Ruminating On 2016

I sit here staring aimlessly at this blank screen and it's waiting, staring back at me. Anxiously waiting for my words to strike the keyboard, to run across the screen, to tell the story of my year.

Yet all I can do is sit and stare. Wonder how on earth I reflect on such a year. How does one do that? Look back and reflect on a year filled with so much loss, so much sadness, so much death, so much grief within me.

If I'm honest with myself I have been reflecting on this year every single day for the past four or so months but now that it comes time to actually write something, to put these reflections into words I'm at a loss. So I'll just let my fingers do the talking and see where it takes me.

I remember many years ago learning about pivotal moments in our lives. Those big times when things happen to us, times that change us. We are stretched, turned upside, poked and prodded and often wrung out to dry. Those moments, that when living through them, you wonder how you will ever come out the other side.

They're the pivotal moments, they're the ones that have made us who we are today. The moments of tremendous change, moments were we can never go back to the way we were before. Looking back this entire year has been one huge pivotal moment in time for my life. It will always remain that year that I was experiencing the 'worst year of my life'.

However now that I can sit here having come through the wringer and am out on the other side I can see glimpses of the positive that has come from this years experiences. Even the worst of them.

Don't get me wrong I am so utterly, deeply saddened with the loss that I've experienced this year but each day now does come a little easier. The fog is less thick, the tears are lighter. Although they still fall frequently, they are a more gentle, more peaceful release of grief that I know needs to flow for as long as it is inside me.

Thinking about my friend, my confidant, my homeschool partner in crime is still very painful. The participation of being there watching her little by little die before my eyes, and having absolutely zero control over any of it was an excruciating experience to say the least. Although one I was so honoured to be a part of. For quite some time during those moments in her last few months I was frantic, unknowingly at the time hoping that every little thing I did, every little thing I could control or at least tried to control would save her but in the end all I could do was surrender to the understanding that I had zero control over any of it.

None of us have any real control over the vast majority of things that happen to us and around us and yet we spend our lives as if we do.

The only thing we have control over is how we react to these situations, these completely out of control moments, where we feel the world and life itself is senseless.

And so as I reflect and search from the positives in the situation 'letting go of control' has to play the prominent role here.

Whilst I didn't write about my Father's sudden and unexpected passing that occurred the morning following my friends funeral, here on the blog, it literally turned my entire existence upside down. And in reality I'm still not in a place where I can articulate all that I am feeling from not only losing my dad, but losing him so suddenly and during a time that I was already experiencing so much grief.

I can only share the poem I wrote not long after he passed.

Grief

Punched in the face

Wound pouring with blood

Throbbing, writhing, pain

A machine spin cycle

Locked inside, no escape

Spinning, whirring, pain

Pounding waves

Flinging you from the cliff

Falling, screaming, pain

A raging giant

Angry at the world

Slamming, throwing, pain

Inferno’s heat

A never ending burning

Blistering, searing, pain

An unfathomable well

Crawling, but with no escape

Gloomy, weeping pain

No peace

No quiet

No stillness

Pain

Complicated overwhelming pain

That pretty much sums it all up and at times even four months on it is still where I am at. But that's ok, grief is a personal process with no timeline and no real ending. It is and always will be different for everyone.

Just three short months after the passing of my friend our family also lost my husbands Grandfather. To say that my children have experienced their fair share of life's blows this past year is an understatement. 

Three funerals for three people that they all loved and shared a great deal of time with, in the exact same funeral house within three months. They are certainly well and truly versed in the meaning of death, watching death, trying to cope with death and in the ins and outs of the events that occur following a death.

It's been tough for them but at the same time I do choose to see how resilient they are, how much they have all grown from the experiences of this year and the way in which they have handled themselves throughout all of this. Children certainly have this amazing ability to help us see that even through the darkest of times life really does go on. 

Life is a wonderful, precious gift and so many of us waste it. It is the rarest of gems and we must love it, we must nurture it and we must allow it flourish within us and in those that are around us.

I feel that I could and probably need to write more but I've been working on this post for over two weeks now and can never get through to the end without breaking down and so I'm going to finish this one off by saying that never in my life have I been happier for a new year to begin!!

See you on the other side! Wishing you all a very Happy New Year!

Kylie x

To see more 2016 year in review posts simply click on the image above.

Our Big History Project

We've decided to try our hand at The Big History Project with my son next year. He'll be completing his tenth grade and whilst we want to cover history, so far we are yet to find any one program that we have absolutely loved and have absolutely wanted to continue to work our way through.

I have begun working on the teacher training (9 hours in length) so that I am well prepared for the complexities of this course. So far I am extremely enthralled and can't wait to get started, but then I'm a history loving kinda gal! I am excited to know that we can make this as involved or as simple as we want to, but yet everything is still there for us, in an organised, well laid out fashion that is used daily by teachers all around the world.

Some of the points that have been raised in the teacher training so far are all of the reasons why I am drawn to using BHP next year and hopefully over the years to come.

Be sure to register for the school component of the program, so far what I can see it contains a great deal more than the the standard registration.

Big History Project utilises challenging texts, it is organised and highly structured and one of the key components of the program is to sharpen the students critical thinking skills. BHP includes claim testing activities which aim to teach students how to analyse claims and has a strong focus on evidence based writing.

The activities are many and varied and include research activities and project based activities. I think this would be a fabulous course to complete as part of a small group co-op, but we are already stretched quite thin with our current co-operative activities so we will be tackling this on our own.

So how is the Big History Project structured? This is a secular program and does begin way back with the big bang. The entire program is broken into what BHP calls thresholds, where each of these represents a moment in time where the universe got more complex. It is made up of 10 units covering 8 thresholds, with the thresholds comprising of:

1/. Big Bang
2/. Stars
3/. Elements
4/. Planets
5/. Life
6/. Collective Learning (humans)
7/. Agriculture
8/. Modern Revolution

All of the materials provided throughout the course are designed to be downloaded, thus allowing for flexibility, especially in cases where there may be none or limited internet access. So essentially I could head to the library, download what we are wanting and head home to use it without needing to access my internet.

Each unit also includes a guide, lesson plans and assessments, so what I am most intrigued by is that we can choose how we do this. We can work through it simply as is or decide on our own structure. That of course, we will not know until we actually delve into the program.

The other reason that I am most drawn to this is the interdisciplinary approach they have taken when creating the curriculum. The students will look at disciplines such as chemistry, biology, archaeology, anthropology, cosmology, economics and of course history. The Big History project will show them how these disciplines are all connected, unlike many other courses of study that are disjointed and the student often misses the point and doesn't see how it all fits together into one big picture.

Let's hope that Big History Project delivers what they set out to achieve.

Given that I have only just recently begun the teacher training I don't really have a solid plan as yet as to how we will tackle this program. My gut feeling is that if we are both engaged we will take longer than the course suggests of up to one year. That way we can add in documentaries, living books and our History Odyssey series we have here.

I hope to share more of how this goes for us throughout the year. But for the first time in a long while we are actually feeling some excitement about history!

Have you utilised the resources over at The Big History Project in your homeschool? Please let me know if you have, I'd love to hear from you.

Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie

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Introducing A New Reader

I sometimes get asked about readers and those children that are in their prime learning to read stage. One question that often arises is that of, 'how do I introduce a new reader to my child'. This is by no means intended to be the only way, it is simply what I have found that works for us here.

I am now onto our third and final child that is just about at the stage of reading early chapter books and my time as a homeschool mum introducing early readers to my kids will be over.

Step 1

So you have brand new beginning reader on your hands. Maybe they know all of their alphabet sounds and possibly can sound out a few simple words and so you feel it is time to make a start on introducing readers to your child.

"Readers are most often a set of books that children (and their reading mentors) utilise to work their way through the sounding out of simple words and letter combinations, slowly and systematically progressing them into more detailed texts."

Most readers at this stage will have a focus, it may be a short vowel sound in the middle of what is known as a CVC word (vowel consanant vowel). So could be something like 'dig' where the focus of the book is to practice words with the short vowel sound 'i'.

This step in the process is to introduce the new sound, in the lower level readers it is most always a single letter sound but will progress into letter combinations, such as blends, like ch, ck, sh and then onto longer combinations of letters that make a single sound.

For example here in this particular reader titled 'Mark and Mars' the new sound is made up of the letter combination 'ar'.

We will read the title together, talk about the sound combination and try and come up with some other words that might use that sound all before we even open the book.

Step 2

I read the story. Yes, I read it from cover to cover, not my child. Let's face it the whole point of introducing a reader like this to a child is because they don't know the new sounds that are going to be presented. If they could already read the words why would we bother even introducing the reader. However, because they don't know the sounds it can make for an anxiety driven time trying to focus on what they've recently learned in earlier readers, sounding out words that may be familiar to them and then also trying to add in the brand new sound in a series of words that they most likely have never come across before. Let's not forget that at the same time they are trying to read for comprehension. Put all of this together and many young children simply do not cope.

So together we cuddle on the couch and I read. That way we both to get to enjoy the story (the stories generally get better as the readers progress in levels), we get to know the story and we understand the premise behind the text. We will have a brief chat to check for comprehension at the end of the story.

Step 3

We go back through the story looking for the words that contain our new sound, which in this book is 'ar'. We spend time sounding out those words and saying them out loud to ensure we have the correct sounds coming out. This is often a time for lots of giggles, especially with letter/sound combinations that may be a little different.

That's basically all we do on the first days introduction of a new reader. We always have a couple of books that are at a lower reading level which we use to help build fluency and practice recently learned sounds. So now is the time the child reads those out loud.

Step 4

This step happens the following day. We remind ourselves of the story and the new sound that we are on the lookout for.

Then it's time to begin reading. As you can see from this particular reader we are at the stage of having several short sentences on each page. So that my new reader is not overwhelmed we take turns. Sentence by sentence. That way he can focus on what he needs to focus on, he hears me reading and modelling with every new sentence and he isn't overwhelmed with the length of each page and in turn the entire book. We continue in this turn taking fashion for the remainder of the book. Then it's time for fluency reading with some lower level readers.

Step 5

This step happens the next day. Step 5 in essence is exactly the same as step 4, however we swap. If I went first in step 4, then he goes first in step 5.

Step 6

Step 6 happens the following day. By now we are on our fourth day of reading with this new book so the story line and the new words are mostly becoming quite familiar. Sometimes this is a slower process depending on the particular sound combinations.

Here we read an entire page each, but still taking turns until we've come to the end of the book.

Step 7

Day five into our new reader. This particular step is when I need to assess how things are going with the book and the new sounds. If he has picked things up with relative ease today will be the day that he reads the entire reader out loud and it will then get added to the fluency pile. If it was a little tricky we will complete step 6 again, but swapping with who goes first, so we are reading different pages.

Depending on the book, the sounds that were introduced and the child we spend somewhere around a full week on a new reader. This can be easily shortened or lengthened in time depending on how much progress is being made.

Step 8

It's time to start all over again with a new reader. And really, it is as simple as that.

I am not a qualified reading instructor. I am simply a mum in her eleventh year of educating her kids at home and this is a process that, through trial and error, I have found, works for us.

If you are struggling with introducing new readers to your child, I encourage you to give something like this a try. Be sure to let me know please if it helps in anyway.

Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie

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On Saying Goodbye To A Very Dear Friend

So I’ve been somewhat absent for a time. In fact it appears as though I just fell off the face of the earth. Most of you know that I don’t normally share deeply personal aspects of my life here on the blog, except when I have had major life changing moments, like this one. 

For some reason when those moments strike I always feel compelled to write and so here I sit writing yet again.

These past few months have seen me walking yet another big life changing path, one that I never chose to walk, one that chose me.

Today was the final stage of an ordeal that I never wish upon anyone. Today, in front of all her family and friends I said goodbye forever to my homeschooling best friend.

We’ve been by each other’s side for close to ten years. I have never known homeschooling without her. She has been my partner in crime, my teacher buddy (my Miss T), my confidante, my counsellor, my book buddy and my late night chatting (texting) about rubbish tv and without a doubt one of the dearest most treasured friendships I have ever known.

Nine days ago my friend left her earthly body as it could no longer go on. The cancer inside her was simply far too big a beast for her to fight. But fight she did, for nearly three years she has done everything imaginable to beat it. This included leaving her family behind and heading to the other side of the world for treatment. Whilst all of these things gave her more time, they simply weren’t enough and in the end there was nothing anyone could do except ensure she was comfortable and well loved.

Everyone keeps saying what a beautiful service it was today and I have spent all afternoon trying to reflect on all that took place there today. However, the reality of the situation hit me hard sitting there this morning. Today I couldn’t go busy myself with a job that needed doing (I had no patient to care for, no hospital appointments to attend). Today I had to immerse myself in the fact that Miss T is simply not away on extended leave, she truly is not returning to us on this earth, ever again.

All of the beautiful words spoken and sung about my friend were all just a little too much for me to bear and it took every ounce of my being to not completely lose myself there today. Consequently I don’t really remember anything much about the service.

I wrote a poem, after she passed and I did stand to deliver it but even that is a blur and so I will write it down once more and send it out into the universe where I know that my dear Miss T can hear it.

When She Walked In

Today I weep

For my friend

I hold so dear.

For goodbye I must say

To our earthly friendship here.

She was taken from me

Far too soon, with much life left to live

Her years here so few

There was still so much she wanted to do

She was always there

Through thick and thin

My life became much brighter

When she walked in

Many a day we’ve spent together

Talking and laughing

No matter the weather

This past year

Has seen us shed many a tear

But by her side I vowed to stand

Always loving her, holding her hand

Whilst things today are pretty tough

And the future ahead looks a little rough

I know that when I look to the moon

We will always have each other in sight

And one day, in time

Everything really will be alright

So now the time comes for me to get on with my life, get back to normal, to find a new kind of normal, without my dear, dear friend.   

For I know her all too well enough that if she could visit me for even just a moment, the first thing she would say to me is to live, to live a life she would proud of, a life I am proud of. To go on and face each day with an open, joyous heart, making the best of all that I am blessed with and giving all of me to those that are a part of my world.

In all moments of our life there is the good and there is not so good, but even in the not so good moments there is always, absolutely always, something positive and valuable to take away from it. 

Miss T has been one of the few people in my life that has loved me unconditionally and that, no one can ever take from me. 

Love truly is what makes the world go round, love truly is at the centre of everything and to love unconditionally is an amazing gift to possess and one that I will continue to strive for day in and day out.

Until we meet again my beautiful friend, I will hold you in my heart and I will love you forever xxx

In saying all that I really don't know when I will get back to my blog. Right now I have very little desire to write about homeschooling, but I am sure, in time, when it feels right, I will jump back in.

Essentials Skills Advantage ~ Review

For the past few weeks my younger kids have been brushing up on their math, phonics and spelling skills using the online Complete Home Learning Suite from Essential Skills Advantage.

What Is Essential Skills Advantage

ESA is an online platform for children in grades K - 6. It houses more than 14,000 activities across the subject areas of English, Math, Science and Geography. ESA is a supplementary program rather than a full curriculum, making it suitable to sit alongside any curriculum products you may be using.

The ESA program has been developed by a team of experienced teachers with the aim of covering all of the 'essential skills' a child requires to succeed at their specific grade level.

The platform is bright, colourful and engaging but does not have any unnecessary distractions on the screen.

We have access to the Complete Home Learning Suite, which gives us the flexibility to choose from all of the subject areas across all of the grade levels. This is perfect for a child that may be a bit all over the place because they can work in grade 3 Math and then grade 2 English all at the same time.

How We Used The Program

With two children using the program we've been all over it so to speak. What I have loved the most is the ease in which we can choose the subject area or the grade and then jump between them.

We often found ourselves in three different grade levels all in one morning. My youngest loves looking at the reporting area and seeing the green bar rising, showing him how much he has completed in a certain area.

Whilst there are no lessons in the program as they assume prior learning it really is a simple way to practice spelling, phonics or even math facts.

Each level also has a story time component where the child reads the story out loud and then completes a series of comprehension activities all based on the story. Each story progresses in length and difficulty as you move through the grades.

The story component has been a great way to add in yet more read aloud time for my daughter, which she really needs right now. If a tricky word appears, in most cases she can click on the word and have it read aloud to her.

What We Didn't Like

Honestly I'm having a hard time coming up with something I don't like about the program. Once you realise that there are no lessons here only review work then it really is very easy to navigate and use.

On the odd occasion my kids have complained a little about some repetitiveness in the activities, but overall they are both more than happy to use this program.

The one area where I did notice something was that in the spelling activities. The program always lets you know the focus words and then the child proceeds to work on the activities, however the focus words always sit right up along the top of the screen. If the child clues into that they can easily just copy the words needed for their activities rather than having to try and remember them.

What We Did Like

This is a really simple program to navigate, there are no levels or lessons to complete before moving on. Once you click into a Subject and then the appropriate Grade Level you can see all of the activities available to you. From there you can easily choose what you would like to complete on any given day.

The flexibility of the program, the fact that it is purely review and that I can easily check in on the reporting area to see how the kids are going are all bonuses here.

Looking Ahead

Will we continue using the ESA program, absolutely we will for all of the reasons I have listed above.

Further Details

You can get started with Essential Skills Advantage for as little as 7.99USD a month. Visit the pricing page on their website for more details.

Want to know more, check out ESA across your favourite social media channels

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skillsadvantage/
Twitter:     https://twitter.com/SkillsAdvantage @SkillsAdvantage
Pinterest:  https://www.pinterest.com/SkillsAdvantage
Google +: https://plus.google.com/u/0/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/skillsadvantage
Blog:        http://buyesa.com/blog/

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I hope you found this review helpful. If you would like to see further reviews of the ESA program, from members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, please visit this link.


Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie

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Sunya Math Game ~ Review

To help my son get his addition facts mastered we've been playing Sunya The Magic and Wonder of Math and Science Adding & Subtracting from Sunya Publishing.

What is Sunya

Sunya (pronounced soonya) is a simple math concept game which aids children in learning their math addition and subtraction facts. It is intended for children aged 7 years and up.

We all know that everything seems easier when it comes in game form and this is a fine example of that.

How We Used The Game

There are two variations to the game we received to review. It can be played with a focus on addition facts or with a focus on subtraction facts, we alternated between the two during our time reviewing the product as my son is right in the midst of learning these.

There are also a couple of different levels in which you can play the game but given my son is on the youngest end of the recommended age scale we have chosen to stay with the most basic form of the game. Which for now has been more than enough for him.

To play the game it is as simple as building a number sentence on the table, dealing the cards to each player and in turn they need to try and create a new number sentence using their cards and the ones that are already on the table.

It's a simple concept, but one that gets the brain working. The deck also includes 'wild' cards and it is somewhat similar in nature to the game 'uno'.

Once we were familiar with how to play the kids could easily play the game together. This was a great way to end our school time each day, with a few rounds of Sunya!

The deck also includes fun little science themed fact and riddle cards that the kids got a kick of.

What We Didn't Like

The instructions for this game really make it way more confusing than it actually is. I'm still not quite sure why a simple card game needs a booklet to detail all of the instructions. Once we realised how simple it was we were off and running, but I do feel that instruction booklet could really do with some reworking.

What We Did Like

The simplicity and the fact that this is a simple game really won us over. As I said earlier it was so easy to include a few rounds at the end of our school day.

Sunya Publishing is still in its infancy and in fact the game is not yet available to the public. We were very lucky to receive an advanced copy. I recommend keeping an eye on their website so you know when it is released.

Details

Visit the Sunya website for more information.

I hope you have found this review helpful. If you would like to see further reviews covering the Sunya Game, from members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, please visit this link.

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Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie

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Science Shepherd - Review

My daughter has been brushing up on so many science topics with her new Introductory Science program from Science Shepherd.

What is Science Shepherd

The Science Shepherd courses have been developed by a homeschooling dad, that also holds a degree in Bachelor of Science and a Medical degree. He saw an increased need for science offerings for homeschooling high schoolers and has since branched out to produce product ranges for younger students as well.

How We Used The Program

We were provided with a complete copy of Introductory Science Level B, which includes a student workbook, an answer key and twelve months access to the online video tutorials.

This is absolutely an open and go program. I simply love the simplicity and ease of use for both my daughter and myself.

Once our books arrived, we simply logged in using the details provided to us from Science Shepherd via email. Chose our course level from our account and began watching the first videos.

Each video lesson is exactly matched to the workbook pages. This part of the program has been so well thought out. It is so clear to both the adult and the child where you are and what video you need to be watching.

The lessons are broken down into weeks, with the vast majority of weeks having 5 lessons. My daughter is 11 and is at the upper end of the age range for this particular product and it literally took her minutes to complete a lesson.

The videos are short and succinct and correspond perfectly to the student work book pages.

The student workbooks are laid out in a simple, no fuss fashion. There are no bells and whistles, no bright colours, nothing to distract.

The vast majority of the workbook pages are simple question and answer type pages, with a few puzzle activities included here and there.

There are some simple hands on activities/experiments but not too many that the program becomes overwhelming. Every now and then you need to be prepared with a handful of items to complete the hands on component.

This particular level - Introductory Science B - covers all manner of scientific topics. It aims to provide the student with a good overview. It starts out with Science Skills & Tools, moves into Earth Science topics, followed by Life Science topics and then finally wraps up with Physical Science.

It provides lessons for 35 weeks of science instruction. So a full year of science for the upper primary aged child.

What We Didn't Like

This program is unashamedly Christian and is written from that perspective. I knew this going in to the review but there are so many wonderful Christian programs that can be easily tweaked for Secular Home Educators that I really wanted to give this one a try.

As close as I can tell, as we aren't finished the program yet and won't be until closer to the end of the year, there are 40 lessons out of the total 170 lessons that contain religious content.

So if you are strictly a Secular Home Educator then this program most likely will not work for you. However if you are flexible, looking for a simple, open and go program than I would still recommend you take a look at this.

We discuss world views here a lot and I did discuss this program openly with my daughter before having her try it out. The entire first week covers creation, but after that we were simply able to skip over anything that we felt we needed to.

Whilst the videos are very short, only a couple of minutes each, at times they can be a little on the dry side. The presenter appears as though he is a news broadcaster delivering the nightly news. They are well prepared and edited, but I think we have been spoiled with all of our over the top fun video presenters that we use for other programs in our homeschool.

My daughter was more than capable of watching each and every video, but I did feel that my younger son, may have gotten bored quite quickly with the program.

What We Did Like

Hands down the ease of use is an absolute winner here. There really is no excuse to not include science in your week, Science Shepherd understands the busyness of our days and what we need to make things simple.

My daughter easily understood what was required of her and she completed the vast majority of her work independently.

For me I don't have to spend hours planning and prepping, we simply open the next page in the book and pick up where we left off. So far for all of the hands on activities we've been able to find the items needed right here at home.

I do also really like that in one full year the student covers all of the major science topics and gives them a good grounding to be able move forward with their science understanding in the years to come.

Looking Ahead

We will absolutely complete this course, for all of the reasons I have just mentioned above.

Pricing & Details

The great thing about the Introductory Science course is the price. Access to the video components for a full 12 months is $35.00, the student workbook level B is priced at $15.00 and the answer key $3.00. (all pricing is in USD)

To see all of the courses on offer visit the Science Shepherd website and navigate to the courses tab across the top of the screen.

You can also catch them on social media:

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/ScienceShepherd/
Twitter    -  https://twitter.com/scienceshepherd
Pinterest - ​ https://www.pinterest.com/scienceshepherd

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I hope you have found this review helpful. If you would like to see further reviews covering the Science Shepherd Courses, from members of the Schoolhouse Review Crew, please visit this link.

Happy Homeschooling,
Kylie

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