooling don't even touch the subject:(

So, I'm just journalling my experiences so that it may encourage anyone who is in a similar situation that comes across this post.

Ive met quite a few mothers on various yahoo groups that gave up on the idea of homeschooling their only child when it was time to go to kindergarten as it seems like that was the toughest time for them for various reasons. So, I write this for any future mums in my situation:) Take what you will from it as it's just my experience that I'm journalling:)

I was introduced to homeschooling through friends of ours many years before we had Rebekah and was very impressed by it, so thought that perhaps one day I would like to do the same when I had my own kiddos. So.... when it came time to decide on the all important question asked of a mother of a 2 year old "so which pre-school are you going to send Rebekah to?" I decided I needed to look into this whole homeschooling thing again!

Actually remembering back to some of those conversations, I remember feeling like I would miss Rebekah so much when it came time to send her to school and some mums told me that would change in time. Well, she is now five and half and I still feel the same! In fact we love each other's company and things are much easier now than ever and I just love all the wonderful conversations we have, and the time we spend together reading, playing with her etc. That's not to say that I don't have days when I just want to be left alone though, but for the great majority of the time we both truly enjoy the homeschooling process!

Anyway, back to what I was saying....

So, I bought some books and read them. One day I casually mentioned it to another mum in my playgroup and discovered she was thinking along the same lines and was already way ahead of me in the research stage. She turned out to be a great encouragement and source of information at the time.

I then proceeded to spend hours researching it on the internet and joined some discussion forums and groups. During that time, we (Ron and I) became convinced that it was definitely something we wanted to do and felt called to do.

Little did I know then (when Rebekah was two and half by this stage) that by the time it came time for her to be at school, that she would still be our only child!

Things were progressing along fine with my research and buying books for Rebekah that I would use to teach her etc.

Last year, I reluctantly joined a yahoo discussion group for mothers of only children - I say reluctantly because we are still praying for a sibling for Rebekah:) This group is quite small and discussions are not that frequent but they are a great bunch of very supportive mums! So, if you're in a similar situation, check out this group or any others that are around.

So, what are some of the the issues/challenges I've faced? I actually anticipated it to be worse than it was:)
I thought that this year- 2009 - when Rebekah saw her friends going to school that she would find it quite difficult, but it wasn't as bad as I anticipated, thankfully!
In fact I anticipated the same thing last year when all her friends were going to preschool and it didn't happen:) hmm...that says something about me doesn't it:)
Late last year we moved to a new place which is right near a primary school. We can see it from the front of our house and we hear the kids playing during recess and hear the school bell ring etc.
Early this year when we were talking about her friends going off to school etc and her seeing what a "real school" was right from our front door, we went through a short stage which probably only lasted a week or two at the most when she started asking me about why she was not going to school and that she wanted to go to school etc. So, I explained our decision to her (after seeking some advice from the afore mentioned yahoo group) which I think she quickly understood because she hasn't mentioned going to school since!

The other challenge which we've easily overcome is companionship from other kids. Once again I think I was more concerned about her lack of this than she has been!
I think kids get used to the way things are for them and I guess to her she doesn't know any different - I think I had been needlessly worrying because both Ron and I come from families with many siblings.
I signed her up for dance classes which we do weekly and we attend homeschooler park days about once a month. Between this and family visits, church, cousins, playdates with friends etc she actually gets quite a bit of socialisation! (Homeschoolers always say that they get asked this question a lot! well, as a parent of an only I can say that I get asked this more than anyone else and from total strangers I might add, including twenty something checkout chicks!)

Adding to this, we also got her some guinea pigs - now this is one thing that has not only been a huge blessing to Rebekah but has enriched all of our lives :) We love them as much as she does:)

Another thing was that she always a very clingy and shy child and I often wondered whether she would be better off at school, but then it didn't take long for me to realise that I was like that and school didn't help much in that area for me. I would say that while I am still shy, it wasn't until my twenties when I started changing in this area!
The reason I say that is because I was often told that she needs to go to school to help her come out of her shell. Well, as it turns out, I think she has naturally come out of her shell in the last 8 to 12 months, and while she is still shy she is definitely not as clingy as she used to be!
She has become very resourceful in "entertaining" herself. She can play by herself for long periods of time now! She has oodles of imaginary friends that she plays with:)

The last issue/challenge that I can think of is finding time for myself. I am certainly an introvert and recharge by solitude. Ron has been extremely supportive in this area by regularly taking Rebekah out for a few hours on the weekend. Thanks honey!

So.....our homeschooling life is sailing along smoothly:) And while I would like Rebekah to be homeschooled all the way (by the grace of God), we feel it's best to take it one year at a time and see how it all pans out from year to year!

She's got it, by George I think she's got it!

2009-10-07T16:40:00.007+11:00

I started teaching Rebekah to read very informally using Charlotte Mason's recommendations. We started with "at" then the words with consonants before that.
Actually I tried starting this early on this year but she just wasn't getting it so I left it and then one day a couple of months ago, it's like a switch went on and she got it!
Then I did the "en" and the words that can be made with consonants added to it.
Along with this, she would pick up books to "read" and by asking me what certain words were, she learnt other words like "is", "in","to", "too", "of", "off", "the", and "and".
Then last week, we were at Borders in her favourite kiddie section and I realised as we were looking at the books that she could actually read all the words in the title of this book, so I picked it up and asked her and she did it! She read her first "full sentence"!

It was the title of the book by Dr Seuss:

That was such a cool and exciting moment for both of us!

Then a couple of days ago, she decided to write it out in the bath with her bath crayons:

So, there you have it, her first sentence she read and wrote!

Workbooks that excite me!

2009-09-23T10:37:00.005+10:00

After all these years of not pushing academics and letting Rebekah just be and play, explore and learn (a la Charlotte Mason) and read her good living books, I must say I began to salivate when I opened the parcel I got in the mail last night!
Our first ever Singapore maths workbooks!
Am I crazy to salivate over workbooks? I must be either maths crazy or weird or something because I am so...excited about them!
I don't know what my problem is, but anyway, this morning there were tears around here because Rebekah wanted to get into them too. It appears I must have passed this gene onto her!
I told her she will need to wait till next year to do them which to her is an eternity. So, there were a few tears shed this morning over our maths workbooks! I guess it's better than the other way around don't you think?

You have to read this!

2009-09-15T15:35:00.005+10:00

I'm a bit of a slack blogger and only do random posts. So, when I read my friend Jeanne's blog today, it gave me a good reason to do another post.
You see, she has been so generous to the homeschooling community with her blog where she freely posts her wisdom and experience in homeschooling to help newer homeschooling mums like myself.
She is truly a becoming a great mentor to many many mums especially Aussie Charlotte Mason mums!
Besides being so generous with her time and wisdom, she is now also giving away stuff on her blog! Can you believe it! There is no end to her generosity.
You'll have to visit her post here to see what I mean: http://ohpeacefulday.blogspot.com/2009/09/anthologies-for-aussie-kids.html
Hope you win! (no not really, I'm hoping I win it!)

Viva la difference!

2009-08-31T15:42:00.001+10:00

Ron and I have been doing a bible study with some others (in our small group) on a book called "Walking together" by John and Cynthia Heald.
It's a study on marriage and as the name indicates, meant to help us "walk together".

Well, we have a had a rip roaring time, doing this with a few other couples. The questions "force" us to communicate about areas of our lives and relationship to each other that normally get passed over for one reason or another. You can imagine some of the stuff that comes out when one is forced to have some honest communication going on!

Anyway, a few weeks ago, the topic was on "Building each other" and one of those delving questions I had to ask Ron was "What is one thing you would like me to continue doing, or do differently, in relation to you or to our home?"

Those who know my dear husband, know what a kind and gentle man he is, so of course, he was so polite in his reply..oh well, nothing really....you know what I mean:). But **I** know there IS one thing **I** need to work on and when it came time to share it in our small group, I told them MY answer in addition to his explained below:

This is a new seatbelt rule from RTA that will also to be implemented not only in ........ but across ALL states.

The Road & Traffic Authority has done extensive testing on a newly designed seat belt. Results show that accidents can be reduced by as much as 45% when the belt is properly installed. Correct installation is illustrated.

Please pass on to family and friends.
THIS MAY HELP SAVE A LIFE!

Now, I hope you laughed! But it's amazing how this is such a common issue among women!

Yep, I am working on it girls!

I was just so thankful that when I bring up HIS driving, he doesn't bring up this up coz he's a good man!

I like staying home.....

2009-08-20T09:37:00.002+10:00

We had a very "social" week last week..."social" meaning we had lots of playdates, park days etc so we were not home much last week.
On Monday morning Rebekah asked me (as she does on some days) "so where are we going today mummy?".
I told her we were going to stay home today. My jaw dropped when I heard her reply: " I like staying home! I get to do so many things at home!" !!!
I cannot tell you that it was not like music to my ears:)
Did she actually say this? Yes, I heard right!
Not that she's every complained of being at home on the days we did stay home....I sighed a huge sigh of relief! Here I was for the last couple of years wondering, if we were doing the right thing keeping her home, especially because she doesn't have any siblings (yet). I think she's actually always been content and happy with what we've done, it's just that she's never verbalised it before.
I can tell you, this affirmation (even if it came from my 5 year old) has done great wonders for my soul this week!
So, we continued to stay home this week and catch up on stuff we had to do, enjoying our guinea pigs (one of whom is pregnant by the way but that's for another time) enjoying this beautiful weather in our back yard, eating our meals outdoors, playing with her new basket ball etc etc.

A great kids devotional!

2009-07-30T10:19:00.003+10:00

I had been on a quest to find a devotional to use with Rebekah to have a more "formal" way of teaching her about God. So, I looked around a bit, and read some online reviews etc .Anyway, I had been hearing about "Leading Little Ones to God" on the home school circuit for quite a few years and had been waiting for Rebekah to grow up a bit to use it. I kind of thought it was for the 6 - 8 year old age group.Well, it's not cheap here in Australia so didn't want to rush into it. Anyway, one day out of the blue a few weeks ago, I decided to search ebay and guess what, to my surprise there was one on sale for $2.50 and the postage was going to be $5.50. It had been on sale for quite a while would you believe with no takers. The "buy it now" option also had "make an offer" beneath it, so I gave it a shot and offered $1.50 (which was accepted) bringing the grand total to $7.00!! What a bargain! This way I thought if it's a dud atleast I haven't spent $30 to $40 getting it through Koorong.
Well, you can imagine my surprise when I opened up the book and started to read the first chapter! I was amazed at the gentle, non-condescending, sweet yet intelligent way the author Marion Schoolland has written the book, presenting God to our little ones.......honestly I browsed through some of the more "modern" ones and nothing comes close to this! I cannot speak more highly of this "older" devotional.
She starts of with a secion on "Looking for God" and slowly progresses through the different stages of finding God to then what happens when we become children of God and how we need to live etc.
At the end of each chapter there is a scripture reference and a hymn to be sung (we just read the hymn out aloud and Rebekah thinks it's a poem:)). Also the prayer at the end is in old English which you don't really need to use as you can make up your own or edit it on the go. By the way the book itself is not written in older English, it's just the prayer for some reason - hmm things have changed in how we pray these days hasn't it!
Beautiful book! If you are looking for one for your kids I highly recommend it. By the way, I would say you could use it from the age of 4 upto 7 or 8 years old.
Just thought I'd post this in case my huge list of followers were looking for something like this, yeah right!
BTW, I am so excited about this book I found another reasonably priced second hand copy recently and am going to give it to one of my friends from church to use with her son. I am going to see her today and can't wait to give it to her, can you tell how much I love this book???

We have twins!!!

2009-06-24T21:03:00.011+10:00

baby guinea pig twins that is! gotcha!

For the past couple of years, Rebekah has been asking for a dog. She absolutely loves and adores all dogs and has done so since she was very young. Well, she's still young, just 5, but you get the drift...here she is at around 18 months with a family member's dog......

Anyway, we had been telling her that she would get one after we have another baby. Well, it's been a long wait and I was kind of thinking that maybe when she's six we'd get her one for her birthday whether or not she had a little sibling by then.

Well, last month we visited a friend who just recently got her son some guinea pigs. Rebekah just took to them and fell in love with them. She was then to get one of them "on loan" for six days from her friend but at the last moment he backed down. She was very disappointed to say the least. Anyway, in the same week, we heard of some baby guineas for sale from one of the mums in our home school group. Well, they couldn't have come at a better time - it didn't take Ron and I very long at all to decide to get them for Rebekah. She was over the moon! So, we picked last Saturday. She is absolutely besotted with them!

I didn't realise pets could have this effect, it's been a loooong time since I've had one. But really, it's like having a new baby (or in our case babies). I've seen a new side to Ron - I knew he was a softie but to see him just love these little creatures is amazing. Also, I have to be honest here, I was not too keen on cuddling them at first but it didn't take me long either and I must say we've all fallen in love with them! They are the cutest little things. Rebekah has named them "Claire" and "Annalise" :)

Here they are:

They make a great first pet we were told, and so far this has definitely been the case. Easy and low maintenance!

Doesn't she look over the moon! She is truly learning what it means to "look after and care for" something / some one else. In her case being an only child (at the moment) I think it's been great for her to learn this:) She is learning responsibility, gentleness, care etc.....now how good is that!

A great day in our homeschooling life!

2009-06-19T16:01:00.016+10:00

Today the sun was out and it wasn't too cold - about 18 degrees I would say. The perfect day to get out and enjoy nature after the rain of the past few days.
So, Rebekah and I went off to visit a reserve not far from our place. (Pictures following were taken at the same spot a few months ago)

We fed the ducks, strolled along the international gardens, picked up some fallen leaves of various beautiful autumn colours, stood up at the top of the waterfall (man made one but beautiful albeit) and enjoyed the scenic view down over the lakes and gardens. Rebekah even brought along a cursive writing book as she said she wants to play "going to university" and I could be the teacher seeing I would make a good one:) Thanks Rebekah!!!:) She even brought along her maginary friends - she had some new ones today (who's names I cannot remember!) oh actually, some of them were - Elessa, Ellen, oh, I can't remember the rest now, drats!
Anyway, you get the picture, they all came along on our "field trip" as she put it today. And yes, after she fed the ducks and played and we had our lunch, she did actually get her book out and start "writing" some words - she was copying the cursive writing into upper case letters - no she is not that advanced, we are still at upper case letters:)

Anyway, Charlotte Mason would have been so proud of me I reckon.

This is what she says "How much time daily in the open air should the children have? And how is it possible to secure this for them? In this time of extraordinary pressure, educational and social, perhaps a mothers first duty to her children is to secure for them a quiet growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life, the waking part of it spent for the most part out in the fresh air. And this, not for the gain in bodily health alone––body and soul, heart and mind, are nourished with food convenient for them when the children are let alone, let to live without friction and without stimulus amongst happy influences which incline them to be good."

She is so right about this. Every day I struggle to follow her wisdom - to let Rebekah just be - to get her outdoors as much as possible, to enoy nature etc etc. So much screams out at me that I need to be teaching her this or that! But as I've learnt to relax and not "force" academics on her, she has of her own volition wanted to learn things, like the scenario of taking her book out today. I certainly have not encouraged this! Wow, bring it on - a lifelong love of learning is what I am after for my daughter not academics just to pass a test!

It's about time I posted again!

2009-05-29T20:39:00.010+10:00

My wonderful friend and pastor - Amy - tagged me with this award:

and so, I better pass it on....so I'm told. Anway, I'm kind of new to this whole thing and I guess she must have wanted to "gently encourage" me (as she is known to do) to get on with it!!!

So, here goes ten facts about me that you may or may not have wanted to know:)

1. Amy says she's nerdy, wait till you hear this: I have an incredible ability to remember people's phone numbers, car number plates etc etc, basically anything with numbers, including scripture references!

2. So, all you people thought I knew my Bible so well, it's just that I can remember these things easily! Whoa! was that a secret I should not have let out!

3. I am not copying Amy but seriously I would be a nervous wreck when I had to do any public speaking growing up. These days I get a bit nervous but I enjoy it as well. It's one of those things you cannot explain unless you understood the scripture that says "His strength is made perfect in my weakness". I'll omit the scripture reference for this one, though I know it:)

4. I got 100% for maths in my HSC , all by the grace of God. In fact, I was always pretty good at maths but before my exams I felt God tell me not to trust in my own ability but in Him and little did I know why - even though I was pretty good, I never ever would have got 100% without His help! See number 1, it's all related I guess?

5. My parents separated (and later divorced) when I was eight and it was a pretty sad time for me. I longed for them to get back together and live happily but it never happened.

6. God has now given me such a wonderful husband and we decided (with good counsel) to never ever mention the "D" word, and even today, I refuse to do it even in jest. Mind you, we've never ever had reason to even think of the 'd' word. God has been so good to us. I am the most blessed wife in the world!

7. Growing up, I was always the "peace maker" among my siblings, friends etc.

8. I was an extremely shy child and still am but not as painfully shy as I was until about the age of 21 when things started to change. (Some of you are quite puzzled by this I'm sure), trust me, I am still shy!

9. I have an incredible ability to "forget" movie stories not long after I've seen them. My dear husband who is a movie lover cannot for the life of him work this out though I can remember other things easily!

10. Related to above, I love the old black and white movies!

Well, I could go on but won't bore you....

Now for my seven, I don't actually know seven bloggers (well, not well enough to pass this on) so, I may have to break this chain blogging thing! Sorry Amy! Hope that's ok?

Never too young to learn to save

2009-04-28T19:42:00.006+10:00

A few months ago, we started giving Rebekah pocket money of $2 per week:)
We started this mainly to stop the "Can I please have this?" questions when we were out shopping and also to try to instill a respect for money in her.
So, each week she got her $2 and blissfully spent it on whatever little thing that took her fancy. However, a couple of months ago, she saw a book called "The princess handbook" at Borders and fell in love with it. She is getting into "princesses" now:) It cost $14.95, hmm hmm, a bit more than $2 so we saw it as the perfect opportunity to teach her a new and valuable lesson - the power of saving!
So, we explained how it worked to her and she slowly put her money away in her little piggy bank (which previously was just a toy) each week.
In the back of my mind, I was thinking that surely she would get impatient and frustrated at how long it was going to take to save up for it. So Ron and I discussed it and decided that if that happened, towards the end, we would tell her that seeing that she had saved so hard we would chip in and pay for the difference. However, I must say that she was determined and never ever gave up. We would re-visit Borders several times in those weeks (our local one has a great GJ's by the way so it was easy to re-visit:)) and I think that kept the vision alive in her. Well, here she is in the picture, the proud owner of something she saved for, for almost eight weeks! What a proud moment it was for her when "daddy" took her in with all her coins to pay for the book. Well, Ron said she got a little shy actually and hid behind him while he paid for it:)
I was so impressed with my little daughter and what a powerful lesson to learn at such a young age! Now that she has learnt this, she has saved up and bought a $7 Barbie (which actually ended up being on sale for $4 when we went to pay for it) and she is truly learning the value of money and things!
A lesson for us grown ups too!

Homeschooling Books I have read and enjoyed (so far)

2009-03-04T15:10:00.004+11:00

"So you're thinking about homeschooling" Lisa Whelchel (This was the first book I read, bought it at Koorong and would highly recommend it to anyone thinking of homeschooling. It gives you a glimpse into some of the composite families lives that the author has met and put together. Shows you the wide range of homeschooling family situations, options and methods)

"For the children's sake" Susan Schaeffer Macaulay - A great introduction to Charlotte Mason's philosophy of homeschooling.

"A Charlotte Mason Education" Catherine Levinson - A great "how to" book for implementing the CM methods.

"A Charlotte Mason Companion" Karen Andreola - Another great "how to" book for implementing CM methods with more details on each topic. A highly enjoyable book to read!

"The 3 R's" by Ruth Beechick - A "how to" book, on teaching the three R's from K-3

Books for three to five year olds

2009-03-04T14:59:00.005+11:00

These are some of the many books that we have read to Rebekah and which she has requested to be read to her many times over:)
They are all the original and unabridged versions. We steer clear of the abridged, watered down versions.

"The 20th Century Children's Book treasury" selected by Janet Schulman
(jjust some of her favourite stories: Harry the dirty dog, Amelia Bedelia, Millions of Cats, Frog and Toad are friends)
"Caps for Sale" Esphyr Slobodkina
"Because I love you" Max Lucado
"You are special" Max Lucado
"The cat in the hat" Dr Seuss
"The complete tales and poems of Winnie the Pooh" A A Milne
Almost all of the Beatrix Potter books - some of them are:
The tale of Peter Rabbit, The tale of Mr Jeremy Fisher, The tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, The tale of Samuel Whiskers or the Roly Poly Pudding, etc
"The story of Babar" Jean de Brunhoff

Some others are:

"A Child's book of Art" by Lucy Micklethwait (great introduction to art) (Rebekah refers to this book as her most favourite book!)
"A picnic with Monet" Julie Merberg and Suzanne Bober ( a beautiful board book with poetry to Monet's art)
Golden books : "My little golden book about God", "The poky little puppy" and "The saggy baggy elephant" are some of her faves.