A Joyful Keeper

You would think that I would be used to unsettled schooling since we have moved about 14 times in the last, er, 14 years…. however, I have been finding it hard to get back into a routine. So have the kids. They would much rather continue with their unschooling - ie playing…. Mind you, we have had some sort of routine. Have breakfast, read, do maths, read, do copywork, have lunch, have rest time, read,…. We have been doing the basics. But that is it.

Two days ago I decided that since the kids were doing so well with independent learning at the moment ~smile~ I would cave in and order some….. Lifepacs! Yes, I am going to give my children a Lifepac for each subject for the next month. I know that once our stuff arrives the house is going to be bedlam. I know that once the playstation is unpacked….. I won’t see the boys again for months. So, I ordered the Lifepacs and got them this morning!

The kids thought it was wonderful. First of all a parcel arrives at the door. Then mum tells them they can open it They rip off the brown paper to find…. newspaper! Pass the Parcel! We all start humming “Deck the Halls” (don’t ask me why) while they play pass the parcel. There were just enough layers to each have a turn

More excitement when I tell them this is new school stuff to do on their own.

“Yay!” says Elizabeth, “I like doing stuff on our own. It usually means it is easy!”

Hmmm, yes, well, I guess that is the idea - go and learn something while Mum takes care of more important things like getting some order in the house when you have just moved from another country.

Thankfully I have learned from the past that even filling in the blanks teaches children something. I am particularly excited about the Bible lifepacs. Since we were in the Middle East and it was extremely hard to smuggle in Christian material, it is so wonderful to be able to order these Lifepacs and not have to hide them in a dark place. There was so much more I wanted to do with the kids in the area of Bible Study, and I know they will learn from these. I might even get more of them, you never know!

I have been blogging on homeschoolblogger for some time now, but always wanted to get my own site up and running. I got my domain name last year, and started to set up my web page… since then we moved within the Middle East and then back to Australia! Needless to say, I didn’t have a lot of time to spend on developing my site.

We have been back here for almost two months now and settled into our new home. We got all our furniture out of storage, and are waiting for our shipment from overseas to be delivered - any day now! These past few weeks I have been able to get back into a routine with homeschooling, housework and such things. I have also been playing with my new website and getting quite into it

I am still going to keep the blog going at homeschoolblogger for now, and mirror it here. I hope to be able to regularly add things to this site, including worksheets and homeschool helps that I have made for my own children and would love to share with other homeschooling families. So drop in when you can and enjoy your visit!