It Takes a Community

Twenty five years ago my mother began home educating my younger siblings, this was a pivotal time to be home educating in NSW, Australia.  Home education was little known and illegal, my mum fought for rights that her children and in turn her grandchildren have enjoyed.  A couple of years after mum made this brave decision, the political climate in NSW changed and we won the right to home educate.  Our freedom to home educate is not something I ever take for granted having been right there on the front of the trenches, seeing 'the good fight fought.'  

Shortly after these changes the home education movement saw a boom and obviously my mum was a huge supporter of new home educators, helping them in submitting paperwork and empowering families in a 'brave new world.'   At a grass roots level I saw the difference that support made and the importance of a network not only for parents but for children whose common tie in those days was to be different to mainstream society.

As a teenager I was privileged to participate with this dynamic home education support group, it had a synergy that I haven't felt since, perhaps it was the newness of the home education movement, perhaps it was the location of the group.  The Far North Coast was certainly a unique area to live and our group reflected this with a wonderfully diverse group of families from all walks of life; alternative lifestylers(hippies),  secular, staunch Protestants, more relaxed Christians and a couple of Catholic families, it was a real melting pot and an exciting time.

When PC and I married we 'set up house' in a country town, after giving birth to our first and already committed to home education we set out to find families who were also committed to home education.  Thus began our journey of, 'if there isn't a group, form one', we began with a couple of other families, all with newborns and toddlers.  This was a special time, to share our parenting journey with little ones and our theories.  Oh we had lots of theories and ideals, in time life was to test many theories;)  

A couple of years later we moved to our current rural 'city' (pop. 20,000) and in the early years became involved in a couple of different support groups.  At this stage we had two/three little ones all still under offical school age.  The first group we joined was comprised of unschoolers who also lived in alternative lifestyles and we found this to be a group with dynamic energies and exciting ideas, to participate in this group we had to travel distances but it was the highlight of our fortnight.  As our children grew older a few other families in our town expressed interest in home education and thus began the nucleus for the current group to which we belong.  Later on, for a short period we also traveled South to meet up with a group from the next city.

Our whole family has benefited greatly over the years from participating in home education support groups, not only have our children made friends but so too have we as parents and we have found invaluable support in a journey that is counter culture.  We have all had opportunities to develop and hone social skills, a necessity that is all important.  Group numbers have also allowed us to participate in opportunities that would not otherwise have been available; excursions, sporting events, concerts and educational to name a few.  Most importantly though, participating in a home education support group has given us a sense of identity, to realise we are 'not the only ones' to live a lifestyle that is still quite different in rural Australia, it has given us a community. 

This post is part of the Homeschool Help Series, I am honoured to be joining a team of awesome writers, feel free to click on the links below to see whether other families choose to participate in Home Education Support Groups or Not?  Next week we will be chatting about Science.  

Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses - Homeschool Support

Where do you get your homeschool support ?

Hwee @ The Tiger Chronicle - Groups - Home Ed and Otherwise  

Our successes with different groups.

Bernadette @ Barefoot Hippie Girl - Unable to Commit

A sad story of how the inability to commit sunk a home school group.

Julie  @ Highhill Homeschool - Local Homeschool Group
I will always be a member of a homeschool group.

Nicole @ One Magnificent Obsession - Homeschool Groups-- This mom's Lifeline! 

Why our homeschool group is pivotal to our homeschool experience! 

Savannah @ HammockTracks - Local Homeschool Support Group - A Breath of Fresh Air

...no blog, forum or online group recharges or equips me to be a better home educating mother, like my local support group.

Lucinda @ Navigating By Joy - Why I'm Glad We Joined Our Local Homeschool Group (Even Though We No Longer Go)

The benefits of growing a local homeschool network

Happy 18th Carpenter

Happy 18th Carpenter{{{}}}

Words simply cannot express how proud we are of the young man you have become and the direction you are taking.  In the last several months you have matured immensely, a door opened for you and you stepped forth in Faith, leaving home and beginning College.  You have impressed us with the decisions you have made and the way you have conducted yourself as a young Christian gentleman.  Well done Son, we love you so very much, we miss you daily but are so very happy for you{{{{{}}}}}








Carpenter's birthday was actually last week and we and a couple of his local friends headed down to the City to celebrate with him. On the Saturday night we headed out for Chinese and were joined by local uncles, aunt, cousins and Grandma.








Carpenter's actual birthday fell on Mother's Day and the children were determined to honour both of us.  The greatest present for me was to be able to celebrate Number One Son's birthday together, and a very special moment was to attend Mass with all of our children:) PC's mother and my two brothers/godsons (my first 'babies'), a highlight for me!









Afterwards 14 of Carpenter's closest friends joined us, Grandma and uncles at a local park and helped us celebrate his birthday.  It was a special day filled with laughter and friendship, just what he wanted.
It was wonderful to meet his friends, stay at his 'digs' and experience the rhythm of his life.  A very, special, quick flying trip to the City, a weekend treasured in our hearts.

7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol 150)

1
Einstein is rather excited this week as he now has his Learner's Permit!.  Our third child to take to the road under supervision.

2
Bass did after all end up in a full cast.  An x-ray assured us his bone is healing nicely.  A full leg cast doesn't hold him back at all, he has even learnt how to run on it!

3
Currently we're preparing Jack Jack to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  It is a beautiful privilege to catch a glimpse into the soul of little ones

4
Percolating in my mind is a list, just what are the most vital skills to pass onto our children.   Having 'children' leave home opens the door to a far wider perspective.  We as parents carry such an enormous responsibility, it is rather overwhelming.

5
Some are under the illusion that I have fantastic computer skills.  Just to set the record straight, they are actually rather patchy and often a source of frustration and bewilderment to my husband as to just how patchy.

6
For a long period I've been homeschooling on a 'bare essential' level, and I'm really good with that.  Current thoughts are ascertaining as to excellence with essentials.

7
Photography books are piled on my bedside table.  I've been reading about exposure, aperture, shutter speed, white exposure and amazingly enough, I think I'm starting to understand:)

Visit Conversion Diary for more 7 Quick Takes.

Creating Synergy

Whilst co-ops are an important resource for many home educators in the States, they don't play a major role in Australia, although they exist in the major cities I haven't experienced any in rural Australia.  Periodically local home education groups may gather and parents share and impart skills, but formal co-ops certainly haven't been part of my experience within the home education movement of the past 30 years.

Co-ops haven't flourished in rural Australia for a number of factors, primarily our numbers are low, in our region, population 50,000 we have approximately 10 home educating families. Then many home educating families aren't interested in mixing and there is a general  unwillingness to sacrifice time to commit.

Most families find it easier to gather together with another family or two and share and impart skills on a  more casual basis. A few years ago a couple of friends and I discussed this, we wanted to create an environment that fostered synergy to not only inspire our children to write, but to nurture our enthusiasm as their 'teachers',  to encourage us to place a high emphasis on writing skills.

Thus began a collaborative effort to encourage our children to write, we began gathering together weekly for 'Writing Club'.  Initially we began with our children between the ages of 8-16 but soon the younger children clamoured to join in.  We focused on creating and fostering the children's interest in writing, creative writing is the most popular genre, sometimes we 'stir the creative juices' with an exciting beginning paragraph, other times they have their own ideas, but their favourite are always 'round robin' stories.  Each child begins with a paragraph, passes their writing pad to their neighbour on the right to continue and takes the pad from their neighbour on their left and continues their story.  We have also challenged the children with speeches and research topics.  Most incredibly the synergy from the group has enabled us to accomplish far more as a group than we were accomplishing as individual families.

After a year of beginning 'Writing Club' it became apparent that our wide age range was 'holding back' our highschoolers, so feeling rather bold I set out to find a retired teacher who would enjoy mentoring our children.  An answer to prayer was Sr J. from our local Convent, she has become a treasured part of our children's education, bringing more to their lives (and ours) than just English skills.

Each week whilst the teenagers meet with Sr J. we continue to gather together with our children aged 6-12.  We have expanded our repertoire to include further skills such as note taking, play writing, descriptive paragraphs, advertisements, poetry, etc.  We discuss banned words, and suggest more expressive words, we encourage the children to edit their work and to stretch themselves.  We have been thrilled with what they are capable of.  The synergy created is incredible and the children are eager to participate in Writing Club each week.

This post is part of the Homeschool Help Series, I am honoured to be joining a team of awesome writers, feel free to click on the links below to see whether other families choose to Co-op or Not?  Next week we will be chatting about Local Homeschool Groups - Are you involved?  Why? Why not?

Chareen @ Every Bed of Roses - Together Everyone Achieves More

When we share the load we move forward in strength.

Hwee @ The Tiger Chronicle - Our Co-Op Experience 

Sharing our afterthoughts about joining a co-op.

Nicole @ One Magnificent Obsession - The Co-op Question: Yeah or Nay?

How to evaluate if a homeschool co-op is right for your family

Bernadette @ Barefoot Hippie Girl - Beneficial Co-op(eration)

Why I look forward to organizing or joining a co-op in the next few years.

Julie  @ Highhill Homeschool - How does homeschool co-op work?

Three different ways to run a co-op.

Savannah @ HammockTracks - The Ins and Outs of Co-Ops

Why are you participating?

Lucinda @ Navigating By Joy - The Pros and Cons of Joining a Homeschool Co-op

How to get the benefits of being in a co-op even if joining one isn't right for your family

Handwriting Boot Camp

In 'A Day in the Life of a Homeschooled Teenager' I mentioned  'handwriting boot camp', and Charlotte asked for more detail.

The handwriting of the majority of our boys has long been a point of despair, issues addressed over the years have been numerous.  Incorrect pencil grip, starting letters at the incorrect 'clock' position, sloppy and careless formation, incorrect posture, lack of spatial awareness leading to incorrect spacing between words, non-uniformity of letter sizing and inconsistent use of capital and lower case letters are the main culprits.  

Several years ago when reading You can Teach Your Child Successfully: Grades 4-8 I was inspired by Ruth Beechick's suggestion of tackling handwriting by holding a 'boot camp'.  'Boot camp' allows you  time to intensively focus on an area needing attention.  Ruth suggested a few days, a week, but this term I've chosen to focus once a week for an hour.   This is not the first time we have held bootcamp but it has been many years since we have done so. We have been trying handwriting sheets but with little progress, I felt it was time to bring in 'the Commando!'

On our first lesson I dressed in army shirt and belt, which made the children giggle and thus we began in a light hearted mood:)   It is understood that in bootcamp I can and will correct any of the above issues, requesting work to be rubbed out and redone.  I demonstrate and model on the blackboard, discussing clock positions, the need for uniformity and spacing as I write.  Then as the children write I walk around watching and correcting where needed, pencil grip, posture (yes, the child at far right was corrected) neatness etc are all checked.  The children are more open to correction and take more care during bootcamp, although the youngest ones can get anxious, I'm reassured that they care!

This term I discovered an OOP title, Spelling and Handwriting, Curriculum for Primary Schools printed by the NSW Education Department in 1970.  I've added their suggestions of various rhythmic exercises and patterns, a fun way to practice pencil control, in truth their patterns remind me of form drawing.

Already I am seeing an improvement with the older children's writing during handwriting bootcamp (whether I see an improvement outside of bootcamp remains to be seen), and the younger children are eager to 'get it correct' which wasn't the situation last term.  Determined to make a difference.

Plating Up

In our early years as a family, many an afternoon I would ring my husband at 4.30pm at work and ask him, "What will we have for tea!?" Not planning properly and frozen in decision making, we consequently bought pizza on far too many nights!

I came to realise that the key to success for us in our cooking juggle was organisation.  On the days that I thought about tea immediately after breakfast and removed meat from the freezer accordingly, were the days all went well (at least in the meal arena;)    It became apparent that I functioned far better with a plan, I was not good at making last minute decisions, I liked being told what to make (albeit my own plans telling me) although another key was self-discipline in following through, but for me that wasn't as difficult as the decision making.

First  step was to write up a weekly menu, with a menu plan from there I developed a shopping list, then I simply needed to go shopping, which back then was a weekly occurrence   This probably all sounds so basic and obvious and yet it wasn't for me, I hadn't grown up with menus and shopping lists, so I was starting from scratch, re-inventing myself.  As the years rolled on our system evolved to a monthly menu and a once a month shop.  Recently I fine-tuned our system by adding a master pantry list (taped to inside of pantry), this  mirrors the shopping spreadsheet but has figures designating the number of items needed, I only need to check of number of items in the pantry and jot the 'missing' amount onto the shopping list.  It might sound daunting but the benefit once again is I don't have to think once the system is in place.

What does our menu look like?  We have our family favourites and tend to plan for them on a weekly/fortnightly rotation. All family members opinions are taken into consideration, though it is impossible to please all every meal, however if someone really hates a meal we will remove it from the menu.  When introducing new meals we tend to try out two new ones each month, and all give a 'point rating' determining if the meal makes it back onto the menu.  Our menu rotates on a seasonal basis, obviously salads are more prevalent in summer, stews and soups in winter.  On the North Coast of Australia we tend to have two predominant seasons, a long summer and a short winter, spring and autumn tend to be noticed as part of summer.

How does organisation tie in with the actual cooking? Well it is only with a plan in place that we are able to confidently tackle the job of cooking.  The actual cooking is shared between myself and our teenage boys, 16 & 13 (when our college daughter and son lived at home they also helped cook), and all of the children help in meal preparation, though the bigger part of meal preparation is undertaken by the girls, 11 & 8 and the older boys.  We believe it important for children to be involved in food preparation from a young age and a 2yr old is quite capable of chopping up a banana with a bread knife, a 4yr old call pull apart a lettuce and a 6yr old can cut up capsicum (pepper).   The older boys are totally responsible for cooking 1-3 nights a week, depending on the sporting seasons demands, as I'm the chauffeur on those nights.  On non-sport nights I generally cook though the boys happily help if asked and our 11yr old is now keen to begin cooking  meals.

The most important logistic of meals running smoothly is to have pre-checked the menu before bed and after breakfast, ascertaining if food needs thawing or knowing how much time needs allocating that day for preparations.  If it is a muffin breakfast I need to begin preparations at 6am, if a cooked lunch I may need to leave the children working on an independent lesson so I can dash into the kitchen an hour before lunch to prepare and load into the oven.  Generally though I plan low preparation meals for breakfast and lunch. For tea we need to begin preparations between 4pm-5pm for a 6pm meal.  When we first became grain free 2 years ago we noticed our kitchen time increased dramatically in the beginning, although preparation time has now become more streamlined than initially, we've been stretched and have now settled into a more regular rhythm.

We have never been big on baking and since going grain free the children are still learning the new recipes, so I tend to do most of the baking, more of an afternoon after lessons (our core learning hours tend to be 8:00am-12:30pm at least for the younger children).  Favourite snacks are popcorn (not GrF) fruit and veggies.

Each season in life has its ebbs and flows, some seasons run far smoother than others and life is never stagnant, certainly not in a large growing family with changing dietary needs.  However after all these years we have developed a fairly typical rhythm that has become ingrained contributing to our success of juggling cooking and a home education lifestyle.  I no longer ring my husband desperately at 4.30 wailing "What will we have for tea!?"

This post is part of the Homeschool Help Series, I am honoured to be joining a team of awesome writers, feel free to click on the links below to see how other families manage to juggle cooking and home education.  Next week we will be chatting about 'Co-op or Not....Why or Why Not?'

Hwee at The Tiger Chronicles - Nutritious Meals, Quick!

3 simple tips that help to prepare nutritious family meals everyday.

Julie at Highhill Homeschool - Strategies for Cooking Healthy for a Family
Five strategies for preparing healthy meals when time is an issue.

Lucinda at Navigating By Joy - How to Ensure Your Kids Eat Healthily When You 

don't Enjoy Cooking

Chareen at Every Bed of Roses - Homeschooling and Cooking a Healthy Adventure

Bernadette at Barefoot Hippie Girl - Hippie Method: Food Philosophied
How to make easy, delicious, (relatively) healthy food from scratch-almost every day.

Nicole at One Magnificent Obsession - Realistic Meal planning for Homeschool Moms

How to avoid eating at Chik Fil A every night

Savannah at HammockTracks - Cooking Tip for the Home School Mom

Even if you don't enjoy cooking there are ways to conquer the "What's for Dinner?" question without calling Dominos!

A Day in the Life of a Homeschooled Teenager

Joining in the Homeschool High School carnival hosted this month by Theresa over at Lapz Home Learning.

The following is a glimpse of  'A Day in Our Life', this 'day' I focused only on our teens, and in particular their academic pursuits.  Randomly I selected a Thursday to record, was it a typical day?  In some respects yes and yet not.  This year Einstein(16) spends the majority of his studies focusing on his Open Uni Course, although on the day selected he elected to spend all of his study time on his Open Uni, other days he alternates between his subjects,  which have been pared down to allow for his new workload.  Was it a typical day for Michelangelo(13)?  Not really, he played alot with his siblings which doesn't always happen, and and he even joined the younger ones for a lesson, which was unusual.  Other days he may join Einstein and Princess for a writing lesson but not the youngest ones, and a typical day for Michelangelo normally includes far more reading and academic work.  Yet this day is valid in that it reflects the ebbs and flows of our life, no two days are ever identical, it is by observing a week, a term, a year (and longer) that we gain a much clearer picture of what a home education lifestyle 'looks like.'

7:30AM Einstein and Michelangelo arise for breakfast.

8:10AM We gather for prayers.

8:30AM Einstein begins his Open Uni Maths- Trigonometry and Algebra.
Michelangelo works on dictation, with Princess(11) dictating to him, whilst I work with a sibling.

9:00AM Einstein continues with Algebra/Trigonometry.  This maths course has been a huge jump for Einstein, he has gone from completing Grade 10 maths straight to University maths, we're rather impressed with how he has coped, but it does mean he has to do extra study with each new concept.


Michelangelo decides to join us for 'Handwriting Boot Camp'  a new implementation this term.  Sadly most of our boys have really struggled with handwriting, so I have instituted 'boot camp' in the hope of addressing the issue in some cases and 'nipping in the bud' in other.

10:00AM Einstein is still working on his Algebra/Trig course
Boot camp concludes and Michelangelo begins his second dictation lesson with me. Two lessons in one day is not the ideal way to study but the truth is it often occurs this way.


10:45AM Einstein heads outside for a break, jumping on the trampoline, his favourite relaxation.  Michelangelo heads out to play with younger siblings on their climbing rope, turned hammock

11:30AM Boys pop a batch of popcorn and listen in as I read to the younger children.

12:00PM Boys have drifted off, Einstein is back working on his maths, his big effort is motivated by an  assignment and exams due.
Michelangelo reads his Faith novel, St Ignatius Loyola, he climbs into bed to read.

12:45PM Michelangelo is outside playing with siblings again.

1:15PM Lunch time for Michelangelo and younger children

1:30PM Einstein is still studying (Maths)
Michelangelo is reading a Biggles book.

2:00PM Einstein breaks for the day.
Michelangelo's (and 4 other children's) hair is cut (by me)
Einstein jumping on trampoline again

3:00PM Clean up time.  Each child has 'area jobs' and 'kitchen jobs' they are responsible for.

3:30PM Computer Free Time, the boys set up a network Minecraft game .

4:00PM Einstein cooks tea whilst computer time continues.

6:00PM Tea time, then clean up.

7:00PM Michelangelo reads to Jem, successfully putting him to sleep. Impressive!

7:30PM Boys watch Stargate with Dad and siblings.

10:00PM Bedtime, Einstein sleeps but Michelangelo reads St Ignatius Loyola again for a while.

7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol 149)

1
Just saying that our 16, 13 & 11 year olds are rather awesome!  Our 8 yr old's pretty terrific too!  We left the children with a nanny when we went to the wedding and they were all rather impressive!  Helping the nanny make all run smoothly, cooking, cleaning and caring for the younger ones.  The nanny was rather impressive too.  Well done guys!


2
They say 'things' come in threes, let's hope this is so and we are all done with medical traumas.  At the beginning of April we saw a split chin and a split lip, totally traumatic! We've now concluded the month with a fracture.  Bass has suffered a buckle fracture just below the knee, courtesy of the trampoline.  Currently he is in a back slab, though there is a possibility of a total cast yet.

3
Whilst waiting at the physio department I had a distressing conversation with an older gentleman.  Back in January, out for an evening walk a young cyclist collided with him on the footpath, breaking his knee in two places.  There was talk of a knee replacement but they rebuild as best as they could and he is currently in a knee brace.  The day the accident happened, the young lad's father arrived complaining to his son and the gentleman how they had ruined his plans for the day!!!  Not once in all the months since have they contacted him to see how he is.  I really can't fathom this behaviour, at the very least that young teen should have been taking out this gentleman's garbage every week, mowing his lawn, to not even make contact!!

4
Had a conversation with a friend this week, and I realised by my (inner) reaction, I really am a non-conformist.  Probably my upbringing, but I just can't escape those non-conforming reactions.

5
Attended a focus/marketing discussion today, subject of discussion was the library. It was quite a fascinating discussion to ponder on our emotive reactions to various questions.  Best of all though, was to realise that I am not the only crazy book lover in this town, I was among kindred spirits!  It really was an awesome feeling to meet total strangers (and reconnect with some old acquaintances) and to instantly feel a connection.

6
Reading some email advice on how to have only 5 emails in your email box, and I'd have to concur.  I've used this method from time to time and find it most effective.  Unsubscribe from clutter and deal immediately with your mail, works!  Along with managing emails, I'm taking a good look at my computer time and how to make the most effective use of time allotted   'They' say a plan prior to sitting down is most effective, and I'd have to concur there too.   In the past I've found assigning time to online tasks, plotting what to write about works well.  Now I'm been pondering, wouldn't  this 'micro managing' make the most effective use of our time in many areas of life?

7
Planning and thinking about time and blogging I realised I need a plan to 'get into' a groove and to commit   There are so many parties that tie in with my blogging interests.  There's pinishers to encourage actually using those pins, there is A Portrait a Week to encourage photography interest using my favourite photography subjects, My Little Bookcase would boost actually reading those picture books I intend too (only I don't have instagram, no iphone), and The Children's Bookshelf and Tuesday Treasure would encourage me to write more book reviews which I really want to do.  Lots of inspiration, just needing some time management adjustment.

Visit Conversion Diary for more 7 Quick Takes.

Sharing Over......

Today I am sharing over at Carrots for Michalmas about rather a personal topic, one that needs to be talked about and yet due to the nature of the subject matter doesn't often get a lot 'of airing'. Haley has been courageous enough to open the discussion.

So I've taken a big breath and nervously shared part of our journey in using Natural Family Planning.

7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol 148)

1
Conversations are complex and have the potential for  mis-interpretation, the speaker could mean one thing and the listener hears another.  Take a conversation PC and I had last week
PC:"Have you worked out what clothes you're taking to the wedding?"
Me:"Not quite, I need to get onto that."
He means: Have you looked through your cupboard.
I hear: You best go shopping.

2
Talking wedding, I have finally found a scarf to go with my cocktail dress, I ended up finding the most perfect silver shade, which worked out far better than gold. I have silver shoes, so good there, and today I had the most delightful morning with a friend, who not only gave me a dress for the Ladies Afternoon Tea, but lent me her pearls!!

3
Exercising with regularity here, mostly rowing and work on core stomach muscles using Bikini Body Mommy's Ab Moves for a Flat Tummy.  Truly amazing, in 4 days I can already see definition back!  Very heartening.

4
Princess and I thoroughly enjoyed a mother/daughter morning out this week, our choice of activity was op-shopping.  She's a girl after my heart, she loves a bargain and she loves clothes, she has a real eye for fashion and style.

5
News for Campion College fans, Campion now has a blog, Core Conversations.  A combination of deep, reflective posts written by the lecturers and some student happenings.

6
The last few days have been a learning curve with blogging technology and re-vamping my blog look. I learnt how to create html codes, though I ended up not needing them, I learnt how to create picture labels and a whole new blog banner in picmonkey, thanks Gae:) and revamped and reorganised my labels for easier searching, also discovering how to add/delete labels in bulk batches, thanks PC, and added social media buttons:)  My blog, actually both my blogs have received a facelift, actually all three websites also received new theme colours.

7
In a little over a week we begin Term 2, I really should give some thought to learning direction and lesson specifications, truth is though, I'm having a lazy holiday.

Visit Camp Patton for more 7 Quick Takes, Julia is hosting once again this week.  Fantastic news is Jennifer is taking baby Joseph home:)