Our eclectic Year 8 :)

Putting together my own curriculum was overwhelming, when Rebekah was moving into year 7.
I am a person that likes structure and knowing what I need to do ahead of time (well, at least a little ahead of time :) ).
However, I found, moving out of that ready made curriculum to piecing things together for year 7 was not as bad as I anticipated. We still have structure, but instead of going to one place for all our needs, I just needed to go to a few.
I came up with this schedule to help plan our days and also to use it as a method of record keeping (from which I write out our end of term reports) for NESA (formerly the Board of Studies).

She finished up with Allinonehomeschool's curriculum for some subjects but continued with it for others as you'll see below.

This year, we veered from Charlotte Mason and began a classical curriculum for history, literature and theology combined. Rebekah fell in love with it from the start and this is something she looks forward to doing each week, and is known to also do schoolwork from this during her holidays (that's how much she loves it).
It combines the three subjects together and is called Omnibus Primary and Omnibus Secondary and is put out by Veritas Press and you can find them here: https://veritaspress.com/selfpaced/omnibus. This course includes books about the time period being studied, both from the actual time period and books written later about the time period. The course is designed to teach children a strong Biblical worldview.

This was Rebekah's year 8 curriculum:

English Literature, History and Theology: 
Time period Medieval history through to the start of the Reformation

For term 1, we continued with year 7 of EP (Allinonehomeschool.com) and added in some other books for Aussie Literature, some of which she read in her free time.
Animal Farm, George Orwell
Treasure Island, R L Stevenson
Aussie Literature:
The Little Black Princess, J Gunn
(she did a book study and report on this)

From Term 2 onwards, she began Omnibus and these are the books studied for literature, history and theology combined:

Eusibius: The Church History
The Hobbit, J R R Tolkien
The Fellowship of the ring, J R R Tolkien
The Nine Tailors, Dorothy Sayers
The Dragon and the Raven, G A Henty
The Gospel of John
The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, H Pyle
Confessions by Augustine
On the Incarnation of our Lord, Saint Athanasius
The Creeds (Christianity)
Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Bede
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare
Commodore Perry in the Land of the Shogun by Rhoda Blumberg
Rule of St Benedict by St Benedict
Beowulf

She also kept a Book of Centuries (not needed for this course but I find this helpful for her and we've done this for years with a Charlotte Mason education 😊 )
Language Arts:

Grammar -
Intermediate Language Lessons part 3, Emma Serl
Language Arts level 7 of EP (AIOHS)

Poetry - as covered in Intermediate Language Lessons, AIOHS, debate class and lots of free reading poetry with mum and dad (Dad in particular loves reading poetry with Rebekah) :)

Debate -

Weekly classes at a  local homeschool co-op.
(Rebekah loves these classes as she really enjoys debating and public speaking.
Her favourite role in debates is 3rd speaker as she loves having to think on her feet).

Spelling and Dictation - Language Arts of EP

Writing: Rebekah continued the Language Arts course of EP, also did book reports, written narrations, and writing speeches for her debate class.

Maths:

My Pals are Here Maths (Singapore Maths)

Science:

Aplogia Exploring Creation with Chemistry and Physics, Jeannie Fulbright, along with the notebooking journal (Rebekah wanted to do it this time though she hasn't liked the Apologia journals much in the past)

Apologia Exploring Creation with General Science, Jay Wile (began in term 4)
Biography of Isaac Newton, Hudson Tiner

Geography:

EP Geography and Cultures course continued from year 7
Around the World in Eighty Days, Jules Verne (continued from year 7)
Material World, Peter Menzel
Hungry Planet, Peter Menzel

Civics and Citizenship:

Term 3 was set aside to focus on this subject (formally). We do discuss a lot of this in real life anyhow but in order to record it for NESA we decided to use these resources.

Prime Ministers of Australia, Jill B Bruce
Magna Carta, C Walter Hodges
PEO website (Parliamentary Education Office)
Skwirk (Rebekah used this online resource in year 7 as a supplement for a couple of things and we used this to study civics and citizenship)

Languages:

Rebekah loves Latin so she continued Visual Latin (from Compass Classroom) the course she began in Year 7.

Creative Arts:

Ballet 3 x week, lyrical dancing

She began teaching herself how to play a keyboard, using a program called Piano Maestro as she loves playing her keyboard! 

Composer Study:

Haydn (also read Josephy Haydn by Opal Wheeler)

Schubert

Art Study:

Giotto

Rembrandt (and a visit to the Art Gallery for the Rembrandt exhibition)

Additional books studied:

Emily of New Moon, L M Montgomery (and wrote a book report) 

Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze by Elizabeth F Lewis,

Free Reads:

The first four years, Laura Ingalls Wilder

Anne of Avonlea, L M Montgomery

Aslan's Call, Mark Eddy Smith *

A Midsummer Nights dream, Shakespeare

The Fire in the Stone, Colin Theale *

Anne of the Island, L M Montgomery

At the back of the North Wind, George Macdonald

Anne of Windy Polars, L M Montgomery

Amy Carmichael Rescuer by Night, Kay Walsh (Trailblazer books)

Anne's House of Dreams, L M Montgomery

Maggie Rose, A Birthday Christmas, Ruth Sawyer **

Anne of Ingleside, L M Montgomery

Kidnapped, R L Stevenson

Meet Marly (Our Australia Girl series), Alice Pung***

Marly's Business (Our Australian Girl series), Alice Pung***

The Extraordinary Education of Nicholas Benedict, Trenton Lee Stewart

Escape from Mr Lemoncello's Library, Chris Grabenstein

Behind the Gates: Tomorrow Girls series, Eva Gray

Run for cover: Tomorrow Girls Series, Eva Gray

Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Patterson (read before)

The Australian Twins, Daphne Rooke

Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain*

The Silver Chair, C S Lewis (read before)

Brownie, Amy Le Feuvre

Gillian and the Garden, Elisabeth Batt

Flower of Gold, Dorothy O Royce

The Thirty Nine Steps, John Bunyan

Cocos Gold, Ralph Hammond

Picwick Papers, Charles Dickens

*Ron read these to Rebekah at night

** I read these to Rebekah

***Historical Fiction about a vietnamese refugee to Australia

Rebekah's Year 7 Curriculum

(This post has been sitting in my drafts forever! So, I've  now edited it to add what we used / didn't use as we have just finished our official year 7. This was my first year putting together my own and so I created an unrealistic work load and had to cut back some of what we couldn't do.)

We've been using and enjoying Living Books Curriculum for the past few years. It tied in nicely with the NSW Board of Studies' requirements for the primary school years.

However moving in to the higher school years and having to satisfy the curriculum outcomes made it difficult to continue with Living Books Curriculum and I couldn't really find another Charlotte Mason curriculum that tied in neatly with what we had to do or a curriculum she could work from semi-independently at least, that we liked. 

So.....I for the first time had to "put together" my own curriculum! 

I was overwhelmed by the whole thought and drowned in hours of scouring the internet to piece together what I needed.

Thankfully I remembered this free online curriculum that I'd heard of years ago and put on the back burner because I didn't think it was rigorous enough for Rebekah: allinonehomeschool.com

I looked at it again and found that I could easily match their Ancient History course to the NSW outcomes! That got me excited and I knew I could beef it up / adapt it quite easily to make it more Charlotte Mason for my liking:)

I looked further and found that I could easily use their Geography and once again adapt it to make it more Charlotte Mason and their English had some great classics too! 

I was starting to feel better :)

Maths was easy, we could just continue with Singapore Maths. 

I got the homeschool planner from homeschoolingdownunder.com which had all the NSW outcomes laid out with suggested books.

So after a few hours of working through these, I came up with this for Rebekah:

 Year 7 curriculum for Rebekah

Bible and Christian Studies:

Bible reading plan as outlined in EP curriculum Level 7 year 1 studying the books of Matthew in the NT and in the OT books from Genesis to Esther.

With mum 3 x week: Pilgrim’s progress to the end then ‘TheDavid Club’ by Andrew Shepherd.
(We ended up not using The David  Club after all not because we didn't like it but I decided to give her some extra books for free reading instead).

English:

Literature and Poetry: 

Reading 7 of EP Curriculum 

Rebekah did oral and written narrations from these books.

Books used:

The Spy, James Fennimore Cooper; 

Penrod and Sam, Tarkington; 

The Call of the Wild, London;

Treasure Island, Stevenson; 

The Talisman, Sir Walter Scott; 

The King Will Make a Way, Giles

(We are carrying over the last two into year 8)

To the above, I added some other books that Ron and I felt would be great for her to do as part of her 'school work':

Animal Farm by George Orwell, We of the Never Never by Jeannie Gunn and The Word Spy by Ursula Dubosarsky.

However we never got to the second two!

Poetry as set out in EP Reading 7 from Dickinson, Keats and Tennyson

Australian Poetry: 2 x week – Australian Bush Verse and other Australian Poetry at home.
Poetry is read only in the first week or two of Easy Peasy so we read poetry to Rebekah at other times including for bed time read alouds - just because we love and enjoy poetry!

Grammar: Intermediate Language Lessons by Living Books Press 3 x week

(I opted not to use Easy Peasy's Grammar because we had already done ILL part 1 and 2 in years 5 and 6)
We ended up cutting some of the chapters out of ILL and adding in EP's Language Arts for year 7 as ILL was getting a little tedious and I found EP had some great grammar lessons that suited us much better and also helps meet the outcomes ;)

Writing: I wanted Rebekah to begin learning some styles of writing so she will do some of Easy Peasy's year 7 writing course.

Copywork: Aesop’s Fables copy work 4 x week on the days when there is no c/w in Reading 7. (We didn't end up doing this as her work load was full enough)

Spelling and Dictation: As directed in schedule/ by mum on a weekly basis.

Debate: Weekly classes at a home school co-op.

Logic and thinking – as scheduled in EP year 7 (We ended up ditching this and going with "The Fallacy Detective" by N & H Bluedorn, reading a chapter or two a week .....

Current events – Tween Tribune (online newspaper for tweens) 2 x week, Ongoing family discussions and watching of news, Behind the News. (Didn't end up reading the Tween Tribune)

Shakespeare: read a play depending on what’s available to watch live during the year.

(We watched Bell Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in Term 1 so Rebekah re-read the children's version of this)

Maths:

My Pals are Here maths

Science:

Exploring Creation with Human Anatomy and Physiology (term 1 to 3) with living books to supplement it. She did oral and written narrations from these along with notebooking pages to go with some of the work and experiments from Apologia along the way. We chose not to get the Apologia notebooking journal as from past experience we didn't use most of it, so Rebekah made her own notebooking pages from what was available free online.

A Gruseome but true story about brain science by Phineas Gage

Louis Pasteur Germ Killer by John  Mann

Blood and Guts by Linda Allison (to complement experiments in Apologia Human Anatomy)

 Gregor Mendel The Friar who grew peas by Cheryl Bardoe (on genetics)

Exploring the world of Chemistry, J H Tiner (Term 4) (We didn't do this as we found we didn't like it much, more like Rebekah was a bit young for it, so we've put it away for when she's a bit older. We instead began  Apologia's 'Exploring the World of Physics and Chemistry' by Jeannie Fulbright). 

Computer: following schedule of EP level 7 when scheduled. (We ditched this through first term).

Research Project: Pick one topic and follow guidelines to complete it (google research projects for year 7 and 8) This can be done in year 7 or 8. (Didn't get around to this)

History:

EP Curriculum Ancient History component as scheduled for days 1 – 95 with additional days for Ancient World, Egypt and China.

She did oral and written narrations from these along with mapwork.

History Spine:  The Story of Mankind by H VanLoon

The Ancient World: Investigating Ancient History – Kingfisher  “The Ancient World” ; Life in the Great Ice Age by Michael Oard; Cairo Jim and Doris In Search of Martenaten by Geoffrey McSkimming

The Mediterranean World:
Egypt: Cairo Jim and Doris In Search of Martenaten by Geoffrey McSkimming ;
Mara Daughter of the Nile by Eloise Mcgraw

The Asian World:
China: The Ch’I-Lin Purse: A collection of  Ancient Chinese Stories by Linda Fang;
The Emperor's Silent Army: Terracotta Warriors of Ancient China by Jane O’Connor;
China The Waking Giant by Nuri Mass.

We didn't need to do this but I chose to teach Rebekah more about Ancient India, and so we read some chapters from Beacon Lights of History Volume 1 along with another fictional book we had at home.

We did mapwork and kept a Book of Centuries along the way.

 Civics: Skwirk, Prime Ministers of Australia by J Bruce (from library). (Didn't get to this, plan to cover it in year 8)

Special thanks to Carol from journey and destination blog who helped me with some of the additional living books for History and Science :)

Geography:

EP Curriculum Geography and Cultures Component as scheduled along with additional living books to be read along the way. Some of them are living books about the area covered and some are about the lives of great men and women of God from that part of the world.

Oral and written narrations were done along with mapwork. 

Books used:

Around the World in Eighty  Days by Jules Verne

George Mueller by Janet and Geoff Benge
The Family Under the  Bridge by N S Carlson
The Story of David Livingstone, V Golding

Global Environment field trip to Wetlands Olympic Park with additional research and a written essay.

 One community and the way it interacts with the selected Global environment - The Mighty Murray by John Nicholson, Rebekah read it and wrote an essay on the topic from the book.

In NSW in years 7 and 8 students need to study 5 compulsory subjects: English, Maths, Science, History and Geography along with 2 electives from a selection of 4. Rebekah chose the following:

Electives:

Languages:

Latin (her co-op finished up teading Latin at the end of 2016, so she began Visual Latin in 2017 and is loving it!)

Creative Arts:

Dance classes weekly and ballet 3 x week

Guitar lessons fortnightly changing to keyboard lessons from July. (Guitar finished up end of 2016 and she continues practising at home, she didn't commence keyboard lessons)

The following are not required for the NSW BOSTES, however, we try to follow the Charlotte Mason methods so are included:

Book of Centuries: Updated every week

Nature Study: we didn't do as much as I would have liked to but went on nature walks as much as we could and journaled along the way.

Picture Study/ Art:

I got Rebekah to follow along with Easy Peasy's Ancient Art course of study so she could see some of the art of the countries she was reading about in Ancient History.
We also did Tom Roberts, Rembrandt, Giotto 

Composer/ Music:

Once again I got her to follow along with Easy Peasy's Ancient Music course so she could listen to the music from some of the cultures she was studying about.

We also studied the lives of Mozart and Tchaikovsky and read their biographies and listened to their music during the year.

Free reading done this year:

Heidi, Johanna Spyri
The Peterkin Papers, Lucretia Hale (with mum)
The Von Trapp Family Singers, M Von Trapp (with dad)
Where the mountain meets the moon, Grace Lin
The Watchmakers  Daughter, Jean Watson (On Corrie Ten Boom)
David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
The Lost Prince, F H Burnett (with mum, still going on)
The Golden Goblet, E J Mcgraw
William Carey, obliged to go by Janet and Geoff Benge
Shakespeare's Scribe, Gary Blackwood
Anna and the king, Margaret Landon
Mystery of the Roman Ransom, Henry Winterfeld (Sequel to Detectives in Togas)
William Wilberforce the Freedom Fighter, Derick Bingham
Escpape from Mr, Lemoncello's library, Chris Grabenstein
The Second Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling (with dad)
The Thieves of Tyburn Square: Introducing Elizabeth  Fry by Dave and Neta Jackson
Bridge to Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
Traitor in the tower: John Bunyan, Dave and Neta Jackson
Alice Miranda takes the lead, Jacqueline Harvey
The Christmas Stories of George Macdonald
These Happy Golden Years, Laura Ingalls Wilder
Star of Light, Patricia St John
Sky Lark, Patricia St John
Meet Ruby (Our Australian Girl), Penny Matthews and Lucia Masciullo
Teddy's Button, Amy Le Feuvre
Tree House Mystery, Gertrude Warner
The Time Machine, H G Wells
Ben Hur, Lew Wallace
The Silver Chair, C S Lewis (with dad)
Michael Faraday Father of Electronics, Charles S Ludwig

Looking back at 2014

I have not blogged for over a year! I had been thinking of doing a couple of posts during the year and then I got an email from a lovely friend I met in blog land Lynisha which nudged me further to get this post up!

I started blogging for the purpose of keeping a journal of some sort of our home schooling journey. So I thought I'd do a 'wrap up' of our year - an all in one type of post for this year:)

Rebekah turned 10 early this year and my what changes have come with that age! She is turning into a delightful young girl!

I say this all the time but I just love all the conversations I have with her when she wakes up in the morning and starts sharing all her thoughts (perhaps stored up from the night before?), at breakfast, during the day, driving to places, etc. Ron gets to share in this in the evenings, when he takes over and has 'daddy time' with her. She still looks forward to her 'daddy time' every evening! Time spent with her daddy! This includes playing a board game / Ron showing her something interesting on the internet that he's just found out about/ checking out awesome videos at thekidshouldseethis.com/ bed time reading and praying together before she has her own independent reading time at night.
This is a picture of Ron even doing 'origami' with Rebekah! He truly loves her to do this as he is no 'crafty' person :)

The other big change I've noticed is that she has become very self - motivated in her school work. I now lay out her work in a diary which covers a week over two pages. She can see her weekly work and I also break it down into daily chunks. She starts her work at 9.30 am ( a time she appointed) and sets a timer for 2.5 hours. If she finishes earlier she will do some of her work from the following day (this has not happened much) and if she goes over time it doesn't bother her too much either:) She knows she still has plenty of free time to play, dance, strum her guitar, etc!

It's been a very busy but productive year as well for us, filled with weekly ballet, acrobatics ( a new class she started this year and absolutely loves), a local home school co-op where she learns Latin and Debate with quite a few other kids, fortnightly guitar lessons with another home school family, monthly meetings with another local co-op that I started a couple of years ago - where the kids do a bit of 'show and tell', some art together and then play!  We also attend our fortnightly park day group which meets at parks around Sydney and which I have the pleasure of co-ordinating :)
Rebekah has loved her Latin classes this year and I heard the good news just recently that her Latin teacher is able to teach them again next year, hooray! (He is a home school graduate himself, now studying at University and his schedule permits him to continue next year).
Rebekah loves her Latin and loves the fact that her Latin teacher loves 'old books' like herself :)
She has absolutely enjoyed her guitar lessons too and you would often find her strumming her guitar in her free time!
Here she is playing her guitar for one of our local home school group's 'end of year' performance:

She still absolutely loves her ballet lessons and is excited that from next year she'll be doing two ballet classes each week instead of one! She still wants to be a ballerina one day. The last few weeks saw her take part in her end of year concert as well as in front of a very large church in Sydney at one of their events! I'd estimate there were at least 2000 people in attendance on the night and she loved every minute of it!

I also had the joy of planning and organising a "Home Educators in Converstaion" night in August. It came about because I moderate a home school group and I get a lot of questions via email about home schooling from new parents wanting to find out more. I called on some of my local friends - mums and a dad who have home educated their children for a lot longer than I have, that could share from their varied perspectives, and it turned out to be a very successful night. They generously volunteered their time for this so we could make it a free event (well virtually free except for a very minimal cost to pay for the hire of the venue). About 25 families showed up and out of the few families that were just 'thinking' about the possibility of home schooling at least one that I know of has decided to go ahead. The rest were just encouraged in their journeys and also hearing about the different pathways to Tertiary Education after being home schooled. All in all it was a very successful evening by the grace of God!

Another great thing that happened this year was that I started attending a monthly encouragement night that was started by another home school mum. Together we are studying Sally Clarkson's book - Season's of a mothers heart. This has been a  very encouraging time for all of us, studying the book together, sharing our lives and hearts with each other, praying for one other etc. Thanks V for this!

So, that's our year in brief! We've had one of our best homeschooling years this year, for which we are so thankful to God!

p.s. This is a very late post ha ha but I wanted to for the sake of my blog. It was sitting in my 'drafts' for a long long time :)

Nine is fine and so am I!

Well, it's been a long long time since my last post!

I've come by occasionally to blog again but then it's been so long I haven't known where to start!

Since my last post, my beautiful daughter has turned 9! We made up a catch phrase when she had her birthday "Nine is fine" and it certainly has been!
She is blossoming into a lovely little lady!
Some cutesy little girl things have made way for more 'lady like' things, interest in fashion, make up etc are on the rise!
I'm really enjoying this season of my daughter's life, besides, it's great having some one to give me fashion and make up tips :)
Every age has it's own charm and beauty doesn't it!
She has become very interested in cooking and learning to sew and we've had some fun cooking times together and with her friends on 'cooking' play dates!

On the home school front, we started Living Books Curriculum when we finished our last school year some months ago. We are thoroughly enjoying it once again!
I love that I can just pick up the teacher's manual and go every day (aside from some minor tweaking to add Aussie history, art, poetry etc).
The books are engaging. Rebekah's favourite book is 'The Children's Homer'! She is yet to realise that her mummy didn't grow up with these books and that I am learning so much while home schooling her!

I've had a terribly busy year with work (I do some part time work from home), with my involvement in the local home school community, our church, and to top it off, we've had to travel interstate a few times this year due to family reasons.
I've missed my blog friends, I know some of you on Facebook and that has been great! However, I've missed the rest of you and have visited your blogs as time has permitted, which hasn't been that much!

I am not sure how much time I can devote to blogging and keeping up with blogs but I will certainly try to come by and visit from time to time. My health is improving slowly which has been great! Thanks to all of you that prayed for me! I know it has helped!

Here are some pictures from the past few months:

Rebekah doing some baking:






A bracelet she 'sewed':



Ron, Rebekah and one of our guinea pigs 'Peekface':



and this last one was just a couple of weeks ago, when Ron got to sit in for the first time on her end of term 'exams'. Here is Rebekah proudly showing off a 'certificate' I gave her for completing her term well!

I'm still here but things are changing!

I've been a bit absent from blog land for the past couple of months, just visiting from time to time as my time and moods allow:)

I've been through some serious 'curriculum' searching for Rebekah for her next academic year (year 4) which for us starts in April (as we don't follow the traditional school year).

I've had some health issues (ongoing and still working on getting answers) and so I've had to make life easier in terms of our homeschool curriculum.
I've loved the Ambleside Online curriculum but I've been finding it a little challenging in terms of my time and energy.
I find I need to research a lot before making changes to books as I don't want to short change Rebekah. I had already modified it a little to suit us but as I was looking ahead to their year 3, I found I just didn't like some of the books and would have had to swap out a few, changing/ adapting involving more effort and time on my part. I think I was starting to tire of all the "older" books too somewhat. Also, at this stage in my life I was looking for someone to 'tell me what to do' without having to research, research etc. So.....I'm going back to Living Books Curriculum!

I researched quite a few different curriculums and prayed a lot and I just couldn't get past LBC. We did enjoy the two years we did with them for Rebekah when we first started out. As I looked through their booklists and teachers manual samples, it brought back memories of some of the fun books we read and all the 'extra activities' they suggest, I realised that a few things were falling through the cracks for us including map work for geography, and a lot of the other hands on activities to add to our learning that don't come naturally to me! I'm sure I'll be changing some and adapting it to suit us but atleast I have a general guide for the year ahead that I pick up each week and know what to do! LBC is also rich in good books and utilises a lot of the classics like Ambleside Online but they also utilise a lot of newer books. I like exposing Rebekah to more modern well written books and being not a literary brain myself I have to search and trawl through book lists and blogs to expose her to these. LBC saves me a lot of time and effort with this!

I've continued to moderate our local homeschool group and also am very involved on a weekly basis with some families that have started recently homeschooling from our church, running the science class in this group. So it's a co-op style group and we're doing Apologia's Astrononomy book this year. I must say we're enjoying and appreciating the dynamics that comes with learning in a group for Rebekah (being an only child).

So, I've been busy and continued to stay productive with life in general (despite my health challenges and this is purely due to the grace of God and an amazing and supportive husband) but just not in blog land! :) I'm really really sorry to all my faithful blog friends out there, I've tried to visit as much as I've been able to but I have not been as active as I have in the past. I'm not sure how and when this will change but this is where we are at for now:) I'll continue to blog and visit you all as and when I can as I've missed my peeks into your lives and the interaction, sharing and friendship that come along with that:)

p.s. if you'd like to be friends on Facebook, please email me from my profile page and I'd love to keep in touch with you through FB :)

Happy New Year!

Happy New year!

I'm still here but have sadly neglected my blog!

What can I say, I think my excuse has been lack of time and this lack of time has caused me to stray over to Facebook where it's quicker to keep in touch!
I no longer refer to it as Fakebook as I referred to it in this post as I've actually found a way to make it work for me:) It has helped deepen some of my real life friendships and it has made a way to connect more intimately with some of my blog-gy friends too.

We had a wonderfully blessed Christmas day with my family in Sydney. We alternate our Christmases between Ron's and my family to be fair (as his family are in Victoria - another State in Australia). It was surprisingly cool for Christmas in Sydney which we enjoyed!
We had a multicultural feast of Indian, Italian and Aussie food, warm times spent with the family and my parents even invited their neighbours, so there were 25 of us at lunch!

Rebekah got a Furby for Christmas. I had'nt heard of a Furby until a couple of months ago, apparently they were around in the nineties and have made a comeback with apps to boot!
Here she is with her little friend:

Ron had a couple of weeks off work and we had a lovely 'staycation' in Sydney. It was really nice to be on holidays at home as we got to rest a lot. We also spent a lot of time at the shops (malls) as we had some terribly hot days and we sought refuge there to give our airconditioning a break! Time was also spent at the local pool and the beach.
Ron even started some cooking! He is not a cook by any means but with some encouragement from Rebekah, they together decided to cook dinner one night and it turned out pretty good too I must say! An asian chicken dish:)

Rebekah has been enjoying lots of play dates with her friends that are on school holidays. However, she did get back into 'school' work last week. We don't follow the school terms as it gives us the freedom to go on holidays when we like. It works really well for us as you get cheaper accommodation and a lot less crowds at your holiday destination!
Homeschoolers are a spoilt bunch:)

She is still finishing off her year 3 work and I'll post about our year 4 when we get there!
She has also graduated from a bath to 'showers'! I know, I'm a bit slow:) I've talked about that in the past here so I won't go there again:) She's enjoying the graduation to a shower and feels very grown up!

Last year was a pretty tough year for me but we managed by God's grace; (this also impacted on my blogging as I didn't have the head space to blog). I'm looking forward to good things this year!

Hope all my bloggy friends are well, I've tried keeping in touch via your blogs. I'll head over again soon and catch up on your posts. I wish you all the best for 2013!

A scientist? A dancer? whatever it is, she's growing up and keeping me busy!

Hello my friends, I'm still here! I'm so sorry if you've felt neglected by me.
I have had endless issues with blogger trying to read and comment on your blogs. I am not a tecchy person and am still trying to work out how to get my Internet Explorer to co-operate with me:)
When I have time on my ipad I visit you but that time is few and far between and I prefer reading blogs from my pc as it's bigger and better:)
I promise I'll try to catch up with you all soon.

In the meantime, here's a post I've taken a few weeks to complete! Life has been busy and my blog as always comes second:)
...........


I told you some time ago that we kept Rebekah in her booster seat for way longer than she needed to be in it here. Well, she's graduated from the booster seat to sitting in the front seat when it's just the two of us.
Part of me doesn't want her to grow up too fast but the other part of me is really enjoying watching her develop and become a little young lady!
Rebekah has really changed so much in the past 6 months. One thing that has changed is that she has become extremely talkative!!! (unlike Ron and me I have to say):) Who would have thought, certainly not me! She used to be so quiet. She admits she loves to talk! I've decided I am going to enjoy her talking as it's a great way to connect with her - listening to her talk about the thousand and one thoughts that go through her little head;)

She's also graduated to this at coffee shops when we go out as a family:

She's definitely graduated from lying in her capsule at the coffee shop, to having to keep her entertained while her parents enjoyed their lattes and cappucinos, to then having her own babycino, from that to a minicino and playing with the toys the shop provided to doing what we love doing after sipping our coffees - reading!




She enjoyed a science club she attended last term and I think this cover she made for her folder says it all:

I love her love for science!

She has also enjoyed performing at her end of year ballet concert and has been given the opportunity to dance with a group of students at some scripture assemblies in local public schools. They will be dancing to a christmas song about the birth of Jesus. Rebekah just loves loves loves performing in front of a crowd! So, when the opportunity arose I signed her up for it with no hesitations! We want to nurture the in born performer in her! I am not sure where her love for dance will lead her to but for now, I am just glad she's enjoying ballet and we love to give her the opportunity to perform when it arises.
She will also be performing that dance at the kids services of the church (that run's the ballet school) over the first weekend in December. (It's a big church!)

It's a cliche, but she's definitely growing up, thought not too old to still do this with Daddy:

We are still doing school and will continue till a week or so before Christmas I'd imagine as we don't follow the traditional school year. I'm looking forward to my mum and step dad coming back from India from their yearly missions trip in a week! There's so much I especially want to talk to my mum about! I've missed her!

I hope to do another post or two before Christmas (my average has been once a month lol) so I'll wait till then to wish you all a Merry Christmas!

When God closes one door.....

Well, it's been a while since my last blog post!
I've been in a different difficult season of my life, adjusting to the loss of my dear friend and moving onto a new season.
When God closes one door, He sure does open another!

My friend (whom I saw weekly, even twice weekly sometimes) passing away left a big hole in our lives.
But God has been so good to us!

You know, I'm just so excited about this new season.

It all came about so quickly! I didn't have much to do with it except facilitate a night of discussion on homeschooling at a friend's home.

It started off a few months ago. A family in our church had just moved here from another country where they homeschooled their kids. I met up with the mum a few times in the last few months to befriend her and be an encouragement to her (whether or not they decided to continue homeschooling) and besides she has a daughter just a few months younger than Rebekah and they get on really well! I then found that there was another family in our church who had begun home schooling one of their kids.
Besides them, I also have two other friends with younger kids interested in home schooling that have talked to me on and off over the years about homeschooling and how it all works etc.

A couple of weekends ago, our church went away on a camp and while we were there I had an indepth conversation with a man from our church who is here studying, who also successfully homeschooled his 4 children all the way to university! When I was chatting to him, I realised he was such a wealth of wisdom and knowledge. I wondered what it would be like to get him to come chat to these group of women I mentioned earlier (and their husbands)! Well, a thought turned to reality and we met together last Sunday night over dinner, all 5 families, kids and this dad.

Well, it seems this was a divine connection because the family that are homeschooling one child have now decided to pull their other two kids out of school and homeschool all three of them next year! Another family with younger children who were deciding whether to send their child to 'big school' next year have decided to homeschool as well! So, now we have a whole new community (albeit small at the moment) of homeschoolers in our church! How exciting! Rebekah has always wanted to have other friends in church that also were homeschooled and now her years of desiring this have come to pass! You can tell I'm excited by all my exclamation marks!!! :)

We've decided to meet weekly and do some fun things together with the kids....I'm not sure how all of this will eventually play out but we are excited about the prospect of having other families to meet up with weekly.

Rebekah and I will continue to maintain some (not all) of the activities/ park days with other homeschool groups we belong to as we've got great friends all over Sydney that attend these groups, but we are just so excited about the group starting up within our church! God is good! In our season of pain, He has created something good. I'm not sure where this will lead but I do know that we will go where He leads.

Understood Rebekah

I was going to title this post "Understood Betsy Rebekah" but alas I'm not clever enough (yet) to have figured out how to strike through a word in the title!

And if you're unfamiliar with the story of "Undersood Betsy" which we just finished reading for term 1 of Ambleside Online Year 2 (yay!) here's a snippet from Wikipedia:

"The story tells of Elizabeth Ann, a 9-year-old orphan who goes from a sheltered existence with her father's aunt Harriet and cousin Frances in the city, to living on a Vermont farm with her mother's family, the Putneys, whose child-rearing practices had always seemed suspect to Harriet and her daughter. In her new rural life, Elizabeth Ann comes to be nicknamed "Betsy," and to find that many activities that Frances had always thought too demanding for a little girl are considered, by the Putney family, routine activities for a child: walking to school alone, cooking, and having household duties to perform."

You can read more here.

This is a truly delightful story which we have both enjoyed reading and I highly recommend it especially for children around the ages of 8 to 10. You can read it for free online here and here.

Rebekah thought the author was a very funny writer as we laughed a lot at many places in the book!
It was amazing to see the connections Rebekah made between her life and that of early 20th century's Betsy. It was also amazing to see (without my questioning) what assessments she made of the various characters within the book, e.g, that Aunt Frances had given Betsy too much attention or that Betsy had become 'tanned' because of the manual work she had done on the farm. These are not discussions I have ever had with Rebekah but ones that she would talk to me about (uninitiated) after reading the book. Charlotte Mason was so right when she said not to get between the child and the book but to allow the child to make their own connections. Well, I've seen it time and again in Rebekah's life. It has freed me up and removed the 'burden' of me having to do the 'teaching'.

Also, on the topic of Betsy and making connections, I assume Rebekah concluded that she was perhaps a bit like Besty (when she lived with her Aunt Frances in the city) and wasn't allowed to do too much (ouch) because she has begun to ask me to teach her to sew and to allow her to do some cooking independently (another ouch for me)!

Being an only child, Rebekah is the oldest and the youngest! No younger siblings has made her the 'baby' of the house in some ways which has meant that at times I err on the side of 'babying' her too much and not allowing her to do things perhaps other children her age would be doing like cooking independently etc. (Ron is much better at this than me which is why I say 'I' not 'us')!
An example would be that she sat in her booster seat in the car until the age of 8 (though the law says they are not required to sit in one after 7), shhh, don't tell anyone lol! To make matters worse, we did this only after she complained that she was too old for it:)
On the other hand, not having any other siblings also means that she gets more 'adult' conversation and interaction with Ron and I, probably much more than other children her age that I find in some respects she can carry on a much more mature conversation than other children her age.

I know some of my mum friends must roll their eyes at some of the things I do or say:) I know some of this is inevitable as we all "learn" parenting with our first borns. But alas she has no one following her so I am never at the place where I can say confidently that I know what to do in a situation (because we've been there before).
I'm sure other mums of "onlies" can identify with this?

Whatever the case, I'm always learning; having to 'loosen' up a little to let her become more independent and 'trust' her with more responsibilities. This book has definitely helped me in this journey.

I'd love to hear from you all that were either an only child or have only children. What words of wisdom do you have for me? Would you care to share some of your thoughts on growing up as an "only" or raising an only child. Please do tell, I'd love to hear them. Also from parents of more than one child, what are your observations from the sidelines? Do you have any thoughts or wisdom to share?

Music, dance, sadness and joy

It's been a month since my last sad sad post.
We are coming out the other end slowly.
The funeral was great! The biggest one I've ever been to - with more than 400 in attendance. This demonstrated the impact that one little lady had on so many many lives. She was unassuming and humble yet her impact reached far and wide. As her closest friend said in her eulogy, one of her gifts was connecting her friends with others. I must say this is how I came to meet so many of her close and dear friends with whom my life is now connected in a richer way.

Everytime I drive past the roundabout where I would have turned to head to her house, I feel pangs of sadness. Sad that I can no longer head there and see my dear friend.
Everytime I see her little girls my heart breaks for the loss they've encountered. (It's difficult seeing her husband and boys as well, but I think because I have a daughter, being around her girls is heart breaking for me) Yet through it all, God has been so good to her family. He is truly upholding them at this time. Your prayers have been helping for sure!

The day after the funeral we headed to the snowy mountains with some of our friends. I didn't like the timing of it but alas it was planned quite some time ago and as it turned out, it was a good thing to go away after that sad week. Time with friends was healing and soothing.

The day we were at Perisher turned out to be one of their busiest days, yet we had a lot of fun toboganning!

We're back into school now. Rebekah is thoroughly enjoying her ballet classes, still wants to be a ballerina when she grows up and therefore is going to do her first official ballet exams in a few months. She is over the moon!
All her free time is spent doing her ballet routines and teaching her imaginary friends and dolls how to do ballet as well!

She shows great interest and aptitude for all things musical. I am pretty sure that one of her gifts lies in this area as she has a natural aptitude for it, coupled with the fact that she comes from a long line of musicians on both sides of the family! I look forward to seeing where she will end up with this gift but for now the 'Recorder' is providing that musical outlet.
So, most days, in her free time, you'll either hear Rebekah on her recorder or see her doing ballet. I must say I do enjoy this as the lovely sound of music fills our home.

Rebekah also get her first basketball shot successfully into the hoop last Saturday, the day of the Olympics opening ceremony. Yay!
Ron often takes Rebekah to the park near us where there is a basketball court, to play a bit of basket ball.
As you may know Lauren Jackson (one of our great female basketballers and Aussie female basket ball team captain) was the flag bearer at the opening ceremony of the Olympics. Later on that morning, Ron took Rebekah to the park to play a bit of basket ball. Apparently he prayed quietly for her as he thought about how nice it would be if she got the ball in for the first time on that day, the day of the Olympics opening ceremony, a day she would always remember. And she did! He told me she was so overcome with joy that she actually cried! This day has been duly noted in her journal (that I keep for her):)

I managed to scrape in a post for July, yay! I am so looking forward to August and the weather warming up! Enjoy your last month of summer if you're in the Northern hemisphere, and winter if you're in the Southern!

Only one life.....

I have been grieving since yesterday morning.....I've lost a beautiful friend, taken so suddenly from us.
How can it be that I am enjoying a cuppa with her one afternoon, chatting about the kids, homeschool, life etc and then just over twelve hours later find out she's gone!
Death is so sudden and final.

The closing of one chapter and the beginning of a new.

She touched my life in such a great way and I will sorely miss her.

I can't begin to imagine the pain and turmoil being felt by her family.

I remind myself of that and have been praying for them. Yet my heart aches too.

She was such a beautiful friend, so graceful, generous, loving and accepting, full of wisdom and advice for when I needed it, a ear to listen when I needed it, a really kind person who always opened her home up to me and Rebekah. I will miss her so much!

Her kids and Rebekah are such close friends and I hope that friendship will continue yet I know that things will change for them as a family and I find myself grieving for the inevitable changes.

Rebekah burst into tears when I broke the news yesterday morning to her. We cancelled our outing and stayed home. We were in shock and also grief stricken at the same time. We had a great (for lack of a better word) time chatting about life, death, Jesus, faith and hope. We know we'll see her again but as Rebekah so maturely said to me, "I know that but I'm still sad and I'll miss her". I told her it was ok to feel sad and talked to her about how God can comfort us. Actually, I was amazed at the maturity and level of understanding of death and life through the words coming out of Rebekah yesterday, little did I know an 8 year old understood so much!

Amidst the shock, grief and sadness came over us in waves (as reality sunk in) through the day when we'd pause, hug, talk, cry and reminisce. Needless to say we both didn't eat much yesterday. Even Rebekah said she didn't feel like eating because she was sad.

My heart felt like it was ripping inside of me when I played with Rebekah during the day, with her toys. My dear friends children will not have their mum to play with them anymore. No mum to take care of them, hug them and nurture and love them.

At one point during the day, Rebekah said to me that she was like another mum to her and began crying.
You see, we saw each other weekly for almost a year and our kids played together in each other's homes, in the park and we babysat for each other. She was always so kind and loving to Rebekah which is why she said she was like another mum! What a compliment for her coming from a child's lips.

Ron cut short his day at work and came home in the afternoon. It was good to have him to talk to and process what had happened.
We all hugged each other much more than we normally do!

Some of the things I've learned from my friend were true kindness, grace, generosity and patience. I never once saw her lose her temper with her kids and as Ron reminds me, that is an oustanding compliment! I did tell her that when she was still with us. I'm so glad I did and didn't waste the opportunity to encourage her in that grace she had. Yet there are so many other things I could have told her and planned on telling her but didn't get the chance to!

We will miss her! It will take us time to get over the loss of such a dear friend.

When I left school we were all given a plaque with the quote:
"Only one life, t'will soon be past, Only what's done for Christ will last"

I lost that plaque in the move from India to Australia but those words have been etched in my heart and mind and have guided my life and help me focus on the most important: to always live from an eternal perspective. My dear friend exemplified this with her life. This was on my heart all day yesterday.
She didn't care for possessions or a newer or bigger home. Jesus and her family were the most important. She poured her life into her children. Even though some of her kids are too young to potentially remember her when they are grown up, the deposit she has placed in all of them will stand them in good stead I believe.

I am blessed that she came into my life and though I will miss her, I know I'll see her again. I will attempt to remind her children of the wonderful mother they had as they grow up.

Only one life, t'will soon be past, Only what's done for Christ will last!



p.s. I've withheld my friend's name for privacy reasons.

Narrating upside down and other things!

We had a very productive week this week after a couple of weeks of being sick and having relatives visit from interstate!

I always feel great being able to tick off all my boxes in a week. This week was one such week, we even fit nature study in, hooray!

I've got a great friend Pam and we've been attempting to do a monthly nature walk day together with our girls.

We didn't let the weather beat us today; it was freezing and blowing a gale but we got out there and did a small nature walk and had fun! We even got to draw some wattle in our journals! The girls had fun with plastic bag kites - another one of Pam's very clever ideas!
























Earlier this week, Rebekah decided to do her narrations up side down again - I'm not sure what type of a learner she is (I haven't spent too much time reading up on this) but she does enjoy being read to and narrating with her feet in the air or doing something with her hands! I say, go for it, if it works for you! I am not good at multi-tasking even though women are supposed to be good at this, sorry ladies, it's just not one of those things I'm good at; actually there are other things women are supposed to be good at/ like to do that I'm not, but that's another story:)































These are Rebekah's best friends and companions. She reads with them in bed, sleeps with them next to her, takes them on car trips and to visit her friends. Jacob (though I insist he's more like Jackie not Jacob) is on the left in green and Sparkle on the right is her 'dog'. Rebekah has wanted a dog so badly, ever since she could talk, but we've repeatedly told her we'll consider it when she's 10. In the meantime, Sparkle will have to do!
























Rebekah decided that she would now be their teacher and teach them how to read and write, maths, history and other things. Jacob is doing Year 3 reading, Year 1 writing and preschool maths; Sparkle is doing Year 1 history, Year 1 writing and pre-school maths or something like that! I got last after the Year 3 reading bit lol!
Any of you doing/ have done AO will know we've been reading "Understood Betsy" this week where Betsy realises she can be in Year 7 for reading and Year 2 in math and that it's all ok:) Much like most homeschooled kids (which I haven't divulged to Rebekah yet).



























Enjoy your weekend!

Our Year 3 (AO2)

Some of you asked / may be interested in this:

Ambleside Online is a rigorous curriculum and includes a few American books (which is understandable having been put together so generously by some wonderful American women who volunteered a LOT of their time to make this great free curriculum)
So, some aspects need to be modified to include Australian content and some I've modified to suit our home.

So, here it is, I've crossed out what AO recommends for their year 2 and put in our substitutes next to it. (A lot of these books are free online and I've linked to the free online sites where applicable)

Bible:

There is no formal AO Bible curriculum.

We are doing a mixture of things here.

We will be continuing with "Leading Little Ones to God" (which we began a few years ago I might add! but it's such a nice book that I don't want it to end, so we go through it very slowly) I blogged about this book here.

(I just love, love, love this book and can't recommend it enough as a devotional for the younger kids. Not only are the topics great, covering a lot of christian doctrine but the best part for me are all the conversations we have after we read a chapter. They are absolutely priceless. Rebekah and I have had the deepest and some of the best conversations about God, life, faith, issues she's going through etc. after these readings. Anyway, back to our curriculum....)

Egermeier's Bible Story book - reading through the stories and doing the questions for each chapter. They are not what Charlotte Mason would recommend but I think Rebekah enjoys these 'comprehension' type questions as they are a nice change from 'narration' and a novelty!

Charlotte Mason's Schools (PNEU) Bible Curriculum - we use this as a guide for memorisation passages at the moment.


Language Arts:

Penmanship:

Italics Beautiful Handwriting for children by Penny Gardner (our choice)

Poetry:

Finishing off from year 2 "A book for kids" by C J Dennis (Aussie poetry we added)
Poetry of Walter De la Mare, Eugene Field, James Whitcombe Riley and Christina Rossetti

Literature:

Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb
Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan Pilgrims Progress Told to the Children by Mary Macgregor (I chose a simpler version for this year and will tackle the original next year. I want Rebekah to enjoy this book and learn from it so I opted for this easier version rather than diving into the original for fear that the more difficult language might be a turn off!)

Parables from Nature by Margaret Gatty
Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Robin Hood by Howard Pyle / The Way of the Whirlwind by Mary Durack (I haven't decided yet on whether we will substitute this last one or just add Mary Durack's book as a free read)

Maths: (no formal recommendation, it's our choice)

Continuing with Singapore Maths, we will finish 2A from year 2 and continue with 2B and on.

Science and Natural History:

Charlotte Mason emphasised nature study as a foundation for higher level sciences so we will be continuing our focus on nature study and using our own field guides and other nature books we've accumulated.

In addition to this we will be doing (as outlined in AO):

The Burgess Animal Book for Children by Thornton Burgess
Pagoo by Holling C Holling

and our additions to include some hands on experiments:

Usborne Science Activities – Volume One (Science with Water, Magnets, Light and Mirrors) along with many other science books we have in our home library (including the fun and educational Magic School Bus books) and other books on loan from friends:)

History: 1000 A.D. to Middle Ages

Our/An Island Story by H E Marshall
A Child’s History of the World by V Hillyer
This Country of Ours by H E Marshall (American history)

History tales and/or biography:

Trial and Triumph by Richard Hannula We are substituting with missionary stories instead.

The Little Duke by Charlotte Yonge
Joanne of Arc by Diane Stanley

We are substituting the following for Australian history:

The Australia Book by Eve Pownall
John of the Sirius by Doris Chadwick (an out of print book by so generously loaned to me by my friend Pam) (On a side note, Pam has recently re-commenced blogging, she is an experienced homeschooler and I'm so blessed to know her. If you click on her name it will take you to her blog or she is also on my blog list to the right under 'everything we need')

Geography:

Tree in the Trail by Holling C Holling
Seabird by Holling C Holling

We are not doing both of the above because they are about American geography, though I believe Seabird covers world geography. I may get them as free reads if I find reasonably priced copies!

Elementary Geography by Charlotte Mason (This is free online and covers the basics of geography which I want Rebekah to learn)
Children Just Like Me (a celebration of children from around the world) Unicef book by Dorling Kindersley (we have since ditched this one as it was adding too much to our workload. Instead, Ron will read it as a free read to Rebekah from time to time)

Foreign language:

This will remain an ideal for me but Rebekah has lost interest in learning Spanish, so the jury is out at present as to what we will do in this area!

Drawing:

Drawing with children by Mona Brookes (we continue to use this at a slow but steady pace)

Picture Study:

Art works of Fragonard, Bierstadt and Norman Rockwell

Artistic Pursuits (k-3 book 1) and other art books we have in our home library.

Craft: (no formal recommendation for this but we do this to satisfy my craft loving daughter)

Various books we have at home.

Handicrafts:

we will continue learning to knit and hopefully begin some hand sewing this year.

Composer:

We will be following AO for this and listening to the music of Mozart, Mendelssohn, Bartok and Hindemith

Music and dance:

Rebekah will continue her study of the recorder and her ballet lessons

Hymns and folksongs:

We are only this year beginning to officially implement this in our homeschool!
I have decided to pick my own from a variety of hymns and folksongs suggested on the AO website. So even though we are doing this, it will not follow the AO schedule closely.

In addition to these modifications, our 'tweaking' involves not doing a straight 'narration' for every reading. But that's a topic for another post!

Besides the above 'school' books, Rebekah will be reading these in her free time (as recommended by AO) along with other books we might come across to buy her / borrow through the year:

Heidi by Joanna Spyri
A Wonder Book by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney
Hans Christian Anderson Fairy tales
Pied Piper of Hamlin by Robert Browning
Abraham Lincoln by Ingri D'Aulaire
Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Story of Doctor Dolittle by Hugh Lofting
Mary Poppins by P L Travers
Brighty of the Grand Canyon by Marguerite Henry
Mr Popper's Penguins by Richard Atwater
Otto of the Silver Hand by Howard Pyle
Chanticleer and the Fox - Barbara Cooney
Along Came A Dog by Meindert De Jong
The Door in the Wall by Marguerite De Angeli

Additional Aussie literature for free reading (if our library has them or if I can get my hands on some reasonably priced copies!)

Thiele Tales - Three Long Tales for Children by Colin Thiele
Scottie in Gumnutland by May Gibbs

As always, I couldn't do all of this myself, no way! As mentioned, Ambleside Online is run by a group of homeschooling mums, who give so generously of their time and support. In addition to them, I have a lot of generous blog and real life friends who help me along the way with book recommendations etc. Thank you to all of you!

We've been......

It's more than a month since I last posted. We've been busy adjusting to our new school year and the increased work load!
Yes I did say 'we' not just Rebekah:) Mum also needed adjusting and I've been tweaking it a little already to make it work for us.

I will post our modified Year 3 (Ambleside Online year 2) in another post for those interested:)

In the meantime I want to tell you all our good news! I passed, I did, I did, I passed! I even got two years!

I'm talking about re-registering Rebekah as a home schooler. You see I was a bit apprehensive as I'd heard some rumours about the new BOS official that this person was very much into crossing their 't's and dotting their 'i's.
I went into this process feeling like I was about to sit for an exam not necessarily because of what I'd heard, I think that was just 'me'. Which is why I felt like I'd passed and was ecstatic when I got the maximum allowed time of 2 years!

Well, I am into heavy documenting of what we do, I know, a rod for my own back some would say! But you know what, I think this definitely went in my favour! While this person did come across that way to me, I think they could 'see' that I was actually doing stuff with Rebekah:)

I know I may not be popular with some home schoolers that read this because of their own styles but hey, I've got to just be me, wouldn't you agree? ;)

I have however learned to relax a little with some of what I've been doing in terms of 'documentation'. They really don't have time to read about every little trip we've taken or the lovely stories my child wrote. So, I am relaxing a little:)

Apart from this we've been doing life as usual which involves regular park days with other home schoolers, work, church stuff, etc. Oh, I've also taken on a new role in the home school world. I've taken on the role of 'moderator' for one of the home school groups we meet with on a fortnightly basis. I think my gift for organisation seems to land me in these roles. I like telling people what to do lol! Don't hold that against me if you meet me in person:)

We also went on an 'apple picking' excursion up to Bilpin in the Blue Mountains last week. I must tell you I don't know how I'm ever going to go back to eating store bought apples again! If you've never eaten an apple straight off a tree, you will not know what I'm talking about. The crispness, the sweet juicy fresh flavours, oh yum! I'm going back there again!
This particular farm is open to the public so anyone wanting fresh apples is welcome to head in and pick them off the trees (so long as you pay of course).

Here's Rebekah picking apples off a tree:

Bon appetit and enjoy your weekend!

AO1 is done, year 3 - here we come!

I've had to explain our 'years' and how we work our school years to many a friend in real life, so I thought I'd explain it to you all here as well.
You see, Rebekah began a year of Kindergarten when she was 5 (2009) for which I used Living Books Curriculum's Foundation Year for this.

The following year we began their Year 1 when she was 6.
But halfway through that, I found myself tweaking their curriculum so much, that I found I was pretty much doing most of it on my own and not following the teachers manul much nor using all of the suggested books.

I then decided I would use the Ambleside Online curriculum that I had been eyeing for many years but just didn't feel confident enough to take on. You see, it's a free online curriculum and there is no teachers manual to tell you what to do each day or give you lots of extra tips and such. Also it seemed quite rigorous to me.
However, as mentioned earlier, due to me changing what we were doing so much anyway in year 1 and gaining a bit more confidence in my home school endeavours, I set out to do AO with Rebekah when she turned 7. I blogged about that here.

This curriculum being quite advanced I started Rebekah in their Year 1. Now, you might say she repeated year 1, which would be technically true except that they are quite different curriculums and the recommended age to begin year 1 (from a lot of mums who've done it) was age 7. (It truly is an advanced curriculum, just a quick look at the book lists will prove that!). So, this is what we did but we called it our Year 2. Clear as mud?:) For all extra curricular activities, Rebekah needs to be in a 'grade' and I didn't want her doing ballet etc with much younger kids, so I decided to call it our Year 2!

Well, we've just finished AO1 (our year 2) and all I can say is that we love it so much we are continuing with it this year. 'This' year for Rebekah is 'Year 3' which we started today. More confusing I know! Not only do we not keep our years simple but to confuse everyone even more, our school year doesn't start till April! Hey, that's the beauty of homeschooling though isn't it! It's quite flexible.

So, often Rebekah is doing school when her friends are on holidays and vice versa. This time however, her holidays coincided with the schools, so she had even more fun with plenty of play dates and a sleep over!

I try to keep things simple but often they get a bit complicated, much to my amazement! I seem to have a talent for this:) It was the same when we decided to call her Rebekah and not spell it the traditional way - Rebecca. I sincerely apologise to everyone out there for the confusion related to this. I just didn't anticipate that it would throw people so much that her name would end up getting spelled as Rebekkah, Rebekka, Rebekha, Rebekahh and so on:) Sorry!

Anyway, back to our homeschooling: I feel such a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction at having completed a whole year of AO. It might seem trivial but I know for me, I was apprehensive about using this curriculum as I knew it would be challenging for Rebekah me:) But I am happy to report that yes, it was challenging but only to the point of stretching her us and not to the point of frustration. I can now say I truly love AO after doing it for a year, though I probably only did 70 to 80 % of it as laid out. We omitted a couple of things and changed a couple to make it our Australian AO1. I've got to say though, I absolutely love the books. The online discussion group is very lively and supportive and best of all it's a curriculum that's doable on a tight budget as most of their resources are free online. You've got to love that!

Here's Rebekah on her first day of Year 3 (AO2) with a few of the books we'll be covering this year, (more on that to come in another post):