14 February 2019

Our Month Ahead ~ February and A Brand New Learning Year

February:  This is our first month back to academic learning and a very busy month for family celebrations -  three family birthdays and one wedding anniversary, all within the same week.
One of Daisy's favourite, shady, reading spots in summer
In previous years we preferred to ramp the subjects back up slowly but have found that is not really possible with Te Kura, so we try to make as many adjustments as we can: no extracurricular courses or activities in the first term and only sign up to start three subjects with Tekura, then once we have those up and running we reevaluate in March to see if the children have the space and energy to add on more which is usually something like a Barista course, Red Shirts with the Warehouse, First Aid  Course, etc...

This week Daisy is spending time setting up her initial course selections and getting started.  She'll be working through Maths, English, and, Digital Studies courses with Te Kura this year; we've bulked up the English course to include components we are wanting to Daisy to have had exposure to, which will include lots of reading, discussion, and complementary lectures.

Here's a rough outline of what our first week back looks like...

Morning Book Basket  (yes, we still start our learning day this way and share the reading load between us)
Bible:
Poetry: 
  • A Child's Anthology of Poetry ~ Edited by Elizabeth Hauge Sword      Reading from:    I Saw a Man Pursuing the Horizon ~ Stephen Crane p.58,     to:   Souvenir of the Ancient World by Carlos Drummond De Andrade p.65  (this book is purely for read-aloud enjoyment, and a gentle re-entry into this year's, potential, poetry study)
Other:
English 
  • Poetry and Film, intro unit  NCEA 
Math
  • awaiting contact from Te Kura teacher   (tap, tap ... anyone out there)
Digital Students
  • Started .... but I can't remember what Daisy said she was working on 
Delight Led Courses/Hobbies This Year
  • Photoshop (select areas)
  • Art
  • Card crafting
  • Life Skills   (which also still includes raising and selling livestock.  She has three miniature Angus this year, a first ... photos will follow in another post sometime.)
  • Learning to Drive    (I've been out of action for a while with less-than-health and surgery, so this didn't even 'get started' last year.  Daisy's quite happy as she's in no hurry to learn to drive.)
  • Piano and guitar
Free Reading

2 comments:

Amy T said...

I can't believe I've never found this blog before.
I will need to spend hours here to reap all the beauty and value in these pages.
Thank you for all you've done here and I hope you will consider writing more here.
I know I would get so much out of you writing about your situation now and life as a mother and homeschooler after the children are grown. I could really use some help in that area and I don't seem to be able to find it. It seems like most things are written for the woman I was 20 years ago, the just-starting-out woman.
Thanks again.

Chelle said...

Thanks for your comment posted here; writing about life after home educating, from my perspective, is an idea I've been entertaining: hopefully I can carve out some space to try posting about that ...... 🙂