How we 'do school'?

This is always a work in progress, but so far our routine is,


1st up our 'back to school pledge'
I have always liked how patriotic Americans can be and wanted to incorporate something like that in our routine. I had at one stage downloaded a citizenship pledge spoken by immigrants, at their 'naturalisation ceremonies" but alas, it is lost in the abyss that is my hard drive!
But all hope was not lost, as just as we were gearing up to start school again, a site i am subscribed to posted this! AWESOME! since we are not in a classroom setting, we changed it out a bit to suit us.

Next, on my suggestion and now on the children's insistence, We sing the National Anthem - both verses! also on their insistence for the 2nd verse. I have shown them all 5 verses, and that the 2nd verse is actually the 3rd, but considering the other 3 verses, i can see why nobody knows them! :-o

I'm normally standing right there beside them - lead by example right?

After our pledge and anthem, Sophie goes off to bed, as it's about 10ish at this time.

We all go 'downstep' to the 'schoolroom' where we work on our calender,
Samuel, works on ahead, while Lily and Kaytie work from their SAXON math books called meeting books, which suits us. They include the date, written in various forms, the weather, the temperature, pattern work, and number drills. My teacher book is all scripted (awesome!) but i rarely stick to it as it is not at all how i would speak/teach to them. Claire also has her own meeting book, which she colours in and traces the numbers i have written in for her.By now, the primary school down the road, bell siren has gone off for their morning tea - they start at 8:30am -urgh, we barely got to school  by 9 when they attended, how would we have coped trying to get there a half hour earlier??!!!? so yes, the siren has gone off for morning tea, and Samuel, without fail pipes up with "alright break time!" "uuummm no, we don't follow their siren, you'll break when you done dear boy!" have all schools changed over to an almost bomb raid siren for their bell? or is it  just a west oz thing? - certainly freaked us out the first few days we were here till we figured out what it was! After the 'morning meeting' I work with Kaytie doing her 'Learning Language Arts through Literature" program. I'm really liking it so far, it uses some really old nice books i remember from my childhood, such as "mike mulligan and his steam shovel" and "harry the dirty dog" among others. While i do this,Samuel and Lily do their copywork, as their handwriting is ATROCIOUS! and once this is done, Samuel generally slinks off to read his 'graphic novels" more commonly known as comics, our library has a great selection of them, with great classics turned into comic form, he has read widely through this medium, and surprises me regularly with little tidbits of info. Titles in his 'repotoire' include "Oliver" "The Call of the Wild" The Invisible Man" "the Trojan Horse" various Sherlock Holmes, Shakespeare and other Dickens Classics. another great resource from the library is "playaways" He has listened to Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, and.......ummmm, oh there have been so many i can't think of any at the moment. lol

Any way back on track, Samuel slinks off to read, and Lily works with Claire doing various activities, while i work with Kaytie, then we stop for a break, and then we do math lessons and bits and bobs.

We are slowly working up to adding in new things each day - most on the children's insistence. They all decided that we would do more "schoolwork" rather than the natural learning style we had been doing. I think someone on the Perth HS forum mentioned it as "benign negligence" LOL. That seems a good fit for what we were doing. In organising the big move over here, i tended to leave them to their own devices, which while it worked great, and they learnt heaps! i think they have decided they want more structure so structure it is! Plus Kaytie was never one for 'finding her own way" and has always been at me constantly for schoolwork" and i think the older two are just following suit. Claire also is demanding "harder and harder "tulle-work" and can not be convinced the things i am giving her to do, are things she would be doing if she attended Kindy. I'm actually considering including her in Kayties lessons to appease her? we shall see....

We are trying out 'All About Spelling" this year, will let you know how thats going when we start doing it regularly. We are using 'Story of the World" for our history. Auslan for LOTE (Languages Other Than English) Living in the 'real' world and excursions for our SOSE requirements (social studies) and at the moment our entire science 'curriculum' consists of DVD's - Mythbusters/magic school bus/ Experimentals. etc  EVERY SINGLE experiment we have attempted has been a DISMAL FAILURE!!! i can't even manage the cola/mentos fountain for goodness sake! So to avoid any disillusions to science we are sticking to  our dvds and  trips to SCITECH when funds eventually allow. We haven't given up completely to the natural learning concept. One of the children's favourite games at the moment is plating up meals for me with all the pretend felt and timber foods we have. which has turned into big discussions on healthy V. unhealthy foods. and now compete with each other on how bad or good they can make meals for me ...... with me acting appropriately after each plate. lol. Other fun things they've initiated, the other day we had a huge storm roll through - around the time of TC Bianca - it was a hot and humid day even by our "cairns standard of humidity" heh heh complaining about wanting the A/C on, when we heard the pitter patter of rain on the roof top, well everything was abandoned for a play in the rain, and how did they play??? they got out buckets and drums and started rain dancing!!

It was actually quite funny as every time they slowed down the ruckus, the rain would slow. Every time they sped it up, down came the rain. The singing and dancing stopped once the thunder and lightning started, but they still enjoyed the refreshing rain standing under the overflowing gutters along the patio.

Once they had finished, they talked about where rain dancing comes from, how the weather is actually what makes it rain and safety in an electrical storm etc etc - talk about a hands on lesson LOL!

We have discovered that about 6 streets away is another homeschooling family, though her 3 children are under 4. We have also started up - with other homeschoolers, a weekly get together, with children ranging from 12y down to 3 months - Finally Samuel has a boy his age to play with

Another thing I have noticed, is that the majority of homeschoolers in WA are Christian homeschoolers, whereas in Cairns it was the reverse. Neither here nor there in my book, just an observation :)

We have had some irritating news which has put a dampener on our move over here. Jamie's ( and everyone else) hours have been cut back to 10 hours a day, which means we have lost about $900(gross) a week! or $140 a day! Lets just say Jamie is seriously UNIMPRESSED! We are hoping that his job at Barrow Island comes sooner than later - he has been sent for his medicals, so that's a positive.

We are coping OK and are looking on the positive side - it's still a heck of a lot more money then back in Cairns.

I've lost my train of thought as i can hear chaos coming from the front room as they are supposed to be sorting out the washing.

Grandma Robyn turns up late next week, and Daddy is home the Monday following, Lily's 9th Birthday is also next week, so  a busy couple of weeks for us. Looking forward to it. :)

Anyway ,till next time

OX(OX)oxoxoxoxox

B(J)slkcs