Living in the Country...

We live in the country and we love it.  I am content with the peace and quiet here.  I believe it makes living a simple life easier.  I want to share one (of the many) things that I love about where we live.

We have a mobile library truck that comes to our local community twice a month.  It is so cool.  It is like having my own private librarian.  (They even ring me when they aren't going to make it for some reason).

I prioritise this time in our week and make sure we get there in time to sit and read as many books as we can in the hour that it is there.  I sit on the stairs and the boys bring me book to read.  Most weeks my librarian friend even makes me a cup of tea!!  (See the shelf by my elbow, well that is not really a shelf, it's actually my 'coffee table'.  Or so I like to think anyway). What a perfect way to spend an hour or so.

We also can request books online from the 'big' library to be reserved for us and they will come out next time the truck visits us.  Such a great service.

I think library truck days might be one of my favourite days of the month.  

What do you love about where you live??

Sincerity

Last month the character trait we learned about was Sincerity.  Sounds like a big word to use with a 6, 4 & 3 year old boys, but with the definition and bible verse and activities we did, they soon understood the idea.  Here are some of the activities we did through out the month.

We had a memory verse and four statements that helped us understand what it means to be sincere.  These get written up on our black board in the dinning room.  So we see it often!!

We read Horton Hears A Who.  He is a beautiful example of being sincere and caring for others.  It is a very long book though and so the boys didn't lose interest while I was reading I gave them each a Horton colouring page I found 'somewhere' on the internet.

We talked about sincerity coming from your heart and showing what your heart is like.  To help demonstrate this we made a huge heart to hang on the back of our front door.  During the month, whenever I 'caught' them doing something sincere I would write it on a dot and stick it to the big heart.  (They did many more that in the photo - it was at the beginning of the month). We also made other heart crafts and let them at it with glue and heart stickers.

The word Sincere in means 'without wax' in Latin, this is because the ancient roman potters tried to imitate the high quality pots of the Greeks.  But the romans used inferior materials and ended up with imperfections in their pots.  They then filled the cracks with wax before painting the pots to cover them up.  The customers would not know the pots were flawed until they took them home and placed them in the fire and the wax melted.  As a result, the honest merchants labeled their good pottery sine cere, without wax.

As we made our 'clay' and formed pots we talked about the importance of being truthful and sincere and meaning what we day.

 I think this was my favourite activity because it was such a visual lesson the really showed the point so well.  I put two oranges on the plate to start the lesson and talked about how the both looked good and it was hard to tell what they were like on the inside but that the outside seemed to look fine.

Then I cut the skin off the oranges.  One looked good but the other one was all yucky and muddy.  We talked about how sometime people may look like they are going good things but if their heart isn't doing the right thing then they aren't sincere.  (I had filled the orange with mud before the lesson by cutting a small plug in the bottom and removing the inside and the replacing the plug after I had filled it).  The boys really understood this and talked about being sincere from you heart for the next few days and not having a 'muddy' heart.

The orange idea and the clay activity came from Character First, other ideas are from google searches and some I even thought of myself!!

Next month .... Respect.

Craft Supplies Sorted!!

We have lots of craft supplies.  I means LOTS.  I go into those cheap shops and just can't help myself.  I always come out with something!!  BUT I have never had them all sorted out in a way that is easy for the kids to use. So we didn't actually do much craft with them.  Last week, this got the better of me.  I wish I'd taken a before photos because I had some in one cupboard, some in a draw, some in another box, all mixed up and shoved in any which way.  It was literally spread from one end of the house to another.

So here is my new organised craft supplied tray. 

It is simply a wooden tray I already had, with lots of glass jars filled with all the supplies.  I love that you can see whats in each bottle and it looks like fun to play with.  It keeps it all together and the kids can access each item easily.  The only problem is that the tray is way too heavy for me to lift down off the cupboard.  So I'll be just choosing a few jars and letting the kids play with those.

The tidy tray inspired fun creations straight away!  I even had a chance to do a few jobs while they glued happily for nearly an hour. And when I came back there was minimal mess too.  Big win.  I think this will be a great activity to keep little ones busy while the others are doing lessons.

This weeks real lesson

This week our lessons were interrupted by this.

The arrival of new puppies.  I'm thinking this was a better lesson anyway!! And so much fun.  We've enjoyed twice daily visits to see how big the puppies are now.

If you know anyone that wants a new puppy in about 8 weeks, let us know.

Nundle Woollen Mill

While on our way to the Hunter Valley, just north of Tamworth, I saw a sign that caught my FULL attention.  It read,

Wool Mill, 

Nundle, 

Next turn left.

So turn left we did and discovered a beautiful village filled with country charm, surrounded by mountains with an amazing woollen mill.  

Now going to a wool mill with three young boys is interesting.  I could have spent hours touching all the beautiful hanks of wool, feeling the soft texture but small boys also want to touch, pick up and feel the wool.  However they aren't as focused on returning the wool to it original home!!  So I felt a few different ones, let them feel a few with nearby supervision.

The mill is well set up for visitors and tourists.  There is a store out the front with yarn, wool clothing and other wool products for sale and out the back is a platform above the mill so you can easily each stage of the process, along with more yarn.

There are large numbers on each machine with corresponding informations boards you can read and learn about each stage of the process.  The boys had fun finding each number and the board to go with it.  After being at our local historical woolshed work museum just the week before they now have a great understanding of what happens in the wool industry.

From the sheepdogs, shearing, pressing the bales, transporting with horse drawn wagons, opening the bales, carding the wool, spinning, plying, hanking, dying, coning and balling.  And then they see mum buying wool and knitting it into a scarf!!  I think I can safely say we have covered history and textiles this term in our schooling.

Unfortunately while we were there the mill wasn't running, much to my disappointment.  However, when I was purchasing (more) wool - I really couldn't help it - I asked how often they ran the mill.  The lady told me she would be starting it in an hour or so.  Oh, now what to do.  I so wanted to see it running but we also needed to be on the road so we would reach our destination for the day at a reasonable time.  The desire to see it run won out!! Now what to do with three young boys to keep them happy for the next hour.  I know - follow the sign that reads 'Park'.  What a great choice.  

This is not your ordinary park. It comes complete with sheep,  shearing shed and daily shearing recording board.  Once again due to our recent trip to the woolshed, our boys were 'shearing' giving me a full detailed explanation of what they were demonstrating.

When it started raining we headed back to the wool mill.  The hour wasn't up yet but I thought we should just go in and check to see if they had started.  And sure enough they had.  WooHoo.  We got to see the plying machine working.  It was so cool.  The boys sat mesmerised by it and wanted to stay and watch. 

 We will definitely be going back to the beautiful town of Nundle.  And next time, we'll be checking out some more of town because I have since heard there is a beautiful vintage kitchen shop in town too.

Homeschooler Craft Morning

Once a month we get together with four other homeschool families and have a fun morning of play time, a quick character lesson and some directed craft activities.  This month we also did show and tell. It is lots of fun and all the kids are fast becoming friends and look forward to these days.

Here are some pictures of our last get together.



There was a huge painting on the fence.

Threading bracelets and necklaces with beads and pasta.

Rainbows made with coloured rice.

And we finished off with cute show and tell.

We love these days - they are such fun and it is great to be forming a little community for our kids.

Truth in the Tinsel!

If there is one thing I've learnt about myself in my first year of being a homeschool mum it is this..

I am not a 'fly by the seat of my pants' type person.

I need a plan and to be organised, otherwise it just doesn't happen.  If I try to grab what I need 5 mins before the lesson it ends up taking too long, the kids lose focus and end up in a different area or outside playing in the hose!!  I've lost the focus and desire to pull everyone back together.  This is a very good lesson to learn early in our homeschool journey.  This will help me lots when deciding which  curriculum to buy.  We have done ok this year but we succeeded best with the programs that were all laid out for me or the ones the I really like and put the effort into planning.

So  when I found Truth in the Tinsel I knew it was perfect for me and our family.  I was planning to make my own advent calendar and activities to go in it like I did last year but when I found this I gave up all thoughts of that!!

Truth in the Tinsel is a bible based advent for little kids that gives them a great understanding of Jesus coming and why using simple crafts that can hang on the Christmas tree.  Most the of supplies needed are things I have in my house (There is a list in the front of the book so you can check out everything that you need).  The few things in the list that I don't have are now on my shopping list for this week. (see I like to be organised).

AND - yes there is more - for those of us that get busy in December and have no hope of doing a craft EVERY day, there are simple print and colour ornaments that you can buy too.  How great is that.  I'm sure we'll be doing these on our town days!!

I don't think I can commit to showing you what we do each day but I'll try show you maybe once a week what we've made - I think that is more achievable.

Do you have an advent planned for you family?? If not, perhaps you could join us with Truth in the Tinsel.