It’s a new season

  So much has happened since I last posted. I thought this morning that it was due time that I started writing again

 Shortly after my last post, my health fell completely through the floor. I couldn’t walk and I was pretty much house bound for the rest of the pregnancy relying on my darling to drive me to appointments. 

Despite this my darling and I made some major decisions for our family future. 

We sold our house in Sale

We “researched” a lot and finally purchased a camper trailer which is being built as I write. 

  
We decided to travel our great country with our children and live ” on the road”. 

Our darling baby girl Elsie was born

  

  

We refurbished our plans and decided for the short term (at least a year) we would live in a house and travel regularly around Victoria (there is still plenty to see)

I have had some tests and am now dealing with allergies to cows milk and wheat that had gone undiagnosed for years causing havoc with the system. 

We almost moved to Warragul

Our pastor in Sale was diagnosed with Leukaemia so instead we very quickly moved back to Sale to help with the Church.  

We are now in Sale and settling in slowly to our new plan. It is a new year and Jocelyn is officially enrolled as a student. 

I have many new ideas contributing to our school days… And some hanging on from my last post. 

We are finding our feet having regular school days and managing to complete our morning basket at least which contains our core daily subjects, and adding enrichment activities as time permits (I have been surprised with how much we have been able to achieve)

   
    

Hopefully I will spend a bit more time around this place in the future, it is a great way to record our days.

As for this week we are preparing for a road trip to Brisbane to collect our new baby… The camper trailer. 

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The littles and the plan!

Introducing Jocelyn and Josiah,  the littles and the reason!  We have recently moved town and although Jocelyn and I have been dabbling in school she is super keen for more.  So I have set up the workboxes and we are aiming to get through some school work each day. At four years old it is not yet compulsory to keep records but I enjoy the days too much to not keep my own record….so here we are!

This is the workboxes so far..  We are going to buy more tubs and set up some busy boxes for Josiah too. It is located in the dining room so we are able to access them easily since this is where we do alot of the activities… And there is a comfy couch nearby for all the delicious books that we get to read.

At this stage our ‘curriculum’ is a bit of a mixture.  I love Charlotte Mason and the principles of her method so we are beginning with Ambeleside Online 0

and some simply Charlotte Mason such as delightful reading and copywork

We have poetry and fables

Bible study

And at breakfast time we are reading Hurlbuts story of the bible and doing the Simply Charlotte Mason scripture memory system…most days. I’m really enjoying the way the Hurlbuts is written!

Our Artist study at the moment is Auguste Renoir, but because we are learning about birds we are also looking at John Gould’s Birds of Australia

We will be doing See the light Art classes

Plenty of Nature Study with a focus on Birds this year

We are listening to Tchaikovsky
Our current Hymn is O for a thousand tongues to sing but it will change each month and we are listening to emu music when we want some praise songs on.
We are also learning about the bluegrass style of music and Novelty dances

Outside we will be attempting the family fun fitness program or just walking, scooting or riding around the lake that is practically on our doorstep… where we can also feed the ducks

For handicraft we have just started this cute little cross stitch… It is going to keep us busy for a while

And for our Timeline we are reading about Claude Monet…I think he might be our next Artist

And for Maths we are bolting through Math u see Primer… It won’t be long before we move on to Alpha. I am supplementing with dot to dots, mazes and talking about Maths in everyday activities.

We are about to start Financial Peace Junior to begin learning about and earning money.

And we are using the KONOS program as a guide for learning about different topics. Currently Birds. When we get further into Ambeleside Online I’m not sure we will need this but at the moment it is fun and I already have a handful of gentle units planned so why not! 

That about sums up the formal learning areas, besides which we will be focusing on learning:

new skills based on the checklist I have created ( I might post more about this in the future)
A new character trait,  currently obedience
Cooking skills and general homekeeping

We are also attending a playgroup in the town and one run by the church and hopefully we might fit into a kindergym class nearby. 

Josiah doesn’t have a structured school day..he tags along and listens to the stories. He’s learning to draw, playdough, and I’m aiming to get the sticking and pasting out with him. He also has a toy set out each day and a fine motor skills activity. We are singing heaps of nursery rhymes and reading the same loved books over and over so he can increase his vocabulary (which is developing beautifully). My next planning task will involve looking at my tot school resources again to find him some more ideas. Other than this I really just want him to be three :).

So there we are…in a nutshell that seems to be our aim for school at the moment ( or kinder really!)

With this beautiful little on the way in September I think that should be plenty to keep us busy

I’m not sure how often we will post updates, I suppose it depends how camera happy I get and how our days go. But hopefully I will be here at least once a week .

Glad to meet you and I hope you enjoy watching my littles learn gently!