Author: AussieHomeschool

Encouraging Creativity

Encouraging Creativity

Posted by | Jan 15, 2010 | , |

by Maribeth Spangenberg I admire the person who can visualize a concept in their head and then transfer it unto a blank sheet of paper. The woman who is able to mentally match swatches of colored material and turn it into a beautifully, decorated room has my greatest compliments. However, considering that I have lived in my present home for ten years and I still sleep in a white walled bedroom, shows my limitations in this area. But as much as I lack in artistic ability, I have come to realize that creativity has many forms. It includes the...

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8 Ways to Sabotage Your Homeschool

8 Ways to Sabotage Your Homeschool

Posted by | Oct 8, 2009 | , |

The power of a successful homeschool journey cannot be over emphasized. Every parent who home schools wants to enjoy the adventure, grow close to their children and have well rounded children at the end of it. But moms hold the power to sabotage their own homeschools and often they do not even know they are doing it. Here are some warnings (and remedies) for homeschooling parents so that you are do not become one of them. Warning #1 – You have no systems in place How do you know this is happening? You cannot find your school books, the...

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In Search of the Perfect Curriculum

In Search of the Perfect Curriculum

Posted by | Sep 20, 2009 | , , |

By Diana Waring Premise: If the right curriculum can be found, it will perform the magic – the abra-cadabra – to transform a student from ignorant to educated all by itself. As an experienced homeschool mom, speaker and curriculum writer, I’ve noticed that many believe this and seek earnestly for the genie, or the wand, or the catalog. And, lest you think I’m loftily looking down my nose, let me add that I was one of them. In the early days of homeschooling, I was convinced that there truly existed a perfect curriculum, and spent years on a quest,...

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Demystifying Education (the ABC’s of Real Learning)

Demystifying Education (the ABC’s of Real Learning)

Posted by | Sep 20, 2009 | , , , |

Demystifying Education Or, the ABC’s of Real Learning By Diana Waring When I started on the path of homeschooling twenty-five years ago, teaching a child to read (or anything else for that matter) seemed like a terrifying, somewhat unnatural activity for a parent without a degree in education. I took up teaching when it was a time when the career opportunities as a CMA were bleak. So, naturally, I clung like a drowning rat to any floating book, curriculum, or homeschool wives’ tale that came my way—anything that looked like it might support me in the mysterious realm of...

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Meet Patrice

Posted by | Sep 9, 2009 | |

  You know, I’ve been blogging for a while now and I have gotten to know some of you pretty well. So I think it is time you got to meet some of the people in my head. Meet Patrice. Patrice looks perfect. She is usually dressed in a twinset, complete with pearls. She has horn rimmed glasses that have certainly NEVER been knocked from her face in ANY context – let alone by an over tired, tantruming, child. Her hair is always perfectly coiffed in a french twist and her nails impeccably polished and manicured. Her face is usually set in a demure, unassuming smile with her ruby red lips taking a slightly – predatory look – if she is perturbed. Her speech flows in dulcet tones, becoming slightly clipped if she is strenuously making a point, but never loosing their honeyed sheen. She some how gives the impression of being quite tall although I am sure she is not a bit over three inches tall. She can’t be, she lives in my head after all. Her purpose, so she tells me, is to bring reason and practicality to my choices. I have my doubts, but that is what she tells me. She appeared yesterday. The house was quiet, I was playing with the babies and drinking in every bit of them in a way I seldom can...

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TooManyFlowers in Manila

Posted by | Sep 2, 2009 | |

Thought some of you might like to know of the updates as Cathy (Toomanyflowers) posts on her blog. If you remember, her hubby, herself and the children have gone to Manila! Sept 1st: toomanyflowers.aussiehomeschoolblog.com/archives/1098 Sept 1st: toomanyflowers.aussiehomeschoolblog.com/archives/1103 These are the two posts she has written since her arrival in Manila! I know that she would love to receive any comments from you. If you don’t know what they are doing there: toomanyflowers.aussiehomeschoolblog.com/archives/961...

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Australian Book Traveller: New Social Studies Essential Resource!

Posted by | Aug 12, 2009 | , |

AussieHomeschoolers…are you ready? Do you have children aged between 5 and 13 years? Do you love literature? Want to teach Australian Social Studies? Want a resource that also teaches you how to teach in a gentle but thorough way? Then look no further than Down Under Literature’s newest resource, Australian Book Traveller! Inspired by Five In A Row, Michelle has put together an affordable, literature based unit study for Australian Social Studies. You are the travel guide. The books are the transport. The children are the tourists. The journey is ahead! Included is an Australia Traveller’s Map Journal (extra maps are available for only $5) Map Markers The Australian Book Travellers Travel Guide EBook (on CD) The Australian History Notebook ebook (on CD) and An Australian Timeline Notebook Pages Not included but necessary as the main reference resource is Our Sunburnt Country and the Australian Picture Books. However, these books make a fantastic addition to any family library so it is well worth the money. They’re also available from DownUnderLiterature. You can use this resource with one child or with many. Whilst the core travel books are aimed at children aged 5-9 I know of many older children (and adults) who absolutely love good picture books. Teaching opportunities abound when using picture books! there are even Extension Activities for the slightly older children who don’t want to miss out....

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Boys and Manners

Posted by | Jul 30, 2009 | , |

Douglas Wilson Boys have a need to be respected, but sometimes this need can be communicated in some strange ways. And because boys can gravitate toward such strange forms of communicating their boyhood, they may come to think that manners are for sissies. A very easy mistake for boys to make is that of thinking that masculinity consists of being rudely tough, or gross, or both. A ten-year-old boy can readily think that masculinity is displayed whenever he can make all the girls in his class go eewwwww. This is of course not the case, but we still have to qualify what we are saying.   There is a fine line here because there is a type of boy who is effeminate, and displays that effeminacy through being a “well-mannered” and mousy little boy. This arouses the disgust of the surrounding boys who, in a frenzy of metaphor-mixing, proceed to throw out the well-mannered baby with the mousy bathwater.   In addition, those adults who care the most about “manners” often do not understand masculinity either, and so they cannot help boys to make the distinction which they themselves blur. This means that a boy will view all attempts to “teach him manners” as simply an effort by the adult world to make him craven, which he does not want to do. He knows intuitively that a well-mannered boy...

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Hard Work

Posted by | Jul 30, 2009 | , |

by Douglas Wilson Boys, taking one thing with another, tend to be lazy. This means that one of the central duties parents have with regard to their boys is the duty of teaching and instilling what used to be called a work ethic. “He that gathereth in summer is a wise son: but he that sleepeth in harvest is a son that causeth shame” (Prov. 10:5). The son who causes shame is one who causes shame to his parents. The shame is theirs because the responsibility to teach the lessons of work was theirs. Work is not a result of the fall of Adam, but work goes the difficult way it does because of the fall. Prior to the advent of sin in the world, Adam was given the task of tending the garden, and naming the animals. We were created for work. But when sin entered, God in His wisdom saw that thorns and thistles were now needed (Gen. 3:17-19). In His grace, God cursed the ground. Just as the law is a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, so is the sweat of the brow. Sinners don’t do well living on the Big Rock Candy Mountain.   And so this is why boys need to be taught and disciplined in physical labor. Of course it is not an end in itself-the point should always be grace-but in...

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Future Men by Douglas Wilson

Posted by | Jul 30, 2009 | , |

Volume 12, Issue 1: Childer Douglas Wilson As much as it may distress us, our boys are future men. I was once leading a seminar for teachers at our Christian school and, in the course of discussion, I mentioned that many of the girls in the school would, within a few short years, be adult women and would take their place in our midst. The teachers heard all this with aplomb, but when I went on to say that within a few short years the boys they were instructing would be lawyers, airline pilots, pastors, etc. the looks on the faces of the assembled teachers ranged from concern to mild panic. Boys take a lot of faith. This is good because the presence or absence of faith reveals whether or not we have a biblical doctrine of our future. Unbelief is always anchored to the present, while faith looks at that which is unseen. But even here we only get half the picture. Too often we think that faith only looks at unseen heavenly things, but this truncated approach is really the result of an incipient gnosticism. In the Bible, faith includes the ability to see that which is unseen because it is still future. According to the text, Abraham rejoiced to see the day of Christ, not the day when he, Abraham, would go to heaven. Faith conquers...

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