Saturday Spot: A Trip to Noordhoek Food Barn For A School Planning Meeting…

Seriously we can’t stay away from The FoodBarn, but it has been a while!!! We had to head over to Noordhoek for another fabulous Saturday Spot we have planned… It was cold and damp…

So we did a quick dash around the deli – oohing and aahing at the lovely products… because they do have the most splendid array of yummy goodies!!!

Had a long discussion about where we would keep that stunning cupboard in our house…

Admired the flowers…

Said “Hi” to old friends… we haven’t been for so long and yet everyone remembered us… (as I type this I am hoping that is a good thing!!!)

And found we had a bit of time on our hands… and time means coffee and a pastry. Doesn’t it?

While we waited for our chocolate croissants to warm up and I tended to my coffee…

Since I was armed with a coffee and I had all the kids scattered round the table… I could have left them to pull faces, but instead decided to have a spontaneous “What’s happened to school around here?” meeting.

We have had the summer off as usual and clearly the seasons have changed, but we don’t appear to be doing school. Appearances, as you all know can be quite deceptive!!! We have not been boxed yet this year – entirely my fault, I haven’t ordered our books yet… Our catalogue hasn’t arrived and I have been slow to get onto that and to request another one, ours may have got lost in the mail. That doesn’t mean we aren’t doing school… We are actually schooling better than ever. It just doesn’t feel like school to the scholars. Which is great and really what I would want to achieve…

We continued, somewhat, with our school rhythm throughout the summer, a little writing and a little arting, a little outdoors, heaps of reading and days packed with free time. So are we doing school? If school is ticking anything off a list and hours spent seated at around the table… then not so much!!! Are we learning? Oh yes!!! Normally we fizzle out at the end of our year and the last couple of pages of our math and grammar workbooks get omitted… well as I was clearing the bookshelves to prepare for our new books I started leaving a book or two out on the kitchen counter for each kidlet… and believe it or not they are getting done!!! Spontaneously!!!

I have to say – as usual, during the summer, my kids have learnt more than ever. But we are ready to move on and I will have to get my thinking cap on and plot and plan a few Sonlight purchases. It is definitely time to order new books… and everyone is dying to see what will be new in the box…

So to give myself some tips I asked them: “What they would like to do more of for school this year?”

1. More Family Challenges: They have loved exploring the mountain behind our house this summer and they want to do more of that – getting way outdoors, looking at nature close up and personal, exercising… I have some ideas for this one and I am training them to that end!!!
2. More Family Responsibilities: I know they want to work harder around the house, tackle the to do-list and get on with the gardening. I need to set them up to succeed in this area – really home is their training ground and it is time, especially for my older kids to start taking on many more household responsibilities.
3. More Family Research: They have loved the “random studies” we have done over the summer. Shakespeare, Great Artists, famous musicians, heaps of South African material from the library. There journals are packed with proof… they really want more of the same.
4. More Family Meals: A meal isn’t just sitting together and consuming… A meal is the whole process from scratch. They want to cook more meals together and master their skills… I should be letting them go more than I do… It isn’t enough to be able to make bread and pasta on demand anymore… They want to be told: Lasagna for dinner and be left to it. Or here are your ingredients make dinner!!!
5. More Family Friends: Shew!!! More folk coming over… more dinner guests, meeting more folk. We can probably manage that, it just requires a little planning to have an ever open door to guests.
6. More Family Trips: With eight kids this just isn’t always financially viable!!! Much as we love and adore traveling… They have settled for virtual trips, for now and we have armed ourselves with a couple of travel guides. Of course, we will be open minded and grab real opportunities when they arise.
7. More Family Projects: And they have some great crafty projects in mind… Not least they reckon they should all be able to sew. One of our first projects of the year will be to produce se7en + 1 pairs of shorts.

And the Se7en + 1th thing:

8. More Family Books Together: The common lament: So many books to read and so little time. We have been wading our way through the Classical classics this summer and I should have no voice for all the: “read-on, read ons” I have heard… but more they want and I am all for it!!!

There is a theme here… It totally blew me away and I wasn’t expecting it all!!! My kids are wanting to spend more time together!!! As they get older their interests naturally pull them in different directions. Even so, they all thought that school time should be together time!!! I am loving that, very reassuring that they are getting something so right!!!