How exciting: our sewing group will be displaying some of the work we have done over the past year in the Western Port Festival ( follow this link to get more details on the festival)

This afternoon some of the children and parents came around and together we put together a wonderful display. It is so colourful, bright and cheerful and is made up of all the work the children have chosen to display. They are pretty excited and all looking forward to going along on the weekend to see their display in the hall.

This is a great opportunity to display their work and be a part of a local community event. It will also be lovely to complement the quilt display with a look at where sewing skills begin.

Sewing is a skill for life that can be taken up by anyone of any age and is a wonderful way to express ones own personality.  It requires patience, concentration, carefully planned fine motor coordination, attention to detail and a desire to expand on ones knowledge and skills. Getting together and doing it in a group is a great way to meet like minded people, see new ideas and interpretations of the same project and an opportunity to help, inspire and motivate one another.

So if you’re in the Hastings area this weekend which is on the Mornington Peninsula south of Melbourne, pop into the Hall and checkout the Quilt fair and Arts and Artisans displays.

Jackie

This lovely blog post arrived with my emails this morning and I just had to share. 12 great reasons to homeschool… follow the link to Teressas blog and check it out. Whist there have a look around Teressa is a gem in the homeschool world for her work in science education and especially the periodic table.

Jackie

Here’s one of my articles that was published in the current Otherways Home Education Magazine. If you want to find out more about this magazine just follow this link.

Each family homeschools differently. At our place I like to have a theme on the go and then structure many of the learning experiences around it. Then last year along came Christmas. I had no plan, and I’d actually packed the workbooks away at the end of November. When I step back now I realise our days were perhaps richer in learning experiences than they were when I had the maths and language books on the go and we were rushing around to activities.

Here is how December was at our place last year and why I’m again aiming to have no bookwork for December and January.

The musical instruments were out without me reminding the girls to practice. They were practicing songs together, switching in unfamiliar instruments and giving them ago and pulling out sheet music that was not prescribed by their music teacher. Why? Christmas carols

They were sewing no end, presents, decorations, wall hangings and helping out in my sewing class to get end of year projects done. The girl’s skill level improved, as did their confidence in helping others and they began to be able to independently work on a sewing task. Why? It’s all got a Christmas theme.

They were working with money, popping into shops on their own to buy a secret gift, reading catalogues to see what was available and what things cost and helping out with my market stall. They even organised to sell cans of drinks at the market. That involved calculating the costs of slabs of drinks, and then the cost of individual cans and going shopping for them. The deal was they will pay me back out of the profits just for the cans they sell. They didn’t make their millions and I ended up with plenty of soft drink in the pantry however they did make a little and got to do lots of calculations and tabulating of figures along the way. Why? Christmas Trading.

Socialising still happened. (Yes we homeschool and our kids have a social life.) Somehow it just felt richer for not attending organised activities, we snuck in a short family holiday and had plenty of Christmas get togethers and play dates. We’d looking at a relatively empty diary upon getting up in the morning and then decide what we’ll do. Why? Christmas holidays.

Language got a good work out too. We have a gorgeous advent calendar of little books which each have an excerpt from a classic, which was a lovely introduction each day to some of the books they may read in the future. Then there was the discussion that comes about from the new words they discovered: Good King Wenslas introduced “winters fuel”, “cruel frost”, …lots of discussion about language and historical context. Each year we also bring out a box of all out Christmas stories into the lounge to share, having them under the Christmas tree invites them to be read. Why so much incidental language? Christmas.

Then there was the family side of Christmas, working together to get the house tidy was an ongoing issue here. My youngest learnt to put away an object if I gave it to her and told her where it went. She felt important, useful and a little grown up. My oldest is able to go into a messy room and get it tidied and vacuumed which was such a help. Why the desire to clean up? Christmas guests.

Were we organised for Christmas last year? Yes, however there is always more I wish we could have gotten to: more cooking, tidying, playing, sewing, crafts, markets and catching up with friends. Oh and did I mention writing cards, shopping lists and to do lists. Then there’s always weeding the garden which doesn’t seem to take a break.

Did we enjoy last years Christmas break? You bet we did we even snuck in a 5 day holiday and discovered December is a really quiet time to holiday! We’ll be doing that again for sure.

Were we learning? Absolutely, and as a teacher trained homeschool mum I need times like this to reinforce how valuable natural learning is. I have so many years of institutionalised learning behind me that I know I may never be able to let go of some form of formalised instruction. This is the time when all that reading I have done about trusting in your children’s innate ability to learn what they need when they need shows through so beautifully.

So at our place it’s heads down and get through the bookwork in October and November so we can pack it all away again this December and relish in the Festive season and all those wonderful experiences it brings with it. Then January can drift along into our lives with all it’s lazy summer contrasts whilst I get my head around what we may look at achieving in the new homeschool year. Books open again in February here.

Have a wonderful holiday season and enjoy all that it so naturally brings your way.

Jackie