A New Home at Marigold Cottage

I am moving myself off to a new bloggy home. For any of you that would like to visit, here is the link http://marigoldcottage.blogspot.com/

I have been slowly moving over some of my old posts, and will continue to do so over the next few weeks. Some posts have a new twist added, others have been moved as they are. And of course there are new posts as well.

See you there!

Knitting anyone?

Earlier this year I finally finshed my very first knitting project, ever. Oh, I have started basic knitting projects before, but never got them finished. Either because I had lost interest, did not like what I was making anymore, or, more often because I had dropped or created too many stitches and my project was beyond rescuing. But, after about 18 months of slowly and carefully plodding along I completed my very first knitted scarf! Hooray!

Now, this may not seem like a cause for celebration, a scarf is such a simple, small thing; but for me it is a great accomplishment. I finished something, and I can even use it. :)

So, you'll never guess what I am making now........drumroll........another scarf. I figure I am on to a good thing, I will see if I can do this 2 times in a row. I have started this week, and I am hoping to have this one ready by next winter. A tight deadline, I know.

Did you you know that knitting helps you sleep? I can no longer read in the evenings because it is too stimulating for my tired old brain, thus keeping me from sleep. Knitting requires just enough concentration to tire me out and relax me, but not too much to overstimulate me. And I now have something to show for my time of relaxation.

2009 Plans: Review

Somewhere in the months of September-November I begin evaluating my year and making plans for our new year of homeschooling. I think back and read over what I had planned to do this year, see what we have accomplished and the things we have needed to lay aside. This link will take you to my post about my plans for our 2009 academic year http://amicivia.blogspot.com/2008/12/plan-for-2009.html .

During this time, I consider the changes we have needed to make and why and whether those changes are longterm changes, or we can implement them next year. Actually, I think this has become my favourite time of year - I love researching and dreaming and planning for the following year, beginning the ordering of new books, and the anticipation of receiving those books........loads of fun.

Changes for Miss 14's plan have included only completing the first chapter of the Greenleaf Guide to Ancient Literature. The first chapter was the most important, studying the lives of Moses, Daniel and Paul and their learning. Each of them were first fully grounded in the learning of God's Word and His Ways and then each of them, for various reasons, learned the literature of the culture they were living in, for Moses it was Egyptian literature, for Daniel it was Babylonian literature and for Paul it was the Greek and Roman literature.

We did not get around to working on Latin in the Christian Trivium Book 1, as the last Latina Christiana book has taken us all year to work through. Miss 14 seems to have lost her love of Latin, she has developed some new interests that have made Latin pale into insignificance for her. We also needed to lay aside the Classical Writing and Traditional Logic programs. They both required more time than we were able to invest. However, now that we are at the end of the year, Miss 14 has almost completed her ACE English for the year, I am thinking that we will return to Classical Writing for a couple of months and focus purely on her writing skills. With Traditional Logic - we may return to it next year, instead of continuing with Latin. Still thinking on that one.

For the younger girls, we have laid aside the Imitations in Writing - it was a bit beyond Miss 8 and its addition made Miss 10's academic workload too long. Although, they have now nearly finished their ACE Word Building, we may use Imitations in Writing for them for the next couple of months, see if Miss 8 is up to it now. We ran out of time to complete our Moon and Stars Unit study, but I have decided this will be the first unit study for next year.

We didn't quite make to Latina Christiana 1 as it has taken us all year to complete Prima Latina. However, we are now on the last lessons, and will begin the new year with LC1.

Miss 8 this year has seemed to stall in her interest and growth in reading, while Miss 10 has really blossomed in her reading level and interest this year and now it is not uncommon to find her, stretched out in the garden, engrossed in her new book. Miss 14 loves reading as much as ever, although when given the choice she will always choose lighter historical fiction or adventure novels. I have had to introduce some more taxing books and make it a part of her school work in order for her to extend her reading abilities and content. Miss 14 has also enjoyed her increased activity level and social life this year: playing music in church, youth group, working in the church library, working with her Dad, skype lessons with a friend, and blogging has developed into quite a passion for her.

So with these thoughts floating around in my mind, I will pen down our plans for next year, 2010. Wow.

Preparing for Worship

So what is the nature of worship? It's offering God worship from the depths of our inner being in praise, prayer, song, giving, and living - but always based on His revealed truth.

Our whole lives are to be lived in worship to God. Every facet, in a very personal manner. We are also called to worship on a corporate level - with our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Below are some thoughts about preparing ourselves for worship, in particular relating to preparing myself for our Sunday worship service.

How do I really prepare myself to worship?
Hebrews 10:22, is the greatest summation of the preparation of worship anywhere in the Bible: "Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water."

Every time you worship, prepare yourself by asking these questions:
1) Am I sincere? Is my heart fixed? Is my whole heart devoted to God? Am I focusing on Him? Am I seeing Him in the Word, through discovery and meditation, so that my hungering desire is to draw nigh unto Him?
2) Am I assured that I can come simply and only by faith, having the full assurance that it is sufficient?
3) Am I coming to God with the knowledge that the only reason I am here is because of what Christ has done for me?
4) And am I coming in purity - having dealt with any sin in my life?

http://www.gty.org/Resources/Study%20Guide%20Chapter/2011 This link will take you to the sermon titled 'True Worship' by John Macarthur, where these quotes have come from.

Car-Schooling

I love to travel. When we plan a travelling holiday we dig out our old Australian Geographic Australia map and lay it out on our dinner table underneath a clear plastic table covering. Planning our route, where we would like to visit. We spend months pouring over that map. My dh searches our destination on the internet and discovers all sorts of interesting things about the town where we are headed.

Little towns on our map are no longer just a dot and a name. We know what the main street looks like, some of its history and the towns claim to fame. One day I would like to place photo's of the places we have visited on our big big map and having it as a living geography wall hanging.

As a family so far, we have travelled to the Victorian High Country in winter, Melbourne, visited part of the Great Ocean Road, visited a number of towns through NSW country, been to the Northenmost Point of Australia at Cape York and mosied our way through the Northern Territory at the time of Cyclone Monica (that was fun, let me tell you!). With the freedom homeschooling has allowed us, we have been able to plan these trips mostly outside of school holidays and we have been able to adjust our work to include these trips.

Aside from the fun of learning about our grand country Australia by visiting as much as possible of it in person, we have enjoyed the varied 'schooling' experience these travels have afforded us.

We have listened to Bible audio cd's, Diana Waring's history cd's, recited our latin vocabulary, prayers and hymns along with our latin cd's, and learned about some of the great composers and their music listening to their stories on cd's. We saved the cd's for the after lunch driving session, when everyone is quiet, and not interested in really doing anything.

The girls have also kept a travel journal. Their journals became a record of sketches of the landscape we have driven past that day, description or drawings of the weather conditions and their thoughts about an interesting place we have visited (like the Stockman's Hall of Fame in Longreach). And of course, they have added their own individual flair to their books - their own little adventures and ideas they have had along the way. They mostly filled these journals in at the end of the day - when they could look back and think about what they have seen and done.

On our long trips, we have also brought along the girls Maths books to complete each morning and a couple of reading books/picture books and some small toys/card games etc to play during the ride as well.

These trips, for me, have been something special to add to our variety of learning and lovely memories for our family lifestyle. Living life together. There are some things you just can't learn from a book.

Follow me as I follow Christ....

This was the final slide left up on the wall as Diana concluded her final talk of the day at her Brisbane Living, Laughing and Learning conference. I left the conference that afternoon feeling encouraged in my work homeschooling my children. It is a nice thing, to be encouraged.

I did not hear her concluding remarks, as I was left pondering that phrase, 'Follow me, as I follow Christ'. To me, that there is the nutshell really of why I am homeschooling my children. My life is about following Christ in every way, and I endeavour to disciple my own children to also live their lives following their Lord. Everything else pales into insignificance.

Over the years, I have been really challenged at different times in areas of weakness, areas of hypocrisy, areas where I have not fully grasped a truth from Scripture. Challenged to honestly and humbly live out my faith, to follow Christ in everything, in faithful obedience. To model a living faith, reliance and total trust in my Saviour - that is not an easy task, in my little old sinful self. But it is a daily, lifelong goal for me.

Handwriting

Handwriting seems to develop in a very personal manner. No two people handwrite the same way, even if they have learned the same style of handwriting.

My eldest daughter spent two years in the school system, and thus learned to write using the modern Queensland cursive. She loved to write, but her handwriting was awkward, stilted and messy. When she came home to be home educated, I realised this was partly because she found the formation of the letters difficult to copy, she was always in a hurry and did not care if it was messy.

In order to help her improve her handwriting skills, I firstly researched the various handwriting fonts on the internet, and let her look at them and choose which style she liked the best and would like to try writing in that style.

I then printed out the alphabet - capital and lower case letters - in that font and stuck it into a book. She copied the letters individually to get an idea of the formation of the style, and when it came to copy writing or time to write out a neat copy of a story or poem etc, she would refer to that chart to form her letters. Learning handwriting in this manner gave her a purpose to neatness and an interest in the technique of handwriting because she liked the finished product of her efforts.

After this introduction, to help polish her style, I found some books that used the style she was practising. Classically Cursive from Veritas Press and Copybook Cursive: Hymns and Prayers from Memoria Press are 2 handwriting workbooks we have found helpful. She has not completed all the pages as we just chose pages of letters that she was having particular trouble with, or particular passages from the books for her to practise.

The younger two children have also developed a liking for this style of handwriting, and so I have been able to use the same method and books with them.