Planning planning planning

Been a while for sure.

Thought I'd touch base again as we are coming into the new year of learning.

Thought I'd give an update since July 2013.
 We continued to struggle through our learning...when I say struggle I mean finding our way...it does take a while to get into the groove of how your family works best...I could show you lots of things, exciting wonderful things, that we did...also lots of great work...but I won't....

What I will do is start from this point...and hopefully pop into this blog some useful info, links and ideas, and what the kids get up to.

I have spent a few weeks last year, just before Christmas, planning for 2014. I planned it all, then at the beginning of this year found a whole heap of wonderful resources, so of course I changed our programme, as you do, to make it more hands on for the kids.

I must admit, I am very excited about this year.

My goal is to have a peaceful year of learning...peaceful and beautiful.

I have read a bit about Steiner education, and although I am not totally following it I really can relate to many of the ideas in it.

So, this year will involve lots of beautiful artworks, drawings and really making beautiful folders of work...something that the kids didn't do much of last year, we'll the artwork they did, but not the bookwork.

Term 1 will consist of a study of the world wars...much of our work will be related to them. For English we are studying The Book Thief....reading it, and seeing the movie and studying the world wars for History, in particular Australia's involvement in the wars.

I'll go further in depth and show you some of the resources we are using for all the subjects as they arrive.

For maths we are using excel revision text books, along with khan academy...the kids love Khan so we will go with that for a while.

Science was going to be purely text books...but science is one subject that we seemed to do in spits and spats so I purchased a curriculum with gorgeous books and a couple of great kits. Can't wait until that one arrives.

Music will involve a great composers unit study, plus ukulele with a home schooling group...which is loads of fun.

Visual arts will involve a study of the great artists, using a great online unit of work, plus a variety of fun activities for the kids...term one will involve a stop motion movie....looking forward to that one.

Technology is going to be covered by building veggie patches, designing toys and using digital programmes, cooking, sewing and designing something to make their school area more pleasant.

PDHPE happens naturally when you home educate, but the kids will also be doing a parkour lesson each week at the local YMCA. They love it.

LOTE is going to be Auslan this year, not a traditionally accepted language but in our world a very important one. We have a lesson and use apps for that.

Pretty sure all is covered now.

What I will do in coming days is go into each one in detail, listing resources, which I can't wait to get!!!

Our learning room....

Our bench in the learning area...

That's it for now.
Until next time
Take care
Mandy