Fast and Slow

1 & 2. Homegrown flowers, 3. Making hammered leaf prints, 4. A basket full of decorations, 5. Our Christmas tree, 6. Christmas baking traditions, 7. Holiday reading, 8 - 11. Carnation capilary food dye experiment.

December always seems to whirl by in a flurry of decorations, traditions, work and family, and so it was again this year. I find myself overwhelmed by the end of the month, grateful for that blissful window between Christmas and New Years where everything seems to be on hold. A chance to reflect, relax, envision. Then there is the joy and anticipation of the New Year, full of promise and clean slates. I find I always start the year on a high of optimism that carries me through several months. 

I have already started the New Year with a new diary and a new haircut. I have scrubbed my kitchen, cleaned my fridge, culled and organised my wardrobe, spent my Christmas gift vouchers on new clothes and underwear. I'll have a blood test, update my glasses, service my car. All those nagging and necessary parts of being a grown up that once done bring such a sense of satisfaction and make for a fresh start for the year ahead.

I've no resolutions for the New Year, only a word that I will carry with me throughout the days and bring my focus and intention back to as often as I can. Previously, my word was 'nurture', as I nurtured my family, my business, my health. This year, my word is 'slow'. A simple and gentle reminder to slow down and not get caught up in busy. To slow down our cooking and eating, resulting in less prepackaged food and more home grown and cooked from scratch. To slow down our pace, walking more and driving less. To slow down on the number of activities so as to allow white space for pottering, exploration and creativity. To slow down and enjoy the time that unschooling offers to learn from life and my children. To slow down and spend time in this space, recording my thoughts and capturing moments that I will reflect on with gratitude in the future. 

I have so many photos and stories yet to share, and now that I am once again embracing slow, I will be here more often to share them. xx

Bananas

 1. Rainy days, 2. Miss Five Nature Journaling, 3. Emerson, 4. Fern, 5. Wallaby love, 6. Kookaburra feather?

There's a show on the ABC, 'Didi and B'. A butterfly puppet, Didi, sings the days of the week, then B mucks about half way thought and shouts, 'Bananas!' and they both have a fit of giggles. It makes my children giggle too. "Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thurs, Bananas!"

We spend a lot of time together exploring, creating and learning. But too often the children end up squabbling and I am left feeling like a referee while the magic of the day is lost. After looking for a shorthand way to get my children's attention when they are fighting, 'bananas' has become our codeword for feeling frustrated or cranky. It has made all the difference to smoother, battle free-ish days now that we are all spending more time together through homeschooling. Using the codeword 'bananas' is both funny and nonsensical, and gently breaks the mood. When the children start to bicker I say, "Are you feeling bananas?" And they can't help but crack a smile, despite trying to keep a straight/cranky face. Rather than saying, "I am feeling frustrated", I say, "I'm feeling bananas". Or, "are you feeling bananas?" The weight seems to lift without blame. Once the tension has eased we can discuss their frustrations, put their big feelings into words, and find solutions.

The children have embraced the term as their own and will acknowledge proudly that it is lunch time, and no one has said the word 'bananas'. Or point out when I am starting to express 'bananas' and try to offer alternatives.

It's sweet that such a simple thing could have such a big impact on our days and help us all be mindful of our reactions and emotions, and the way they affect the family.

Do you have a family code word that helps destress a situation? Or a tactic for improving the relationships between your children? I'd love to hear, for who knows how long 'bananas' will be effective?!

Knitting

1 & 2. Learning to knit, 3. Fresh flowers, 4. A seed pod explosion on our nature table.

There was a quiet moment this afternoon when chores and work were done. When Dada was out with the younger two and Master Eight and myself were home alone. In that moment I suggested I teach him to knit.

With bamboo needles and cotton yarn in hand, I took him through the steps, which he followed in an uncertain and wonky fashion. Knitting is a great way to deepen patience. By both practising the gentle art of knitting, and by teaching it. But with patience and perseverance, we continued. His ambitions flowed forth. Perhaps he will make a scarf for teddy? And then a scarf for himself? And then he wants to learn more stitches, and perhaps a cable pattern? And when he is older he will knit for his own family. His thoughts ran away with him as I picked up his dropped stitches.

I sat beside him and working on my blanket, reassured him that it wasn't a race. That one knits for pleasure as much as for the finished product and by concentrating on every single stitch he would end up with something he was proud of.

Needless to say, I was proud already.

Spore Prints

Overcast and rainy days at last! 

It was such a long time without rain that these recent grey clouds have been welcome indeed. Along with the clouds and the overnight rain, there were once again mushrooms in our garden. This morning, after letting the chickens out, we picked mushrooms from the grass in order to make spore prints. We snipped off their stems, set them down on paper and placed cloches over them (though you can use a cup) to impede breezes. Within an hour or two we had beautiful, highly defined, fascinating spore prints.

We scouted the front garden too, looking for different varieties, to no avail. We are all looking forward to duplicating the experiment with different mushrooms as soon as we find them!

October Days

1. Jacaranda flower carpet, 2. Kinetic sand toddler play, 3. Air dry clay bowls made by Miss Five and Master Three as Christmas gifts - still to be painted, though Mama is loving them all white, 4. Blueberries taking a teasingly long time to ripen

The days have just rolled by lately. The blur of school holidays, the return to school and finding our rhythm again, working in my business. There have been many full days, but even more beautiful moments. You know the ones you want to hold tight to? And you find yourself wishing you could take a photo with your heart, to truly remember how it felt as you stroked your toddler's hair while reading him a story. Or listened to your daughter's joyful story about her morning of riding and grooming miniature horses. Or the pride you felt that brought you to tears when she overcame her fear of swimming and got in the pool. Or the other hundreds of little moments that make the sulking, squabbling and ignoring bearable. Still, this Mama's heart is already pretty full with all my love for my three little/big people.

-

PS: I brought home six chickens yesterday! They are settling in now and quite shy. No doubt there will be many photos of them gracing my blog soon. xx

Thoughts on Homeschooling

 1. Our overflowing September Nature Table, 2. Our first Cicada skins, found by Emerson, 3. Exploring - walking slowly and taking everything in, 4. Looking up and seeing an insect beneath a leaf, 5. Diffusion and colour mixing experiments with water and food colouring, 6. Our growing silkworms, which must be getting close to spinning their cocoons, 7. Bubble play, 8. Putting teddy to bed, 9. Emmy's dandelion painting, 10. Egg carton caterpillars, 11. My Nature journaling of nests, 12. Miss Five's drawings of nests, 13. Our growing insect collection, 14. Snapdragons.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about homeschooling lately. Researching the different styles, trying to encourage my unconvinced husband to at least trial it, and questioning whether I have what it takes mentally and emotionally to take leave of the traditional system. And, finally, we have arrived at a place where we will be running a homeschooling experiment on a term by term basis next year with our then nine and five-year-olds.  

I've been interested in homeschooling since my first born was a baby. We forwent childcare and kindy with all three children, preferring that I stay at home and raise and educate them. When Cohen neared Prep age, Dave was convinced that school was the best place for him, and at that stage, having been a product of the schooling system myself, I wasn't confident that I could give Cohen everything he needed. But, now that Cohen is in grade three and my daughter is in Prep, I am even less confident that school is the only answer as I witness their resistance to school and their love of learning waning. Rather, I feel there are other valid learning pathways that we can embrace to encourage a love of life-long learning, meet their individual needs, and raise whole, curious children who are interested and engaged in their education and self-motivated to learn.

While I have always researched and provided extracurricular educational experiences for my children, lately I have been diving deeper into curriculum, unscholing, the Charlotte Mason Method and project-based learning. Inspired by Charlotte Mason, we have adopted the Exploring Nature With Children Curriculum and spend at least an hour a day in nature, with a weekly focus such as pond studies or nesting birds, along with piles of library books and our nature journals to sketch and record observations. We are working on family projects, such as bird watching and creating an insect collection while studying entomology. The children have their own projects, like producing a comic book and colouring in book. And while they are learning, I am learning about the ways they learn, what makes them resist, and what they immerse themselves in passionately. 

These school holidays have been a trial run to give us all a better understanding of what homeschooling life might be like, and I am so looking forward to next year when there will be no book lists or uniforms, no school lunches or begrudging mornings. Rather, I will be able to spend the best parts of their day with them, learning and connecting with them and living our lives, following our curiosities and exploring our new freedom. 

It's all an experiment at this stage, but I am optimistic. xx

Seed week

Our seed walk collection

Nine fluffy ducklings, oh my

Cicada shells

Unexpected and delightful things happen when you spend time outdoors with children. They play, they learn, they make their own 'fairy playground' from logs, they fall in ponds, they make discoveries, they get swooped by magpies, they meet friendly magpies, and sometimes, semi-wild wallabies allow the children to pat them. All of which happened this week.

We explored the richness and variety of seeds at our local pond, following the Exploring Nature with Children curriculum. We looked at seed dispersal methods and the parts of a seed, made seed art and collected seeds to observe, discuss and draw. Our nature table is now over flowing with all kinds of beautiful, clever seeds and the children are pointing out seeds to me as we go about our days.