se7en

Astonishingly, we had rain!!!

But really it is Summer and my life is a blur of colorful swimming towels…

And swimming

Plenty of Swimming…

And Leaping…

And Landing…

And Leaping…

And timing races…

And winning…

And observing body surfing for real…

And underwater tea parties!!!

And lizards…

And a whole day spent learning how to make friendship bracelets!!!

We finally got it!!!

And UNO of course…

Otherwise there was time for snacks…

A week of Lego…

And more Lego…

Brothers plotting a grand project…

Yummy fresh bread…

Sliced and gone…

And a little person’s birthday meant we had a long glorious walk…

All around the bay…

For our favorite ice-creams at the Ice-Cafe…

As usual we read some books…

And then some more…

And more…

And our book of the week has to be this amazing, amazing book:

And one of our prolific artists has produced about a million art works of the week…

And this is what the Hoods got up to:

Hood #1: Big brothers are great for elaborate forts…

No one was complaining!!!

Hood #2: Woodwork…

And some things I don’t even ask!!!

Hood #3: Soap carving…

Hood #4: Brought the dinosaurs to school…

Hood #5: Our Celebrity Chef is mastering pancakes – and no one is sorry!!!

Hood #6: Has her own style of Lego…

Hood #7: Is another paper doll girl of note!!!

Hood #8: Has mastered the shrug…

Seriously… the shrug…

And the Saturday ritual of frothy milk with the father person and his cappuccino.

That’s us… Hope you are all having a fabulous week!!!

Recently I was thrilled to discover that Christian Focus Publications has a great blog, up and running showcasing their latest kids books, called Christian Focus 4 Kids. Previously I have written about how important it is for our children to read about Christian Heroes… Christian Focus 4 Kids is a Publishing house that publishers lots of great christian biographies for kids of different reading abilities. One of their popular series, the Trailblazer series has recently become available on the Kindle. Which is fantastic news for us, I love packing our Kindle with books for the kids to stumble upon and discover.

A couple of weeks back Christian Focus 4 Kids, posted a post asking if folk would like to review one of their latest titles:

Who can resist an Eric Liddell biography, I dived in at the opportunity and my kids joined in as we read our way through it. This book is a book about the life of Eric Liddell… his whole life. What a relief to find a book about Eric Liddell that is about more than just his dash around the race track. It is definitely not just the race in the Paris Olympics, made famous by the popular movie, Chariots of Fire.

Hood #5

To be honest I usually give books from the Trailblazer series to my kids to read, especially those in the easy reader stage. The chapters are short and manageable, there are questions at the end of the book, which help you to highlight the main point of each chapter. Because I had signed up to write a review I had to read this book all the way through myself and I was more than pleasantly surprised!!!

Hood #4

I have to say I have a whole new respect for this series, the chapters may well be short and readable for the beginner reader but they are not by any means simple or written down to the younger reader. Oh no, the chapters of this book are packed with facts and interesting anecdotes. What can I say, I found it a really interesting read and I am thrilled to discover a book that treats the beginner reader with some respect. Not to mention, there is fabulous timeline that provides hooks between the subject and other historical events that they might know about and so help them relate the book to knowledge they already have. Just because this book is marketed as a children’s book don’t for a moment think that an adult wouldn’t enjoy the read. It was a quick read, I admit, but I so enjoyed that this book really is packed with interesting details.

Hood #3

Eric Liddell was born in born in China in 1902, and spent his early years there. When he was of school going age his parents brought him and his older brother home to attend a The Boys Mission School in England. As you can imagine it wasn’t an easy childhood to be split away from ones parents but he was an affable fellow and seems to have survived the rigors of boarding school with the very occasional visit from his parents. His love of sports, particularly rugby and athletics, began at school and he carried his passion through to University. He began entering races and winning. My children so enjoyed hearing about his athletics preparation and training, particularly for the Olympics, very different to the very over the top practices of today!!!

Hood #2

As you read the book and through his remarkable racing career, you come to realize that athletics was not his life calling, but serving God with all his heart certainly was. God used a good friend and a mentor to prepare his heart and soul for returning to China. He returned to China in what some say was the prime of his athletics career, where he worked as a teacher… He married and had three children, the youngest never actually met him because just before he was put into a prison of war camp he placed his family and then pregnant wife on a ship for Canada, where they would be safer. He suffered for his belief, but never gave up, he served his fellow prisoners but eventually illness and malnutrition got the better of his strong body. He eventually died of a brain tumor and tragically his family never saw him again.

Hood #1

My children were fascinated by this story and they were sad for his family, especially the baby that he never got to meet. But above all else they were inspired by a man that gave of his best in everything, often coming from behind he conquered all, through hard work and an incredible faith in his Savior. His life was a true reflection of a christian hero and he ran his race for God without faltering.

This book was given to me as an e-pub by Christian Focus 4 Kids, and I was not paid in anyway to say that it was a great book. I provide the positive review because my kids and I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it as a great read.

I think the time has come for a new garden project. Our recent visit with Justin Bonello reminded me that ages ago… and I mean ages ago, we were visiting Noordhoek Farm Village and we stumbled upon their worm farm.

And we were intrigued!!! Those worms were making such a noise, we could hear them chomping…

We were shown around: the layers in the box…

The worms…

Not to mention the amazing plants!!!

These well fed plants were wonderful for exploring…

Can say our garden is looking nothing like that this year… while our plants are growing they are really scraggily and could do with some help!!! Also it is time for our small patch of vegi garden to get a whole lot more productive!!! We ate our spinach crop in a couple of sittings and a visitor to the garden ate all our squashes, but I am sure if our plants were well fed we could produce a whole lot more vegetables!!!

After our visit to the worm farm we were so inspired that we went on to visit a friend who have had their own worm farm for the longest time, ever since forever and long before it was fashionable!!! Let’s take a look:

Three black crates, a tap popped into the bottom one to catch the drips…

And lots of holes drilled into the base of the two top trays.

Into the top tray goes your organic kitchen garbage!!! Not too much of the same thing and not too much acidic stuff…

You rotate your top two boxes… The Middle box has older refuse that has been chewed and processed!!!

When your middle box is good and compost-like you remove the compost for your garden and the now empty middle tray becomes the top box.

Here you can see the worms at work…

And here is your bucket of compost.

In the bottom tray the liquid waste gathers from the worms and you dilute that and sprinkle it on your garden… I am all ready to try it!!!

You can get plastic trays and taps at Plastics for Africa. In my efforts to discover more about worm farming I have found this online tutorial, which looks a little higher grade for my young ecologists!!! And the Norrdhoek Worm Farm has a great FAQ on their website, packed with useful tips and information.

Happy Farming!!!

I have to post this post out before it is next week… but I keep finding nice things to link!!!

1. Supposing you own a kindle, then: Did you know? That you can get Free books from Amazon… and the list changes almost daily so I “buy” them when I see something I like. The books in the right hand column are all free and the list keeps on changing. I subscribe to this feed and our kindle is packed with books that I am just reading away – lovely!!!
2. I just love and adore the long threads Etsy finds Friday… every time!!! Just look at her Quick Crafty Round Up!!!
3. So Your Kid Wants to be a Writer, on Redeemed Reader.com is a great post full of fabulous ideas for kids writing!!!
4. I like New Years Resolutions like these from the Puffin Blog…
5. I loved this post from Momcomm… The secret to a Gazillion Blog Post Ideas.
6. Oh I love blogging about food and I would love to take better photographs!!! This post from A Beautiful Mess Blog: Food Photography… is wonderful, full of tips!!!
7. Take a peak at Brit Mums Craft Round Up… Some lovely crafty bloggers up there… including Se7en!!! Fab Surprise!!!
8. Blogworld’s Post: 35 Brilliant Bloggers Talk About Pinterest, there is so much lovely stuff to read here that I am still reading it… Lovely, lovely, lovely!!!

And the Next Thing:


9. And I just love this Link-Up Pin It Friday on Five Minutes For Mom… Pin up your favorite pins of the week… pop over and see what my favorite pin is… Crafty Fun!!!

That’s Us – Hope you all have a fabulous fun week!!!

So Lilla A cried out for treasure ships and we had to comply… with a fleet!!!

If we could fit this post into a bottle we would and we would send it off to Lilla A…

We started with a map… because to find treasure you need a map… A boring old snoring old map…

We chopped it up…

And hauled out all the art materials we needed…

And got to work…

Creating our corners of the map…

And now we had a fair idea of where we were going…

With lots of details…

And we were ready to set sail…

I went to sea and I took with me:

Hood #1: My hat

Hood #2: My iphone (dreamer!!!)

Hood #3: Chocolate

Hood #4: My tuxedo

Hood #5: My Kitchen Aid Mixer

Hood #6: My Peg Leg

Hood #7: My Paper Dolls

Hood #8: Me dog.

All we needed were some ships… So we flattened some juice boxes…

And cut along the dotted line…

Then painted away…

Then we went looking for collage treasures to glue on…

And decorate our vessels…

And glued some fabric onto paper to make sails…

And poked a skewer through them and used plasticine to pop them into the boats.

And our fleet was ready to sail… in search of treasure…

I thought I would find me some treasure, but instead I found…

Hood #1: A rake

Hood #2: A parrot

Hood #3: Some old boots

Hood #4: A rotting oar

Hood #5: Cable ties

Hood #6: An ancient chocolate bar

Hood #7: An old boogie board

Hood #8: Me dog.

We sailed far and wide and eventually home to Cape Town…

Hood #1: The Blue Trireme is sailing home from Timbuktu carrying 3000 pounds of antique buttons for my collection.

Hood #2: The Blistering Barnacle sailed home from Rotostrophi the ship was laden with gold bullion for all the homeless kids.

Hood #3: The ship, The Camouflage, has sailed home from Venezuela packed with Indian spices for the king.

Hood #4: The Black King sailed from New Zealand, carrying pearls home for my mother.

Hood #5: My ship, the Buon Appetito, came home from Hawaii laden with pizzas for all our citizens.

Hood #6: The ship, The Slithery, sailed home from the Island of Tarn, laden with boxes of treasure for my friend.

Hood #7: The Mouse is sailing home from deepest Africa, carrying necklaces for all the girls on the boat!!!

Hood #8: Me ship is called: Me Dog… and it is carrying biscuits from faraway for Me Dog.

We thought we would be home for Christmas but…

Hood #1: My parrot got sick

Hood #2: My ship sank

Hood #3: I lost my choclate

Hood #4: I fell ill

Hood #5: I burnt the porridge

Hood #6: I broke my leg

Hood #7: I had a sleep

Hood #8: I lost me dog

Thanks Lilla A for a fabulous Project and can’t wait to see your Exhibition!!!

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend exploring far and wide!!!

I have been thinking about a homeschool series for the longest time, where I write about what we do for each subject, little by little through each day and in and out of the weeks of our school year. And then I was surprised to discover that apart from map work and timelines and mental math… one of the things our readers really want to know is how to get all that reading aloud done… So that’s where I am going to start…

For me to get anything done there really needs to be a purpose… and really reading to my kids is something I want to do not just because we homeschool, not just to tick the box on the curriculum sheet and not just because it gives our kids a cultural heritage. Books, stories, sagas, myths and legends are something that can be part of our memories. Memories of mine can become memories of theirs as we share the same couch or the same spot to go on a reading adventure together. Reading aloud together is a mingling of minds and something I really want to do with the people I love the most. That being said, you can see why above all things… a lot of reading out loud gets done on our house!!!

Reading together isn’t something we do over the period of a week – it is something we do throughout everyday. We call it school because it is the basis of our school plan but if we schooled at home or not reading would take up a huge chunk of our family time together. I have to say school reading is the one thing we do even on a bare-minimum day. We may miss out on Math workbooks and sometimes we miss out on writing in our journals – but we never miss out on reading together.

To put this post together I started writing a list of what we read, and when we read it, through the day – and honestly it was dead snoring boring… we read all day everyday – it’s like we do nothing else!!! So instead of giving you a schedule, which is always changing anyway, I thought I would give you a couple of “getting all the school reading done” tips:

1. Read in Chunks:

Little Chunks of reading throughout the day makes it seem less of a marathon and more of a journey. The difference between one and many students is that with one student I just had a pile of books that we read through together each day – it took about twenty minutes to do all the school reading. It is a little different when you have a whole heap of students. Also, now that we are more than a couple of years down the line with homeschooling the divide between reading for school and reading for fun has simply disappeared. We no longer have a monstrous pile of school reading to get through in a day – but rather different books we read at different times of day.


2. A Time and a Place:

We read all over the show. Wherever we read a certain topic, I leave the current book there… the routine of our day takes us from the table, to the couch, outdoors and so on… wherever we will be for a reading session, so will the relevant book be. My kids expect our Bible study reading at the breakfast table, there Chapter book with lunch outdoors and so on. We don’t live in a minefield of books – tripping over ten at every turn. But books in their place makes it easy to say – grab the poetry books and lets head for the jungle gym.


3. Be Generous with your Reading Time:

One day when you are reading with a purpose take a peak at how long it really takes to read a chapter of a book or a picture book… it isn’t long at all!!! On a given day I don’t spend more than about two hours reading to my kids and spread over the day in fifteen to twenty minute sessions it really isn’t that much time. I have always had a strict policy that reading is a place where I won’t ever be negative: No taking away books because math worksheets weren’t done or no dropping of bedtime stories because of some “bad behavior”. Reading is a positive space in our home and I think it is that attitude that I am always open to a quick story that helps my kids know that reading is a part of life rather than a grand candlelit event at the end of the day – that we may or may not have time for depending on good or bad behavior!!! Not that there is anything wrong with grand candlelit events – I am all for them… but they are the exception rather than the rule around here.


4. Lingering Meals:

It makes sense that family meals become family reading sessions. Seriously, catch their attention here and you are a winner… My little guys can take forever to eat, my older guys want to eat and dash… I want them to stay and wait until everyone is done. So this is when we read our chapter books, our great classic family read-alouds… little people are busy and older kids are content and concentrating. I can usually fit in a couple of chapters between finishing myself and the slowest eater finishing. Does everyone sit with rapt attention hanging on every wor? Not always. Do some books go over the heads of some of the listeners? Oh yes!!! Do even the little people remember whole sections from great classics? Oh yes!!! And will they hear the same stories read and re-read over time? To be sure.


5. Stagger Your Students Slightly:

Not all reading is created for lying around and enjoying the story… some of it requires a little work!!! When we are reading multiple kids history and science together it pays to have one busy while you read to the other. I usually get going with whoever arrives at the school table first… read their work and then set them up with a little bit of work in their journal… a map, a picture, a sentence or two. Then I read to the next child while the first child finishes up in their journal… and repeat until the science and history readings are done for the day. Remember that the history and science reading in the early years are really a double page spread of a fabulous Usborne book or a chapter in a great biography… Honestly it doesn’t take long to read them. My older kids to their own history and science reading but all at the same table so that we can chat about it and talk about what is going into their journals at the table together.


6. Check up on Students Who Read Independently: I know your students are perfect and would never miss out on a school assigned reader… but mine will, no matter how brilliant the book is, and this is a mistake I made early on and never made again after I discovered that a child was weeks behind in more than one subject!!! The honest mistakes of a home-schooling mum!!! This is important, I will say it again: You really need to check that their school reading is getting done and that they aren’t whizzing through a brilliant previously undiscovered series from the library instead. Trust me you need to check!!! One of my students is a natural regurgitator of facts… they literally spill out. Another you have to ask very specific questions – vague questions reveal vague answers you have to ask: “What was Henry the VIII’s third wife’s name?” And my other independent reader I have to gently pry the knowledge out and check if the facts are actually straight, because they aren’t always and a lot of creative meandering can go into any of those readings!!!
   

7. We make good use of the library:

My older kids usually read ANY and ALL their books in a sitting and have no idea that you don’t read a book, any book straight through. A book before breakfast, a book after lunch and very often a book at bedtime means that we have to make good use of the library. There is a distinct advantage to having a number of kids – it means the library pile has so much more to offer!!! We take seventy books from the library each week: about a third are chapter books, the fatter the better, a third are picture books – little people need tons of stories too and about a third are fact books: places to visit, biographies and “things to do” types of books. Keeping track of the library books is a whole ‘nother post!!!



And the Se7en + 1th tip:

8. Lead by example:

I have failed at this this past year and my reading has slipped into “reading for review” books… somehow that seems like work and I must say it was becoming a chore. I wasn’t reading for pleasure I was reading for work… and everybody noticed!!! My kids have set me a series of challenges this year – that’s another whole post too – and one of them is reading. So after lunch everyday before I check my computer I have to spend half an hour reading a book for pleasure… very often it goes for much longer. Like my kids I can’t leave a book half read!!! Just lately my kids have been recommending mountains of books they would like me to try and I have really enjoyed some of them. They love to suggest a good book, especially if I enjoy it too. There comes a time when you are no-longer saying: you should try this book… there comes a time when it works both ways and now that we have arrived there I am very glad for it!!!

That’s it: Our family reading adventure is by no means over… I still have three readers that have hardly begun, but I can say we are so enjoying the journey. I don’t have to make reading a priority and I don’t have to settle everyone down to listen because “the mother person is going to read now”… It just happens as part of the rhythm of our day because it is something I really want to do with my kids… because we read all the time it clearly is a priority!!!

If you have any “School Reading Time” questions – then go ahead and ask away… I know some of you are thinking: What if we are scheduled a book we don’t like or what if the reading is too difficult or do I let my kids play while I read – there are hundreds of reading questions… this is the post to ask away and I will endeavor to ask them!!!

We haven’t had a birthday for a while and to tell you the truth I am kind of glad,
Our kids are growing up way too fast…

But the time has come for my little mouse to turn a fabulous four!!!

My wearer of hats…

My fairy in training… serious training…

My explorer of note…

My girl who will try almost anything in the name of science…

Who cannot resist a picnic…

Or a trick…

Or a hairdo for that matter…

And more hats to hide some of those self-inflicted hairdo’s!!!

To my swimmer…

My artist of note…

My girl who has made waiting an art form!!!

My inventor of games…

My believer in all things wonderful…

And my helper, long after others have gone inside…

Not to mention an avid reader of books!!!

Happy Brilliant Birthday… I can’t wait for another fun year with you!!!

Three was thrilling…

Two was tremendous…

One was Wonderful…

I can’t wait to see what four is going to be!!!