My new reading library

I am not sure if it is just my kids or if all kids are completely incapable of returning books neatly to shelves. It seriously drives me nuts. And since we own so many books, I really just love books, it is a really big problem in this house. I constantly have the teetering tower of books toppling over and spilling all over the floor.

And so my solution has been found at bunnings for $70, not cheap but still a lot cheaper than other solutions, and I have made great use of an odd little space. In such a small room it feels great to use this little space. The specs:

1. 5 x deep shelving baskets
2. 1 x 1600mm bracket
3. 1 x pack of screws, I got size 8G x 35mm

The kids have gone on a reading spree AND all books have been returned neatly. Woohoooooooo finally a solution. They can't reach the top basket yet so up there are the books they cannot yet read by themselves. I am sure chairs will be use in the not to distant future to reach those ones though. Loving my new shelves.

Cleaning up for the new year

Found the motivation, energy and ideas to clean up and rearrange the learning space to make it more usable next year.

I learnt a lot about what I need last year:

1. I need much much more space for books
2. I need to be able to SEE the resources I have, that means plastic tubs not blue fabric boxes. If I cannot see it I don't use it.So much resources were wasted last year because I simply forgot I owned them.
3. I need more space for desks. They were too squished in and I had trouble reaching them all to help them.
4. I need a better system for the readers. The kids have no idea how to put books away. I have a plan for these stay tuned (they are all currently in a box on the floor.
5. I will no longer be storing the spare bed in here, sorry kids that will now be stored in your bedroom, there is just not enough room in here when all 5 of us squish in.
6. I need the computer set up in here and not in the external study/sewing room.

And so here is the almost complete room. There is still a big box of things I need to rehome. A pile of empty tubs to find a home for till they are needed. The box of books that need shelving, the workbooks that I need to think of a system for and the mattress since MIL will be coming to stay in a week (I am undecided if I rehome the mattress or find somewhere to store it here. It has been very useful and a lovely spot to nap in the heat.

Newly claimed space this wardrobe was full of cloth nappies. I have heaps I need to re home.

The bottom right blue box is empty, the cardboard box is scrap paper so will eventually be an empty hole too. Yay for spare space.

 My current favourite shelf. These science books have me excited.

Waiting

The hardest thing about homeschooling is the waiting and trusting. Trusting that your child does intrinsically want to learn. They will learn and it is ok to wait for it. This has been my biggest lesson this year.

We started off all engines blazing, everyone was keen Mr I was excited. He was soaking up the learning quicker than I could produce it. Then one engine blew and another, ending with us running on one spluttering small engine for some time. There was very little he would agree to do. He wouldn't read me a book, I couldn't find anything he would agree to read. So in any work he did agree to do I made him read the questions, any time he was faced with a word he wanted to know I made him try.

Finally a month ago after months of waiting. He picked up his early reader bible and read. He sat there and read, and he has read every day since. He started the year on level 5 readers we got him to level 8 before he refused to read and now he is on around level 16, which is around what is expected for end of year 1. I am really proud of him and I will be completely unhumble and say I am proud of me too.

This has been a hard year, but as I look back I see he has learnt everything he needed to and everything I wanted him to. I haven't had to sit there with a book and force info down his throat he has just learnt. As I sit here spending hours planning for next year I need to remember it is ok if we don't do even half of it, he will still learn, and hopefully BOS don't look too closely. I wish I didn't feel like I had big brother watching me.

Our Christmas tradition

To me Christmas is a time for giving, not receiving. I won't hide the fact that I am a terrible gift receiver. I always have been. I just don't like it. But I love giving gifts, I love spending the time thinking about it trying to work out what is going to make the person receiving smile. How can I bless their lives.

And so I want to pass this love of giving onto my kids. I also want them to understand that other people may not have everything we have and it is a blessing to us and to them if we give. One way I have found to do this is by donating a Christmas hamper for a family. The kids love shopping and deciding what to buy to make a complete Christmas day for a family. I cannot handle buying prepackaged dried and tinned food so we include a fruit and veg voucher and a butcher voucher. We also buy each child in the family a gift. We don't know who they are and they don't know who we are.

Here is what the kids picked this year

I felt so truly blessed this year when Mr 1 asked if we could make two hampers next year and he would have less presents so we could afford to make two. I share only so you might be challenged to consider doing the same.

Advent photo bomb

Our advent continues to grow...

 I thought this flower looked easy, oh how very wrong I was, it took hours and it still didn't work LOL. It looks pretty enough though. The link if you are game.

 What do you do with personalised Christmas baubles when you no longer have a Christmas tree, well you pin them to fabric behind your nativity.

 As the candles grow it becomes harder and harder to photograph, But it is sort of nice seeing the brightness grow as we get close to Christmas.

 And boy do my kids now how to stage the nativity for photos. I don't ever move anything. I let them arrange and rearrange and add whatever other characters we live. We had a teddy visit the stable today.

The nativity grows

The Kids and I made beeswax candles to add to our advent spiral. I read around people were doing it with primary school classes. I thought it would be easy. Hmm I was tricked. It was really hard to get the kids to roll them tight and straight. While I love giving the kids creative freedom and not making them re-do, I just had to with the candles or they would not work. Mr I was giving the job of measuring the wicks.

We added our tin of bible verses to read each day. Note for future Tracey, reading them randomly out of order doesn't work they need the numbers left on. We used the verses from here Creating the tin, was a great lesson in patterns, we also covered glueing and cutting.

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Day 2 or 3 I've no idea, we have 2 candles though. They kids picked the elephant to add to day. This was our new addition to the collection this year. Our gorgeous set is purchased from Honeybee toys.
I am loving the elephant silhouette in this photo.

I also bought a early reader bible to use. It is a full Bible but worded more simply. Mr I is loving learning how to look verses up.