Have Yourself A Radiant Homeschooling Year

As the year comes to an end most of us are moving our thoughts to next year.

Wondering what it will bring, where it will take us and our children.

Will the year ahead provide an abundance of learning opportunities that we embrace with open arms

or will it be a year of stagnation?

During 2016 I will enter my 10th year of educating my children at home. Ten years, did I even just say that Oh M Gee!

We've had so many wonderful, amazing experiences and opportunities during that time. I know how blessed we truly are and I am thankful for that every single day.

There have however also been times of stagnation, times of darkness, times where everything seems as though it is just all too hard and truly regular school would be a good option.

Thankfully we've made it through those times relatively unscathed and have lived to tell the tale. But there is one thing I have learned through all of the ups and downs and that is the importance of taking care of me.

It needs to be number one on my list, oh yes it does. Without that I am simply unable to serve my family and those around me. If my cup is empty then I cannot possibly be a filler of someone else's cup.

I've met a lot of amazing people in our journey over the past years also, some have become my best friends in the entire world, some are friendships that have moved on, some are acquaintances that we mingle with here and there and others are newer friendships that we are building and growing slowly. Whilst others are purely online interactions.

However the one common thread I see through all of these amazing women, is that of wanting to provide the best possible education and home life for their children. Let's face it we all want that for our family!

But at what cost?

Are we running ourselves into the ground to provide this for our children? Are we here sitting silently suffering depression to provide this for our children? Do we battle with ourselves every day to provide this for our children?

I fear that for many of us we do. I hear it in your whispers when we chat. I see it in your eyes  and I can feel it in your hearts. Anyone that knows me personally knows that I am a pretty open person. I am more than happy to chat candidly about our experiences with educating at home. I'm O.K with being vulnerable and for people to see the real me.

In return for my vulnerability I offer a safe place for stories to be shared and told. I am always amazed at the truly generous blessing that I receive again and again of homeschool mums opening up and sharing their stories with me. I don't take that lightly. It is an honor I know.

With each conversation I feel more and more strongly that we need to find more ways to be filling our cups. To be truly connecting with each other in open and honest communications.

I have tossed around so many ideas over the past couple of years on ways in which I can assist in this in some way, my heart continues to pull me into places of service to the community; whilst being aware that whatever it is I am contributing that it isn't emptying my own cup in the process. It's kind of like walking a tightrope at times.

Just a couple of weeks ago I had the thought that not only should I be making plans for the home educating year ahead but that I should also take some time to reflect on the year that has passed.

I am sure that the vast majority of us do this and we do it regularly but how many of us carve out some time purely for reflecting on where we are at with this whole educating our kids at home thing?

So I have put together a little self reflection journal of sorts to help me to truly focus and to get the best out of my reflection time.

The journal is thirty pages long and I would love to share it with you if you think it may be something you would benefit from.

The early pages of the journal are a time for reflecting. It may take more than one attempt to complete these pages, just take your time with them.

Then we move on to forward planning with just a little bit of dreaming thrown for good measure.

As we progress through the journal we come to pages where we can work on things that are really important to us and our home school.

Finally the journal wraps up with goal setting and monthly reflection pages to ensure all of the glorious hard work you did in the early pages of the journal doesn't go to waste.

Get Your FREE Copy!

This is my FREE Gift to you. My wish is that as many home educating mumma's have to access to this as possible so please send any friends you can think of that may benefit from this over here to the blog so they can grab a copy too. All you need to do for your copy is to register for our Newsletter.

We will never spam you and send you truckloads of emails. We will always keep your email address private.

Once you have subscribed and confirmed your subscription you will receive a final email with the download link. Subscribe now for your copy of My Radiant Home Educating Year by clicking here.

Happy Home Educating,
Kylie

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15 Christmas Activities ~ Week 3 Link Up

For the weekly Christmas Fun post this week I thought I would round up a portion of the crafts, activities and printables that I have here on the blog.

It's been so much looking back over the years, seeing how tee kids have grown.

A few years back we dug out the dried pasta, gold spray paint and a few old decorations to put together this little Pasta Christmas Wreath Craft.

This was super fun and we still have them in our box of decorations that gets pulled out every year. To see how we put the Pasta Christmas Wreaths together visit this link.

We all love having photo's of our kids around at Christmas and with these we wanted them specifically for the tree. So little Christmas Tree Photo Frames were the order of the day.

Simple to put together and each year we revisit the memories these photo's invoke. To see how we put together the Hanging Christmas Tree Photo Frames visit this link.

These printable Montessori inspired vocabulary cards are great for younger kids to aid in learning Christmas vocabulary and also to help with spelling. This set includes 16 different cards.

You can download them here.

One year when the kids were attending a large gathering of home educated children they put together this delightful Calico Christmas Angel Craft. To see how they made her visit this link.

 
How about a fun edible craft, making mini Christmas Houses. We chose these over a larger group project that particular year.

This was just as fun and the best part, every one could do their own thing with their decorations. To see how we put together our Mini Christmas Gingerbread House visit this link.

Oh when I saw this post for these Candy Cane Reindeer it truly brought a smile to my face. Aren't they cutest most adorable little things you've seen.

To see how these are put together visit this link.

If you have little ones learning to count to 20 then this Christmas themed number sequence printable might just come in handy.

Download from here.

And whilst we're on the topic of reindeer a few little Christmas Peg Reindeer would rather cute on the tree don't you think?

To check out how to make these babies visit this post.

Have you ever put together a Pom Pom Christmas Tree Garland? Seriously this has got to be the most simple of all the crafts and if you choose the lovely sparkly pom poms they catch the light and look super pretty on the tree.

To see how we made out visit this post.

If your kids enjoy writing Letters To Santa you can find a few simple variations on this printable over here.

Do you have a pile of old magazines laying around the home? How about a spot of paper folding which will end in this rather cool looking Christmas Tree.

See how to make it here.

Learning carols this year? Looking for something to have available for guests at your Christmas gatherings when it's time to gather and sing?

Print off these Christmas carols here

There's surprisingly quite a lot you can do with the humble pine cone. Check out some of the creations we've done in the past at this link.

Colouring and stamping all in one activity. Grab these to print off here.

Younger children love a bit of detective work and these Christmas matchup cards are perfect for that. First they explore the close up image and wonder what it might be, then they proceed to match it to the image which shows the full photograph.

Download these here.

Your Turn

What Christmas fun activities have you had this week?

Be sure to share them in the link up below.

Have you grabbed a button to help spread the word about the Christmas Fun link up? You can do that here in the introductory post.

Did you miss week one of the link up? Go check that out and all of the fun links here. Week 2 of the link up can be found here.

Be sure to join in and follow along with Christmas Fun on Instagram with the hashtag #homeschoolchristmasfun


Want More Christmas Ideas?


If you are still on the lookout for even more ideas then be sure to visit my Christmas Pinterest Board, which now has over 400 Christmas related pins and is growing daily.

Follow Our Worldwide Classroom's board Seasonal: Christmas on Pinterest.

This Week's Feature

These torn paper Nutcrackers are simply delightful. Love it! Thank you so much for linking up to Christmas Fun 3 Giggle Girls At Home.

Add Your Links

I would love for you to link up your Christmas posts, both past and present. All family friendly Christmas posts welcome.

When linking up please choose another link or two to visit and comment on. Please also include the Christmas Fun Button in your blog post and/or your blog sidebar.

By linking up you give permission for me to pin your post to my Homeschool Christmas Fun Pinterest Group Board. If you would like to join our group board please let me know, we'd love to you have there.

You also give permission for me to feature your post in future Christmas Fun posts here on Our Worldwide Classroom.

Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie

9th Grade Homeschool Curriculum Choices 2016

Today I wanted to share with you what we have chosen to use as our base curriculum and resources for my 14 year old who is entering his 9th grade year.

I couldn't possibly fit pictures of everything into the collage image so please be sure to read through the full post for all of the details.

I must point out though that we DO NOT USE STANDARD GRADES in our homeschool. We simply meet each child where they are at and do the next thing. So please be aware that not everything on the list below is actually aimed at a 9th grader according to standard levels.

So without further ado here they are.

Morning Basket:

Family Read Alouds
Quick Daily Math

Math:
M.U. S Finish off Pre Algebra & Honors, then move to M.U.S Algebra I,
Khan Academy or Maths Is Fun as a supplement when needed or wanted
L.O.F Decimals & Percents (he is working on LOF work already covered in MUS but likes to use this as a review and a different way of working with already learned material)

Vocabulary:
Word Up by Compass Classroom
Supplemented with:
Vocab app by Mind Snacks
Interactive Vocabulary Notebook

Grammar:
I.E.W Fix It
Cover Story Writing Grammar Lessons

Writing:
Cover Story

Spelling:
Spelling You See

Literature:
Reed Novel Studies exact titles still to be chosen, These cover a wide range of language arts skills.

Science:
The Story of Science, Joy Hakim with workbook
Plus any units with co-op

History: Earlier this year we weren't sent a copy of Renaissance & Reformation from Homeschool In The Woods to complete and subsequently share our thoughts with you all. However, life simply got in the way this year and it just never happened. We did make a start and once we had everything planned out we seemed to enjoy the unit so I'm looking forward to moving forward this.

Geography: I've had the Visits To Series on my radar for a couple of years now. I like that it can be worked on independently, and that it covers mapping and the more cultural aspects of geography. So I figured this year was as good as any for us to give it a go. We are yet to decide on the exact book to start with but I'll leave that up to him.

He will continue to read through The Adventurous Mailbox books we have here.

We are also taking a family holiday to New Zealand in early 2016 which will provide many opportunities to delve deeper into all aspects of geography.

Art:
Artistic Pursuits
Classes with an Art teacher

Technology & Design
Safe Internet use
Mavis Beacon Typing Tutor
Robotics with a tutor
We are looking at Film Making and/or Photography with a tutor
Self Guided Exploration of Google Sketch Up

Health& PE:
Cooking & Home EC Skills
Body Awareness
Bike riding
Running around with friends
Swimming
Boogie Boarding
Bowling
Sailing
First Aid practice with SES Cadets
Just generally being as active as possible
Horse Riding during the winter months

Micro-School Learning

Once or twice a week, four times a year we meet with what I have coined our micro-school because in reality that is what it is. We only plan term by term but so far he will be completing a Science Unit (exact topic to be decided), continuing to work through Cover Story Writing and they will continue to work on their Artistic Pursuits program together.

Co-op Learning

Once a week in six week blocks, four times a year we will meet with our co-op group. This is a little more relaxed and we have a larger number of families that participate in this group, plus the families are fluid with not all of them coming along all year. Again we tend to only plan per term and so far we have scheduled Art classes, robotics and a book club for the high school group.

Other Extra Curricular Activities

Once again this year he will immerse himself with the Emergency Services Cadets program and Drama classes at the local theatre. He absolutely loves both of these and has gained so much from them, they are a very important part of his week.

He also plans to partake in various forms of work experience this year, and has just begun exploring the options of gaining part time employment, but we still need to do more research on both of those.

I can really feel the clock ticking for me, in just a few years the home ed journey with this guy will all be over. I am beginning to experience the gamut of emotions and at times all of them all at once LOL!!

I'll be sharing our choices for my other children over the coming weeks, be sure to keep an eye out for those posts.

Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie